1. Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into art. Where are you based, how long have you been making art, and who or what shaped your style?

I go by Zaid in the art world, also known as Jruffhouse to some who have been following me for a very long time.

Currently I am based in Austin Texas but originally from a very small village somewhere in Mexico. The typical artist answer would be that I've been an artist all of my life, but I really started to noticed I had "talent" in elementary school when I was always chosen to be in groups when the assignment involved some sort of artistic touch. However, it wasn't until circa 2011 when I decided to give art a real chance as a career path.

I started to learn adobe illustrator because back then I was heavily influenced by street wear/fashion and wanted to create my own clothing. From there, my art slowly evolved throughout the years to what people see now. It took me many years to find my style but I am happy that I finally found what represents me.

2. How would you describe your art style in your own words?

My art style can be very colorful, clean and bold. I like neatness within my art and for every line to mean something or be part of something bigger. I wish I could allow myself to be more "loose" sometimes because I truly do enjoy that sketchy style I see sometimes but my brain wont let me.

3. What's your process like? Walk us through how a piece goes from idea to finished art.

My process is very simple, before I even sketch anything out, I start imagining things in my head & once I have a pretty good image /idea that I can see when I close my eyes I begin to sketch.

I usually start with a super rough sketch and keep playing with lines until I get the general idea/shapes I see my head and then start to clean it up. This process is a lot easier now since I've been mostly working on Procreate which allows me to undo and redo things fairly easy. Digital art am I right... After I have the lines I want, I start to ink and after that the easy part is left, which is coloring.

4. Which Vibes card(s) did you work on, and do you have a favorite? What made it fun or challenging?

I was able to work on Jaskel, Imaginator Vibes card & I'd hate to be bias but it is my favorite card haha. To be honest the hardest part was working in CMYK as I'm not used to working in that color format much anymore but we found a way to choose colors that still popped when printed. Besides that, it was fairly easy as I was pretty much given total creative freedom on the card... an artists favorite type of commission.

It was a lot of fun, as mentioned above since I was given creative freedom it wasn't hard to bring the Pudgy to life with my own style.

Jaskel, Imaginator, from Birb & Pengu

5. What's something you want players to notice or appreciate when they see your art on a card?

I hope that people who are already familiar with Vibes notice that even tho there is still a Pudgy in there that it is stylized differently. I'd like to think that people can tell it's different enough from the other cards to stop for an extra second to take a loot at the art.

6. Where can people find more of your work?

If people like to see more of my work and style I'd really recommend they check out zk.portfolio.site/friends - it's a page dedicated to my Friends piece. It's a piece of art that I've been working on almost 5 years now. People can also find me on Instagram and X under the username ZaidKirdsey

Huge thank you to Zaid for taking the time to speak with us! Stay tuned for more Artist Profiles!