How did you get into creating art?

[Kotone]

How did you get into creating art?

how did you find out that you like creating artwork?
did someone help you discover your talent?
what kind of artwork did you first begin with? do you still use that kind of media?

I found out that i enjoyed doing artwork when i was little. I would always paint and sew with my grandma. When I was in middle school, i was on another forum and saw people making stuff in gimp. I thought if i could do artwork why couldn't i do it on the computer? I started out with gimp for a couple years and now i use photoshop!

 

[Nina]

My parents say that I like to draw and what not when I was little, but I don't consider it more than the normal kid creativity, as they didn't comment on this until AFTER I said I wanted to be an artist.

To be honest, I stumbled into actually wanting to create art as a life thing. I drew anime things, but because I wanted an artist, but because I want to draw the characters I had created in my head, or I wanted to give gifts to friends. I just drew because that's how I expressed my ideas and talked about anime, not because I particularly wanted to be good at it. I honestly didn't have that much foresight as a kid.
I just used mechanical pencils and colored pencils on cardstock paper. I started messing around with copics and a really early drawing tablet on photoshop elements (I did CSS HTML and banners and what not for neopets or xanga), and just did that for awhile. I never really thought about what I wanted to do in the future.

It wasn't until 8th grade I think, when I was taking an early morning class in the Macromedia Suite. (Which was bought by Adobe. Things like Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver.) During this course my teacher thought I was very very good with the computer in terms of learning code with a combination of making graphics, so wanted to have a meeting with my mother and the art teacher about becoming a Graphic Designer. I was really surprised, and really appreciative now that instead of just thinking I might be good with something, he wanted to sit down and talk to me about the future.

At that time I wasn't doing anything else and I thought...well yeah I like this stuff! So I started looking for schools that had a better art program because I was going to a Math and Science school, and changed grades there. I was set on becoming a graphic designer, but later I figured out I like Illustration more, though I do have a decent design sense still. Once I began to learn about art it really changed the way I looked at the world, and I could never go back to how it was before!!

Obviously I still do pencil drawings and it's the basics, but even though I own colored pencils I rarely use them.

 

[Fairy]

I've been drawing for as long as I can remember! It's always been my method of expressing myself and making myself whole; whether I knew it or not. It wasn't until later in life that I decided this is something I want to pursue seriously, though. Before then I always just picked up a pencil without considering what it could potentially mean for my future. It always just made me happy, and I never gave it much thought beyond that.

My parents were of course supportive of my art, but never really helped me discover it or pushed me to further it. I was left to my own devices, really, and when I showed interest in taking classes or attending galleries my parents responded with positive indifference. It really stemmed from my own encouragement that I realized I had a talent for art.

Now art is something I actively make time for and commit serious thought to. I strive to improve and create, beyond what innately comes from me. I started with basic things, landscapes and still life, and anything else that spewed from my childish brain. It was all I knew at the time. When things like Pokemon came into my life, I was quick to pick it up! I loved how exciting and different each Pokemon was, and the entire game offered a plethora of creative pools for me to dip into. From that point anime and video game inspired works became what I drew primarily. Though I still took the time to draw realistically and pick up more complex mediums.

Idk, art was always just in me, and though I can make a long story of it there's not much more to say on the matter.

 

[Skip Class]

Been drawing as long as i could hold a pencil, however most things creativity-wise just happened I guess haha.
Most of the graphics started here at PC when I saw people doing the coolest stuff here and I wanted to do the same. My only restriction was only having Photoshop elements at the time - prior to that I was GIMP as well.
Around the time I started art classes at college when I was 12, I stepped up my game with traditional and then by 16 I transferred my traditional works to digital when my parents bought I tablet ("thinking it was cool gadget that I could use if I wanted to" - I had no idea what a tablet was until they bought me one).

Game Design was also accidental, we had a project in IT class in college where we had to make a game. Our teacher entered our games to this national competition thing and somehow my team ended up winning - pretty horrible game now that I look at it, but it kinda fired me up to think about doing game design in the future.

My parents of course were pretty supportive and now i'm taking Media Design at university.

 

[Circuit]

For me, I haven't really got into art as much as I would have liked. But it all started here, on PC. Back in the days when Dukey and Derozio were the to-be artists, I aspired to one day create tags and graphics and began working towards that, I guess. That's like, all there is to it really, kinda uninteresting, and I don't really have a history in art, since I was never blessed with the talent to realise I could do something. It's only recently that I've decided I really want to get somewhere with this, one day. But I still have many things to do before I can even step foot onto that road, so for now I am still grasping the ropes.

 

[Somewhere_]

I was never into art until the 9th grade. I didnt have any natural talent at it. MAYBE I could get could at drawing, but I dont have anyone to teach me. I took ceramic classes in the 9th grade love it! I am going to try and take some more ceramic classes over the summer.

 

[F13rC Pulse]

When I was little I simply drew to entertain myself, but rather than art, I made mazes. Eventually as the mazes got more complex with switches and thinner lines and more types of paths, I started making mazes in the shapes of different objects and made sets in the shape of things always ending with a "boss" or "final level" maze which ended up much bigger than the other pieces.

But when I made a friend who astounded me with his art I started making stick figures fight animals (because my people drawing skills never really developed) because I was inspired by him. Each page in my sketch book was a different area with different creatures for that area (medieval battlefields, pyramids, mountainous terrain, oceans, rivers, caves, volcanoes, temples, etc) with the monsters and stick figures both progressing until I decided to remake them from the start, which tends to be a habit of mine now

Eventually a friend gave me a book on drawing dragons specifically and I based some improvements to my lineart from that. Recently I've started to draw my own fakemon because I have tons of ideas floating in my head and thought it'd be cool to see if I could get anywhere with them. Now I'm using them to improve in a style I'm a little less familiar with, but enjoy when I can pull it off

 

[ZKE]

I liked drawing as a child but I never really kept up with it through my adolescence. With time I saw the advent of spriting comics and that in turn lead to sprite sites and I began the long voyage that eventually brought me around to pokemon spriting. I've been tinkering away at that for several years but I've only really begun taking it seriously in the past three years.

 

[Anastasia.R]

When I was little, Pokemon was becoming a big deal in my class - I saw the trading cards and was mesmerized by the illustrations. I also watched a friend draw, so I wanted to try it. I copied Pokemon cards until I realized "THIS IS SO MUCH FUN AND I LOVE POKEMON, I WANNA GET BETTER"

And from then on, I knew art was a thing I wanted to get better at and have present in my future. I loved animation, I loved illustrations on Pokemon cards and the designs of Pokemon. SO, YEAH, MY MIND STUCK ON ART. I took outside art classes later on in middle school, summer classes, paint school in the summer, and now I'm majoring in Illustration! Hopefully going to minor in animation as well. So, I'm pretty happy!

I also have to say: my dad did a lot of writing and painting back in the day, so I think he was really cool with me pursuing something creative. ouo​