Having just celebrated its first anniversary in business, MMOART.com is an online company with a twist. Through the site, MMO gamers can have their favorite toons immortalized in art work that’s more than suitable for framing.
The brainchild of husband-and-wife team Nakiesha and Jomaro Kindred, MMOART.com offers pencil, ink and fully colorized pieces of art for clients all over the globe. The Kindreds are big City of Heroes players and when Jomaro drew a few pieces based on that title, his work got noticed and the business was born.
The Kindreds recently took a few minutes to answer some of our questions:
How long have you been in business?Nakiesha: MMOART has been in business for one year. We just celebrated our first anniversary last week on the (August) 17th!
How did you get into this specialty?
Jomaro: One day last summer I was doing some sketching and thought I’d draw one of my favorite City of Heroes characters at the time. When I posted the drawing on the official forums, I got a tremendous amount of positive feedback and interest! After receiving several requests to draw others’ characters, I talked it over with my wife and we threw together a website to offer my art as a service to anyone who might be interested. And I’ve been drawing non-stop ever since!
Who is behind MMOart? Their backgrounds?
Nakiesha: MMOART is primarily run by Jomaro and I, just an ambitious husband-and-wife team. I handle the administrative/clerical side of the business (emails, client correspondence, production, shipping, etc.) as well as website maintenance. My background experience includes business administration, creative & technical writing, graphic & web design, and some photography.
Jomaro: I’m the man behind all of the artwork and design you see on the site, although I will be collaborating with another artist in the near future (Graver) to offer watercolor art as well. I’ve been a self-taught artist since age 7 and I have experience in illustration, digital coloring, graphic & web design, t-shirt design and color separation, and photography.
Nakiesha: Also working with us now are Jamus and Evelyn Spider. Jamus is our new PR agent, handling advertising and promotions. And Evelyn Spider is a creative writer who will assist our clients in developing a storyline for their characters should they be interested in commissioning a Comic Book Short.
The end products that are shown online are incredible. How do you do it?
Jomaro: Well I always start with a rough draft first, which is usually very scratchy and hard to understand lol. I clean them up a bit before showing the client to give them a basic idea of the layout in mind and its overall composition. Once they’ve approved the draft, I proceed to penciling the piece and depending on what type of piece they’ve ordered, I keep moving on from there until it’s complete. I’m a hopeless perfectionist so I tend to go overboard on details sometimes. But in the end it’s always worth the extra time I put in, just to make sure that my clients are 100% satisfied. I also believe that if it has my name on it and it’s representing what I do, it should be the best that it can possibly be.
Where do you all get your inspiration from?
Jomaro: Life in general really; from my son’s hyper antics, to the big Texas sky, to the hard working neighborhood mailman. Witnessing anyone do anything successfully is inspiring. And of course the games themselves inspire us. The effort and creativity that go into creating these virtual worlds and characters is amazing.
Are you gamers yourselves? If so, what games?
Nakiesha: Yes! Currently, we both play World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, City of Villains and the new ArchLord Beta. Sadly though, we hardly have any time to play with our workload.
Clearly the artist(s) involved is very talented. Why MMOART?
Jomaro: I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit, there’s just nothing like being your own boss! MMOART has provided me a great way to work on my own terms, and also to be involved in two of my favorite fields: comics and gaming.
How do you manage to keep your prices so reasonable?
Nakiesha: We just try to strike that balance between keeping our services affordable to a variety of individuals, yet appropriate for the quality we’re offering and the amount of work and time that we invest.
What’s the turnaround time on a piece of work?
Jomaro: Turnaround times vary all the time! It greatly depends on how complex each piece is, and also how many there are to do. In the year we’ve been in business, pieces have taken anywhere from two weeks to three months or more to complete. There’s really just no way to provide an accurate estimate on how long it takes to create art in general.
What do clients need to send you to get a piece done?
Nakiesha: Our Queue List is limited, so they would first have to wait until an available slot on our Queue List is open to place an order. When we are open for orders though, what we’d need is for them to fill out our online order form with all of their info, their character’s info, images, etc. And we’d also need their 50% deposit before any artwork begins. Once both the completed order form and the deposit are received, their character’s name appears in the next available slot on our Queue List.
What’s the most odd piece you’ve created?
Jomaro: Lol, I’m not at liberty to say as that piece is part of a private collection.
Check out MMOART.com by clicking here.
Nods to Wonderland.
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