How I got into drawing

Throughout middle and high school, I had always taken some interest in drawing or doodling in my spare time. I would see something (usually a video game) that I found inspiring, and mess around with an idea in the margins next to my class notes. I even did a few digital drawings using a mouse as my brush (having drawn a paper sketch as a basis beforehand). In the fall of my senior year of high school, I finally decided to get a drawing tablet as I figured drawing could help me relax and work through the various social and academic stresses of being a high school senior. This context is what has set the path for my drawing practice.

My main strategy for practicing and improving at drawing over the last few years has been a focus on what I like to call free-draw (drawing with minimal tools and without any reference images). For these drawings, I might absorb ideas or aesthetics from elsewhere, but when it comes time to actually draw I start with only a blank canvas and a concept in my mind as for what I want to try and create. I went through a few different ideas for characters in my experimenting with the new tablet, and I finally landed on a couple of designs which I liked, some original and others taken from a selection of media sources. From then on, I would use these character concepts as a means to build skill, since it removed the first and most difficult question to ask whenever drawing: what to draw. This allowed me to focus on improving my mechanical skill, and I would typically choose one or two different aspects to focus on with each drawing I made (whether it be shading, posing, linework, color choice, etc...). In parallel with this, the character concepts I created evolved and clarified into something more and more complete over time, and the entire progression of these characters (and my skill at drawing them) is documented over time.

Using this strategy I have become moderately proficient in drawing character poses, facial expressions, hands, etc... and somewhat decent at drawing backgrounds as well.

In addition to this, I have occasionally dabbled in converting my digital media into physical items like posters, stickers, or patches. For example, I used the drawing on the left to get my first experience programming a CNC embroidery machine.