#back when i was in school drawing i mostly didn't make ocs or fanart i just sat down and pulled characters out of my ass on the spot

[fumikomiyasaki]

A short Journey Through My Art History

2025 Almost draws near... and its been almost 12 years since I started drawing so I thought might as well share my personal story as an artist, where I came from and how things changed.

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Around the year 2012 my best friend in school looked over my random school doodles and said I had potential... she back then had a Deviantart account of herself... recommending me if I also want to join her, why not use the name of my first oc... and even if that isn't fully true cause I had an oc before Fumiko... Casey was an oc I wanted to get rid off so fast in favour of her... and so I started as a Tradtional artist that... well basically was at her start using how to Manga books and learning... I noticed Humans weren't really something I felt great with drawing but my Spagetti Anatomy...

Sonic characters... and so the very first fandom I started in was with making Sonic ocs. Slowly my friend also helped me get Paint tool sai and my first drawing Tablet which I played around with... and slowly became happy that I was able to make commisions and get myself some good art of my ocs. I had a great friendgroup I spend time with Skyping and it was a fun time.

However... eventually I noticed the usual meme of hating on Sonic kinda hitting myself... I had fun with my ocs but eventually some blogs adding them to the "bad sonic ocs" Category... kinda made me stop... looking back at them sure they were not the greatest but also only my start when I didn't know what OCs could be... and just my first attempts... Eventually I left the fandom just to get out of the Sonic zone and also get back to attempting to draw Humans again and see how it goes.

I did make much more fanart of games I loved too, testing my waters on what I could do and if I can give my favourite games and media some love.

And eventually I mostly went back to OC making over Fan ocs for the things I liked back then Like Pokemon, Kid icarus and many more.

But what really got me passionate and drawing a lot was eventually finding a small group who looked for people to Join a Nicoronpa Danganronpa fangame... and so I met the Nicoronpa group... a long lasting friendgroup that I worked on for a game with together.

It was a passion project I drew a lot for an especially the Birth of Carol being my main Sona... but eventually... things went busy... people started playing Multiplayer games and I stayed at my single players... my last bigger project was a Fire emblem Three houses House called the Green Fox... and then I seeked something bigger to do again... just to arrive at the Announcement of Octavinelle and Twisted wonderland coming in.

The Birth of Monsville, Hourglass Station Academy and around 112 or so OCs that kept me going, friends I cherish, a place where we could go wild... even if it had its down side... people who said they could tell others what they are allowed to do, Drama, people who you think you are friends with but... then drop you... It wasn't always great in this fandom like it was in some others but.... it did keep me passionate... I felt happy to make more and more inspired ocs of Games I adored with all my heart...

However sadly recently I also notice I am losing passion for it... Hence my recent change.

I went on the become multifandom and focus on the past... the times I made fancharacters to ship with Canon characters or other ocs for fun... the times I just enjoyed Yapping and Fleshing out characters...

I know thanks to work and my circumstances I am far from my old activity and the stuff I put out but... I still want to continue this journey... as a hobby artist who just does things for fun and wants to draw and write her Silly ships where she can... even if I lost and gained a lot... I sure hope that the future goes better... and things slowly calm down more.

Thank you for listening to my story.

[dians-34]

HII !!! LOVED YOUR ART ♡

do your csm ocs have lore? i'd love to read it ! (not me trying to make fanart no how would you think that nooooo of course nooooott)

HAADJKFMKLGD THANK YOUUU SO MUCH 😭😭 i dont know if i really have any good lore yet... im pretty bad at making that typa stuff i kinda just draw things lol

Orion!!

(i draw him a little differently each time dw abt it)

his pants are like- loose at the bottom so not tight fit :)) and he has like black combat boots i guess he's a whole sucker for black and white clothing hehe..

has a tongue piercing and a piercing on his right ear

he has a contract with the fox devil

likes the color white

does mma, anything to do with shooting things, and fishing

barem's right hand man (just a person to do his dirty work lol)

he's wasian, white mom (died during his birth), japanese dad (hates him for his mom's death and makes him try twice as hard because of it)

from a rich family who owns a [blank] company (i haven't decided what yet, i feel like a gun company would work but that's kinda ironic cuz yk)

he was a good child! always trying to meet his father's standards so he could do well, he wanted to be the best because he wanted his father's "love" (it wasn't really love. his father was emotionally manipulative and abusive and only gave him "love" whenever he did something in his favor or good. when he didn't he would tell him how much of a disgrace he is. only to treat him nicely again when he did something good.)

