Art Development
Added 2023-11-22 16:26:15 +0000 UTCBeyond crayons
My first serious attempts to learn art started at the age of 10, and lasted for a bout 1-2 years until my teachers convinced me that I would never make money with art. To be fair, in the age of smart phones, one could hardly make a living by drawing portraits from life/photos.
Anime
Besides life drawing and copying photos, my other venture was copying anime characters and drawing fanart of my favourites. I slowly stopped educating myself though. (Pls don't judge me.)
Mature art
I started quiet early, but I was extremely shy back then (and I mean towards myself too), so it was mostly to entertain people around me. I had very little idea about anatomy. (I have a nude Grimmjow, a Grimmjow x Neliel and a nude Greed laying somewhere around, haha.)
Getting serious
Even though anime has been a serious influence on my art since the age of 10, when I seriously started to think about making a living with art, my rationality made me gravitate towards Western fantasy. After learning the basics, when I switched to digital art, my training targeted semi-realism, especially because of the expectations of my chosen field (Western game design). I got obsessed with depicting anime characters in a semi-realistic style.
Art School
I was shocked to experience that they didn't teach any technical skills at the art school I worked so hard to get in. To this day, even after graduation, I can say with full conviction that I'm 99.9% self-taught. The only thing I learned art school is the iterative concept art process.
Working and doing school assignments were draining but I was on another mission as well: I didn't want to give up on anime fanart. I wanted to figure out what the best way was for me to present my ideas for others. I was still obsessed with semi-realism, but I slowly forgot why. Or maybe the main reason didn't exist anymore, as I found that making games is not what makes me the happiest, but the connection and shared enthusiasm when doing an art commission or drawing popular characters.
Then, after years of searching, the solution hit me in the form of a question: what type of fanart do I like the most? And why not create something like that?
I deeply admire skilled fanartists who offer fans a new take on their favourite characters. However, I had to admit that to me the real magic happens when the characters keep their original features (ie. the level/nature of stylisation). There are still plenty of freedom left in the style of shading.
My art started to lean towards this at the end of 2021, but then school started to get serious so I barely had time to do any anime fanart. Not to mention that they seriously discouraged doing anything other than painting and Western-style art.
After graduation, I kept developing my anime art skills and refining my style as a hobby, while continuing work as a commission artist. Then, at some point, I built up the courage to start to share things on social media. Now I'm here.
