Heyo everyone! I'm Cj! To celebrate me reaching 300 potatoes yesterday, I'm gonna be a thread discussing how my art went from the first pic to here to the second pic!

Strictly speaking, my art journey started when I was in grade 6. Back then, I used to heavily trace or reference art. I wouldn't call this the true start of my art journey since I never made any art I could call my own. This was back in 2017. Here are some w/ their reference!

I, of course, do not claim those drawings as my own works! They are simply shadows of my past and depending on how you see it, the start of my art journey.

Back then, my mom knew I had some mild interest in drawing. One day I jokingly asked her if he could buy me a drawing tablet so I can draw using my laptop. Come Christmas Day of 2018, she would finally give it to me!

This drawing is the first-ever drawing I made with it! I had absolutely no idea what I was doing! I believe I was using Fire Alpaca at the time. I didn't know anything about pen pressure and line weight so my lines were such a mess!

At the time, it didn't matter to me though. To me, this was the true start of my art journey! I started researching different drawing apps I could download for free and started watching a lot of digital speed paints on youtube to learn my way through a lot of these things

At this point I knew absolutely nothing. Anatomy, color theory, shading. I just knew I wanted to draw and I wanted to learn how to get better! So by January of 2019, I started drawing! I kept jumping between different art programs. Krita, Fire Alpaca, A free trial of photoshop

However on my Bday, Jan 12, I was able to celebrate with my best friend @lysa_rc_ in her apartment! At the time she already had more experience than me with a drawing tablet and just digital art in general. I had asked her to show me the ropes

I also asked her for a program recommendation. This is how I started using the art program I'm using now, Clip Studio Paint! She was also able to help me with this drawing to celebrate! I remember she did most of the work on the hair. In a sense, this was our first collab!

Honestly back then, that drawing was one of the coolest drawings I had ever seen. Looking back though, there was so much for me to improve on XD

I was just getting more excited at the time though! I kept drawing and messing around with CSP! January was also the year I made 4 of my OCs: Eclair, Tromiel, and the gay couple Shay and Jane!

February was the first month I made a drawing with actual backgrounds?? It was fan art for the Vocaloid song Dear Doppelganger! I remember being really proud of this piece! It took me around 7-8 hours and I even posted a speedpaint of it! It was my favorite work for a long time.

(here's the speedpaint )

I still didn't have a full grasp of line art and shading haha. I had lines overlapping everywhere and I was using such a big brush for my lineart. Nonetheless this drawing still let me experiment with different layer effects!

Nothing much happened in March. I believe I was busy with school since all of our final exams and project deadlines were starting to pile up. I *did* however, make my first perspective drawing that's somewhat dynamic?

By April, I was able to start drawing more again! By then I was trying to change my art style a bit more. My major project by this time was making sticker designs for my class to sell for our school fair!

I made these stickers! At the time I was trying to go for a more realistic approach to my art. They're humanised designs of Philippine Mythological creatures Bakunawa and Balathrysti! Their designs were a collaboration with @riraining and @howswe!

Nothing major happened in May and June in terms of my art style. I decided to go back to my anime-inspired art style for a bit but that's it

July though is when I felt a spark for more realistic drawing again! I had discovered what Art Fight was and it got me drawing a lot more! I think in this phase of my journey I learned about anatomy more because I was doing a more realistic style of drawing. (Not my characters)

While trying realism was fun, it didn't feel like it was what I wanted to do. And thus, I went back to my stylized drawing style! September was the month I slowly started to add more bright/popping colors as I do now!

It was also around this time I started trying to practice more drawing from real life so I got references online and started practicing

I was also practicing how to draw hands since I really hated drawing hands >:0 (still do)

Here are some of the sketches I can still find

Nothing major really happened after this. I just kept drawing and practicing until the end of 2019. Here are some works from October to December

Unfortunately come 2020, I experienced the longest burnout I ever had. I honestly thought 2020 would have been the end of my drawing career and that I would officially stop drawing.

Through some encouragement from friends and my Chem teacher though, I started drawing again in February. I tried to keep my concept of playing with colors like I did back in 2019.

I took a break again in March since I still wasn't feeling it but come April I came back to the full swing of things! My drawing of Jiro from BNHA is what I think was the peak of me playing with colors again!

I also went back to practicing my drawings from real life starting May!

May was also when I started becoming active again here on Twitter!

Now we come to the present, June! I'm still trying to play with colors! I'm trying to make my shading more detailed too! I've opened my commissions for the first time and actually got some clients! I've also tried pushing to do more perspective drawings!

Honestly it feels weird to know I've been drawing since 2019. It's only been around a year and a half? It feels way longer already hahaha~
I've heard a lot of people say that my improvement was so fast. I also know that there are other artists my age who feel like--

they'll never improve. To those artists who feel like you won't improve, no matter what your age, let me tell you this. Just keep drawing. Everyone improves at their own pace. There's no need to be pressured at the pace other artists are going at.

Consistently drawing as often as possible is an absolute guaranteed way to improve. Don't compare your work to other artists. If anything, compare your drawings now to your older works! Did it get better? Yes? Good Job! Keep Going! No? Study your drawings and find out why--

they might look worse. Learn from your mistakes! Don't be afraid to experiment! Learn to be happy of YOU and YOUR PROGRESS! You're an artist! You can make SOMETHING out of practically NOTHING! If you think about it like that, then you're already really amazing!

If you think you need validation that no one's been giving you, jump into my DMs! I will give you your long due validation!

Remember to take the breaks you need too! Rest is important and you might injure yourself if you keep drawing 24/7

Everyone has their start. If you think someone could get encouragement to continue drawing through this art journey thread of mine go ahead and share it!

Thank you for reading to the end of my thread and being with me as I talk about my art journey!