About

Something About My Interests

It is difficult for me to pick one thing I like and keep with it. Even when I might be playing a game, I take my earphones, plug them into my phone and listen to an episode of a TV show as I was listening to a radio. The same happens when I draw. When one task does not take too much attention, I usually start doodling as my second task.

I have drawn before in the past, but I also loved writing various stories in my Literature Class. I also found a great pleasure in making, expanding or editing articles on Wikipedia and similar sites, especially when it meant expanding content in my mother language, which was Serbian. I still have some of my literature works I wrote five years ago.

Compared to my other hobbies, however, I didn’t have as much passion for art as I had for writing stories or editing articles (or even writing my own ideas for myself). I haven’t paid as much attention to art and I didn’t attempt going on a digital art crusade until 2017. That’s when I made a little PowerPoint presentation about the sinking of the RMS Titanic – my interest in its tragic story remains one of my greatest interests to this day, and I drew a lot of drawings for that presentation using MS Paint, with my own methods, but also helping myself with what was available on the Internet.

Then, in March 2018, I decided to take a big leap and start drawing digitally. This time, I wanted to achieve something greater than just doodling in MS Paint and began using Paint.net. It was alright for some time, but I quickly realized that Paint.net didn’t exactly fulfill my expectations. For example, Medibang, Paint Tool SAI, Krita, and other programs for digital drawing looked far more convincing and they looked like they could provide me with better results and expectations. I chose to start with FireAlpaca

My Digital Art

I quickly came to realization that the other digital art programs, such as FireAlpaca, were far more complex than MS Paint that I was used to. However, I had fun experimenting with features I had never experienced before: layers, a great assortment of tools, size and dimensions, and many, many other things that changed my whole perception of art.

About a month later, my drawings progressed a little better, and when summer began, I started drawing more and more. I was drawing mainly original characters and fan-art, but I had no drawing tablet, which made it harder. Even so, I liked how my drawings turned out, despite not looking as strong or amazing like digital art that I aspired to.

My drawing streak slowly faded as my freshman year of high school began, but I still found time now and then to draw a nice little drawing, not caring what it would actually be – after all, it was nice learning methods and techniques that were unobtainable in MS Paint. I liked looking at the doodles and drawings I made in June, and those that I created in winter, and I noticed that there was a difference in how much progress I made.

Soon, I got a laptop of my own and was very happy. However, the problem was that my history of drawing in FireAlpaca began on another laptop which belonged to my mother, meaning that I had to adapt to the new resolution, keyboard and – mouse sensitivity (That was a nightmare...). Therefore, I still made more art, though not as much as I used to when my “Digital Art Baby Steps” took place.

And then, a miracle had taken place. All of a sudden, a friend of ours gifted us with a brand new Wacom Intuos! Although this was out-of-nowhere, this made me very happy. I heard before that many professional artists use drawing tablets, and I was certain that those devices were keys to those astounding works I saw whenever I searched for art. I was worried that adapting to a drawing tablet would take a long time. However, hardly anything changed in difficulty – it didn’t take me long to get used to drawing on the drawing tablet, and I noticed the difference when I compared my new artworks to my earlier ones.

From April 2018, when I drew my first line in FireAlpaca, to June 2020, as I am writing this right now, I have no idea what to say. It took me a lot of frustration and moments of relinquishment; but also a lot of great times and boosts of confidence to get to where I am at the moment. Many times I stopped to a halt and asked myself something like: “But really, what the heck am I doing?!” or “Come on, this is not even that special...” And many times, the answer didn’t come back like a boomerang – I found it myself.

Many times I lamented over my art not looking as great as I imagined, but soon I found that there was no reason for me to dwell in bad thoughts and failed attempts. I worked hard to improve and make something out of a simple hobby and turned it into a talent, and I am proud of how I turned it around. Yes, I still make mistakes in my art, and sometimes I still cringe when I look at my old art or edits, but they serve to me as motivation to try out something new, something else instead. From simple doodles, I got familiar with shading, and then I “allowed” other tools to introduce themselves, and the list of those new experiences, obstacles and challenges goes on. To summarize, what keeps me moving is the will to try out something new or different, the possibility to warp my perception of reality or find the new way to look at the world like never before.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come and I’m going to stay confident and keep moving on as far as I can.