110. Ella Marushchenko: Scientific illustrations, digital vs. classic art, and how to improve scientific figures

Ella Marushchenko is a scientific illustrator who runs a studio of artists and scientists that creates cover art, scientific and illustrations, and more. We talk about her unlikely path from artist in Russia to scientific illustrator in the US, digital vs classic art, how to interact as scientists with illustrators, how to improve scientific figures, and much more.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps
0:00:00: Ella's unlikely path to doing scientific illustrations
0:33:17: Running a studio for scientific illustrations
0:36:30: The process of commissioning a scientific figure
0:46:44: The changing landscape of scientific publications and communication
0:50:15: Unhelpful things to avoid when interacting with a science illustrator
0:59:06: Who are scientific illustrations for?
1:06:36: The purpose of illustrations in science
1:16:09: How to learn to improve scientific figures
1:22:30: How to become a scientific illustrator
1:26:10: A book or paper more people should read
1:27:48: Something Ella wishes she'd learnt sooner
1:29:10: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Ella's links

• Website: https://geni.us/marushchenko-web
• Twitter: https://geni.us/marushchenko-twt

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References and links

Some pictures by Sergey Krasnov: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sergey_krasnov/

Sergiy Minko: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TMotc_wAAAAJ

Science diagrams that look like shitposts: https://x.com/scienceshitpost

My photo of the elephant at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle: https://www.bjks.blog/nature/3n6ljuy6noa5470tdsbcuicltu48df

Episode about Cajal: https://geni.us/bjks-ehrlich

Bulgakov (1967). The Master and Margarita.

Chapters

• 0:00 Ella's unlikely path to doing scientific illustrations
• 33:17 Running a studio for scientific illustrations
• 36:30 The process of commissioning a scientific figure
• 46:44 The changing landscape of scientific publications and communication
• 50:15 Unhelpful things to avoid when interacting with a science illustrator
• 59:06 Who are scientific illustrations for?
• 1:06:36 The purpose of illustrations in science
• 1:16:09 How to learn to improve scientific figures
• 1:22:30 How to become a scientific illustrator
• 1:26:10 A book or paper more people should read
• 1:27:48 Something Ella wishes she'd learnt sooner
• 1:29:10 Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Transcript

[This is an automated transcript that contains many errors]

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] Yeah, I mean, so I guess we'll be talking mainly about your. scientific illustrations, I guess is the term. So figures, covers and all that kind of stuff. And so we'll get to all that later, but I'd like to take a bit of a, as I like to do often with my guests, a bit of a scenic route to how you kind of got to what you do today.

And I thought in your case, maybe we could start with uh, your grandmother and her influence. So basically how does she, how did she influence your. What you wanted to do initially in your career.

Ella Marushchenko: So my grandma, she was an artist. She was doing art on ceramics. So she graduated art school. My mom has a talent as well. So she wanted to be artist, but my grandma didn't allow that because my grandma believed that artist career is extremely tough and you're not going to make money. And my mom finished university for languages.

So she's she was translating [00:01:00] stuff and doing my, my mom all the time was dreaming about being artists. So she was drawing something on her free time and my grandma never supported her. I don't know why, but she never supported her on this field. And then I'm one of the twins. I do have a twin sister.

So, and my. Twin sister, she's not good in art. So don't count on that. And I started to draw really early. And even back then my mom lived just for time separated for her workshop. So she was on her walk trip and I was staying with grandma and we found this tiny letter from my grandma writing my mom I'm with your kids.

Everything is fine. Ella don't allowed me to do anything because she's constantly, if she's sick. see me writing you something she was wants to draw on this paper. So when I was two years old, I was already drawing and my grandma write something like she's probably going to be artists because she's so consistent in doing that.

And then I was in the [00:02:00] kindergarten and I draw a woman with a green face and square head, but I draw it in so perfectly. So my grandma was like, she's definitely going to be artists. She does has this talent and everything. I don't know if she was supported in this kind of way. She was like more telling me and I'm, I was absolutely useless and everything else.

I wasn't doing great at school at all. So I don't think I, I did have another choice to go anywhere but art school, but my grandma taught me a lot when I was drawing. She used to tell me some stuff, like some tiny tricks how to make it better. But she was always telling me that I'm actually better artist than she was.

But I didn't think that she's actually proceed this career because she believed it's so tough. And you're not gonna make money. I don't know why she convinced me to do that.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I was going to ask like, why is she, why was she so supportive of you doing

Ella Marushchenko: think [00:03:00] because I didn't have any other talent because all my family good in math and everything, my, and I wasn't, I am absolutely, I hated school from the beginning.

I hated every day over there. And I do still have these pictures of me drawing my students who was in the same class with me instead of learning something because I was not interesting at all and my twin sister Was the person who helped me to pass all final exams because I wasn't able to I was like not Just all my favorite day in the year It's the first September because I'm 35 now and I don't have to need to go to school It's like short story how hated I'm my time in school And then I my grandma pushed me to go to art school for just for free time, like after classes or I went to art school, but I wasn't great.

I was a tough teenager. So I was expelled three or four times from the school [00:04:00] because I was not really attending classes. I was doing what I want to do. I didn't want to draw what everyone else was wanting to draw. And I was doing this math. And on my final exam, I was practically stylized. So yes my mom find artist, his name was Sergei Krasnov.

He has, he had a studio in Ufa when he was just picking up, picking students he liked and teach them like from artists to students, not like from whole universities. There's three, three classes, or three class, classmates. So, and I went there and my grandma was extremely proud of me going there just because she believed that it's a great opportunity to speak.

And I do believe, still believe that it's amazing opportunity to learn from the artists, to see them on their field, not on the some kind of lecture when they just talking, when they, when you can talk [00:05:00] to them on their free time and you can really feel how they begin, how they start this career, what they doing.

So I was attending for five years and then we just became friends. So I was working there. I was, I attended when I was 15 and until I finished and left Russia, I was going to the studio and spend just time with them. So yes, my grandma's support was big for me. Even if she didn't want her daughter to become an artist.

And I think everyone in my family knew that I'm going to be an artist. It wasn't like, I know some people are struggling with convince their families that they want to do art, because it's not really something most people understand. And some people are, Oh, she's artist. She's going to be homeless. It's like when the fight a wild cats on the street for food, because it's no money on that business.

But my family was really [00:06:00] helping me. There was all the time telling everyone in the teachers in the school, let's stop pushing her, stop bullying her. She's going to be artists. So I did have a great support from my family. And I think it's It's extremely important.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, I mean, yeah, also I think it's pretty rare unless, I mean, unless people are from like a very wealthy or well off family, I think then people are much more, you know, do whatever you want. We've, you know, you're not going to be poor because we have money to support you. But, yeah, I think it's pretty unusual for someone to be consistently supported by the family to, to,

Ella Marushchenko: On another hand, maybe I was absolutely useless in everything else, and they know that there is no future for me in other careers paths.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so they were supportive out of a lack of alternatives, basically.

Ella Marushchenko: Yeah, but I knew that I'm not going to do anything else. I was, I, Never was interested in anything else. I wasn't like a person who didn't know what they want to do until they went to [00:07:00] university. I, all my life, I knew that I'm going to be artist. I wasn't never think about success. I was not really even care about them.

I didn't think about how I'm going to have a money or how I'm going to live, but I knew that I just, everything was art and it's good for me. Doesn't matter what kind of art, doesn't matter. I didn't dream about to be a scientific illustrator or any kind of, I was like just put me something with the art and I'm gonna be fine, I'm gonna survive.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I envy people like you. I think I'm much more the kind of, even now it was like, well, I could. I'm not joking. Like a few, I'm not like, so I've art is probably one of the few things I've never really done in a formal way. But I, a few weeks ago I looked up like, could I like study part time for like fine arts?

And yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm always drawn into 10 different direction at the same time. So I really envy people who are like, this is what I do. And [00:08:00] that's it. 

Ella Marushchenko: I'm probably useless and everything else. It's it was like a escape in its art. It's a big escape for me. So you, it's like when your life is too tough or you don't, some people find like in games, they can watch movie. I just need my pen and I need some sketchbook and I can draw myself and That's it.

I don't need anything else. And, yeah, I don't know if I have to blame my For a while I was blaming her for Because it was tough to be an artist. It was tough looking for jobs. And I was telling my mom You never even tried to convince me to do something else. At least to have a study job. At least to study something I'm always gonna have money from.

I wasn't even telling her that maybe I should go to get a career like a hairdresser, but my mom was telling like, it wasn't really not your thing, like it doesn't matter what we was telling you, you still was doing your stuff. [00:09:00] Even if I was expelled from the school so many times, I was still constantly going there with my papers and I was like accepting me one more time.

I need to go here one more time. And I was lying to them that I'm going to do better and then I get expelled one more time. And then actually I went to this art studio with this artist, real artist. And I understand that everyone was actually expelled from the university over there. So I was like, this is my people.

