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 in my old hard drive but I lost it while traveling. Always have a backup, everyone…

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.

Doodles and Studies

Doodles/original art, and traditional photo studies drawn in 2013-2015.My family forced me to give up on digital art in 2013 (they didn't think digital art or anime was art), so I started practicing realism.

Traditional Studies

Some traditional photo studies and mastercopies from 2016-2017.This was when I started 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.I was inspired to pick up digital art again 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.I was also starting to get interested in semi-realism in 2017 after playing FFXV and being blown away by the visuals.

Original Designs

My love for animation and video games made me want to pursue animation as a career. I was especially interested in 3D animation, so I started drawing in a cartoon style.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 portrait studies because I wanted to get better at rendering faces digitally. I used to be obsessed with the smooth/clean rendering style back then and spent years trying to achieve it.My interest in semi-realism also kept growing, especially after discovering semi-realistic artists on Deviantart.In 2018, I got accepted to a 3D 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 an unfinished project, unfortunately, but I still added it here anyway).Programs used: ZBrush, Maya, Arnold, Substance Painter, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, NukeI had a lot of fun learning the 3D animation creation process (modeling, rigging, animating, etc), but I also really missed the drawing/painting 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: making 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 made 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 making art in 2021 because of health issues. Covid completely changed my life; My physical health severely deteriorated in 2020 (along with my mental health), and didn’t improve much for 3 years. I started drawing again in late 2022, but only did two studies that year. The rest are from 2023, when I was feeling a little better.

Fanart

My health finally started to improve in 2023. I watched a lot of anime while I was sick, so I had a strong desire to draw fanart.I was also trying to figure out my art style. I wanted to draw semi-realism, but I also didn’t want the anime characters to look too different, so I struggled a lot trying to figure this out. (I fixed the first two drawings later, which you can see in my Gallery).This was also when I still liked the smooth/clean rendering style, until genAI copied it and made 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.

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.I also 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 late 2023-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.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 and the journey 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.