Interview - Member of the Month: Kina-Axian

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About the Artist


The--Magpie is a French Artist specializing in cartoon and stylized artwork. Her passion for Ratchet and Clank and for all things animated make her stand out as both a fan artist as well as an individual. This has been underlined by her winning entry of the first Ratchet and Clank contest since the reboot, voted for by the group. As such, we had the pleasure to hold an interview with her about her passions, her personal connection to Ratchet and Clank and more.

Posing the Questions


Congratulations on winning the first RAC Contest! How do you feel about it?
I'm really happy about it ^^ To be honest I wasn't expecting to win because some other entries were really close at some point, so it was a nice surprise!

I bet it was. There were some great entries in there! Finally, though, you came out first. What inspired you to for your entry?
Well, Vorselon is one of my top favorite R&C characters. My very favorite one is Percival, but since I'm kinda known for drawing him all the time I thought I should change. I kinda felt bad for they didn't even give Vorselon a proper death too, we just kill him in game ;w; I wish I had had more time though, at first I wanted my comic to be longer but college got in the way XD


Oh, quite interesting! You seem to like the villains more than the heroic characters then? Why is that?
Yep, villains all the way! XD I always liked villains, since I was very little. I was the only kid who liked the witch from Snow White when everyone was scared of her.
There's two main reasons to that I think: I think villains have the best designs and the best back stories, I find them fascinating. I feel like they often make me laugh a lot more than the heroes too. But also, I can't help but feel sorry for the villains; it was that since I was a little kid. Sometimes they have actual reasons to be the villain, but everyone goes to the cute heroes because the story shows them as being awesome. I just like looking at stories from the villains' point of view more. My main OC Kina is like that too, she finds evil people fascinating, though she's too oblivious and innocent to really realize they're evil. Someone could tell her they're covered in blood because they fell on a dead animal and she would believe them, haha!


Oh my, that's quite intriguing. Villains do have some interesting backgrounds! I'm a little curious about your OC, Kina, though. You two share the same name - partially at least. Tell us more about her! Is she your only OC?
Actually my real name is Marie XD I used Kina as my username. Axian is the name of her species. I made her about five years ago, but she used to be a horrible Mary Sue and she changed drastically.
Kina lives on a utopian planet where everyone's good and life is so easy. Her species has a giant shield around her planet so no one else can get in, so no one has ever seen other species before. Her mother always told Kina about adventure and explorers, and [she] was fascinated with what other cultures could be like. Her mother died of illness when she explored the only poisonous area of the planet when Kina was still a child, and after this her father became extremely overprotective.
Kina did grow up physically but she kept a very childish and innocent mind. She thinks like a kid and she doesn't really think that evilness exists, which can be pretty dangerous for her. She got the taste of adventure from her mother, and decided to build her own robot and ship in order to travel through the galaxies. She wanted to know what other species were like, thought like, and why everyone was so scared of the outside. Despite being a child in her mind, Kina is a genius in science, and she mixes plants and metal to create her own technology.
I have a bunch of other OCs that are all original. My only R&C OC is a Cragmite hunter named Vladimir who has a really bad cleaning OCD.

Wow, that's quite an assortment! Do you have artwork of all your OCs?

This one's a group picture of Kina (the one with the blue shirt) and her friends from her planet, her father in the back (with the glasses), her robot that she made and Zed, the guy who spends the majority of the story being an ass to her XD
Lost in the middle of nowhere by The--Magpie
This one's the most decent (full body) picture of my Cragmite OC Vladimir, though in my canon he's not really supposed to interact with Kina, it was more of a picture for fun.
Don't starve together by The--Magpie
The background is from a game called Don't Starve Together. I play it with my two best friends, we have our characters modded in the game ^^ The one in the middle belongs to BlueStripedRenulian and the one at the left belongs to XenoMind. Kina's friend with both but she interacts with the one at the left a lot more, they're friends in a RP I'm having with his owner ^^

Wow, that's some nice artwork right here! Let's get back to Ratchet and Clank for a second. How did you first get to know the franchise?
I first knew it because my grandmother got me the game when I was… I forgot, 7 or 10 years old maybe. I used to play a ridiculous amount of time, like 10 hours a day :")) She'd let me play as much as I wanted unlike my mom, haha!
I kinda lost track after Deadlock, and played TOD when I was 15 in high school. I kinda fell in love with Percival to the point I got a tattoo of his logo on my arm XD At this point I was fully back into the series, and I played all the games that followed TOD. Nefarious is an amazing villain too, my 3rd favorite is probably Vorselon or Vendra (I wish that Vorselon had more development so I would have more to draw about, but oh well). I got the PSP ones after I got to play TOD too, so I played all the games, and already have a PS4 for when the next one comes out. :3

You've been a fan for quite some time then! Certainly there were a few memorable moments. What is your favorite one?
"I've waited years for this moment. Finally, the time has come, for the Cragmites to rise again!…. To rise again..! ….. TO RISE AGAIN!!!"

