I got into art when I was about 8 years old. I remember being interested in drawing because I loved watching anime and cartoons. Most of my earliest drawings were “Yu-Gi-Oh!” trading cards and “Dragon Ball Z” fan art. 

Drawing was always a hobby for me, so I never took it seriously until I got to college. Looking back at my old work, I can see how much I have improved in the past three years. 

My goal is to create my own comic or cartoon in the future. Even though I am an amateur, I am proud of each and every one of my drawings. I put a lot of work and effort into my artwork and I am happy that I was given the opportunity to share them.

This piece is a drawing of the Berserker Armor from the manga, “Berserk.” All of the pieces that I’m sharing are from 2020 Inktober, which is a monthly challenge where artists are given prompts every day for the month of October. The main purpose of Inktober is for artists to practice their inking skills. Since the prompt for the day was “armor,” I chose to draw the Berserker Armor because I enjoyed looking at it every time Kentaro Miura (author of Berserk) would draw it.

I tried to capture the rage and tension I felt whenever the armor would show up on screen. In order to do this, I made sure the lines surrounding the helmet pointed diagonally towards it. I also made the outline of the helmet the darkest part while leaving some light inside the eyes and jaw of the helmet. Viewers tend to focus on the brightest aspect of a picture, so I made sure the important parts were left in the light. 

Drawing this piece gave me a lot of respect for Kentaro Miura. This piece took me three hours to complete, so I can’t even begin to fathom how much time and effort Miura spends on his work. He is a big inspiration to me and is my golden standard for quality art. I want to be on the same level as him one day.

The prompt for this piece was “outpost,” so I drew Howl’s Moving Castle from the movie, “Howl’s Moving Castle.” I chose to draw this castle because I wanted to practice drawing backgrounds. I struggle to draw backgrounds in general because they take a lot of time and effort to draw, and can sometimes be incredibly frustrating to complete. 

I used to think that if I were to draw a comic, I could avoid drawing backgrounds and just focus on making the character look detailed. However, I’ve come to realize the importance of drawing good backgrounds. A good background can make the space the character occupies come to life; it can hook you in and make you feel like you are in another world. 

I definitely felt this way when I watched Hayao Miyazaki’s “Howl’s Moving Castle.” The background in every scene of this movie is just breathtaking. I truly felt like I was in another world. I struggled in particular with being patient with the hatched lines in the drawings. If you look closely, you can see some of the wobbly lines in the tail, legs and gears of the castle. 

I am proud of myself for sticking through it and pushing myself. I think it came out very good, but I felt as though I could have done better if I was a little more patient. The effort was worth it and I always have a sense of pride when I look back on my work.

This drawing wasn’t for a prompt, but I drew it during Inktober. I’m proud of this piece because I entered it into a small Twitter art competition and got second place. I also had to go out of my comfort zone for this piece. When I draw, I usually just look at something I like and then try to draw it as best as I can. Most of the drawings in my sketchbook usually aren’t original pieces; rather, they are usually drawings of art I like. 

For this piece, I drew characters from a fighting game called “Brawlhalla” and drew them in their Halloween costumes. I used Tite Kubo’s “Bleach” Halloween cover as the model for this piece and then combined it with the art style of the characters in the video game. I enjoyed this piece because it felt more original than my other drawings. I had to use a lot of references to draw the design of the logo, the costumes of the characters, and the lighting of the characters. It felt like putting together a puzzle. This piece is special to me because it is a reflection of my work and effort.