I can talk to them.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, it also. From the, from what you've said, it also doesn't sound like you would have just gone, like if your mother or whatever had told you you know, try and be a lawyer, it's good. It doesn't sound like you would have done that anyway. So you know, it doesn't sound like you would have just gone well, okay, then I'm going to study really hard for this thing I don't care about.

Ella Marushchenko: I listened to my parents. No, I was like, really, it's this childhood parents tell something. that I will probably listen to them. Will I be good like a lawyer? No, I [00:10:00] don't think so. Lawyer who can draw probably, like lawyer who is like suddenly in the 35 changing career path like, okay, I don't need the money, I finally found my path, I'm gonna live on the street and fighting cats.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So were you, so was art was it mainly the act of doing it that you really enjoyed? Or was it also, you know, going to galleries or looking at paintings by other paint, like basically kind of. Yeah,

Ella Marushchenko: Spending time, mostly like as soon as I go to art school, I find these interesting people who is absolutely different from everyone else I knew before. There was like a So I, in, I fight finally understood that I fit in and with this studio with and my teaching in studios RA and I fit in and it's mostly was talking with the artist listen for the experience talking about art.

I found back [00:11:00] then I found going to a gallery, extremely boring. Because I was young and spending time and looking in the paintings I was spending time because I was forced to do that But I was looking on these paintings and thinking in myself, can I draw something like that? Why he drew it that way?

I never was able back then to Really feel art. I was never able to stood there and and all the time when someone else was talking about oh I feel power in this painting. I was like you're lying. You're lying through your teeth. You don't feel anything You just want to pretend that you understood this art.

Right now I do enjoy go to galleries because I read a lot of stuff I read a lot of artists, I finally understood what kind of art I prefer. So now I do enjoy. Back then, spending time in galleries was torture, but I was painting galleries when I was already like after I was like having my driver's license and spending times in the gallery when you are students [00:12:00] since mean after time have fun in the galleries, have a party there.

So this part, I really enjoy just talking about art. I didn't.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, that's really interesting. Because I guess, yeah, it seems to me lots of people are really I mean, I had it, you know, I wanted to do music for most of my teenage classical music for most of my teenage years. And for that it was both right, it was doing it, but also listening to these amazing pieces and really being inspired and trying to like then do that yourself.

But it sounds like from you early on it was more the act of doing it yourself was the primary

Ella Marushchenko: Now I was more measuring myself. Can I do this? And because I was not really successful like a student, everyone, everywhere was telling me, you're not gonna succeed. You're not gonna succeed. So I did have my expectation extremely low for me. I wasn't really thinking about doing some great stuff.

I was like, I'm gonna be some just Not just the normal medium artist. I'm not gonna be like Dali or something. Never dreamed about it. [00:13:00] So Standing I did love galleries, but it just maybe the way they was teaching back then, everything was extremely old fashioned, especially in universities. It was like practically you're standing near the painting and they're reading from the book and it's extremely boring and when you spend time with the artist they talk about this art more about passion way, more about their feelings, how they is or more about funny stories about that artist who was drawing this painting, which is actually important as well.

I know you should separate the art from the artist, but it's extremely funny to listen about some artists.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, so I was a little bit surprised than that. I read that you studied graphic design or so, so from what, like basically when I first read about your background and then what you also said now, it sounds more like fine art to me, but then I saw graphic design, but I didn't know, is that just like a terminal difference at your [00:14:00] university or is that actually yeah, well, basically what was your degree then 

Ella Marushchenko: it says my degree is graphic art but when I attended this university this department only opened. So it was the first year there was accepting designers and people who want to do graphic design. So basically it was learning fine art, but naming ourselves graphic designer. We did have a few classes about like digital art and stuff, but it was so new back then.

No one knew how to teach it properly back when I was studying. I don't know how it was here in United States, on Europe. In my country, in my city, it was so fresh, it was so new, so practically, I do have a classic art background with the naming of the digital and graphic design art.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. Yeah, especially I was just curious because you, um, I don't know exactly what the precise words here are or whether it makes that much of a difference. But it seems to me that there's a bit of a the [00:15:00] way I would summarize it is maybe the kind of like, what would it be? Like pure art versus applied art, if that makes sense or something like that, where like pure art this distinction would be, you know, someone who makes a painting just for the painting's sake, so it can hang in a gallery or somewhere private and you can look at it, whereas applied art would be something like, well, what you're doing now with the scientific illustrations or what you do.

I think you worked in fashion or something like that in

Ella Marushchenko: Yeah, so that was teaching us something in between. So I know how to do everything. I know how to do even how to sew a carpet. So I'm good in everything because they was teaching us everything. So the way they approach art in Russia, you learning for three years from the wood, like when you learn how to craft on wood, like wood.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: wood carving

Ella Marushchenko: Yes, I can do that as well. So they teaching you everything and in it's colluding.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Can't remember.[00:16:00]

Ella Marushchenko: Yes. And it's colluding also a lot of. hours of drawing, like a classic art. So, and then on the final years, I think I started to hanging out more with the group who was doing, they was doing digital art. They was doing some cartoons.

And stuff. So I'm kind of was not really helping them. It was not really interesting because it was my classical background degree of art, our thinking that digital art is beneath me because we was growing in this idea that we are artists and everyone who's work on the computer, they're just pretending to be artists.

And I was like, I'm not going to be that because they are not real artists. And I actually still now, when I'm doing scientific illustration, I have to deal with that. When people, even the few people who know me, they're like, you're not an artist anymore. I'm like, I'm still an artist. I do my art in free time.

You cannot call me like something else. It's yeah, you're doing [00:17:00] digital art. Yeah, I'm a graphic designer more or less now. And I still, when I'm thinking about myself, I'm still thinking about myself like an artist.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: One question I had about the digital versus traditional kind of. Let's say painting versus digital art is and I guess, I mean, digital art, it can be so many different things, but one thing I was just curious about is that so in the UK, I think one of the most famous and established painters, David Hockney, he spent I can't remember when, but at some point he started drawing on an iPad every morning.

And so he just, I can't remember what it was, like just one, whatever tool on the iPad. So he just drew on an iPad and did art like that. I was just curious, like whether in the art world, that's, do people basically still see digital art as inferior or is that just changing because people are doing all sorts of different things with it?

And yeah, that was maybe a few years ago, but now things have changed.

Ella Marushchenko: what's the tone they're using when they expel something from community? I'm 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, there's a word for it. 

Ella Marushchenko: I, so I'm a I know [00:18:00] it's from Amish, so I'm expelled from the artist community because they're not treating me like artist anymore. But now it's different because it's back then it was a. this big stuff and the people was like looking Weirdly on the people who was using computer because back then it was like more cheating He was not really artist.

He was cheating because computer doing everything and you're not really artist now because it's a combination of everything and it's getting more popular so now I think it's They still separate like there's still classic artist and people who is more graphic designers or Any kind of doing a web design or doing animation for studio.

They call themselves different. But now I don't think they look weird on you anymore when you're doing something like that. When I was doing that, it was just like, I'm extremely old. It was called cheating if you use iPad for drawing.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: why cheating though? It's not like it's easier, right? I mean, [00:19:00]it's just very different

Ella Marushchenko: No, it's easier.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: how

Ella Marushchenko: It's easier because computer And sometimes you can see people struggling. That's why when people asking me I want to draw and I'm drawing to this in this program on my iPad. It's they called something

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: procreate or

Ella Marushchenko: is like a program it's on iPads. Procreate.

Yes. Sorry. I couldn't hear you. Procreate. Yeah. There's but when I'm trying to draw on the sketchbook, it's look different. I'm like, yes, because computer doing this, all this coloring for you and you don't know how to put the color properly and you really need to know how to do that.

So, that's why it was cheating. Because especially you can draw something like with a pen, which is going to be black and white image. And it's going to be the same like on a paper and in a program, it's the same. But when you're coloring this image, it's a different completely scenario. This is like when you're coloring on the paper, it's complicated because one mistake and the image is ruined.

When you're [00:20:00] coloring on a pipette, you can, and it's going to be a perfect way of not showing any tiny bits of dust or anything. It's going to be just perfect.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Okay. And I see, I had a bit of a time when I actually had like a time when like for a month or so every morning I would make some sort of drawing on in procreate and yeah, I think, I guess the reason. Yeah, I guess one of the main reason I think why it's easy is because you can just redo something and then, you know, you can have a drawing, even if it takes you just two, three times to get it right in real, on paper, that's going to be a lot of paper.

You're going to run through an entire for an entire drawing. Yeah.

Ella Marushchenko: on iPads as well sometimes and for me coloring is more easy for it because it's like it's you're not gonna Especially when you use watercolor, they're gonna combine it perfectly So and when you try to what do in watercolor, I'm not good on this specific tool in real life It's a mess So that's why it's just a bit of [00:21:00] cheating. In a classic way of thinking, not in a modern.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Okay. So you finished your degree in graphic design, even though it wasn't that much graphic design per se. What happens then?

Ella Marushchenko: Then I realized I want to study more and like any artist, I dreamed about going to Europe, because every artist's dream from the tiny city is going to Europe, and then everyone gonna see how great you are. So

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So just briefly was the Why didn't you, why did you study in Russia in the first place? I mean, you're from Russia, but like, yeah, yeah. But like, if you said like the artists have all the dream to going to Europe, why not for your first degree already?