a social bird, made friend easily all throughout his school years, a popular and friendly person. he started to realize he could do whatever during his highschool years, because of his status as the sole heir to his father's company so he started to become more rebellious, going out more, skipping classes, getting drunk, but he always brought back straight A's. he became a rowdy asshole genius typa guy

closeted homo up to college years, he started really embracing his gay then. during highschool and middle school he would date women but he didn't really feel anything for them and would usually break up with them after a few months. he would make up the sweetest and most heartbreaking reasons why and they would forgive him, when in reality he really didn't care about them

his dad was suffering from heart issues as he got older, and as orion got older he grew to hate his dad, he slowly poisoned him with arsenic which led to him having a heart attack and dying!! one day he accidentally put too much arsenic into his food but he was like yknow what it's okay and then made sure to keep the maids away from his slowly decaying father, put him to bed early and tada he had a heart attack

he got away with it cause a) he’s the sole heir to the company and b) if he went to court? 💰💥💰💥💰💥

he met barem at the chainsaw church!! he was curious about it, flyers and all over town so he went to check it out. he got a tour from one of the church members before bumping into him. it was kind of a physical attraction at first, he just wanted to get into his pants. so he got a tour from barem, saying he didn't remember any of it (playing dumb blond stereotype lol). but after talking to him he was like hey wait this guy is also kind of cool and an eye opener (idk what he would've said i'll figure something out) and then he started to reeeeally take a liking to barem. he started to appear more around the chainsaw church, mostly around barem and talk to him a lot but he wouldn't join it. he didn't want to marry a woman. barem asked why he would come to the csm church if he didn't want to join it. orion was blunt and was like to see you ofc. barem was like ???.

sooner or later orion became his right hand man (i'll explain more on how later), or more of a person to just do a lot of his dirty work because he was so willing to do it. he's also willing to pay for all of barem's expenses. lol sugar daddy

ok i think im done for now but ill make like- a better doc for him i think he's like the first kind of fleshed out oc i've made in a while haha!

[oliveroctavius]

What inspires your art? Like, how did you come up with your art style, how happy you are with it and if there are any other artists that inspire you?

Asking a few people as a way to understand and grow as an artist at a crossroads. Have a good day.

This is a fun ask! Not sure how helpful my answers will be to you, but here they are.

I've honestly put little to no thought into "coming up with" an art style. I'd say that what comes out of my brain and hands is maybe only 1/3 calculated stylistic decisions, with the rest being "what is most fun for me" and "what is easiest for me". I draw a lot of faces because I enjoy caricature; I do most of it in scribbly mechanical pencil on scrap paper because that's what I usually have on hand.

My one big starting point is that when I started drawing at age ~12, I was copying characters out of The Adventures of Tintin. I learned just enough from Hergé to get simplified human figures I didn't hate and then went iteratively on from there. Mostly I just drew short humorous fancomics for myself and never colored them.

In high school I considered going into an art career, so I took art classes. At the time I thought they were fun but mostly irrelevant to the stylized character art I drew in my class notes every day... but looking back my comic art drastically improved 2015-17, so maybe I was wrong. I eventually decided I'd go into tech instead and leave art as a hobby, which I think was the right choice for me.

The closest I've ever had to a "style" was in the music fanart and OC comics I did in college. The imagery mostly came out of my own brain, and I worked out what tools were easiest and most enjoyable: multicolor sharpie pens and India ink with watercolor washes; binary or hard edged brushes on digital work that I could fill in quickly with the bucket tool. I accepted that I wasn't a great draftsman and got scribblier and more manic.

Since then I've gotten back to the world of fancomics where I try to pastiche the original inking style—I've done Jhonen Vasquez, Steve Purcell, John Romita, Jack Cole, Scott Wegener, and C. C. Beck (though that one was way too ambitious and I may never finish). But I'm not doing this because I want to absorb them into my default style, though I certainly learn things from it. I do it for the project itself, because I feel like there's a lot of characterization and world-rules built into the way different art styles depict their worlds. I have great interest in stories which use restricted or contrasting stylization on purpose to convey meaning.

It's also just fun, which is my first priority. But I do think my technical skills have been regressing a bit from lack of use + perhaps from using others' work as a crutch too often. It's a little embarrassing, but it is what it is. I'm sure the trend will reverse if/when I put more time into full pieces and daily practice again.

Oh, and I did make a list of favorite artists back in 2018 which holds up. If I had to extract some advice from this meandering post, it would be to figure out what methods and tools make your artistic workflow easier and consider how you want to make those part of your "style". That's extra true if this is something you're going to be doing for long periods of time like a job.

