Meet Mariia Menshiokova of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mariia Menshiokova.

Hi Mariia, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I started young. At 14 I was spending all my waking hours on the computer, doing digital illustration, making music, watching obscure cinema, and taking freelance illustration gigs, which was still a pretty odd thing to do back then. I grew up between Ukraine and Russia, then shortly studied in the UK, and I was determined to find a place where I could do what I love for a living. That took me to Amsterdam for a few years as a designer and illustrator, and then to Los Angeles, because I wanted to work up close with the film and game industries.

Twenty-some years in, I’m an illustrator and art director working across key art, character design, concept art, storyboarding, book and album covers, and campaign work. Clients have included A24, Riot Games, Blizzard, Amazon Studios, EA, Audible, HarperCollins, and the Las Vegas Sphere. I also run my own print store, where the work is entirely mine. LA gave me a handful of exceptional creatives to learn from, and an ever-so-challenging playground that’s very rewarding.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not always smooth, no. The biggest one is keeping your own work alive. It’s easy to get swallowed by commercial projects, and if you’re not making personal work, your own brand and voice stall. Immigration is the other constant, always humming in the background, and it shapes a lot of decisions you’d rather make freely.

The newest one is AI. It has shaken up the market and the client-illustrator relationship in a way nobody had a playbook for. The challenge is finding your niche in a landscape that keeps shifting, staying authentic and still growing, and not losing the craft that got you here. Above all, it’s not letting an economic and structural lull turn into a verdict on your self-worth. I think a lot of us are working that out in real time.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m an illustrator and art director, and I move between key art, character design, concept art, storyboarding, book and album covers, and campaign work for film, games, and publishing, as well as private commissions. If there’s a common thread, it’s texture combined with fine rendering. I like gritty, unpolished, slightly obscure details, and I build acrylic, watercolor, and rough paper textures into my digital work so it feels almost tangible. I’d like to be known for that: work that looks touched by hand, even when it’s made on a screen.

I love a lot of my projects, and thankfully I have quite a range, so they all hit different. One of my latest was a campaign for 100 Nights of Hero, a film featuring Charli XCX and Maika Monroe. It let me indulge in painting stylized, colorful portraits of the actors in stained glass.

What sets me apart is that I work on both sides of the table. Having been on the art direction side as well as the illustration side, I understand the brief, the strategy, the creative direction and how it’s conceived, and the client’s constraints, and I still care about the craft down to the last mark. My clients get someone who can execute and think through the whole campaign.

What’s next?
I’m deep into a new personal series right now, work that’s driven purely by my own vision rather than a brief. The plan is to release it as prints through my shop, and to keep making space for that side of my practice alongside client work. Beyond that, I’m looking for more fun, unexpected opportunities, projects that let me do what I love and make the world feel a little more human and a little more beautiful.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mariiamenshikova.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariamenshikova/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/menshikovamariia/