Ella Marushchenko: my parents never allowed me to leave home so early. In Russia, it's not a thing when you're leaving when you're 16, immediately. So, and my mom was always like, I want to make sure that you gonna have any kind of, because if you're gonna go to other city or another country, you're just gonna party all the time.

So, I just want to make sure that you do [00:22:00] have a real degree before you're gonna stood up in the real world. So,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. So then you had your degree, you were, you're not going to party all the time. So then your parents allowed you to leave.

Ella Marushchenko: I still wanna party, I still was partying all the time, I just, on my parents watch, it does not make any difference, it's just my parents were thinking they're controlling me with that.

So I applied in university, and it was the easiest university, and Again, people who don't know that, it's all situation for Russian people with visas and stuff. So it's not many stuff you actually can apply to, especially when you're not extremely talented. We're not talking about just like one percent of the people who's like huge.

So, and I choose the Czech Republic, first of all, because my sister lived there and I did love this country and I applied for learning languages first because I want to study. So I was learning Czech for a year and then I then suddenly something switched in my head and I decided I'm gonna follow [00:23:00] my follow my grandma.

At steps and I'm going to go to, she was doing us ceramic on art. And because my family was big on loving all antique store, I was like, okay, I'm going to do restoration ceramic. I want to do this stuff. And I apply and I went to this college. It was a college when there was ceramic. It's teaching you how to do that.

And I hated from the first day I realized it was a giant mistake. It's so boring. I don't like it. It wasn't art I was dreaming. It's really like more this like you see it and you clean it and you do it perfectly. I was like, okay, but because I'm this person who, if I doing something, I have to have some kind of level of knowledge what I'm doing.

So I'm, even if I hate it, I was able to finish it too. So I cannot be I cannot do restoration, but I'm going to be this like right hand [00:24:00] for a person who's doing restoration. So I'm like a second person. I cannot do it myself without someone watching me. So I do have this paper that I can do restoration dynamic, which I can do because I never did it after I get my papers.

And Then then I decided I want to go to before, because I was in States a year before, I decided I want to come back. I come back to United States, I met Alex,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So like first for a holiday or like when you were first in the US or

Ella Marushchenko: first year it was a walk just walk and travel for students, like exchange, you spend the summer here. And then I went to Czech Republic to study and I come back to America and I still find a reason why I come back.

I didn't like it the first time, but I come back here and this scientist we were spending lots of time. He asked me to do images for him. I said no because it's beneath me again and it's with a classic [00:25:00]background, European

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: would you do that? Silly idea.

Ella Marushchenko: I don't have a job I don't have money, but no, I'm not going to do that, because otherwise people are going to know that I'm doing that.

And He asked me, I was telling him for a year I'm not going to do anything like that. Thank you very much. I'd rather suffer and die from starvation. But he introduced me to his professor and professor named Sergei Minko, which he's like huge. He's actually my friend here now. And he didn't take a no for answer.

I was sitting in his room. He was like, you're going to do cover for us. We're doing this article. I'm like, I actually not really want to. And you cannot say professor, like it's beneath me to do art for you. It's you know what, I'm not doing really digital art. And he's like, you have nothing to do.

You're really doing nothing here you have so time and you're wasting it. And I was like, okay, I'm just going to do it one time and that's it because it was pointless. I was [00:26:00] saying no, and he was like, and he did listen to me. He was still continuing, explaining me what's this article going to be about.

And I was like, huh, okay. It's a nice idea. Good luck to do it. Uh, Did he convince me? I don't know. I entered the room with the idea I'm politely going to decline and I'm leaving the room with this like whole his idea, how I'm going to draw it and knowing to myself, yes, now I have to do it.

And we did this image it was for advanced functional material. And it was accepted, and I was surprised that it was accepted, because I never did anything else. And everyone started to tell me, Wow, you're doing a great job, you're so talented. And I think it's the first time when I heard it from someone, American speaking, that I'm talented.

Because in European, we don't express our feelings that kind of way. We're like, Oh, you can draw, good luck. Oh, it's nice drawing. Okay. And people was like telling, Oh, you're so talented. You can do that. And it's actually give [00:27:00] me such a, like a wings on my back that I do really control. And that's it.

And I like, and Alex, he's see this potential in me. And he's okay, we're going to do that. I'm going to do science scientific parts and you're going to do art stuff because you're not great on, scientific, obviously. And that's it. And he convinced me to build my studio. He was actually a major pusher for everything because I was like didn't believe in social media, didn't want to do anything, didn't want to communicate because artists love to be alone.

You know, like we love to draw and then be complaining that no one's seeing our art because we actually not showing it. So I was this person who was like, love to Drawing something and then not showing to anyone and then complaining that no one knows me and he pushed me to do like everything else So, and now I'm here 12 years after with my studio, with eight people and Alex is still pushing me to do a lot [00:28:00] of stuff and still complaining about it, but it's working very well.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it seems that if you start to accept that maybe this is what you're doing, Yeah.

Ella Marushchenko: Yes. But still introducing myself like artist and then I'm just doing mark remark that I'm scientific illustrator and it's take a while to explain to people what I'm doing. Like on a regular person, it doesn't make sense. Yes. Like when you meet a person who is not from the science community and you say, I'm a scientific illustrator, they just blink.

That's it. People don't really understand what you're talking about and you have to and I usually tell that I'm drawing a medical books for students because it's an easy way.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I was gonna say I, I guess like, I mean, everyone's seen them, so I, but I guess they never thought about like how, where they come from. 

Ella Marushchenko: Yes, it is so surprised when you're telling them to some someone really drawing them. There's oh Unicorn I really exist people are drawing that are you a real person? Yes, how do you think it happened? Like [00:29:00] these

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: clearly not a photo. So , where does it come from? Yeah. Why do you think, I mean, so just outta curiosity, like why do you think that they were so. Why do you think they wanted you to do the drawing so much? I mean, it seems to me also, I mean, did they know about, I mean, presumably they knew all your art and that kinda stuff, because it seems to me also they could have just asked someone else you know, are the people are available who do scientific illustrations.

But I guess I

Ella Marushchenko: Alex Hans. He was sneaking around my back and showing and he asked me to do some cell and I opened this program and I was like, he asked me to do it like begging me like, oh, can you do that? Please I need it for my proposal blah blah blah I was like open some computer and quickly do it like in the five minutes because it was really basic one and he took this image and was showing everyone in the lab that I'm talented and I need a job and that's it.

So he was like, he's like my when we started studio, I pro he promised me that I'm gonna be a person who's no [00:30:00] one knows about, that I'm gonna be this person who's I didn't want to be Didn't want to have a social media. I actually really love to be reserved to myself and hide my paintings. And he promised me he's gonna take all of it on himself, and he lied, and no one, everyone knows about me, and no one knows about him.

But he's actually the person who convinced me to do scientific illustration, who is helping me every day, and he's he was the first scientist I started to work with.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'm, I wanna basically, do you, I mean, so you said earlier you still. CSF as an artist who does scientific illustrations. I'm just curious, is the, I mean, other scientific illustrations, basically a day job that pay the bills and you, your actual art you do outside of it, or do you actually see the illustrations also as some sort of artistic expression?

I'm just curious, like how much of a, because , correct me if I'm wrong here, but that in a lot of, Maybe this is the difference between pure and applied art in a sense that, you know, if that is, I don't know, [00:31:00] I just made that up but you know, if if that exists in the sense that pure art kind of comes from within, in the sense that something, you know, the artist sees or thinks or feels or whatever, and wants to express, whereas for example, scientific illustration is more people come to you and ask you to do a specific thing I'm assuming so I'm just curious with that how do you What do these illustrations in a sense mean to you?

Ella Marushchenko: It started like I, I was thinking it about exactly that way that I'm just doing that for paying my bills. It's going to pay my bills and there is no way to express yourself. And it's actually turned up, it's not now I do use scientific illustrator, my studio, like for paying for my side art, because I'm doing a lot of side art on the side, like just, you know, tiny cartoon stuff.

But you actually can express yourself really good when you're doing scientific illustrations because it's not boring stuff. You, and drawing a human body, even if it's like a sick body and you [00:32:00] have to draw cancer cells, it's actually magnificent when you look on them, even if it's extremely scary.

but it's a magnificent how all these tumors and cell look like in the real world. They're actually beautiful. And I was the person who was drawing some kind of tumor and someone was like, wow, it's look like a flowers. I was like, it's actually a tumor. That was like, it's look beautiful, but now it's scary.

And I am this person who can make tumor look beautiful and still going to be scary tumor. But it still can be beautiful. So I do can express myself doing some, drawing some cells, art, And same with the chemistry of physics, you still have a lot of opportunities to be an artist and express yourself in art.

So now it's more like when I'm stressed, so that's why I'm probably overworking and I don't have strict hours. Because if something happened in my life and I don't want to think about it, I immediately [00:33:00] go to my computer and I just start drawing some stuff I needed to draw because it takes my mind off.