Hahaha, that's a good scene right there! I am sure you've been involved in the fandom for some time as well. How long have you been in the RAC fandom? What do you like most about it?
I've been in the R&C fandom since … I was 16 I think ? Or 15 maybe, which is like 4-5 years. I think that, like in most fandoms, I like the fact people share the same interest as me (even though there's a huge majority of Lombaxes and I'm more of a Cragmite person :')) ).
I like the fact that all the characters seem to get attention, there's a large variety of art and I really like that ^^ There are some pretty fun AUs too, for example I really like :Caylepolin:'s character Aulus who's from a R&C AU. Oh oh, and I love the fact that it has a lot of role-players, too XD

I definitely agree on your answer here. Ratchet and Clank has brought a lot of people together! When did you start contributing fanart? Do you still have your first fanart ever somewhere?
I did when I was 15, though it was mostly posted on Facebook where I used to role-play, I wasn't too much on DeviantArt yet.
Dr. Nefarious by The--Magpie
I think this one was one of my first R&C fan arts, it was made in 2011. I'm pretty sure I have doodles somewhere, but I have no idea where they are o.o I used to copy a lot at that time too, like, look at a screenshot and try to re draw it. I never traced, but I had refs. My art that was done without refs was pretty terrible :')) But now I stopped, I tend to not look at refs at all anymore, and it helped me a lot to get better at art, not to copy ! However copying screenshots helped my coloring a lot, get how shading worked etc.

That's one spot on Nefarious fan art! Speaking of art and improvement, you are keen on pushing yourself further. What are you aspiring to be artwise?
Creaturebox, definitely XD I have a Monster Volume signed by them. I'm currently in my last year of art college, and I dream of working at Insomniac someday.
I need to improve in anatomy, perspective, and push my poses further. I need to get better at technical 3D (even though I know some Maya and zBrush), but I'm not too satisfied of my level at the moment.
However I did work a lot this year and my art got better; it means I just need to practice like crazy.
I've been to the Insomniac open house in February and showed them my portfolio (I kinda cringe when I look at it again, I do so much better now ._. ), and they said I was above average but still needed to get a bit better (talking internship wise). So I'm trying to work as much as I can so maybe I can get an internship there next summer D: This is definitely my goal of the moment, and meeting the team motivated me more than anything! They were all very encouraging, and all really nice as well.

Oh, wow! Congratulations on meeting the Insomniac team. That must have been a great experience. There have to be other games and artists that inspire you, though. What other games do you play? Any other artists you want to give a shout out to?
Yes, best experience of my life, definitely.
Other games I like, well, Rayman is one of the first games I've played. I'm a huge fan of sci-fi, I love the Portal series, I've played some Star Wars games as well. Sunset Overdrive was A-MA-ZING too. I like horror games too, Amnesia, Slenderman, Outlast, Dead Space etc (though being extremely bad at shooting games I mainly watched for dead space). I kinda want to play Bioshock as well.
As for other artists I like, well, anyone who does the Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks concept arts. They're so beautiful I just dream of having a level like that.
As for DeviantART people, ASSORTEDJELLIES is definitely someone I look up to a lot. Her animations are beautiful and so full of life, her style, everything, ARGH.
Artists I want to give a shout out to, XenoMind and BlueStripedRenulian are my two best friends, I think that TheDexterminator is amazing at doing poses, CaylePolin has a nice style as well, and even though I don't really know him that well, airbax also has a beautiful style :3 theStupidButterfly isn't really a Ratchet & Clank artist but she has some pretty good art as well.

Okay, last question! Pepsi or Coca Cola?!
Cola, definitely :P

I'm joking, of course. Here's the final question: ANY LAST WORDS?
"The Cragmites's return is inevitable; your kind will never be safe do you hear me ?! NEVEEEEER!"





Selected Works





This interview was held by chinara.

About the Feature

"Member of the Month" is a monthly feature of one of our group members who gets interviewed for their artistic, community and group contributions. Do you know someone you want to become the next Member of the Month? Suggest them now!
For further details, please go here:

About the Member of the Month Feature

Journal CSS by ClaireJones. Edited by chinara
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KISSES
CONGRATS ON WINNING <333333333333333333333333333
SO HAPPY FOR U.