Nuki News #34: Where it Began (2010 - 2013)

So! I’m gunna do a 3-parter Nukinews going over the last 10 years and my relationship with art; starting from when I was 17 to now, when I’m 27. Honestly wonder how I’d feel, if I got to meet 27 year old me, and see what I was doing and capable of doing now! I think it’s very safe to say I’m so glad I started drawing when I did, so let’s start at the beginning and work our way to the end of 2013!

I used to draw frequently as a kid; and I remember I had a strong ability to copy what I saw. Teachers were often impressed with my artistic ability, and I always attributed it to somehow inheriting it from my great grandmother, who was a painter. She was the only tie I had in my family to the arts. But when I got to 5th grade, I noticed a change...it seemed as if classmates also were able to draw pretty well, even though they don’t seem to draw much at all! This demoralized me, and made me realize I “wasn’t that special after all”. Haha, a childish mindset to be sure- it was the one thing I held onto as my identity at the time so when it seemed like just anyone could draw without much effort, I gave up. I remember my mom being shocked at my announcement that I don’t want to be an artist anymore. I still did draw, but...a lot less; it just became rudimentary doodles and’ stick figures in note books in class, and stayed that way just until 2009.

Around summer of that year, I discovered the internet! Or well, I found creative communities like SmackJeeves(a now defunct webcomic site) and DeviantArt. People...talking to each other over the internet?? Posting art? Making comics you post on the web?? Talk about a game changer! I stumbled upon this because I was looking up my favorite pokemon, Raichu, on google. I don’t remember why, just bored and being a kid I guess. But I found a pokemon webcomic made by an artist who I’d later become fast friends with! In our interactions, I’d end up mentioning “I wish I could draw like you” or “if only I could draw…”. I was finding more cool pokemon webcomics and creative ideas; even though i stopped drawing years ago, I always had these stories in my head, relating to pokemon, using Pokemon as a replacement for humans because I found them much more compelling/interesting since Pokemon was such a strong influence on me growing up. So seeing others do it, it just made me long for the ability to do so myself!

So one fateful day, after the 100th time of typing up something stupid like “It’s too bad I can’t draw, because if I did..” my friend stopped me. She quite literally told me to “quit spending money on stupid videogames and buy a damn tablet.” At first, it stung to have her be so harsh! She was a rather blunt person, normally, but I tended to stay on her good side when I could. But I gave it some thought before I replied. And I realized, she was right! Why don’t I just get a digital tablet and start drawing my own comics?

So I did- I began my Journey after Christmas in 2010 with a Wacom Bamboo Pen drawing tablet, and over the christmas break I plotted and wrote up a story I wanted to make, called Pokemon Beta. I got to update it once a week, and surprisingly managed to do so consistently over the next 3 years. I think every time I finished a chapter(which ranged from 10-20 pages) I’d take the next month off to plot out the next chapter. I was learning, experimenting, and improving gradually. I know when artists look back at their work, it’s common to feel a sense of ‘ugh, gross!’ but I am pretty happy to see these pages, to look at where I started. Though I say that and have to bite my tongue- because I was planning on showing you guys examples of my work from these early years and...yeah no, I’m too embarrassed. If you’re REALLY interested, you can actually read this old comic yourself here(and poke around my old DeviantArt page), buuuut it’s by no means a required reading, hahaha:

https://www.deviantart.com/the-b3ing/art/Pokemon-Beta-Cover-161891843

After I graduated highschool in 2012, I was very determined to be serious about being an artist! So, I began filling my summer free time with practicing and drawing daily! Eventually I did something that I thought was SO amazing(well, for me at the time) drawing 1,000 figure drawings! Spending about a minute or two drawing a person in a pose. This exercise was 3-fold; get me drawing faster, understanding human anatomy, and of course building up a habit and stamina for drawing. By the end of it though, while I was proud, it showed me how BIG and long the road of being an artist really was. I had only scratched at the surface of the pavement.

I’d continue to work on practice sessions like that; going for 1,000 animals next, then a coupla hundred hands, feet, heads, paintings, backgrounds. This built up a habit in me that I never had to truly suffer with ‘art block.’ Basically, if I never knew what to draw, I’d just go back to figure drawing until something more interesting came to mind, and it’s held up to this day. Thankfully, my saving grace that kept me from becoming trapped into thinking I’d have to be a fine artist or something lame and not-me was the fact I kept up with my pokemon comic and the community I found myself in on DeviantArt. Balancing out art practice on real-life subjects, and then going to work on my comic fueled by imagination every week I think helped a great deal in developing my art style and bridging the gap of what I learned in practice to executing in imagination.

I won’t blabber too much more this week- for my art journey from 2014 to 2017 tune in next week! I hope this was at least interesting to see where I began though; to say my art changed significantly would be understating, hahah. But we all have to start somewhere, and from that point we can find our path.