These Curious Times Interview with Diane Q

Interviews by Fans
Title:	These Curious Times Interview with Diane Q
Interviewer:	curious
Interviewee:	Diane Q. (moonblossom)
Date(s):	September 1, 2015
Medium:	online
Fandom(s):	Sherlock, The Hobbit, Sailor Moon, Fan Art, Doctor Who, Karl Urban
External Links:	online here, Archived version
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These Curious Times Interview with Diane Q ("Will Smith Gesturing at Things") is a 2015 interview with Diane Q.

It includes many examples of their work and discussion about them.

Part of a Series

See These Curious Times Fan Interviews.

Interviewer's Introduction: Excerpt

The more you look at one of Diane Q‘s faux papercraft pieces, the more you realize how insanely multi-layered it is. You could make the same comparison about the artist. Diane Q (Moonblossom) does a bit of everything. She writes for the Cut & Run fandom, creates photo manips, designs fanfic book covers for her favorite writers, customizes Funko Pop toys, and my favorite of favorites, she makes this cool thing called faux papercraft.

If you don’t know what faux papercraft is, think papercraft but digital.

Diane’s work in this unique medium has such a sense of depth and texture that you could easily forget the fact that she creates everything digitally. She sources patterns and textures online to build images that are intricately detailed, while at the same time stripped down, reducing iconic characters to their defining components.

Excerpts

So what was the first fandom that you created works for? The Sherlock. I also did an alarming number of pencil drawings of Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor in high school, but nobody ever saw them so I’m not sure that counts.

Why were [the Hobbit series] so difficult? Because of the level of detail in their hairstyles and clothing, there were literally hundreds of individual layers and masks on a couple of them. Sourcing photos and textures was a challenge too. In most ways, digital is much more forgiving than paper, lots of undos and whatnot. But in one specific way, it’s much more of a challenge. It’s impossible to get one layer to go both over and under another. You can weave two pieces of paper through each other, but you have to fake it with digital. So a lot of the details on their clothes got very finicky.

One last question, what question do you wish people would ask you about your art? “Can I give you a million dollars for it?” Haha no, seriously? Hmm.. I guess I like being asked what inspires me. Because often, it enables me to share other awesome fan-works with people, or get people hooked on a new fandom. Like, I know I dragged several people into the C&R books because I started writing and making edits, and they were curious, so that made me really happy, getting to share something I love. The internet is pretty amazing for that. It’s one reason I love making fanfic covers. It’s the best way I can express my “YOU HAVE TO READ THIS AWESOME FIC” feelings. “LOOK HOW COOL IT WOULD LOOK IF IT WERE A BOOK! COME READ IT!”