KRISTINA DENADIC



ABOUT





I'm a digital artist and I've been into arts pretty much my whole life. Ever since I was about 4 years old I wanted to be a painter, because I saw one who was fixing the world with his magical paintbrush in an old Croatian cartoon. Lucky enough I had two talented and intuitive women in my life to inspire and support me, my mom and grandma. So I pursued my dream and have always thought of myself as someone with the identity of an artist.

Meanwhile, I have also fallen in love with costume design. I was so lucky to enroll in the fine art high school "Tehnoart", as the first generation of costume design students. Later I continued my studies of fine arts and costume design at the university and have fully switched to digital arts after graduation.

I started my professional career in 2017 as a character designer and concept artist for video games and animation. At first, I was all in detailed, highly rendered realistic concepts and illustrations, but the more I fell in love with stylization - the more I was into cartoonish storytelling and

book illustration.

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I work as a full-time freelance character designer, concept artist, and illustrator. I enjoy a plant-based lifestyle with my hubby and our shameless omnivorous dog. In my spare time, I'm taking care of house plants (sometimes not as successfully), enjoying nature, traveling, books, TV shows & movies, theater, festivals, and music.








BACKGROUND



Costume design



Movie "Sjene", 2014

I guess my love for costumes also started with cartoons when I was a kid. At a very young age my grandma taught me how to crochet, knit, sew. She was the talented one in the family, taught me even how to cook, but that's another story. Over time I fell in love with other fields of art, such as movies and theater, and have gone mad for video games. The same old grandma bought me my first Sega Drive. And ever since I can remember I was fascinated with characters and their costumes, and that has always been my everlasting inspiration.


As a costume design student I worked on movies, plays and TV shows, and the experience in preproduction with creative teams of directors, writers, art directors and other authors has given me a huge advantage when I later started working in visual development creative teams for video games, movies and animation.



Figure drawing & painting



Figure study, 2011

I spent almost 10 years in professional training before I became able to draw from imagination instead of observation. However, I always felt like painting and drawing human figures was my thing, opposed to drawing and painting still life which I always hated. Studying costume design at a relatively young age from 14-18 was a great practice of color and value theory, anatomy, dynamic poses, drawing historical costumes, building a visual library and developing a design language.


This life drawing study was done as a practice for the university entrance exam. Funny enough, I didn't enroll that year but the following one, so I had one more year for practicing, and that's when I felt the biggest improvement by starting to develop my tone of voice. At the same time, I discovered digital drawing, but it will take about 3 more years before I'll start switching from traditional to the digital medium.



oil painting



Color study, 2017

Even though I had mandatory painting classes since I was 14, painting somehow came last to me. In 2017 I made a break after graduating, and before I knew what I'll do with my life I started practicing painting with oils. This helped me improve my digital painting skills too and has brought me a fresh approach to painting. Before that, I'd lose myself into details without the ability to prioritize



EDUCATION



• 2017 graduated at Belgrade University of Arts - Applied Arts / Costume Design

• 2011 graduated at Art Highschool Tehnoart - Costume Design Department

• Numerous online courses for improving all artistic fundamentals



EXHIBITIONS



• 2022. “The Femme and the Vekovnici” Museum of Applied Arts, Belgrade

• 2022. “Balkanska smotra mladih strip autora” Contemporary Art Museum, Leskovac

• 2021. “Balkanska smotra mladih strip autora” Contemporary Art Museum, Leskovac

• 2020. “Balkanska smotra mladih strip autora” Contemporary Art Museum, Leskovac

• 2019. “Balkanska smotra mladih strip autora” Contemporary Art Museum, Leskovac

• 2016. “Reciklaža” FLU Gallery, Belgrade

• 2016. “Diploma 2016” Museum of Applied Arts, Belgrade

• 2016. “Gunj” (kostim) Ethnographic Museum, Belgrade

• 2015. “Reciklaža” Karas Gallery, Zagreb

• 2015. “Reciklaža” Ethnographic Museum, Ljubljana

• 2015. “Akt - crteži” Kombank Art Hol, Belgrade

• 2014. “Nakit 2” ULUPUDS Gallery, Belgrade

• 2014. “Portret” Belgrade Fortress Gallery, Belgrade

• 2014. “Refleksija memorije” Žad Gallery, Museum of Applied Arts, Belgrade

• 2013. "Mala grafika 2013" Grafički kolektiv, Belgrade

• 2013. “Biće grada” Singidunum gallery, Belgrade

• 2011. “Maturska izložba” TC Zira, Belgrade

• 2010. “Rowenta – upeglaj se” New Moment Gallery, Belgrade

• 2009. "Godišnja izložba Tehnoart" RTS, Belgrade