Now it's it's my way to express myself, even drawing humans and stuff like that.

But yes, it's a full time job for me now.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, Yeah. , so do you actually still do most of the drawings because I mean, you have a team of people, right? As you said 

 eight people or something like that. But so I'm curious, like you're not just, you're not managing, but you're actually also doing in that sense a lot.

Ella Marushchenko: we do have a team of scientists and team of artists now, but I'm in charge of all artists and a lot of people think that I'm only managing. No, like all this usually all this cover I'm posting on Instagram was created by me. I'm still drawing. I don't want to be this. person who is not drawing, just managing.

It's not me. I'm not able to manage anyone, including me. So I'm just making sure if I I prefer to not do 2D images right now. So, we do [00:34:00] have a person in studio who's doing all this cartoon drawing for covers. And when she's amazing. So she can do everything by herself. I'm just the person who's on the phone.

Like I'm just making sure that it's a proper way that client is that she knows what the clients wants, but I'm not like macro managing her telling her, no, I would like you to draw it that way or something. And I still drawing a lot of my covers myself.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. So what, so do the other people in your team just, so what do they do? I mean, if you have several artists, they. Do parts of it or they do just different images completely or

Ella Marushchenko: Yes, we most of the time, we do have a team of scientists and team of artists and in a team of artists, we so I don't like to do engineering stuff. I don't like to modeling some extremely tough technical stuff. So I do have a person who is engineer who can do everything for me. And then I'm going to work with the colors and the lighting.

But. [00:35:00] He's also can do everything himself because he's really good on drawing some technical engineering stuff, which is definitely needed all the time in our studio. So sometimes we can work together on some images. Sometimes I can just to be a person who's making sure that everything is up to standards, but I'm not really controlling them because I don't believe that pushing artists and any kind of artists and telling them what color you want to paint You they have to use gonna do any good.

So most of the time we work on the separate projects I'm working on my projects we can combinate them. But on the end of the day, I'm checking that everything is fine and if sometimes which is rarely happened I can be a person who is finishing a project like if it's if I want to this image to look specific way or I know this client and I know they're gonna prefer I'm gonna do a few last steps like just a bit of lighting over there just to switch colors just a bit but [00:36:00] I'm not gonna do that.

Push my artist and being the person who is know everything better than they are. We do have amazing team of artists. I trust all of them. We do have amazing team of scientists, but they rather not try. They not trust artists. They constantly making sure that we're drawing something correctly.

Otherwise we're going to go wild and tumor going to be a flower. It's not going to make any scientific sense.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, why? Yeah. Yeah. But so that's basically the so maybe let's take a practical example Like hypothetical practical example of like how these things happen. So let's say i'm a I mean, I think, well, from what I understand you do a few things like covers for journals the figures you might have or illustrations in an article or in a book or whatever, I think also logos, web design you had on there also, right?

But let's maybe take something like a scientific, like a figure. So let's say I have something that, you know, I kind of know what I want to have there, but I don't know how to [00:37:00] do it myself. So I find you and contact you. And so how does it work? I say basically, Hey Can you help me? What do you do then do?

Ella Marushchenko: Thank you so much for choosing us. We're really glad to help you. So we usually send this, um, first of all, you have to know what is it? Is it the cover image or it's an image for article? Because for cover images, it's a different approach for images. For articles, it's a totally different

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, let's go with article first. Yeah.

Ella Marushchenko: So for article images It's most supposed to be clear image showing your research step by step. So it's supposed to be, and we're talking with because usually client approaching us and telling us they need the image for article, but showing our covers. It's not gonna be, it's not going to look like cover because cover it's more like eye catching, showing ID article image supposed to be clear and showing every step.

So we're trying to explain it to the client. And if, huh. on the end of the day, if they want to do after [00:38:00] image for articles, they want to do covers as well. We can work based on that, but cover image going to have a not usually white background, few things. We usually use like a few colors, so it's not going to look messy because if you use we don't try to not to use a shadowing because with a shadow, it's just going to be confusing.

So image for articles, they're more. actually engineering stuff. You just want to show all this process clearly without confusing everyone who's reading article because if it's going to be shadow or some glossiness, it's going to take attention. But what is really about, do you need the glossiness in the article?

Is it like, is it, there's a point of that. So with article, it's more that approach. And it's It's a funny part when people ask you to do article and on the end of the day, they're like, but it doesn't look like your portfolio. And you're like, it's not supposed to look like in my portfolio because we do have in our portfolio separately images for articles looks at them [00:39:00] because you don't want to do something crazy like people doing now, which I love to make jokes about when they're drawing it through the AI.

And it's a mess with a lot of coloring and everyone, and you work on your research for six years and then everyone is laughing about it because you decide to do this kind of image and everyone going to know you remember your research because it was like crazy mouse. Because it's my favorite image was like a crazy mouse with absolutely disproportional body and everything.

It's make it laughable. So article images supposed to show your structure of your research.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. There's a, I think there's a a great Twitter account called, what is it? Something like scientific figures as shit posts or something like that, where it's just scientific figures that just look absolutely ridiculous, where it almost feels like they made them to make fun of what they're doing, but.

I'll see if I can find [00:40:00] that. No,

Ella Marushchenko: Oh yes, please. I really want to follow them now.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. That's a pretty funny ones in there. But so, so basically what's so presumably we would then, so what would happen, I would, we would meet and I'd talk about what I want, or I have an example, I drew by hand, something like to give a rough idea or like what would, how would we.

Get to the point where I'm like, oh man, that's amazing. Thank you very much for

Ella Marushchenko: Yes, it's a process. So we explain you that image for articles look different and then it's a back and forth process with sending your first draft. It's usually when it's image for articles, people know what they want to show, how they want to show step by step. There is a basically telling you like you should draw that, and that.

And if it's complicated stuff, we do have a scientist who can. read through that and give us a summary. Sometimes they're drawing it by hands as well, which is helpful most of the time. And then it's just back and forward. We send you first drafts. Then you give [00:41:00] us feedback, what you don't like, what you want to change.

And it's, moving forward and then finally we send you everything with the colors and it looks perfect. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So I know this is gonna change depending on what it is exactly, but I have no idea, like how much this would cost. Like I have no idea, like what order of magnitude we're talking about. Can you give like a rough idea of how much this stuff is, or is that just. It's too difficult to say on a yeah, generic basis.

Ella Marushchenko: no, it's not difficult to say for article images and everything. It depends on the complicity of image. Sometimes images are extremely complicated. A few times we have to draw even a lab build it from the scratch. So I'm not going to talk about this extremely complicated. People love to take and they say you, so I said, it's going to cost like that.

No, it depends on the complicity of images. So, sometimes it's can from 200 and up, and it [00:42:00]depends like how many rounds, how many tower, how many time is spent and everything. And the visa image for covers, it's completely different story. I have to read. your articles to know what journals you're applying, how, what deadline we're going to have.

Sometimes people go, we can go through not one, two, we can go from months of working on one cover. And of course, it's going to cost. extra. So it's, we don't have this like some studios do that when they have, they overcharge people for doing some images or they taking less money and then start to build on top of it extra.

We usually have to read your research and understand because it can be something we did before. It's not going to be so complicated or it's completely something new. Like we are doing stuff right now when we have to basically build the buildings in our program, which is going to take a while to do [00:43:00] that.

There's no like particular costs. It's not like we have this. We can send you, it's going to cost you that, and we promise. We usually not try to go over budget, and we usually try to, you know, not understand that all university and everything has their own budgets and everything.

We try to understand that, but sometimes people come with crazy ideas. Like our image suddenly became animation and you're like no. We didn't promise we're going to do animation for you. It's a different story. You know, like it's taste taste come over time. So people start with the one idea and then they have a bit of taste, how it can look like, and then it's building more and more.

So I cannot give you an answer. strict price.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. That's what I meant. Why it would be difficult to say like specifically because yeah, I mean, yeah, as you said, like the, what you think you want changes over time as you develop it and then.

Ella Marushchenko: Yes. And sometimes it's articles is not submitted [00:44:00] yet. So people are still doing research and then they coming back to you and they telling you, you know what, we actually changing it completely. We found the new stuff in our research and you're like, so it's going to be different image now. So it's a different situation.

It's a more working with the client on the personal basis than having a strict price.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But from, so from what I understand let's say for, I mean, for figures and that kind of stuff, obviously it seems fairly clear to me that this would usually be. I believe there are some journals like I think Nature Reviews Neuroscience, where they actually make they have people who then turn, they have a very specific style.

So I think that's the journal itself, but from what I understand, usually it's a scientist. Is that also the case for all covers? So that's from the Yeah, is that so so basically if I see a cover on a journal Is that paid for by the journal or is that paid for by the scientists or their grants or whatever?

Ella Marushchenko: I don't know how journal is, I [00:45:00] don't know how it's working. I'm paying by my paid by the clients. And if they charge by the journal it's not up to me. I it's every journal has a different. Regulation and everything. So I don't know really how it's working. My job is make a finish image and send it to a client.

