My Experience With Digital Art
(UPDATE IN DEVELOPMENT)

Being an Art Kid

I was an art kid during elementary school, one of those kids who drew in class that people would often ask to draw something for them. I never really made any original art back then. Instead, I would redraw an image that had already existed by having the image next to the paper I drew on while looking at the original image for reference. I kind of drifted from traditional art by the time middle school came around. I didn't stop entirely, I just didn't do it nearly as much.

When I Like to Draw

I need to be in the mood to draw and barely even draw traditionally anymore. The art I practice now is mostly just image editing and pixel art. Recently, I've been getting into drawing a lot more. I own a drawing tablet and draw sketches with it fairly often. I think that I've been really improving on it and have already started using some design choices that I made with said tablet.

My Introduction to Digital Art

I made my first YouTube channel when I was ten and eventually realized that my videos were going to need custom thumbnails so they could look more presentable when people stumbled upon them. I ended up using Microsoft Paint for this and made some pretty garbage stuff. I wanted to get Photoshop, but I just didn't have the money for it. An old acquaintance of mine had introduced me to a software called Gimp. Gimp is a piece of free-to-use software that has a lot of features, to the point where I personally think it could compete against Photoshop.

I obviously needed to get familiar with the software since I wasn't too good with it. I had never used the software, wasn't used to it, and wasn't aware of what you could do with it, so it was only natural. It's important to remember that simply having good software doesn't mean that they'll do it all for you and magically make you talented since you still need to learn how to use the software and be knowledgeable about whatever you're trying to create. I eventually got more familiar with it and started using it for all of my image edits. I even use it for my pixel art.

How I Got Into Making Pixel Art

I love pretty much every aspect of video games and grew up with what are now known as retro games, so it shouldn't be too surprising for me to have a fondness for pixel art. I started making pixel art for a project after being asked if I could do it. I said that I could give it a try and was actually impressed with what I had created. It took longer for me to make back then due to my lack of experience, but it's the final product that matters most. I kept practicing and started doing it just for fun after the project ended.

I had improved over time and eventually even adopted my own art style, which I personally think is fairly difficult to do.

My Digital Art Skills Now

The digital art skills that I have been working on for years have already been helpful as it has allowed me to create album art for my music, assets for my music videos, and help make everything look more professional. In the future, my digital skills will also prove useful when I start developing my own video games.