My art journey, starting from 2011 all the way to 2023. Each section starts with the oldest piece and ends with the newest. (There was a lot more but I unfortunately lost my hard drive that had all of my old art in it. Sadly, these are the only ones I could find by digging through my old email.)

Deviantart Requests and Doodles

Drawn in Paint Tool Sai. The first two were my very first digital art pieces. The rest were requests for Deviantart mutuals. I was a huge fan of Arina Tanemura's art style and manga when I was younger, so my art style was heavily influenced by her. I used to really like cute things at the time.

My family later forced me to give up on digital art in 2013 because they didn't think digital art was art, especially anime-style digital art.

Doodles and Studies

Doodles/original art, and traditional photo studies drawn in 2013-2015.I still drew in an anime style (secretly) at first, and then I gradually moved on to realism.You can see that my art got a little dark or “weird” around this time; I wasn’t in a good place mentally or physically, and used art as an escape from reality.

Traditional Studies

Some traditional photo studies and mastercopies from 2016-2017. This was when I starting to become serious about art.I was also starting to really enjoy drawing realism.My favorite art media were pastel, charcoal, and pencil.

Sketchbook Pages

Some random doodles and sketches of people/animals from my sketchbook in 2015-2017.Drawn with pen and watercolor.

Digital Studies

Some digital photo studies from 2017.This was when I was starting to learn digital art again after quitting in 2013. I was inspired to pick up digital art again as a hobby after seeing so many incredible digital artists on social media. I struggled a bit at first transitioning from traditional to digital art, especially because I was learning how to use Photoshop for the first time.

Original Designs

My love for animation and video games made me want to pursue animation as a career. My family wasn’t supportive of the idea, but after lots of persuading, they decided to let me pursue my dreams if I got accepted to an animation school.These were some of my portfolio pieces when I was applying to animation schools. The little girl, wizard, and the dog are original characters that I made for my story about a girl who finds a magic crayon that brings drawings to life.Drawn in Photoshop CC in 2017.

Figure Drawings

Some figure drawings from 2017-2019. I started doing figure drawings because they were a requirement for animation portfolios.The last two were drawn digitally in Photoshop. The rest were drawn in live figure drawing sessions with charcoal and pens.

Fanart & Studies

Fanart and studies from 2018-2021.I did a lot of photo studies of celebrities because I wanted to get better at rendering faces. I was also starting to get interested in semi-realism in 2018.This was also when I used to like the "smooth" rendering style, which I spent years trying to achieve.In 2018, I got accepted to an animation school. The last four drawings below were homework assignments for school: still-life and campus buildings.

3D Animation Homework Assignments

Some homework assignments from 2019-2020. The first one is someone else's 3D model/rig that I used for a walking animation exercise. The rest I modeled, rigged, textured, and animated myself. (The third one with the egg is unfinished, unfortunately, but I still added it in anyway).Programs used: ZBrush, Maya, Arnold, Substance Painter, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, NukeThe entire 3D animation creation process (modeling, rigging, animating, etc) is fun, but I really missed the drawing process. This was when I began to question my career choice.

Sculptures

Sculptures for my sculpting class from 2019. The first one we had to sculpt a live model who was posing for us. The rest are sculptures of my original characters (and process shots).Sculpted with Super Sculpey Polymer clay, baked, and then painted over with acrylic.

Character Designs

Character designs from 2019-2020.The first four are original characters that I made for my storyboarding class in 2019.The next four were homework assignments for my visual development class in 2020: creating character designs from abstract shapes. The next two were also homework assignments; I drew my own stylized version of famous Korean historical figures.The New Year's illustration was just a personal illustration I made to celebrate the New Year.The rest are quick sketches of my original characters that I did for my sculpting class in 2019. The mermaid humanoid and spider crab humanoid characters are the ones that I ended up sculpting.

Studies

Studies from 2022-2023. More rendering practice.Unfortunately, I stopped animating/doing 3D and drawing in 2021 because of health/family issues. Covid completely changed my life in a bad way. I wasn’t doing well physically/mentally, and didn’t have the time or energy to make art. This lasted for the next 3 years, but I did occasionally draw whenever I was feeling a little better.

Fanart

Fanart from early 2023. I watched a lot of anime and played games while I was sick, so I drew fanart whenever I was feeling inspired.This was also when I was trying to figure out my art style. I wanted to draw realism, but I also liked anime. I couldn't pick though, so my style was kind of a weird (uncanny) mix between the two. You can see in my works below that I really struggled (and failed) to find the right balance of anime and realism. (I fixed the first two drawings later, which you can see in my Gallery).This was also when I still liked the "smooth" rendering style, but then genAI came along and ruined it for me by copying the style and making it the “AI style.” I was pretty upset about it for a while because I worked so hard to achieve the smooth rendering style, but I’ve begun to enjoy drawing more roughly now (using lots of textures and/or painting visible brush strokes).

2023 was the year when I became interested in mods. Stardew Valley is one of my favorite cozy games, so I decided to try making my own portrait mod. I tried to make the portraits as close to the originals as possible without losing my style.This was also the year when my health started to improve, so I started practicing 3D and animation again. After practicing for a while, I suddenly had the desire to make my own 3D animated short film. I continue to work on it on/off to this day whenever I have free time.

My studies, fanart, requests, doodles, and figure drawings on my website’s Gallery are works from 2024-present.It’s already 2025...but I'm still trying to figure out my art style and what I really want to do.Anime? Realism? Semi-realism? Cartoon? Clean art with hard brush strokes? Messy art with texture brushes? Storyboarding? Sculpting? 3D? I can't decide... Being interested in multiple different things isn’t really a good thing, I think.

Art is difficult, but it's fun. You fail a lot, but the times you do succeed, it's the most rewarding feeling ever.Art is all about the journey, the process, and self-expression: Your skills can keep growing/improving, your taste in art can keep changing, the way you process/learn/see things differs from everyone else (which makes your art unique), you can create your own art style, and you can bring your story/design ideas to life (which can inspire, entertain, connect people together, or become a part of our daily lives). There are so many different types of art that you can learn, that are all fun in their own way. I wish more people gave themselves a chance to learn and find joy in creating something with their own hands, skills, knowledge, etc, instead of relying on AI to do the thinking/creating for them.We shouldn't be afraid to make bad work or feel bad about being slower than others. Art isn't about making a masterpiece or being the best/fastest. It's about enjoying the process even though it's difficult, and expressing yourself/your idea with your own body and mind. How a computer makes "art” isn’t interesting, and neither is someone ordering the computer to make “art” using stolen work/content. What’s interesting is why and how a fellow human being makes art, and how they got to be the artist that they are today. Every human artist has their own techniques, inspirations, artistic decisions, knowledge, etc and those are what make their art special.