So he's happy with this image and I don't know how he's going to use it after. So like sometimes people use it for covers if it's covers, because it's not. All the time it's up to artists to cover be accepted. It's not like we're a magician who get promise you like we're going to do this cover. Yes, we guarantee it's going to be.

No, it's also about research, about like what the editor feels about this one. And sometimes people applying for covers, but they're using like a posters or they're using for a conference and stuff like that. So. I cannot speak for journals. I don't know how the journals do their policy.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But I mean like you're not what I mean. It's like you're not Asked by journals. Hey, we have this cool [00:46:00] article and we'd like you know This to Toby Turner to cover does that also happen or is it usually

Ella Marushchenko: I misunderstood you. Yes, it can happen sometimes. It actually happened recently. Sometimes scientists contact me. Sometimes journal can tell the scientists to specifically contact me because they do like our stuff. I have like few journals who's referring to me time to time because they don't have they really love this article, but they don't like the image they're using.

So they can ask me to redraw it or to mostly to draw completely different idea. Or sometimes I contacted by the journals and they telling me like, yes can you do the image for that articles? But most of the time I say 86%. It's like my clients are scientists

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So this is a question I have no idea which direction is gonna go I could imagine either so basically one thing I was I was Thinking about as I was kind of preparing the interview is that I think most people most scientists working today Don't really [00:47:00] look at actual journals. You know, when I, there's a particular article I want, so I'll just download the PDF and maybe I'll print that some people never do.

Some people do it a lot. Depends on the person, but the actual like journals, I think I just they're not that often found in in, inside of institutes, which sounds kind of ironic, but like it kind of thing. It makes a lot of sense. And for example, in. In our Institute right now that there are a couple of, I think nature, I think that probably subscribe to that.

So there's a few of those flying around, but in general it's been a while since I've held actual physical in general in my hand. So, but then again, there's also way more publications now. So I'm just curious is this. Does that increase the amount of work you get like that or people like you do, or is it decreasing it or like, how was basically how could, do you know like, well, how the industry landscape is changing and for yeah, how many journal covers are requested.

Yeah.

Ella Marushchenko: Yeah, sometimes people, when they think about journal, they believe that uh, holding a journal in the hands, [00:48:00] which is, I do agree, it's not happening often anymore. People read through their phones, articles and stuff. It's not people, but it's actually Social media and Internet and as is web journals is actually getting more and more popular and I do have more work because and I try to explain a lot of time people, scientists telling me, Oh, I don't want to cover for my image for my article.

I don't really want to be published on the front cover. It's not about that. It's about presenting your article in an interesting way. So, and it's basically like a all internet and social media working. We love, we looking through the everything throughout with our eyes. So if you see something really bright and shiny, you want to know what it's about.

So if you see like, if you're going on the website and you see this cover or even on the website of, I don't know. Science, cell, nature, advanced materials and the first cover you're going to see this is your brain going [00:49:00] to tell you It's important article because it's on the front cover because it's they choose it So I have to read all this and you're going to read all this Interesting articles first and then you're going to go through the Really stuff you wanted to learn before and it's the same like an internet We see shiny bright image and we want to know what it's about.

So actually I don't really Influence my amount of work not influence that they cut they not really pay attention Publish it in a paper because like I actually do prefer it now even more because with a paper Yes, you can hold it. It's a lovely you can hang it on the wall. You can show it to your parents it's amazing.

But then it's gonna be somewhere under the couch or Your dog gonna chew it and no one gonna see it if you apply something right now on the social media on your website on your Twitter on your What? University lab account. It's going to stay forever. Everyone's going to see that. [00:50:00] And think about if it's going to be an ugly image not relevant to your article, think about it as well.

It's going to stay forever and everyone's going to remember it. So, no, I don't, I don't impact by the journals not really published By printing anymore. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, Actually I wanted to ask one thing just about when scientists art interact with illustrators are there any like things that people do all the time that's super annoying? Or like what should we do? What shouldn't we do? I don't know. Just avoid like your, you know, the, the, the.

Obvious annoying things 

Ella Marushchenko: I love all my clients equally. I don't treat them badly There's a few stuff it's not about annoying it's more about

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: or unhelpful or

Ella Marushchenko: Unhelpful. Yes. I think that's the right term to use it's unhelpful Pushing or sometimes pushing your ideas not working like and It's every time you have to go through the client that you don't have to put everything in your image.

It's not [00:51:00] really it's not really helpful to people to understand your image the old way of thinking please and it's a lot of actually I love the journal now use it as well A lot of journal even write it down if you want your cover to be published do not use the forest like a background Do not use the ocean like a background.

Do not use it like sky if it's not relevant to your research. Is your research about ocean? Yes. Do not put this I don't know why people doing that. I still cannot. I'm still struggling to understand when I get this idea and then it's like ocean on the background or the city on the background.

I'm like, ah, tumor on the New York background. Okay.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you mean like literally just like a photo background or like whatever. And then in front of that, like a 2d illustration

Ella Marushchenko: yes,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: okay.

Ella Marushchenko: 2D, or even, I'm sorry, I've warned you about

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. That was a cat walking on your laptop. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah.

Ella Marushchenko: it was a sudden move from him, [00:52:00] about that, Tremet so, yes sometimes people do love this shiny background, ocean background, or lightning from the sky and everything, and it's.

It's make your image look so old fashioned most of the time. And that's why I was stepping when I was just starting to do illustration, I was starting to do through the front covers and everything. And I was like, Oh my gosh, it's so much work can be done. It's a plane. It's like empty field back then.

It was nothing. It was like numbers and green background and everything. And. Still, right now, I'm struggling to explain to people please do not ask me to draw the ocean if it's not relevant to your article. I don't want to draw any kind of forest. And some people are obsessed with these cities.

They're extremely proud from the university, and they're like, let's do it. With our university on the background

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: well that's even worse. Yeah.

Ella Marushchenko: [00:53:00] let's not Let's not first of all We don't have oh and one extremely this one is extremely annoying Artists are extremely prohibited from using any kind of Stuff used before like we cannot use superheroes like because when you don't want to deal with a Marvel or DC and I Sometimes clients telling me, Yes, please, no, we want this superhero to represent our articles.

And my final message is gonna be, Yes, you're gonna text Marvel first, ask them to agree with that, and then we're gonna use it. Because I'm not gonna be trying to explain Marvel, it wasn't my idea, they're gonna blame me for that. And I'm not capable fighting this huge corporation. You cannot use hero.

You cannot use Lego stuff because they do have own copyright for that. You can do something like a similar like idea of the Lego. We can, you can do a structure, but you cannot use specific Legos for that. This is like extreme, extremely important stuff to know. You cannot [00:54:00] just use someone superhero or something which was drawn before and Do it in your research

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Copyright exists even for scientific illustrations.

Ella Marushchenko: you're going to be I was surprised how extremely hard it is to explain it to people.

People don't, mostly people like, they're gonna not know about it.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: It's like, yes, they are.

Ella Marushchenko: Yes, and it's happened even a few times when I was like, they promised me it's not an image for, it was even the superhero without any sign of the superhero, just the idea of the superhero was there. And journal feedback was like, everything is fine, we're gonna accept it, just remove the superhero, we're not, gonna deal with any kind of this stuff because we don't want to have consequences for that.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, Nature Publishing doesn't want to get into a legal fight with I don't know who owns DC, but yeah. Yeah, I guess if you're Roy Lichtenstein, then you're allowed to copy comics and call it out. But I think for journals, they're not gonna, they're not going to play along with that.

Ella Marushchenko: No, [00:55:00] I don't, I think this like a giant corporation, they don't like it and they not gonna allowed you, they gonna, no. And I'm not going to be this, like my tiny company, not going to be able to find them and I don't have it in me and I'm not stupid enough to use it. So

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Okay. So no ocean backgrounds and no

Ella Marushchenko: yes, no superheroes,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or any other kind of copyright protected

Ella Marushchenko: kind of copyrights. Yes. But it's happened to me all the way. So one time my art was copy just someone draw it on top of my art and sell it like their art. I didn't like it. I write to them directly that I'm gonna, because I can see it doesn't matter. I can see right now when the students or any kind of artists, other artists using my style.

I can immediately see that everything from was copied. The major idea of that coloring, lighting, everything was mine, and they just took it. shape it just a bit differently. I [00:56:00] can see that I cannot do something with that. I'm actually grateful that I can inspire you for something like that. But when something is absolutely cut like, they just like to take a part, tiny parts of my cells.

and put it all together and then sell it, present it like their cover. I'm like, no, I can see that I draw it. No, you're not going to use it. So yes, do not try to steal someone else's artwork and publish it like yourself. Even if you hide it pretty well, still not going to

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I have a kind of funny story there where, so, I So for about one and a half years or something, I did photography daily. So I did street photography, I would walk around, for an hour or two every day and take photos and edit them. And I did I think basically at my masters, I did, I was one year in Paris, I think about half a year of that.

