When and why did you start drawing/writting?

i can also say that i've been drawing for as long as i can remember, but i really started getting into it when i started making ocs (around 4th/5th grade). i started take it more seriously during my first high school art classes around sophomore year and diving deeper into it when i began my ap art portfolios junior year. eventually i fully realized that i wanted to pursue art as a career (thank u spiderverse uwu), so here i am, a freshman illustration major! :"^)

why did i start creating ocs? when i was around 8 or so, i loved watching animations from people like banithekitty, kay2036, splashkittyartist, the like :"^) i also vividly remember being inspired by tuff puppy, so the first oc i made was a furry oc. then after that i was deep in my mlp:fim phase. i saw lots of cool artists making their own pony ocs, some creating their own mane six, and little tiny me wanted to do that too! the oldest ocs that are still active today (currently a part of my original story, jensen) come from my original mane six. three of them are my current mains: chris started as my element of kindness, peet started as my element of loyalty, and nate started as my super old ponysona & element of magic! i branched out to drawing people when i designed human versions of their original designs, then once my mlp phase started to dwindle down, they eventually developed beyond mlp and came into a story of their own. my oldest ocs went through a lot of changes to get to where they are now and a lot of those changes were influenced by the slice-of-life/realistic fiction stories that i used to read as a kid! my love 4 my mains also fueled me wanting to flesh em out as much as possible uwu

writing for myself went hand-in-hand w me starting to flesh out my ocs. if i wanted to add more facets to their personalities n stories then i had to write about em! my writing style stems a lot from the work that i've done from school, but i still feel like need to work on my narrative writing skills :"^)

I've been writing since as long as I've been able to, I'm pretty sure, but I only started to get serious about it when I was 11 or 12.  I absolutley love writing, especially short stories.  I've tried a few time to write a novel, but I just couldn't stick to it.  Instead I just look up a random-word-generator, generate a word, then turn that word into a short story.  I also occasionally enjoy writing informative essays if the topic is something I am interested in.  I also journal a lot.  I hate outwardly expressing my feelings, so instead I'll just vent into my notebook.  I also do way to much daydreaming, so I'll write about my daydreams sometimes.  Very rarely though, because I don't like people knowing what is inside my head.  (My charcter Sapphire is the only character I daydream about that I've actually taken out of my head and drawn/written about.  I suppose she was also technicaly my first OC).  I remember in 7th grade I got my favorite ELA assignemnt ever, we got to write a narrative.  It wasn't one of those assignments where you are given a prompt and have to write a story about it, we could write whatever we want (as long as it was school apprapriate).  Unfortuanatly there was a word limit... and I exceeded the word limit... so I had to cut my story.  I also love role-playing, because it gives me plot ideas for stories, and it's fun to pretend to be someone you're not somehwere you're not doing something you can't (does that make any sense?)

I only started drawing in April, because I got REALLY bored during the pandemic.  Before I started getting serious about it, I was a terrible artist and not afraid to admit it.  Then in April I started drawing dragons.  I quickly figured out that dragons are really hard to draw, so I switched my focus to cats.  My focus is still on cats, but I can also do not-awful drawings of animals with a similar anatomy (foxes, eeveelutions, big cats, etc).  Drawing is great because I can show people what's in my head without them actually knowing anything about it.

I spend all day at school either planning something to draw, planning something to write, doodling/drawing, or writing in my extra notebook that I bring to school.

i started consistently drawing in 2011ish and i drew warrior cats fanart lmao i also originally started making base ocs before that but i dont count that as the start of my art
heres my oldest digital piece vv

I drew when I was young, I wrote a bit before 13 but 13 was really when I started y'know...

POPPING OFF.

I mean I am writing a story abt 3 people's experiences in other "Fandoms" per-say--

BUT THEN I REFUSED TO ACTUALLY DRAW GOOD SO NOW I JUST GOT BACK INTO IT AHAHAH

I've been drawing nearly every day since I was four or five. I don't think I started making OCs until I was twelve. None of those OCs are on my toyhouse. My featured character is a major revamp of one I made when I was thirteen though. I wrote a ton of fanfiction when I was twelve, but I internalized how "cringy" that was and now I can hardly get myself to write anything :(

I started drawing and writing because I liked to do it. It was fun. I don't remember if I wanted it to be a career or not.