This week we sit down with our Player Drawing Artist, Emma Park. 

We’re back with UKIN for Summer ‘21 and we’re going to sit down with community members, players and casters to discuss everything UKIN and Rainbow Six Siege!

This week we sit down with Emma Park, the artist behind our amazing player drawings this season. 

So, to kick things off, for those who might not know you, who is Emma? 

Distilled, a mouthy British nerd. Aside from that, a whole bunch of things! For my fulltime job, I'm a gaming influencer campaign manager at Fourth Floor, so I get to work with a lot of creators, in one of my favourite hobbies: gaming. On the side, I do freelance art - mostly character design - and lots of other personal creative projects. That's the main takeaway, really - I'm creating all the time.

What first sparked your interest in drawing?

I got very into anime and manga as a kid, so my drawing journey started with those westernised 'How to Draw Manga!' books that most artists are in some way familiar with, for better or for worse... I also loved to draw comics, as they were a surefire shortcut to getting my friends laughing.

My style today is a combination of both, with a whole bunch of other artisitic influences stirred in. I started drawing lots when I was about 13, and never really stopped. I found it was a good way to get my creative ideas out of my brain and into the physical world where others could see them, as I'm not always great at explaining things with my words.

Do you have a favourite Siege based project you’ve worked on?

The puppets campaign will always have a place in my heart for being my first 'big artist shoes' project, and it was loads of fun interpreting the creators in that style and using vivid colours. The Special Effect charity calendar was a huge privilege and for a wonderful cause - that's one I still can't quite believe I got to participate in, to be honest.

How was it creating all these player drawings? Any fun challenges?

It was tough, especially fitting it in around my fulltime job and personal life. It's the biggest project I've ever taken on by far, and the style I used for those is quite... unforgiving, let's say! There's no disguising your mistakes with it, no wiggle room at all. Without working directly with each player, it's tough to know exactly how they would like it to look, or where something doesn't seem quite right.

I learned so much about myself as an artist, though, and I think I've become more resilient and efficient because of it - which is the name of the game in big projects like these.

When you aren’t creating amazing drawings, what games do you like to play?

It would be easier to say which games I don't like to play, to be honest! Anything open world with a solid narrative and cool gameplay mechanics (I'm a big Zelda fan). Sci-fi or skill point systems are a nice bonus - I've got over 700 hours across the Borderlands series, I think. If you didn't like Pre-Sequel, I'll fight you.

Any Soulsborne game is UP there, and any soulslike, too. Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is my go-to if I don't want to think too hard, and I'll hop into a management sim from time to time.

I've not got as much free time as I'd like nowadays, so regrettably, I've become a bit of a gaming snob, or I keep returning to the same old games I know I'll love. I've just redownloaded Titan Quest, which originally released in 2006. Still holds up.

Create your own team - you are the coach, what 5 players are you picking up? It can be any player Pro or Am across the world.

Confession - I know precious little about Rainbow Six Siege. I've tried to play it, but I get jumpscared when people run around the corner too quickly and shoot me.

From the perspective of a complete novice, a team of five Dokis seems a solid shout. That being said, I also appreciate swish hairstyles so I'd like to squeeze Curly and Maggie in there, too. Emi and Pyrite would be the charisma and the fashion. Cadaea would be sub just in case one of the cool hair crew needed to take time off.

Does that make any sense? Probably not.

Any final comments or places for people to follow you?

Thanks to Ubi for electing to work with me again! It was great fun and definitely a highlight of my freelance art career thus far, even if it nearly destroyed me.

You can find me over-sharing on Twitter at @emmakpark, and can see more of my work at emmakpark.com.