I was basically a photographer more than an actual student. Um, And so there was this competition in Paris where you had to take [00:57:00] photos in certain buildings. And so I took one in the natural history museum and Yeah, I actually won the competition, which is still something I didn't expect. Uh, But so I won the competition for a particular photo of one of the elephants that was in this natural history museum.

And so yeah, I was super happy with that. It was like exhibited somewhere. I don't know. I didn't go, I didn't really care too much about that, but that was super cool. And then a year later I was back in Paris randomly and then I saw an ad. Of the National History Museum. It wasn't my photo, but it was the elephant taken like from the exact same angle in a really shitty way.

So I was like, it was basically like, I mean, so this is like a, it's not a huge museum, but there's like thousands of things you could have taken a photo of. And they took a photo of that elephant from more, I mean, I say not exactly the same angle because it was a worse

Ella Marushchenko: Mm hmm.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, But that was so weird to me.

Like the one piece of art basically I've produced that was public. Someone kind of, kind of like just ripped off completely. I didn't, [00:58:00] like my French wasn't good enough that I wanted to get into an argument about this. But

Ella Marushchenko: but you can immediately see that it was your Image and something was on top of it like something tried to do the same angle same idea same lightning Everything so it's the same with the artists. We can immediately see when someone using it like our style for or our Like idea for something and I do it now.

I don't lose it often now

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. I mean, the worst thing to me was just like that there was. Like I would have been actually fine with them almost actually like taking my photo rather than take making a bad version of the photo that actually annoyed me more than the, if they

Ella Marushchenko: want to do with the copyrights. They didn't want to do that. They was like,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, I mean, to be fair, maybe they tried to contact me and because my email address was dead, they didn't know how to like, there's actually a job because this was like, it wasn't by the museum, but they were obviously allowed people to take photos there for the competition. Right. So it was like, they were kind of involved.

So it is a, there's a chance there, [00:59:00] but Yeah, you know when someone's ripping you off. It's not difficult to tell. Um, I wanted to ask , it's kind of a silly question But I think there's something to it which is kind of who are you actually in a sense making these illustrations for what is a precise way that people are supposed to look at it and the what I mean here is that basically there's kind of two parts to this. The first is that. Artists or people trained in visual media look at things very differently than the general population. Let's say the example for me here is uh, for a while I printed some of my own photos and hung them up in my room, kind of just to learn about my own photos in that sense, but it was really obvious to me or in general, when I show people for my own photographs, it's super clear who has a background in doing art and who doesn't, because they tell you completely different things about the image.

I mean, one example was once there was a car in one of my photos and it was had a prominent role in this photo, but like, You [01:00:00] know, it's not about the car, but it was one guy was like, Oh, it's the, I named the model and the thing of the car. I was like, yeah, that's, I mean, it is, but that's not really what you're supposed to take from this.

Whereas, you know, I showed it to someone who was interested in, who studied art and isn't a, I think also digital artists, she commented on completely different aspects of it. So maybe first from that perspective , because I guess your images will probably predominantly seen by scientists and maybe science journalists or something like that. But kind of, do you know what I mean? There's, I feel like artists have a very different way of looking at the world than the non artists. So in a sense, like, your target audience in that sense is Isn't artists which is maybe different from other stuff. You might do

Ella Marushchenko: I don't know how scientists, I hope they can, when they look at my image, they can see what the article is about, but I don't know what scientists see in my images. When I'm asking scientists, there's like more, they love coloring and they love, and it's funny, sometimes you're drawing something and you met a [01:01:00] scientist who is not, It wasn't his article and they're telling you tiny, tiny stuff off from this image.

Oh, was this like shadowing? You mean that? And he was like, and you're sitting there Oh yeah, definitely meant that when you didn't in real life. And you're just like, it's a nice shadowing. And they're looking deeper into your image that you really meant to it's happening with scientists how artists see my images.

I'm not showing artists, my images. Artists. We are this community who is we don't love to talk good about ourselves and we don't talk about good about other artists. So I don't show my artist friends my art because I don't want them to criticize me because I know they're gonna do criticize, they can do it on my back.

I'm pretty sure they do it without me knowing about that, but I don't want them to my mom can do that. She's all the time telling me that I'm using too much red in my biology. And I'm like, Mom, okay, [01:02:00] like, how you going me to draw blood red cells? And she's like, any kind of other color. I'm like, amazing, blood with a blue color.

Yes, so this is only my experience with the people who is criticizing me.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No, but kind of, do you see what I mean? As in a sense, like just the maybe again because what you're doing has specific practical value or does that just not really apply that much because you're so constrained anyway, but by what the science basically forces you to show that it.

Doesn't make that much of a difference or

Ella Marushchenko: I don't know if I'm gonna answer your question, but I think here's my art background stepping up. When people are asking me what my advantages are, from the other people. I'm all the time telling them that I don't have a scientist background, so I'm not scared to draw something. When people do have, which you most of the time you need to have any other scientific background to do scientific illustrator, [01:03:00] scientific illustrations.

I don't have it, so I am not afraid to do something silly or stupid. I don't have these boundaries on me. When the people with a lot of scientific knowledge, they're kind of afraid to do, show something in a completely different way. So that's why art is kind of, too restricted for them. They cannot think out of the box, which I don't like to use this term often, but it's a.

It's actually true. Well, you do have a scientific background, your scientific background holding you from doing something because you are afraid that you're going to show something incorrectly. It's it's not really scientifically correct and you, want to show everything perfectly. I don't want to show everything perfectly.

I want my client to be happy with the image and I want this image to be bright, colorful, and eye catching. My ideas of, especially with the journal covers, it's not about, I [01:04:00] want to show everything in your article. I want to show it in a proper way. I want people to look at my art and say, wow, what is it about?

I want to know more. It's more about people can see something that they know and then they can Digger, dig deeper.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yep. Is kind of related question here is that one thing I noticed when I hung my own photos, you know, for a few months up, is that the, the way you look at an image really changes over time. So I like had some photos that I'd really liked the first few times I saw them. And then after a week I was like, yeah, I don't need, this is not that great.

Whereas some of them, they weren't actually maybe my favorite ones, but over time they really grew on me. But I'm assuming what you do has to be kind of for somewhat limited amounts of viewing. If the, as you said, like the initial well, wow, that's really interesting. Or is that not something you think about at all?

Ella Marushchenko: This is like a famous joke between artists. As soon as we finish the image, we either don't like it anymore, or we never finish the [01:05:00] image. I think it was a famous artist. I'm not gonna, a Russian famous artist. He was banded from a museum. He was handing his painting because he was constantly sneaking with a brush and finishing it because he was like absolutely sure it's not perfect enough.

So, He was banned to attend this museum because he was constantly changing something. So, I do that, I do have this feeling like many people do when I'm looking at my previous images and I'm like, Oh, don't show me that, oh it's, It because I'm growing and my art is growing so looking back on some images or sometimes I'm like looking it's so silly it's so cute because it's so silly that I did it so but I'm not you know I'm not going through my art all the time like looking sometimes I'm doing this web search.

And it's taken me a while to understand if I'm if here's my name, but I don't remember that image. And I'm like I have to go through the, [01:06:00] all of these images to realize that I really did it because sometimes I'm not even recognize them because it was did on this page. specific way when the client wanted me, but I don't remember my images by the articles.

I'm more remember them by the feelings I was feeling when I was drawing them. So people asking me, sometimes showing me my image and asking me what this image is about. Can you tell me more about this article? I can tell you what music I was listening. I was telling you episode what's the season was what I was eating.

I have no idea what this article is about because I don't remember this articles anymore. 

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious the and I don't know how much you can say about this per se. So we, you know, I can take it out if you don't have much to say about it, but I was just, one thing I found kind of interesting, especially that I think about 10 episodes ago or so, I did an episode about Santiago Ramon y Cajal.

As I talked to his biographer Cajal is basically the, He's called like the founder of the neuron doctrine. So he's the guy who kind of [01:07:00] not found neurons per se, but kind of showed that neurons are distinct cells that are separate from each other and that kind of stuff, and he wanted to become a painter when he was a kid and basically his dad forced him to be a medical doctor.

And then he He basically made his wish to be a painter, but also being actual a scientist. He combined the two basically. So that's when I like this famous paintings of the brain of neurons are often by still the original ones, like a high mid. And what I find interesting there is that biographer basically said, and wrote that Kajal never actually saw the individual neurons he drew or the things he drew.

It's more like he looked at the microscope lots and lots of time and then kind of created an image out of this that he then kind of summarized in this drawing. So that the drawing itself was actually it was accurate in a, in an ultimate way, but not necessarily like immediately. And I was just curious whether.

So basically it seemed to me back then [01:08:00] also the, you know, before photography and all sorts of various ways was possible or various other ways of imaging things that illustration itself was a really crucial part of the process because that's the only way you could show something. But it seems to me today more, it's that it's.

the actual, you know, data has to be actual imaging. If I show an fMRI plot, they want to see what actually came out of my analysis, not something someone illustrated. And it just seems to me that like over time, the value and purpose of illustrations has changed in science. Whereas now it seems almost, whereas, yeah, initially it was kind of part of the actual science and now it often becomes more of a, you know, A way of communicating it with others.

