My art journey

It was the start of middle school when I really got into doing art stuff, mainly drawing. I drew a lot of cats, Pokémon, cute monsters, and simple anime/video game characters. Around that same time, I got intrigued with anime and story-driven games; Yu-gi-oh!, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Sailor Moon, Naruto, Bleach, etc.… to name a few. I imitated their art style, getting my favorite characters to look how they would on the shows. I loved how colorful and lively the characters looked in anime, and I wanted that same feel for my own as well.

I was mainly drawing characters for animes I’ve seen; till my senior year of high school, I branched into creating my own characters. My style then was still very anime-like, with big eyes and over-the-top hairstyles.

Around 2015, not too long after playing Fallout 4, I shifted away from anime-styled characters and into a surreal style to fit closer to how Fallout characters looked. I also got into posting on Tumblr a lot and drawing characters for Fallout to get myself seen. Unfortunately, people only wanted to see Fallout content and were never interested when I shifted my focus to drawing original artwork.

My relationship with posting my artwork on social media sites has been mixed. I feel like I’ve been jumping from site to site just for people to see me and the stuff I draw. From DeviantArt to Facebook, to Tumblr, then back to Facebook with Instagram and Twitter mixed in. There was minimal traction on anything I posted on all of them, except for Fallout 4 fan art, but that was pretty much it.

I do understand that drawing should be for me and the experiences I have while drawing. Although it does suck when I put so much heart into a drawing and want other people to share how excited I am about it, all I get are a few likes and no comments.

2017 was a slow art year for me; I didn’t draw much, and the drive to draw anything wasn’t there.

I did get my drive or inspiration back when I started playing Dungeons and Dragons with a group of friends. I’ve enjoyed drawing my and the groups’ characters for our campaign from then to now. I also love thinking up new characters and crafting interesting backstories for them, maybe playing them in a future tabletop game or finally getting around to writing a story. My art style now would be a mix of anime and surreal, with no big eyes or overly-detailed features, just a nice balance of both.

I still struggle with the lack of engagement on my posts and learning how to put myself out there without feeling needy or desperate. Hopefully, making this website, also writing blogs will help me and make it more accessible for new people to view my art.

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Here's a collection of self-portraits I've done, starting from 2009 to 2021.