My journey - from start to finish

Hello!

Intro 

So, since I'm just running out of ideas and want to take a break from posting everyday and sharing art, I want to make this a really long post, so you can get to know me better and my art journey through the years. I'm also gonna talk about other stuff as well. My first blog post talks about some of my art journey - but I'm gonna go deeper and give more detail on that. I want to avoid talking too much off topic stuff except on Tuesdays, since it's my idea to do off topic stuff only on that day.

It Starts...

My name is wimbearn or you can call me by real name, Arnezia. I am a she/her.

On August 26th, 2002, I was born to this world. Seeing my mom and dad was the best thing for me. My mom said my first word ever was "popcorn", although I couldn't pronounce it right. 

I began school and I remember being afraid to talk while the teacher was teaching. There was something that is still burned into my memory - I remember someone was bringing in a camera to record, and my teacher was reading and called on me. I sat on the floor, staring at the teacher and she shouted my name while I stood quiet. It was just scary trying to speak... I can't believe this memory is still burned in my head.

Fast forward to my elementary school days - yeah, I've gotten in trouble some times. Another elementary school memory burned in my head but still a bit faded was when I got up from my seat and I think it was during my teacher teaching or sitting at her desk and she told me to sit down. I still don't know why though. 

I also remember I had an obsession with Littlest Pet Shop toys and every Scholastic book fair, I would grab some of the books such as a Rapunzel and a Red Riding Hood LPS themed story. I had a lot of toys including a Tamagotchi like LPS toy and the Wii and 2 DS games (I still have the DS games as well as a stylus, but the Wii game might be in storage). One of the LPS books came with 3 keychains to hook to your backpack - and that's what I did, hook it to my backpack! Man, I miss them. I stopped getting into LPS somewhere around 2012 with the new update Hasbro did to them. I watched a bit of the TV series and the other one. They were alright. I'm gonna miss that jingle: "Who's got more pets, more fun? It's only one - Littlest Pet Shop!" (I can't find the commercial with the long jingle but another jingle I remember was "the Littlest Pet Shop that's who!"). Yeah, some of you 2000's kids might remember!

Did I mention I have Asperger's? I know I have it because I hear my mom say it, that I'm only interested in certain stuff such as the Littlest Pet Shop toys I mentioned, stuffed animals, collecting rocks, and later on in this post, anime and drawing, and I'm really shy talking to people especially in real life because I have lack of eye contact. I mean, I did find with a Zoom meeting with my art teacher on Wednesday.

Let's go to middle school. I don't have much to say about it, but yes, another memory burned in my head - and a kinda scary one since the classroom was big with two teachers and a lot of students. During my 4th (?) period class, I was trying to quietly zip up my backpack and the other teacher heard me, said my name, and every student in the class stared at me. I felt chills down my spine. I was worried if I continued, I would be sent to the office or some bs.

Going to High School, I was acing my classes and also during my Senior year, I enrolled in a DigiPen Art and Animation class. Forgot my final grade - a C, I think? With the virus taking over half of 2020, our classes went virtual and finally it was June and I graduated. As of 2022, I am in college, doing my classes and working hard online. I might graduate next year, who knows and I'm aiming for an Associates of Arts degree.

Why do I love drawing?

I got into drawing by anime. Yes, anime is what got me into drawing. My love of anime started because of my dad. He would always watch Toonami and shows I would watch with him included One Piece, Hunter X Hunter, Dragon Ball Z Kai (it was the final chapters with Majin Buu), Dragon Ball Super, and more. Z Kai and Super got me into Dragon Ball - and I read only volumes 1-3 of the OG series during High School and watched all of the OG anime last year.

One character that stood out to me the most  after reading some of the manga, and a very underrated character was Lunch or in the Funi dub, Launch. She would sneeze and switch personalities (good and bad). Basically, she's the original Super Saiyan (not really as her sneezing is just used for gags and stuff, plus she's just a regular human with no ki blasts). I happen to have a couple of merch of her such as the FigPins (both her blue being regular and blondie being a chase variant) being the first ones in my collection and some figures from Japan that I bought from ebay. I really hope Funko makes pops of her, cause if they do, I'm pre-ordering! Take my money, Funko, take it!

Anyways, an anime that made me make my own characters was called "Glitter Force" or in Japan, "Smile PreCure!". I remember making my own characters and story called "Princess Heroes" which is basically that. I had a lot of "princesses" (think Sailor Moon). Sadly I gave up and no longer have the terrible comic with me, but I have a "poster" drawn on giant white paper. Another series I forgot the name of was inspired by the Yo-Kai Watch anime. One of my characters is literally a pink cat with her partner/pet being a male Meowstic clone, another character I made is literally just Korrina from Pokémon 🤣, and another is just... female Ranma from Ranma 1/2, do I need to say more? I still have the character drawings, just I rather not share them as I'm not comfortable sharing my old artworks. One story comic I think I still have is about 2 girls... who identically resemble Panty and Stocking in a band. I was inspired by HiHi PuffyAmiYumi, but man me back in 2017 was just coming up with characters that is just the original or I altered the original design (aka: they're not mine).

