hi! i had a hard time answering this one. here are some thoughts on who and what influenced me as an artist:

1. the artstyle of Dishonored games;

i discovered this artpiece by Sergey Kolesov years before i discovered Dishonored itself. i just saw this online as a roughly 18 years old college student and thought 'i don't know what this is all about and i don't know if this is a woman or a man but they're sexy and i don't care and i wanna draw like that'. i open the Dishonored 2 artbook more often than any other book in my house, just to look at it and feel something. i never tried to copy the artstyle of the games or the artists that created them explicitly, but it gives me a lot of motivation to create in general.

2. the art of Dmitri Zhilinsky;

the artist that probably influenced me the most is Dmitri Zhilinsky. it's an another story of why and how, really. i showed his art to a friend that didn't know who he was recently, and they said 'yeah, that makes total sence’. here's an example, 'USSR Gymnasts', 1961:

3. set design as a career path;

before i went to study set design, i was one of the worst students in my class when it came to creating a composition, if you can believe this. two years of hanging out at the university of cinematography gave me an insane boost. i never finished it, but i'll forever be grateful for what it gave me. it just kicked my butt so much that i started thinking of space in an art piece in an entirely different way. here's a trick, for example: if you're creating an art that takes place in a room, and the scene only shows three walls out of four, just pretend the fourth wall doesn't exist. just fucking break it down in your head and look into the room from right where the wall used to be, or from behind it. it gives the scene more space. gives you an opportunity to put something in the first plan. here:

4. people often tell me my artstyle reminds them of J. C. Leyendecker, but he's never been an actual influence on me. pretty sure i didn't know he existed until around five years ago.

5. not exactly in the sense of an art style, but more in a way of thinking, Moebius deserves a solid mention. i often find my brain stuck in one way or the other, brewing with some old boring ideas i'm already tired of, and it only takes one or two pieces from Moebius to remind me that anything is possible.