Anna Rohde is a second-year BFA Illustration student with a concentration in concept design for animation and games. She is interested in pursuing a career in animation and particularly in visual development. Rohde enjoys creating environments and loves the process of developing the look of a place, she finds painting backgrounds is very meditative.
Rodhe is also interested in editorial illustration, with her style easily standing out from a crowd as she makes intricate and highly detailed illustrations that convey a story, especially if that story is weird, abstract or based on something obscure. Rohde would love to create mysterious drawings for children’s books that encourage a close study, pictures that draw you in and hold your attention, as those were the kinds of books she loved growing up.
Rohde is inspired by historical aesthetics as well as myth, fantasy and nature. She also takes into great account rendering details, especially in costumes and plants. Rohde likes to sit around and detail the beading on a dress or the leaves of an oak tree for hours. Additionally, she enjoys creating creepy, atmospheric work. Her influences include the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, hit limited series “Over the Garden Wall,” Dungeons & Dragons, 70s fashion, campy over-dramatic musicals and classic monster stories like Frankenstein, Dracula and the works of H.P. Lovecraft
As for working mediums, Rohde works digitally in the Procreate app on the iPad because it allows for warm and textured pieces that have a traditional feel. Texture is very important to Rohde, and she likes to work in warm colors as she wants things to look immersive and cozy.
Rohde based this piece on classic Victorian aesthetics, especially those of Halloween greeting cards. She intended to create this piece as a way to illustrate a lot of plants as she finds it fun. Rohde enjoys incorporating reds, oranges and golds into her work, which shows in this piece. She chose to work with a rough sketch lineart brush, which added a lot of texture into the illustration.
A portrait of one of Rohde’s characters, she focused on creating a piece with thick, expressive line work. In regards to this work, Rohde stated, “Drawing the birds was a lot of fun. Also, clearly I have a problem with super detailed line work, it takes absolutely forever but it’s fun. It’s easy to focus in and get lost in it!”
Differing from how Rohde usually works, “Mother Holle” is a traditional graphite piece that she colored digitally. She found rendering the piece entirely with a pencil a fun experiment. The work is based on the Scandinavian legends of a goddess or witch figure who was important to Yule celebrations, since obscure myths are one of Rohde’s favorite topics to illustrate.
This piece is based on the song, “Creature” by Half Alive. Rohde, who has mild synesthesia, likes to create illustrations based on the visuals that she sees when listening to music, which mostly consists of color, lighting and texture. It is also based on the aesthetics of biblically accurate angels. It’s abstract and mostly about capturing a feeling. In Rohde’s words, “I’m not really sure what’s going on here but it’s a vibe.”
This work is an interpretation of the imagery of the album “Eurus” by The Oh Hellos. Here, Rohde tries to encapsulate the story of the whole album into one illustration. She was very inspired by Greek and Roman aesthetics and the imagery of wind and water are important to the album. Nature and history are some of Rohde’s other favorite things.
If you want to keep up with Rohde’s spectacular work, you can check out her Instagram @erythaia