Featured Pro Portfolio: Pauline Voss
Pauline Voss is an multi-talented artist based in Germany with a background in illustration, game design and is also a 3D generalist.
With her ArtStation Pro account, she can take advantage of the added benefits like having her own portfolio website, a higher cut on the Marketplace, Profile Analytics and more.
Check out Pauline’s ArtStation-powered portfolio website.
“My favourite ArtStation Pro feature is being able to customize my own website and the options are beautiful. I love the simplicity in usage as well as in design. This way I can kill two birds with one stone instead of having to deal with additional providers.”
In this interview, Pauline discusses her exciting current project, biggest obstacles and more.
Tell us about your journey to where you are today.
It’s one of those stories where the only thing I can say is that it has always been with me. I started when I could hold a wax crayon and although my family consists of IT and business people without a single artist, I never really stopped. Sometimes I don’t understand why it’s painting of all things, but it is comforting to know that there always has been and will be something in my life that brings purpose and that I don’t need to question.
I decided to study game design where I specialized in 3D because I wanted to have something more technical as a base. I thought it would be the only way to do something with art but still be able to make a living. 3D was super useful and still is precious to me to this day but I only realized how wrong I was when I visited my first art event back in 2016. London Industry Workshop blew my mind. I needed to take off 2 weeks afterwards and use all my vacation days to digest what I witnessed. A huge crowd of people, living this life I dreamed of: independent, constantly developing, going places, working on touching things, spending the whole day painting, meeting like-minded souls all the time and being their own bosses. It was exactly what I wanted. So I started to paint again and spent many nights awake doing so after work, trying to figure out what I am capable of. I did many studies and illustrations and got my first freelance job one year ago.
What is most important to me is to improve in painting what I love so I can build something that’s maintainable one day.
What was one of the biggest obstacles you’ve overcome in your career?
First, I had to learn about the realistic possibility that having an art career can be successful. Secondly, I had to accept that art crisis is part of the metamorphosis and has to be enjoyed and celebrated rather than demonized. Last but not least, keeping a work-life balance is something I struggle with every day but I’m working on constantly staying motivated to put effort into self-care, sleep enough, eat well and taking breaks. Also, ArtStation is a huge art envy trap but it is important to use it as a tool. To filter what it is [about an artwork] that is so fascinating helps a lot with figuring out patterns and strategies for concepting new paintings.
Tell us about one of your favorite projects.
A personal project that I truly love and am currently working on is called “Mirror Mirror”. Over 150 women are participating at the moment and we are growing. It is supposed to be a community building project where my main focus is to share the progress and talk about our stories in a safe and encouraging environment. The long term goal is a beautiful art book full of self portraits that reflect who we are as female artists and human beings. We are still happy to welcome new members that want to join, just message me here on ArtStation!
What is the best art advice you’ve ever received?
The best art advice that helped me tremendously is not possible to be put into words. It’s the overpaintings my friends did for me when I got absolutely stuck on an artwork. So my advice would be to share your process, talk with others that tackle the same problems and exchange ideas. It’s so fruitful.
See more of Pauline’s work on her portfolio website. Find out more about ArtStation Pro websites here.
