Welcome to a new edition of Illustrating Westeros, Eva Maria. To begin, tell us how you became an artist, and the influences that have shaped your style.
Thank you so much for the chance to participate in Illustrating Westeros!
I've been drawing since I was able to hold a pencil. I always wanted to do art as a career. After high school, I got a job as a graphic designer and then went back to school for animation, so I've kind of been all over the place. Now I work as a concept artist for a mobile game company and do freelance illustration on the side.
I would say anime and videogames had a big impact on my art style growing up. My dad is a programmer, so he had me playing my first game when I was 4. I also used to watch him play old-school RPGs and draw his maps so he wouldn't get lost in endless low-poly dungeons.
Now I'm influenced a lot by the people I work with and the people that work in the fantasy illustration genre. And I take a lot of inspirations from fantasy books that I read, like ASOIAF for example.
You are an outstanding illustrator of George R. R. Martin's works. When did you read the A Song of Ice and Fire books for the first time, and what was your initial impression?
I read all the books just after the first season of the TV show came out. I liked the TV show, but I liked the books even more. I read them all back to back, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest as soon as they come into existence.
I really like stories that have lots of characters and complicated plots, and ASOIAF has the best of both those things.
Who are some of your favourite characters in the series, and is there a scene that is particularly memorable to you?
I think Arya is my favourite. I like reading stories with lots of characters, and I like all the characters in ASOIAF, but if I could choose one character and make them safe from death, it would be her. I also like the Hound and Sansa. Although I don't necessarily like Sansa's personality that much, I really like her story arc and I'm excited to find out where she's going to end up.
After HBO’s Game of Thrones came out, many readers’ inner pictures of characters and scenes have been replaced by actors and settings from the show. Can you tell us about your own mental images of the characters, and if this has been influenced by the show?
I watched the show—Season 1—before I read the books, so I already had those images stuck in my head when I started reading. Some characters have definitely evolved in my mind, though. Some of the locations look different in my mind, too, especially Essos. Sandor is a little better-looking in my mind 
. Arya looks different, too. Daenerys is one of the characters that I have a hard time thinking of as looking different than she looks in the show.
We are entranced by the moody and grand landscape locations in your gallery. Can you tell us what role the landscape plays in your art, as both inspiration and actual setting?
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When I read books, I literally have mini movies playing in my head, so the landscapes are a big part of that. Unfortunately, my art skills aren't quite caught up to my imagination, so I'm just trying to do my best to capture what I see in my mind. I'm always working on improving my skills so that hopefully someday I will be able to get much closer to painting things the way I imagine them.
Dragontamer is your latest and, in our opinion, best ASOIAF piece to date, featuring a dramatic face-off between Daenerys and Drogon. Could you share your feelings on this piece and some behind-the-scenes insight on what went into its creation?
I wanted to paint that scene for a long time, but it was kind of a daunting task technically, with the perspective and the coliseum. Last spring, I was lucky enough to be able to take a class at SmArt School with Todd Lockwood and I decided to finally tackle that scene. Having someone to give me advice on things when I got stuck was really awesome. And Todd is a master at drawing dragons, so he was able to give me a lot of advice on the dragon as well. I know the dragons in ASOIAF are only supposed to have two legs, but in my mind they always have four. I like four-legged dragons better than two-legged ones 
.
Do you have a favourite art technique? And do you have a preference for experimenting with new techniques and styles or for keeping to your established ones?
I generally work digitally in Photoshop. Sometimes, I do rough pencil sketches in my sketchbook as well. I feel like I'm still pretty early in my career, and I still haven't really found my one way of doing things. There's a few steps that I usually go through, like thumbnails and rough sketches, but I still experiment a lot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Is there an ASOIAF artist whose work you admire? And/or a piece of ASOIAF art that you have as a personal favourite?
Donato Giancola's work for ASOIAF is really amazing. I had the chance to see some of his paintings in person at IlluxCon a couple of months ago, and they are so beautiful. I've also seen some really good fan art out there, like the piece by Mathia Arkoniel with Rhaegar and Lyanna.
Please, share with us a link or thumbnail from your gallery of:
a) An ASOIAF illustration you are most proud of?
The ASOIAF illustration I'm most proud of is definitely Dragontamer. It was probably the most challenging one to paint as well.
b) An ASOIAF piece that was the hardest to draw or paint?
Another one that was tricky to paint was The Hound's White Cloak. I didn't have a good reference for Sansa, and trying to make her reflection look like her but with a different hair colour was a bit challenging.
Martin is known for being supportive of fan art, and has been personally involved in the creative decisions of the official ASOIAF art for calendars, books and comics, even supplying descriptions to artists and choosing scenes himself. If you could do one official ASOIAF artwork, what would you like to depict?
I don't think it really makes a big difference to me whether something is fan art or official art. Fan art is nice, because there's less pressure and you get to do whatever you want for your own enjoyment. But I think if there was ever another ASOIAF videogame it would be really awesome to make concept art for that.
Is there a plotline, whether in the North, the Vale, King’s Landing or Essos that you're anxious to see resolved in the next book?
All of them? Haha. I think I'm most anxious to read more about Arya. I'm also curious to see if Sansa and the Hound will ever meet again.
And lastly, can the fandom expect more ASOIAF art from you in the future?
Yes! I think especially when the rest of the books come out I won't be able to resist the urge to make some more fan art.
Thank you for coming to talk with us, Eva Maria! You can see more of her art at:
evamariatoker.deviantart.com/g…
www.facebook.com/artofevamaria…
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