I think in 2016 or 2017, I would begin drawing digitally and drew my own characters on it. But I wouldn't draw that much as I would blog on my very first Blogspot blog from High School, Purple Fox. I dare you not to look at that one if you find it on Google, as I refuse to go back to it and look at my cringy, old posts with video edits that are trying to be like YouTube Poops. I would start out on Corel Painter Essentials 5, then Paint 3D, followed by Photoshop Elements 15 and finally Procreate.

I had ideas for my own story or video game, being like Pokémon, since I enjoyed my very first Pokémon game, Pokémon X. Problem: there are a lot of Pokémon clones out there or there are games in the monster genre that are competing with Pokémon. And two: I wasn't experienced with making my own video games yet because getting into it is hard and confusing as you need to learn coding. I know how to make my own website, but coding video games? Nah. 

So there was another option that I won't give out details and the name for cause it's a private thing and want to keep them protected until I can get copyright for them, but all I can say is I was planning on making it a video game, but ended up turning into a "manga" instead. Reason why I say manga in quotes is because I am still struggling with areas such as drawing backgrounds. Plus, I am still behind on the story, still currently working on chapter 1, drawing everything in Procreate. 

Since I am behind on the story and can't share my works on social media, instead, I would draw fanart. To this day I still draw fanart and you can see some of them posted on this blog, as well on my socials. I know that fanart has been helping me improve, but if I ever share my original art and characters after getting them protected by copyright, some people might be turned off. I think in a YouTube video I watched or an article I read, either it was an interview with some guy, they said this, if I remembered (I am gonna butcher this): "When you draw something original, people won't recognize who they are or who it is".

I've joined social media since 2016 or 2018 and the first one I joined was Instagram. I was a private account, but I became public in 2019 because I wanted my works to be seen. I then joined Twitter because I have an account on a site called Smash Boards and met someone who has one and we chatted on the site. Memories. I then came back on Tumblr, because I forgot I had an account made already by the name of "lovelypurplefox". Hate the name, won't change it, but it's based on the name of my Blogger and while I was still blogging on there, I made that Tumblr halfway and didn't know how to use the site at that time. Reason why I came back is because of a Dragon Ball Tumblr user who looked at every episode of OG and Z. And finally, DeviantArt. I believe I joined in 2020 because I wanted to download something (since downloading a file requires an account), but came back later on to post art. Today, I continue to post and keep my socials updated except Twitter, which I barely use because of drama and spoilers. I only use it now to talk to people, check my notifs, retweet stuff I find in articles, and post art.

Melting in the Mud

Now, this post may end up on a depressing note, and if you don't feel like reading, that's fine.

I have times where I... tend to feel lonely, especially on social media. Last year and years before, a lot has been going on in my life. I won't share though because it's private information. Everything has been changing and feels so different, especially with the virus getting worse this year (my friend from high school and my boyfriend came out positive but are doing well and fine). My dad is planning on getting me a therapist, but I'm not ready for that yet. 

I'm always seeing others art and just saying theirs is better than my art. I know people have been telling me not to compare my art to others and I know that. All I know is I'm improving with my drawing skills. I tend to take breaks away from social media to focus on my own characters, do college work, or take a walk.

Being a shy person and being alone with some friends who haven't been talking to you is hard. It hurts. While I have friends on social media, it doesn't feel the same as making friends in real life. On Twitter, it's worse for me as I've been through drama on that site, blocked people who were rude or annoyed me, or had people unfollow me because they weren't interested in what I tweeted or for not being active. It's why I barely use the site now. And plus, my art hasn't been getting a bigger reach. As a small artist with 1k followers, it's hard. But making friends with those who have the same interests as me has been cool.

Conclusion + Future

I have been pushing my Ko-fi as hard as I can, and I've been putting my works out there for others to see and to enjoy. I really hope to share my own story and characters, but you'll have to wait in the future for that to happen. So far, I've only got 1 art commission.

My future, asides from drawing, is to become a voice actress for anime. The problem is, I'm black and getting into that community is gonna be tough. I've heard a couple of stuff like people complaining about Mirko's English VA in My Hero Academia. But there are talented black voice actors out there such as Cree Summer and they had no problems! 

Another problem is that I'm nervous on sharing my voice work - people will just say it's bad and for me, accepting criticism has been hard, especially with art. But I hope to be in voice projects and if you happen to have one, do hit me up (see header and click one of the buttons next to "home" for contact info). It will make some good voice practice for me.

Really wish I can talk about my fears, but that will be for a future, future post.

Thank you for reading, have a nice day. ☺