After a long day at school, senior Kate Sosnovsky heads down to the art room, packs up her art supplies, and goes home to finish working on her newest piece of art. Tonight, she’s working on a new character, one that she describes as a visualization of sound.

Sosnovsky draws influence from anime and Instagram artists.

“I would say that my art style is a melding of stylized and realistic, like I take inspiration from other cartoon artists I’ve seen and I used to watch anime. That’s where I took a lot of my style inspiration from, but nowadays, I try to go more realistic, but I still have that stylization,” Sosnovsky said.

Using digital art as her medium of choice, Sosnovsky draws original characters including dragons and demons.

“What I usually draw when I’m just casually drawing is my own characters that I’ve created since freshman year, and I make reference sheets for them. I stick with those characters and draw them a lot and incorporate them into stories.”

Raiden, a character she considers a favorite, is modeled after an interpretation of sound.

“He’s an elemental of sound or thunder, which is why he has a ring around his pupils, he also has a light blue, diamond-shaped mark on the back of his neck,” Sosnovsky said. “He has the ability to materialize sound waves into his fists and let them loose when needed, but usually he restricts his power output to avoid exhausting himself, consequently making himself weaker.”

This summer, Sosnovsky participated in a “game spaces and virtual environments” program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. One of her projects was to design a poster for a game they created. The she created “Insomnia,” an augmented universe where her character Raiden fights the demon that prevents him from sleeping.

“Raiden is a human in the real world, but he’s plagued by a demon that causes him to lack sleep. When he does sleep he is transported to a dream where he is able to fight the beast in an attempt to push it from his mind before he falls victim completely to the shadowy illness,” Sosnovsky said.

Sosnovsky plans to go to college to get a degree in game conceptual design, like concept art for games, films, 3D character rigging, or animation.

Art teacher Marty Voelker says Sosnovsky demonstrates versatility in a wide variety of mediums.

“She produces professional quality work in the traditional drawing materials of graphite, ink, charcoal and pastel. At the same time, Kate is equally adept in the digital media of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. She is highly accomplished at both observational and imaginative drawing, and is constantly sketching out new ideas. This versatility in both concept and craftsmanship allows Kate to capture a wide range of style and atmosphere in her work. She is truly and outstanding artist,” Voelker said.

Sosnovsky also designs show posters and t-shirts for school plays including “The Dream of the Burning Boy,” The Winter one-acts of 2017 “Work It Out,” and most recently, “Over the Tavern.”

When it’s time to go to bed, Sosnovsky ends up with Raiden, ready to incorporate him into her next story.

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