Drawing

I rediscovered my passion for drawing last night, when i should have been studying. But, i was sitting in front of a window, and the window is so reflective, and the pen that i should have been holding is actually a mechanical pencil, and... yeah.

So what came out was this:


Anyway, went home and fooled around a bit, dug up some old concept art photos as a reference. Wasted an hour merrily.






Also redid an old character concept, shown here as the before and after. If you can't tell which one is before and which one is after i will go lock myself in a room and cry.


Perhaps i should go into a bit of my "art history" here. I used to hate art. Can't draw for nuts. For some asinine reason my Pendidikan Moral teacher in primary school wants us to draw out those little diagrams that belies a moral conundrum (to cheat or not to cheat?), and i would always run to my dad to help. Then my mom would break out the tracing paper, and... but thats another story. The point is, i can't even draw inane Pendidikan Moral figures.

All that changed during secondary school. I met two friends, and we sat around each other. And secondary 1 (we call it Form 1. go figure) is very care free. So carefree, in fact, that we spent all day playing paper games and erasers and nametags. All sorts of games. And when one of us won, we'd do little street fighter figures of one person kicking the other persons ass on paper. And we'd make distinctions on characters; friend A's character is blond and has a white headband. My character has black hair, white head band and black shorts. Friend B's character wears a cap. And so on.

As our figures grew more and more elaborate, so did our skill with anatomy. Somehow we'd branch into micro comics, 16 squares or so, of one person fighting the other with unique skills (salted fish attack! micro wave sound sonic boom attack! jelly attack! Cincao drink attack! Saliva attack! Middle finger attack!), and from there we made up entire heroes and villains, fantasy landscapes and resident monsters (inspired directly by pokemon. Ahhh, pliable young minds).

Come second year of secondary school, one of them has already stopped drawing. Perhaps, having outgrown this childish business of fantasies and cute little sidekick monsters. But i never stopped. Been on hiatuses, yes, but never stopped. Somehow the notion of drawing something, an entire universe,shaping thought into paper.. it was exhilarating. Joined the art club during my 4th year in secondary school, and some years later, here i am.

I was actually feeling pretty smug about myself, until i met a friend of mine this year. She has been drawing for only 2 years, and has now commisions and what not. In fact, she will be selling art in the Melbourne anime convention called "Manifest" tomorrow. Even has a deviantarts account. Go check it out.

If some of you are already snickering from the fact that all these has its origins from a single-minded, juvenile urge to gloat in front of schoolmates from a paper game victory, then you'd be right.

But i don't regret a single bit of it.