[fantasticalleigh]

Thanks for the tag! This is such an interesting idea and I’ve enjoyed seeing all the responses. I had to do some digging to find my oldest art and turns out i don’t remember where much of it is and i guess i haven’t backed it up anywhere so as of now some of the oldest stuff i have is from 2017/18.

OLDEST ART I CAN FIND: 2017-18

For a long time I considered myself as mostly a portrait artist. I loved drawing people's faces and had a fear and aversion to drawing full bodies. All of these are from 2018 (the black and white one might be 2017) but I wish I'd been able to find even older art than these because the skill jump was huge between high school and my first couple years in uni. In high school I never really used references when drawing and despite taking a ton of art classes I never really paid attention to the fundamentals so whatever I made would come out looking wonky. So fast forward to freshman year of uni and I really started taking that more seriously and I would find images I liked of celebrities and draw them as closely as I could. I was also dabbling in ballpoint pen drawings at the time but couldn't crack a proper technique until later.

I mainly did only traditional art until I got my first job after high school and could save up for an XP Pen drawing monitor and I started dabbling in digital art. I'd owned a pen tablet before from Wacom years before but it was also the kind that had no screen on it and I hated the experience of drawing on a blank slate but needing to keep my eyes on my laptop screen. It felt extremely unnatural so I only used it a few times and then gave up. So having a tablet with a screen directly on it opened up a whole new world for me but I really struggled with learning the ins and outs of digital art. I hated everything I was making but was determined to get better, and the most important thing was I knew I didn't want to go for the level of realism that I usually liked in traditional art. I liked doing cartoony stuff a lot too so I wanted to explore new styles through digital.

FIRST ART POSTED ONLINE

It was difficult to find the actual first art I ever posted online! I have some ancient Deviant Art accounts that probably still have that old art but I don't have the login stuff anymore ;-; I started using instagram in 2012 but sort of don't use that account on the left anymore. Once Instagram implemented AI a couple years ago I sort of nuked it and ended up deleting most of my archive on that account. I mainly use that account to message irl friends. But my earliest art on IG was all straight from my sketchbooks and most of it was like chicken scratch. Very messy, unpolished, and rushed.

I've pretty much always done tons of fan art. I drew the Draco Malfoy thing in the middle for a Dramione fic I was writing at the time--this must have been 2016 or 17... I was/am obsessed with Kylo Ren (and reylo in general) so I drew him a ton. I also was working on my own OCs (the Knight lady in the second image at the top of this post). My art professors at uni kept pushing me to get out of my box and focus on more conceptual/non fan art stuff which I found terrifying. By this point I was growing more comfortable with digital art--in 2020 I (perhaps irresponsibly) used my pandemic stimulus check to buy an ipad and apple pencil and procreate and having a smaller, more portable tablet made it so much easier to practice more often and I think that's when digital art really started clicking for me even though it took a lot longer to actually start developing my own style. I made a second art account on instagram (with this current username) to post all my fanart in since one professor told me it might be unprofessional for me to host fan art on my "serious" art account.

MOST RECENT STUFF:

The top two are admittedly from 2021 but I was and still am super proud of that entire body of work. For my art major senior 'thesis' I had to develop a body of work and set it up in an exhibition at uni. I threw myself into that and by then had really managed to nail down a good ballpoint pen technique that satisfied what I wanted to portray in my art. This process involved layers and layers of delicate hatching with ballpoint pens and it ruined my eyesight and because each piece took me so long I was experiencing wrist pain often. The whole series was supposed to be about fear and madness, hence the super garish and intense colors and weird imagery. I made like 10 or so drawings like this but I haven't really made any more ballpoint stuff since. It just takes way too long and I burnt myself out severely just completing that body of work but I'm still really proud of it. Maybe I'll return to the pens one day...

As for the digital stuff, since I graduated uni I jumped headlong into further developing my digital body of work. Most of it still is admittedly fan art but nothing else has helped me grow quite like fan art so no issue there. I've made several short and long form comics and worked on more illustrative stuff. I have other/new OCs and ships that I draw quite often when I'm not making wrestling fan art and I try to push myself to keep going out of my comfort zone. I have always haaated drawing backgrounds or ornamental stuff but for the past while I've challenged myself to really give a shit and actually put in the effort and it's slowly paying off. I'm still not 100% satisfied with where I am now but compared to where I started I think it's pretty neat :')

Ok here's a little thing i thought would fun for any artists to show off their progress at learning art (plus I'm nosey🤭).

