Message in a bottle!

A friend from years ago messaged me last night. I haven't talked to him in freaking ages! This was my reply to him when asked about what I've been doing with myself:

Strangely, I somehow feel honoured to be stalked. Thanks man, I appreciate your interest in my work.

Tbh, it's been so long since we last spoke, that I've actually forgotten your name? Sorry about that.

Well, there's no easy way to explain this but I've been drawing. I decided to start drawing one day. That was 5 years ago in May 2008, just after my birthday.

I failed at life. I failed at school. I lost all my friends from school, who by now were all in awesome jobs and earning great money. I was washing cars and working night shifts at a service station. It was as if all my dreams had somehow faded away into the night. I didn't know where to go or what to do.

One night, I picked up a pencil, it was blunt, but I started drawing, I didn't know how, I eventually managed to do this stupid little drawing, but I felt inspired and motivated by this man's work - Graven Tung

Over the summer, I frantically started painting. Then I started drawing from a bunch of anime books. That was for like a year.

At the end of 2008, I started looking around at what to do with my art. I decided to do a game art course. As it turned out, the course was nothing I had expected it to be. But I stuck with it because I made some great friends there. It was three long years of self taught drawing. I didn't like anything I created during that time. My best friend Taylor showed me CA sketchbooks. It was as if a light had switched on inside of me.

I promised Taylor that I would practice and get as good as those guys. I was so fired by one artist, Algenpfleger aka Hannes. I knew then that I wanted to be an artist. But I didn't know how to draw or how he became so damn good.
All I knew was that if he practiced every day and got that good, then it was good enough for me.

Every day, I draw, have loads, and I mean SHEDLOADS, of fun, and then go to sleep, wake up the next day and do the same.

I have no regrets. My art is my life.


PS - I can't believe I just sat through Django Unchained, what a terribly disturbing movie.