My deviantART story

Happy 14th birthday deviantART!   

But wow, I can't believe it's already been 4 years since I've joined dA (of course that number seems insignificant compared to the 14 years dA has been created, but these 4 years mean a lot for me). Not only has dA led me to meeting a bunch of awesome people, but it also gave me a place to share my passions, including art and cosplay.

My dA story I guess would have to start back in like 6th grade (this fall, I'm going to be a senior), when my friend was telling me about dA and how it was a great site to share your art. But after her telling me about the site, I forgot what it was called so I completely forgot about it until I found the site myself back in 2010. 

Back then, the first deviation I posted (tbh it wasn't even me who posted it but the same friend who initially told me about dA since we were at her house when she took the photo) was of my borrowed Matt cosplay from Death Note that my friend randomly asked if I wanted to try it on.
I didn't even know what I was getting myself into when I agreed and even now, a little more than 4 years later, I still can't even understand why I agreed. But that doesn't mean I regret it since from that day on, I was REALLY introduced to cosplay (I knew what cosplay was prior to the photo, but never really had any interests of pursuing the hobby until I suddenly found myself borrowing my friend's cosplay). After that, the next cosplay I did was made by that same friend which was my adult!meiko cosplay which was taken at my first ever anime convention
After all those years, here's one of my cosplays that I recently worked on myself of yj!robin: 
Throughout these 4 years, dA has seen me progress through one of my favorite hobbies, which is why I've chosen those 3 cosplay pics to feature. From what initially started as a borrowed cosplay to one hand made by a friend (where I still had no idea what I was doing) to now, a half hand made/bought costume (hey, we gotta start somewhere right?). My skills aren't great now and I'm pretty much still a noob when it comes to cosplay, but to me, I still see some improvement.

And that's just the cosplay side of my dA story.

I've always used art as a way to express myself. From T-shirts to nail designs to art (both traditional and digital), I found a way to share my fandom passions with the world. Thanks to dA, I was freely able to do just that (Later I'll include different examples of art pieces I've created). My art still sucks now, but I can definitely say it's improved. And like my cosplay, dA witnessed this progression.

So yeah, sorry for the really long journal... But anyways, that's my deviantART story. What's yours?

And here are some examples of the type of the things I've made over the years that I mentioned previously (the reasons why I chose to feature each pic will be explained above them):

This photo is of my first t-shirt design that has the quote: "Bury the pain of losing your love ones... into the arms of your friends" -Erza Scarlet (Fairy Tail) [episode68/chapter164] I just feel like that quote holds a lot of meaning and Erza is my favorite character from Fairy Tail. 


Next up are the #HeroesNeverDie nails I created for the Young Justice Invasion and Green Lantern series finales. Both shows were very enjoyable for me and despite having to wake up early saturday morning, I happily did so each week. However when I heard that both were being cancelled and removed from the DC Nation block on Cartoon Network, I was heartbroken. Later when I was scrolling on tumblr that same day, I heard of the #HeroesNeverDie that was made to represent all the heroes that would have all been lost and technically die since there would be no new episodes with them after the cancellation. Even if the shows wouldn't air anymore, that didn't mean they would be gone forever, thus the #HeroesNeverDie was born! Since the hashtag itself held so much meaning, I knew I had to show my love by designing my nails for the series finales which I HAD to feature here.


These are a few of my art projects I've made in my Commercial Art class (all made in freshman year before we started designing things digitally) where you can see my love of certain fandoms showing. I couldn't choose just one traditional piece I made in the class so I opted to choosing this group pic. The reason is because not only does it show some different fandoms I love and the different types of things I can make, but it also shows how art isn't just ONE type of thing. It can be done in so many different forms (just like how I express my love of art) and I felt like this photo represented that nicely.


Although this piece wasn't part of the previous photo, I had to include my typography project from my commercial art class I made sophomore year (each part of my body uses quotes from different fandoms such as my hair being made up of doctor who quotes). Again, not only does it include my love for different fandoms, but it was the first piece where I worked digitally in my commercial art class with another different medium (tupography).


Lasted, I chose to feature my drawing of Mango Sirene's faun costume (one of the cosplayers of innermindtheater on youtube). The reason is because usually, although I tend to dislike a lot of my art pieces, I TRUELY can say that I absolutely love the way this one turned out. First of all, it was the first piece that I drew using Paint Tool Sai so I had to adjust to the application (though not necessarily hard to adjust to, it did give a different experience that I had to get used to). Secondly, it was the first piece that I used a new shading technique that my friend taught me. And since it's one of the few pieces of mine that I really like, I knew I had to include it here.