Show off the oldest drawings you did (or the oldest that you can still find), the first things you were confident enough to upload online, and your most recent drawings and talk about them and show off how much you've progressed :)

Probably gonna end up missing some people, but I'm tagging a bunch of cool artists I follow/am mutuals with and am nosey to see how they started out, but no pressure :)

@fantasticalleigh, @thlayli-ra, @heelhausen, @stupidmarkzone, @2ndcitynightmare, @punk-o-ween, @normallypassingby, @tvheit, @seasonal-depression-of-punk

And if you wanna have a look at my old stuff, I've got it below =)

Oldest Drawings I Can Find

Of course, the first is an OC. Never did anything with her tho. Notice the lack of forehead and elbows, the arms that barely reach the hips, how indishtinguishable each part of the body is from one another. They're a perfectly smooth pole. and of course those wings. This is the first thing in my first proper sketchbook when I decided I was gonna start taking art more seriously. This would have been when i started secondary in 2014 at 11 years old. And I can't find anything from before that, since I never kept anything in a proper book/folder.

Second image is another of the first drawings in the book. It was my first closeup of a face, and also my first time drawing anime. I know I'm not the only artist who was desperate to learn to draw an anime-style as a kid. I remember doing this while on holiday, trying to follow an online tutorial, taking about 4 hours to get the outcome I did, and getting so frustrated that I couldn't get it to look right, that I was almost brought to tears. I'm pretty sure this was one of those "I'm never drawing again! >:(" moments, lol. Looking back, it was a pretty good first attempt. But I guess I was always a bit of a perfectionist, lol. Funnily enough, while I carried the anime eyes forward in my art style for years, to this day, I still can't draw a proper full anime style character.

First Drawings I Uploaded Online

I put these on insta to show my mates from school. The first picture was an attempt at a close up face with the new brush markers i'd got for christmas. This was 2017 just before i turned 14. Pretty sure I copied the design from an art tutorial book, that was supposed to be hyper-realistic (another christmas present). But I just couldn't bring that to life so just did what I could. Also, first time I used a signature. My signature's very different nowadays cos it's based on my tumblr username and not me actual name. But yeah. I was tryna get more professional I guess.

Second pic is the first full body piece I uploaded a few days later. Again, used the drawing books trying to learn how to draw flowy clothes. Think it was a book about drawing anime clothes that I used for this (another christmas present). By this point, each body part could move seperately and had joints. Also note the anime eyes, cos my simpler-but-still-anime-inspired eyes were something I stuck with a long ass time. This was the style I drew most often, and could usually do without having references (but obviously for this drawing specifically, I had the reference for the clothes). Had a lot of trouble with perspective, so all my characters faced forward, and later they would always face a 3/4 angle. And they could never lean or reach forwards cos I just couldn't get that to look right.

Most Recent Pieces

The most most recent is on the left, being my most recent closeup of a face. Still has a cartoonish edge with the lineart but much more realistic. And I'm fucking with this semi-realistic look atm. Tbh I dunno if i'd have the patience for the tiny details in hyperrealism. Also, fun story, in 2021 when I was doing my a-levels, I did an art piece that we were free to do in any style we wanted, and my teacher saw mine and was like “I wish you’d done it as realism instead of a cartoon style :(“ but it was actually my best attempt at realism and she hadn’t even realised. So I dunno, maybe I’m not cut out for realism 😂😂 I like my style rn tho so who cares

Then I got my most recent drawing of a (almost) full body. I got joints and decent hands and proportions and more body details.

Also this last year is the first time I've really got into digital. I always used to just do pen and paper. I even got a cheap drawing tablet, but couldn't get used to drawing on one surface and the image being up on a seperate screen. So I could never get the lines right. I did draw on my old ipad for a while which was easier, but the stylus was one of those with the thick rubber ball on the end, rather than a fine nib. Again, I had trouble cos I couldn't tell where it would register the contact with the screen and draw the line, which made it hard to do details. I got a new ipad a little while back that supports apple pencil, so I got one for it. And it's so much easier now that I've got a fine nib and can see where I'm drawing. I'm in love with drawing digital atm.

But yeah. That's how i've drawn over the years. Mental to see how much my style has changed and improved :) makes me feel better when I get frustrated with a drawnig and think I'm shit. Cos I know I'm getting better with each new drawing, even if it's only baby steps.

