Fan girl creates ‘fine art and random geekery’

To be sure, it’s only a small amount of Brandi York’s work.

The Everett artist has sold 30 to 40 portraits of online characters, avatars for games like “World of Warcraft,” “Everquest” or “Star Wars: The Old Republic.”

For York, it’s satisfying to bring to life characters that gamers have come to love and to flesh out details that may not show up on the computer screen.

“I’m a fan girl at heart,” York said. “Pardon the pun, I’m kind of drawn to drawing what reflects that fan-girl aspect.”

Click through her website, brandiyork.com, or look at her page on etsy.com and you’ll find what York describes as fine art and random geekery.

She’s done landscapes and historical murals, but the art tends toward popular culture.

There are the pictures of online avatars, portraits of famous fictional characters (think Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes) and an assortment of quotes written in stylized typography. (One from the popular fantasy-mystery series, the Dresden Files, reads, “Paranoid? Probably. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t an invisible demon about to eat your face.”)

One of her current projects is doing the cover and rulebook art for a new game by Phoenix, Arizona-based company Magic Meeples. She met the owners of the company at a comic-book convention.

“One of the owners saw my art at my table and she really, really liked one of my art pieces and she bought it,” York said. “A couple of days later, they emailed me and asked me if I would be interested in doing this project.”

This is the type of art she wanted to do when she gave up working as a commercial artist and moved to Snohomish County two years ago.

York, 36, has drawn all of her life, but it wasn’t until she saw the Disney movie, “Beauty and the Beast” at age 12 that it became a can’t-put-it-down passion. She drew the movie’s soundtrack cover 50 times.

“Instead of finding me in a corner with a book you’d find me in a corner with a sketchbook,” York said.

At Santiago High School in Garden Grove, California, York found a mentor in art teacher Diane Acosta, who taught her how to use watercolors, pastels, oils and other materials. Another passion of hers helped lead to her selling her first art. York lived down the road from Disneyland where she spent countless hours.

“Some people turn to drugs, I turned to Disneyland,” York joked.

She watched artists working on Main Street at the park and met one who drew Disney-themed books. He hired her to draw some background elements, giving some work to help out a young artist.

After high school, York spent three years at California State University, Long Beach, learning techniques and styles of art. What was not taught was the “business side of things, the real, honest, truthful, this-is-what’s-going-on side of things,” York said.

“There are times you’re going to have more work than you know what to do with and there are times when you’ll be scraping by, hoping that you can make your bills next month,” York said. “That’s not what they necessarily tell you in college.”

While in college, York worked at Disneyland, first at parking and later as costumed characters Pluto and Eeyore. Then she was hired as a contract artist doing portraits in the New Orleans Square part of the park. It was great training to do as many as 20 portraits a day, even though, like any job, it had its drawbacks.

“The parents who really just don’t get it, they’d ask their child, ‘Honey, can you sit still for 30,’” York said. “I’m like, ‘Do you even know your kid? I can tell you the answer to that right now.’”

It was at this time she met her husband, Jim York, at a party where they played Nintendo games and croquet in the back yard. When they got married, York sought out work that would pay more and landed a job as an in-store artist at a Trader Joe’s, creating signs, displays and hand-written prices on the merchandise. It was steady work, but she would come home and draw fantasy and pop culture art.

“For a lot of artists, it’s like breathing,” York said. “You go do the art you are told to do and then you go home and do the art you want to do.”

She worked for Trader Joe’s for 10 years and transferred to a store in Eugene, Oregon, where her husband pursued a master’s degree in counseling.

Brandi York would sell her art at anime and comic-book conventions, although she took a hiatus during the height of the recession when people just didn’t have spare money.

She would draw fantasy characters as she imagined them in fantasy books and other characters. She drew her interpretation of the characters of “Critical Role,” a group of voice actors in Los Angeles who weekly stream their Dungeons &Dragons gaming sessions.

At one of the conventions, York was set up next to a Copic Marker vendor. The vendor enjoyed York’s work enough that they agreed to hire her to demonstrate art techniques with their markers.

It supplemented her income enough that when she and her husband moved to the county for his practice, York was able to take the plunge into art of her own choosing. (Jim York now works in Everett as a family and couples therapist at Spectrum Psychological Associates.)

One of her current projects is an art nouveau-inspired series of women in the classic roleplaying characters — clerics, wizards and fighters — drawn in a non-sexualized way. Fantasy portrayals of women have often shown the characters wearing little to no armor. She said there are a lot of female gamers who are trying to become part of the culture.

“If I’m playing a fighter in this game, she’s going to wear real plate mail,” York said. “She’s not going to wear this bikini chain mail.”