Profile

Hi there — I'm Ines Benabida, a French-Moroccan self-taught illustrator and the artist behind Studio Zbils, based in Boston, MA.

My story is a little unconventional. I've spent the majority of my adult life as an industrial pharmacist and innovation strategist — a career that feeds my love of science, complexity, and problem-solving. But underneath it all, there was always an artist waiting. When I was five or six years old, I started drawing and never really stopped wanting to. Art was the dream I kept on a shelf, promising myself I'd come back to it someday.

Someday came in 2020. When the world slowed down during the pandemic, I finally took the leap and created my Instagram page to share my work publicly for the first time. What started as a way to document my progress quickly became something much more meaningful. The isolation and uncertainty of that period poured directly into my illustrations — and I discovered that drawing wasn't just a hobby. It was how I processed the world.

In 2023, I took a deliberate break from my professional career to fully immerse myself in my craft — deepening my skills, developing my style, and giving my creativity the space it had always deserved. That year of focus laid the foundation for what came next: in 2024, Studio Zbils was born as a way to turn a lifelong passion into a small business, built around illustration, content creation, and storytelling.

My visual language lives at the intersection of comics and graphic design. I love drawing humans, monsters, and aliens — vivid, expressive characters that feel alive on the page. I'm inspired by the masters of Japanese manga and anime: the unsettling genius of Junji Ito, the atmospheric weight of BLAME!, the warmth and wonder of Studio Ghibli. East Boston, the neighborhood I've called home for years, also shows up in my work — its streets, its texture, its everyday scenes — as a grounding backdrop to characters that are anything but ordinary.

At the heart of everything I make is a simple belief: that a great illustration starts with an emotion, and a great story starts with an idea. My goal is to bring joy and soul to whoever encounters my work — and to show that it's never too late to follow the thing you've always loved.

I'm always open to commissions, collaborations, and conversations. Feel free to explore the portfolio, check out the store, and reach out — I'd love to hear from you.

I'm passionate about inspiring others and transforming day-to-day situations into crazy illustrations. Please feel free to explore my work and join me on this journey of reimagining our lives through a unique fusion of graphic design and comic character design.