I’ve started drawing again. And this time, I’m being compelled by a very different reason that the times I draw before.
Back in the days of yore when I first started drawing, it was under the childish assumption that eventually I’d be able to draw better stuff than everyone else, whatever that means. I had that world view when I drew the first edition of Tide of Avalance and put it on the web.
Then there was a period when I was under the wings of the URD community. I was a little older, a little wiser, but still just as arrogant as ever. I was still trying to be a crop above the rest, and I’m fiercely jealous of anyone who can draw better than me. A lot of my angst came out as “friendly critiques”… I’d take anything that’d knock my opponents down a notch save for admitting that someone is by all means better than me.
The crazy summer of 1999-2000 put an end to that era, and off to college I went. There I met a crew that’s quite intoxicated with Anime – the recent stuff, the good stuff, with art that easily humbled me and put me in shame for all I’m worth. There’s many distractions at that time… school, anime, games, DDR. I admit defeat and put up the Fred Gallagher’s Piro persona. Afterall, if you admit defeat before anything starts, it can only get better, right?
Then I graduated. And there’s nobody to showcase my sketchbook anymore. WoW owned my life, and so I’ve conveniently discarded drawing altogether for the past two years. And now, with everything else turning sour, here I am, at it again, but there’s some inner joy involved with drawing this time. This time, I’ll do it for myself, for my spiritual health, so to speak.
I’m a big dreamer – I love crafting worlds, and then put everything about that world in quantifiable numbers and statistics… still, visualizing these worlds in the brain is nice, but it just doesn’t cut it. These ideas, however, becomes crystal clear in pictures. Who cares if they’re not the best stuff in the world. Who cares if nobody else appreciates it (although it certainly wouldn’t hurt). This is my stuff, I alone shares the unique bond with it and the story that comes behind it. Nobody can take those away from me.
So I’ll repeat myself: here I am, at it again.