Why Me Designer?
Designing has always been a major part of my life. Starting off from when I was a small child, I often devoted my life into drawing or writing books when I wasn’t outside playing with my friends, teasing my uncle’s dogs, or playing IRL Sims scenarios with my sister and falling in sewers. All my life, I’ve always had a wild imagination that I loved to play out with friends whenever they visited. We’d play pretend that we were all manner of people or animals. Designing is like a playground for my imagination, where I can let my ideas flow freely without being judged for flailing around pretending I’m a bird IRL and earning my parents’ disappointment.
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I have an older sister, she was always a writer in her own right and often drew cartoon characters that were reminiscent of the Power Puff Girls in her own form. Except, she would write all manner of fanfictions that demonstrated her role as a Power Puff Girl, with silly twists and turns that made very little sense. She was my main inspiration for story-writing, because she even went as far as writing and illustrating using physical paper that she stapled together. It was an inspirational time, and though I lacked a lot of the skills she did, everywhere I turned, I tried to write and create fictional maps for my stories. This is where I started out.
As a designer (and person in general), I discovered that a lot of my interests revolve around creature creation. As a prime-time fantasy writer and Game of Thrones fanatic, I found myself creating different types of species. Not just your traditional dragon but a creature that could or should be included in such media. Angler Spider Snake is just an example of what I decided to create when looking into creature design. Because what better to make than three of the top most feared creatures in the world? The purpose was to make it creepy (obviously!) and cool. Personally, I have a grudge against spiders like the rest of the population, but the goal wasn’t necessarily to creep myself out as much as I wanted to creep others out (sorry!)
Not only have I found a considerable interest in creatures, I also found that my next interest lies in space. As someone who loves to explore the mysteries of space, particularly the Black Hole, I was inspired by Armageddon to create this piece in particular. I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing by Aerosmith was another major inspiration (I obsess over music) for this piece. I think that while I was designing this desktop background, I had that song on repeat. My goal for this one specifically was to create something innovative and go above and beyond my traditional way of drawing and painting in Photoshop.
Overall, I am someone who takes pleasure in the small things. I sometimes hear, especially for digital artists, that ‘art is easy’ or ‘art is not a career’, when the reality is entirely different. Over the years as I grew up, I would be discouraged when I told my parents or some of my friends that I wanted to be a designer when I grew up. I don’t really think they understood very well what that would entail, or which field I was deciding on, because I was told that it was a weird career choice, as opposed to becoming a nurse, a doctor, a police officer, and others. Going forward, I am hoping I can become an even better designer than I used to be and help people understand that design isn’t just a hobby.
