My Deviantart Story.

Almost 7 years ago on October 13th, 8 days short of my 13th birthday, I remember joining deviantart and being completely in awe of all the amazing artwork I saw on the front page. Deviantart was filled with so many artists that were so much better than me at everything and producing work that, at the time, looked absolutely like something from a professional artists' pen to me. I think that's what set the bar for quality of art that has compelled me to push myself over and over to improve my art to where it is now.
Incidentally it also intimidated me to the point where I didn't post anything until 2009.

This picture was my first digital painting and first drawing I had ever used proper reference for. I was so very happy with this picture and so many people told me it looked so real that I was radiating proudness. Now I can obviously tell that it's not that it has so much room for improvement but all the nice words were a big deal at the time. It was also featured on some sort of unofficial daily deviantion thing but I can't remember which one exactly and I can't find anything about it in my message history or the comments.




Towards the end of 2010 I also drew this picture. It was originally meant to be a cover for a fan comic I was going to do for the first book in the Warrior Cats series and even though that never went anywhere this picture was so well received by the 1000 odd people who saw it, I still remember it fondly and continue to contribute to the Warriors fandom, now even more avidly than ever. Looking at my older deviantions it was also shocking to see how much I had improved in a year.

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Between the early spring and middle of 2011 I hit a rough patch and my life changed drastically. I also slid into a depression that I'm still pulling myself out of today. It probably shows in my lack of productivity. Nevertheless 2011 was also a year when again so many new friends and I was finally even proud of my cosplays and I think if anything 2011 broke off my weeaboo phase and set me on a path of actually maturing into a human being who doesn't make me want to cringe every time I think about it.

2012 was art wise a good time for me. I finally learned to adjust hue and saturation in my drawings so they didn't come off as screaming parades of over-saturated eye-sores. I was again improving at a good speed and thanks to video games I finally started focusing on human anatomy as well. I don't have much to show for that because I didn't post most of my art here but I decided to pull up one of my most popular deviantion from that time.



Fan art inspired by the controversy over the teaser of the newly announced turian character for Omega DLC.  I'm still very proud of this picture and I'm happy to know it's only a 1000 views short of my most popular one. Maybe one day it will hopefully overtake it. I haven't done much fanart for video games for this one but I do so plan to one day.

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Skip to 2013. I post the deviantion that I still think is my favourite out of the ones I've posted here, so far. Although I've improved so much since then I still can't help admiring how much better it is than anything I had posted until then. I was so proud of the fact that it actually looked complete and there's not much I could do to make it any better without drawing it again.



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2009                           2014

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Now in 2014, 6 years, 10 months and 1 day after joining Deviantart I find myself as an unemployed adult almost out of my teens drawing day in and day out. I now find myself taking art more seriously than ever and my art has improved so much since when I started. A lot of the drawings I was in awe of years ago now look average to me and I now know better than to use the word "professional" to describe outstanding art. I still do however continue to find art on deviantart that inspires me to strive for improvement. That drive has caused me to work so hard and I still keep improving thanks because of that.
I just hope there never comes a day when I lose that drive and stop evolving as an artist.