First: Now:

[blackseakraft]

Do you create fanfiction, fanart, both, or something else?

Mostly fanart, and a bit of fanfiction here and there. And a little bit of knitting too!

2. What brings you the most joy being a fandom creator?

Interacting with the community and participating in fun challenges and events! And coming up with illustration ideas that will emotionally devastate me and hopefully others!

3. Why did you become a fandom creator?

Since I was young I've done fan art of my favorite media, since I've been on the internet it's ramped up and I see it as such a wonderful way to interact with communities. Truly I feel like it's the strongest fight we have against "dead internet theory" and keeping these cultural things alive in the face of increasing corporate homogenization of the internet is so important.

4. What was the first fandom you created for?

Technically it was probably Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron when I was 10 but I also did not know what fandom was at that point. The first "fandom" I interacted with, and did multiple fanarts for, was probably The Hobbit back when the first movie came out.

5. How many fandoms have you created for (so far)?

Too many to count but as far as specific hyperfixations that motivated me to make many fanarts? Probably like 6?

6. What is your current fandom(s)?

Mostly anything to do with any of the animated Star Wars series, Bad Batch, Rebels, The Clone Wars. I still dabble in the Red Dead Redemption 2 fandom. And am always casually perusing any Dark Crystal fanart or OCs I can find here, but don't actively engage in that fandom (yet). I do have some Gelfling and Podling OCs brewing :)

7. What is your creative weakness?

Having way too many things going on at the same time, and wanting to work on all of them simultaneously! I'm atrocious at prioritizing.

8. What is your creative strength?

Being able to let go of certain specifics of whatever my original vision was and let the art tell me what it wants to be rather than trying to mold it into an "ideal" form.

9. What is your favorite trope to create for?

I LOVE a dysfunctional group of idiots who didn't choose to be together but are stuck having to figure things out.

10. What trope do you enjoy from other creators but don’t yourself?

I love reading deeply emotional turmoil and super high stakes but can’t seem to get there in my own writing without feeling like it’s sappy. And then I just lean into the fluff and cheesiness instead, which is fine by me. I also love writing shallow petty arguments between my characters too much.

11. Do you listen to music while you create? If so, what’s your go-to?

Depends on the mood! Lately I’ve been loving metal and house while I’m sketching, and something more mellow when I’m rendering.

12. What beverage fuels your creativity?

Seltzers! Especially waterloos.

13. What snack fuels your creativity?

Fancy cheese

14. What time of day do you feel most creative?

Depends on the day, but with a full time job it’s usually while I’m driving around in the morning and afternoon when I have most of my ideas. Then I come home and sometimes don’t have energy to create my ideas 😆

15. What time of day do you feel least creative?

Right before bed I try to doodle sometimes but I’m so not a night person anymore

16. What is your favorite medium to create with?

Gouache!

17. Who has inspired your creativity?

My grandma is the one who got me started with drawing and painting when I was little. I had an absolutely amazing art teacher in high school who also inspired me a lot. Classical artists like Georgia O’Keefe, Audubon, and Edward Hopper. Too many contemporary artists to count. Jim Henson is my hero when it comes to creative vision!

18. What has inspired your creativity?

It’s always been nature and whimsical storytelling!!

19. Where do you enjoy being creative the most?

I do love drawing outside as much as I can :) I’ve found that I really love writing on my phone in my parents hot tub lol and I really really love knitting on the beach.

20. What advice do you have for someone becoming a fandom creator for the first time?

Don’t worry about what you’re making being “perfect”, sometimes the art is going to want to be something different than your creative vision and if you choose to follow it special things can happen!

Thank you @kybercrystals94 for creating this!!

Help your followers get to know you a little bit better! Answer these 20 fandom creator focused questions and share them to your blog…invite your fandom creator moots and followers to do the same ☺️

Do you create fanfiction, fanart, both, or something else?

What brings you the most joy being a fandom creator?

Why did you become a fandom creator?

What was the first fandom you created for?

How many fandoms have you created for (so far)?

What is your current fandom(s)?

What is your creative weakness?

What is your creative strength?

What is your favorite trope to create for?

What trope do you enjoy from other creators but don’t yourself?

Do you listen to music while you create? If so, what’s your go-to?

What beverage fuels your creativity?

What snack fuels your creativity?

What time of day do you feel most creative?

What time of day do you feel least creative?

What is your favorite medium to create with?

Who has inspired your creativity?

What has inspired your creativity?

Where do you enjoy being creative the most?

What advice do you have for someone becoming a fandom creator for the first time?