I wish I guess was also initially the case. Yeah. I'm not sure I'm formulating a proper question here, but I don't, I don't know whether you have anything to say about this [01:09:00] anyway so I can,

Ella Marushchenko: yes, I think our art is like developing some from the beginning of the time people was communicated through the art So art is changing during a time So we love to do simple stuff and then we love to when the people open the microscope. They love to see correct images. They didn't want to see all this drawing.

And now art is becoming something like a figure of the speech of expression expressing yourself, even if in scientific communities, it's more summarizing your article. It's not supposed to. Tell just telling a story. It's more than right now. It's more telling a story. You practically put everything in one image and then it became your story, someone else's story, and every person can see something in your image.

So I think it's just a development on the art. Maybe in the next 10 years is going to be again back to some, we're going to have new data and we're going to want only see only like bright images, which I [01:10:00] was taking from the specific cells. It's just like just changing, develop, developing. And now it's more.

For me, like it's still art. Any kind of imaging is art. Drawing something is art. Even like even some articles is the art itself. Sometimes I even when people asking me to draw something and they se send me the photo, they did this semi in my photo. Any correct correctly these like images, which is usually black and white is SE.

I thought, I think it's, I don't know how to pronounce it correctly. This photo from the cell they was talking, it's usually

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, I don't know what the like you mean a particular like imaging modality in cellular. Okay. I don't know what that exactly would

Ella Marushchenko: And they're telling me, Oh, can you draw? Can you draw based on that? And I'm just telling them, I don't need to draw. I can color it and you can send it like that and it's going to be accepted because it's a beauty in it. [01:11:00] So it just it's depends. Like sometimes of course you have to, you cannot to.

drew a hemisphere just by taking a picture. But with some stuff, it's just a process, normal process. Everything is changing. It used to be a lot of journals didn't like 3D images. I remember the times and I still, I'm not going to name that, but I know a lot of journals prefer 2D images.

They don't like shiny stuff. And they now are more accepting 3D art or some other journals are switching to more 3D images.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: that's interesting. So but you mean like for the oh, so but for the actual Scientific figures not for the covers obviously. Oh 

Ella Marushchenko: for the for the covers. For scientific images in the, inside of the journals, the thing is going to be the same. It's because it's a strict rules how to show it properly. I mean like a cover. They

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That's interesting. They didn't want 3d covers. Okay

Ella Marushchenko: like we like your article, but we have the [01:12:00] specific every journal, not everyone know that, but every journal has a style which is changing like mostly six months and then it's going to change, but they try to fit this style so they can tell you, or some journals has a specific styles for years and years.

They're not going to switch to anything else. So when the client contact me, I'm, if it's a front cover or it's any kind of color, I'm asking them, what kind of journal are you submitting your articles? And usually the question like, is it important? Because people are afraid that I'm going to charge extra for fancy magazines.

No, it's important because I want to know the style I'm working with.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That makes sense, yeah is One thing that's kind of surprised me. So again, I've never done this but So from what I understand, if I understand correctly, is that people think they, you know, they're like, okay, I have a cool article, and I think [01:13:00] this could make it to the cover of the journal, and then they commission you or someone like you to do a cover, and then they submit to the journal who evaluate a few different versions.

They do that already before it's accepted or how does, because I mean, one thing I'm certainly confused by is that it seems to me also the journal would want the coolest research on the cover, not just the one that has the coolest image. So it seems to me like, or do they wait? Yeah. Well, I don't know.

Do you see kind of what I mean that

Ella Marushchenko: I do. I don't understand you. I, it's again, every journal has their own rules. It's not all the time up to artist. Sometimes I know the, I think it's happened a few times when the article was already published in the previous journal and cover was accepted for next journal. Because the cover was so cool, they wanted to publish it anyway.

But it depends on the it's up to many things. So [01:14:00] it's not every time, like sometimes people contact me and we choose your studio because our previous artists didn't make it to a cover. I'm extremely grateful, but maybe sometimes it's not too up to artists to make it on the cover because artists can do everything from.

from themselves, they can draw everything perfectly. And then art editor gonna says, you know what? Now it'd be a moving on COVID again. It's going to be COVID every everywhere. We doesn't care about any other research because we know it's happened. It was COVID on every cover of the magazine that I didn't have a color.

I didn't do it with so, or it can be some breakouts in a on the industry, like something major going to open and they want to show it. Or sometimes even it's happened that with me, there's a one journal with me. They did like article, they did like my cover, but they do have a specific artist who is working for them and they cannot accept me because of that.

So I give my permission to this artist to redraw it in his specific way. [01:15:00] So it's many stuff can happen. It's not up to artists all the time. It's not up to scientists. Sometimes your research is amazing. It's everything is perfect, but something major happened and they want to publish it.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so, I mean, it sounds like then there are some artists who work specifically for, or who are hired by specific journals on a regular basis. Is

Ella Marushchenko: in some journals.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: you would prefer, or do you prefer like working with the scientists on individual projects each time? Or, um,

Ella Marushchenko: I was never contacted by the journal to work on the regular field. So I don't know how it's working. If they're going to allow me to take other clients. Yes. I think I can do that. From my uh, ego point of view, I really want to see like, nine, 12 months of my images, like just my image on top of my image.

I don't know. I'm pretty sure there is a strict rules. If you're working for one magazine, you cannot work for other artists. I don't know if I'm agreeing with that. And depends. Again, [01:16:00] like my studio, it's big now. I don't know if one journal gonna fit all of us. So I don't know.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Um, I wanted to ask a little bit, and I don't know how easy this is to answer. But about how scientists can improve their own figures because yeah every, pretty much any article is going to include figures. And I think the vast majority of them we are going to make ourselves. I mean, often there's not that much you can change because it's just a statistical plot.

And, you know, you use a certain toolbox because it's easy to do it. You know, so a lot, lots of the cases, lots of the times or most figures are probably something where there isn't really much of a. room for improving it that much anyway. But nonetheless, I mean, we still make presentations and figures and all this kind of stuff all the time.

And my kind of overall question is kind of like, how can we basically, how can we learn to get better at this? Because basically none of us have any training in this. And yeah, let's say you can always see when [01:17:00] someone did a figure in PowerPoint and didn't change the basic settings of, you know, so basically how can we.

Yeah. How can we learn to make this better on ourselves without becoming artists or involving them directly?

Ella Marushchenko: Yes I agree because a lot of students need the images as well And not everyone want to hire or can afford to hire artists or have a time to hire artists So you have to know how to represent your article if you don't have a time So my advice gonna be there's a lot of tutorials now So if you want to is explaining everything like how to work in this program, you're going to use just the tiny tricks going to do a difference just to know about this program going to do a difference.

So first, do research about program going to you, you're going to use because for some program more tutorial, some programs are old fashioned. My second advice Try to work with the color palette more careful, because I noticed during my years, scientists love magenta [01:18:00] color, which I totally hate. This is a fake.

They love it. You can see it everywhere. Everyone wants to use magenta. This is an extremely hard color. color to work with. It doesn't combine with anything else. So if you can, try to avoid magenta. Do not try to put shadows into your images, because making a proper shadow, it's complicated stuff, and it usually makes your image look dirty. So all this shadowing, do not use it if you don't need it, if it's not about like how the physics working and stuff, do not use the shadows. So what else? Try to make your image clean because it doesn't matter if your image is fancy or not fancy, if it's a clean image, it's gonna, it's gonna make look good.

Do not try to use If you don't need to use more for some specific reason, to not try to not use more than three, four color colors, because many colors going to make it look like [01:19:00] just a salad and you're not going to see through that. What else? A lot of tutorials, a lot of people right now teaching how to do the basic image images over there.

Do not use gradient if you don't know how to use it. This is like a tool when it's a color gradient coloring, like when it's from the light blue to the deeper blue color, it's like you use it like

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: You mean like when you can select the specific combination of like

Ella Marushchenko: in the, yeah.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and color and yeah.

Ella Marushchenko: Don't use it if you don't need it. It's because usually you can see images and you can know that it wasn't indeed by artists because it's like, it's this it's Gradient from the right to the left and then it's from the left to the right and it just make images not correct.

It's Because even a tiny, stuff gonna make a difference So try to avoid these fancy steps if you don't know how to use it And definitely watch a lot of if you want to do it yourself watch a lot of tutorial how to you [01:20:00] because how to do it because I'm up 100% sure. Some someone draw it before, so you're not drawing anything extremely.

No one saw it before, especially for your article. Or you can find something similar and draw it on based of that. And a lot of stuff. Now YouTube is a bigger help, even for artists, it's an extreme help, like sometimes we watch other artists to draw something, to learn ourselves how to do it, so.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And so, yeah, basically watch tutorials or whatever on specific techniques. I mean, I guess, yeah, whatever. I don't know how. Products exactly exist for this and they're probably changed all the time anyway, and it's different for each field. Or I don't know, maybe it's fairly similar.

Ella Marushchenko: For articles, no. For articles, it's pretty much the same for us. Maybe just a bit 3D images [01:21:00] now in articles, but it's practically the same for the last 12 years, nothing changed on this field. So you're going to see someone drew it before and you can draw it step by step yourself if you want

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And so a bit broader for like design principles or that kind of thing. I mean, you mentioned some of them earlier. Don't use magenta, but um, for, yeah, I'm just curious. I mean, I don't know whether you, yeah, do you have any good resources for , learning about design in general, or is that something that you never really learned that way because you studied art?

So it was just a completely different approach to getting to

Ella Marushchenko: it. Learning design

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Well, you know, you can have You know, basically some of you, you went through something like basically what are some good principles for design? And I was just curious whether there's any materials specifically that you know of I don't know, here's the great book that like tells you the main things about whatever.

Ella Marushchenko: No, I, I don't think I can recommend you something like that because like for me, it's a problem. I, people asking me this question, can I read [01:22:00] something to understand it? Or can I, do you have specific book you can refer to on the basic stuff, how to use a color palette or how to do, maybe one day it's going to be some books published, how to do a cover, how, what mistakes you're going to evade, but now, right, right now it's not exist and I'm not searching for that because I do have a hard background and it's more easy for me on this field.

Yeah,

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: through introductory textbooks. Yeah yeah, I mean, so I believe you've, you asked this question fairly frequently, so we might as well cover it here as well.

How does one become a scientific illustrator? I guess your path is maybe a bit, it's not exactly the direct path to it. But yeah, how would you, what are some like first steps people can take?

Ella Marushchenko: But because I think I, it's a favorite question. Every time when people met me, how to became scientific, how I want to be scientific, what steps I have to do. I do recommend to attend art classes please. Like some, any kind of art [01:23:00] even a simple background going to give you knowledge what to avoid how to do image looking 3d.

If you're doing, if you're using 2d. 2D tools. If you do have an art background it's more complicated, but usually artists not try to go to this field because you need someone to explain your scientist ideas and everything. So it's mostly scientists who ask me this question. So only my recommendation is going to be, please attend art classes, start to draw to yourself, start to draw to your friends.

It's a first step. You're going to, Everyone gonna ask you and you can do that. So that's why you're gonna have some practice doing that. Do not try to jump something bigger than you can do. Because people try to start with the covers and asking why it's not accepted because you don't have these skills to do this stuff anymore.

So try to start like really slow and give it a time because it's taken, it took me 15 years. To be here [01:24:00] and it's definitely not gonna take you like one year or something to give yourself time. Give yourself credit I think that's art especially for articles. It's Not a simple one, but with the right amount of time right amount of knowledge.

You definitely can do that It's not like everyone start drawing me suddenly Everyone think they're gonna open program and program gonna do everything and then they get Disappointed and just I'm not going to do that. It's too complicated. It's not too complicated if you give yourself time, if in, if you're going to study hard, so this is, it's only advice I can give.

There is no other side road. You cannot avoid doing art without doing art. Program not gonna do it for you. There is no magical program I can recommend. Anyone, everyone think that I do have some more magic program I keep in secret and I just basically tell my program how to create and it's doing that.

No, I don't. I use every other tool that you can use. [01:25:00] Some of them are free. Some of them you have to pay. But you cannot avoid being artist without doing art. So it's only my advice.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Would you recommend starting with digital stuff or learning it classically, learning the classical foundations and

Ella Marushchenko: Classical foundation gonna take you a while if you don't want to be like classic art if you don't want to draw it by your hand or you don't want to do this like a cartoonish style. We do have different In our studio, like a mouses and people, if you don't want to do that, if you want to do 3d images, like animation and stuff you don't need to do because to learn it technique, how to draw people, characters and everything is going to take you a while.

It's a, it's a. you need to add degree for that. So for 3D images you have to have a lot of practice, of course you have to have a lot, you have to learn stuff, but this stuff you mostly [01:26:00] can, for basic stuff you can learn at home, you don't have to attend university.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay. Uh, So at the end of each episode, I ask my guests the same three questions. The first one is what's a book or paper you think more people should read? I guess in your case, you can also make it a painting or whatever you want.

But usually I, you know, yeah, book or paper you think more people should read. And Usually it doesn't matter whether it's famous or unknown or old or new just something you would recommend people

Ella Marushchenko: are people to read. The problem is I don't read scientific papers as much

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, it doesn't have to be

Ella Marushchenko: avoid it.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean some people will recommend a novel some people recommend whatever Yeah, I mean whatever.

Ella Marushchenko: am, I'm a child who grew up in Russia. So I'm more in the Russian suffering poetry. My favorite is going to be master and Marguerite. So this is, but it's extremely complicated, I guess, to understand.

It's a, has I

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: So who's the author of that again?

Who wrote that again?

Ella Marushchenko: Bulgakov. It's a Russian mastermonger. I [01:27:00] think it's a lot of movies right now based on top of it, so you can

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I'll put a

Ella Marushchenko: my favorite one. So it's making sure, yes, Bulgakov. I just I pronounced it in the Russian way to pronounce it. So it's probably confusing for people.

So it's about more that evil cannot be evil without good and good cannot be good without evil. So it's and it's really, it's about artist. It's about poet who's suffering. So, and I'm Russian. So I love to read this, all these books, how to suffer with dignity. So this is my recommendation. I don't read anything else.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Perfect. Yeah, I mean, also that's like a classic that I've heard about a lot, but never read, so maybe this is a motivation to actually do it. Um, Second recurring question is what's something you wish you'd learned sooner from your private or work life, whatever you want. Just something where you think, you know, if I'd learned that a bit earlier, that probably would have helped me out.

If you can also maybe how you learned it [01:28:00] or how you know How you implemented what you learned to basically or change your behavior

Ella Marushchenko: I usually, if I want to learn something, I get rid of that and immediately start learning. One stuff I didn't learn early, it was English. I didn't learn it. And now I hired a tutor to get rid of my accent Russian accent. I, it's, it was too harsh. So now I'm practicing my English without accent. And I do have a tutor, finally.

It's taken me 10 years because everyone was telling me that my accent is good. But when I was listening to that, it was awful. So it's, I think it's the only one and I wish I probably, I started, I was not so old fashioned and start to do digital art early because digital art is, we cannot avoid it.

It's going to be our future and it's still, it's now. It's everywhere, so I think I wish I can learn it early. But most of the time, if I want something, I immediately [01:29:00] start learning it Don't hold it back. Because I do have this urgent feeling in me. I need it. I want it. Give it to me now. I don't wait.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay final question yeah, usually this is just because I Recently finished my postdoc. Usually the question is any advice for people on this stage I don't know whether you can say too much about that specific question But you can take it in a bit more metaphorical way if you want to so people who are you know going from one You Not exactly stage, let's say one stage of their career to the next.

And, you know, you can make a change, you can change field. You can also decide, actually, I'm going to leave science completely, whatever you want. Um, but yeah, just any advice for people in that kind of

Ella Marushchenko: Advice for people with PhD from the person without PhD. I heard it tough. Good luck. That's only my

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: No. I mean, like it's let's say. I mean, in a way, yeah, again this can, you know, it's not necessarily about PhD postdoc per se, but you can also take it as you know, people who go from [01:30:00] one thing to a different thing. I mean, in a sense, for example, you going from traditional art to digital art or something like that I don't know.

Ella Marushchenko: tough. It's now it's gonna be all these cheesy words like to not be afraid and stuff like you can do that My past was bumpy long with a lot of suffering so Wasn't easy. So I don't know. I'm actually I'm the Last person you have to ask because I'm terrifying of doing any kind of changes and I'm not gonna lie to listeners I'm the person who is going grocery shopping in a specific day, and I don't like to change it So for me changing career, it's It's extreme.

I know a lot of people in my in, around me doing that, and I'm extremely proud of looking at them. Can I do that? No, probably not. I'm not gonna lie. I'm gonna, even, I'm not gonna have a work in a scientific illustration. I'm still gonna keep doing art. I'm not gonna change it because it's who I am [01:31:00] and I cannot, Teach people how to do something I'm not capable like I'm I cannot lie.

Honestly, I'm probably if I'm gonna lose my job I'm still gonna give gonna do some kind of art without payment and someone else have to pay bills for me I do have a twin sister. It's gonna be her bargain, but

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: She's praying that your career works out. Yeah.

Ella Marushchenko: probably that's why she followed me and likes and like constantly send me like, try to up my Instagram, hoping that she's not going to be one who's supporting me.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, she knows who's gonna have to support you if your career doesn't work out.

Ella Marushchenko: So there's no I know it's tough and I never did it, so I cannot just say something. to

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Okay, I mean, that's fair enough. I mean.

Ella Marushchenko: At least I'm honest. I'm not gonna give this whole speech. You can do that. Work hard and don't be afraid. Be afraid. It's scary. I know. not doing that for that [01:32:00] reason.

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: so those are closing words. Be afraid, it's scary out there.

Ella Marushchenko: Yeah. Advice from the

Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Thank you all for listening.

Ella Marushchenko: Yes.