When and why did you start drawing/writting?

I started drawing ever since I could just hold a pen because that's what most kids do I guess, and kept doodling to pass time ever since. I consider the real shift happening at age 12 when I discovered people actually post their art online and there are communities for art!! And there are even things called tablets that let you draw digitally, neat!! I was probably the first one in my entire village who had a tablet so you can only imagine how little digital art was talked about, and it took me a good while to really understand art communities exist and you can post art without being a professional. 

I don't really remember what my driving factor was with art but I think it was probably the whole aspect of getting better and being able to draw the things I want to show to others, like my characters. And I guess at age 12 I was also really into the idea of becoming a ~ popular ~ artist but that never happened haha and maybe it's for the better; people who become known when they're very young often end up either getting burned out by the popularity or harassed, so I dodged that bullet for sure. 

For writing I wrote here and there mostly for school throughout my elementary school but it was never anything ambitious, just the usual stuff kids do. I wrote a couple of fanfics in Finnish when I was 14 but never posted them outside of this one now dead fan forum and I started writing prose in English when I turned 18, back in 2013! So I haven't actually been writing in English for too long, especially compared to how long I have been drawing. My main motivation to write is to tell stories because I have so much I want to share with people!!! Writing feels like it's the right thing for me and for me that's more than enough reason to keep on doing it. 

As for OCs, my first characters I actually called OCs were some canine characters back in id 2007? 2008? And then from there I'd say the first OCs I actually got emotionally invested in appeared in 2010 through an RP where human characters also made their appearance properly. 

i knew that if i didnt write my story down, it would die when i die. and i am not skilled enough at art to draw what i want. so i figured i'd write as much as i could before i'm gone lol 

Always had a love for art but I don’t think I got serious until I was 13 (2006-7). A friend wanted to do an RP thing set within the Pirates of the Caribbean universe shortly after Curse of the Black Pearl came out and I wanted to illustrate my OC’s. 

That story never materialised but my interest in art and writing kept expanding into what it is today.

I’ve been writing on-off since the same time but I don’t think I got serious until 2008-9 ish? I realised how cool and gratifying it was to come up with my own content and tbh that’s half of what keeps me writing and drawing today? I love pulling content out of thin air and being able to feed into sci-fi or historical obsessions with my OC’s and their associated plots.

I've been making up characters and stories as long as I can remember, just that when I was little I would make up stories and act them out either with little animal figurines, stuffed toys, or pretending to be the characters myself. (I still do the latter...in my head.)

As for an actual "start," around age eleven I was pestering my dad and he told me to "go write a story." I left and returned a while later with half a notepad filled up. He said, "I told you to write a STORY, not a BOOK!"

And that was the start of me writing "seriously." (Also, me writing series. That first story turned into a long series and that's the kind of stuff I've been writing ever since, since I hate for things to end.) That was over thirty years ago and I'm still writing. Millions of words. (Not exaggerating, my last count I was up to almost 5 million words total, and that wasn't counting my older writing.)

Alas, my family wasn't interested in reading that "book" or in anything else I've written, and aside from a random comment online every several years, nobody else has been very interested in my creations, either. I've had zero luck gaining a readership.  So I haven't been writing nearly as much as I used to.

Bumping this because i'm starting to get curious again and maybe it could serve as a motivation! I enjoy reading the all the response too.

Ever since I was old enough to hold something and make a mark - whether it be a pencil, marker, crayon, whatever. I have no idea WHY, but I would doodle on everything.

And then I got my first sketchbook for my 16th birthday. .... and I never put it down. Lol

As for writing, I read, a lot, when I was young. Like... it was ridiculous how much I read. And I wanted to be an author when I was a teen. That never went anywhere, and I just ended up going art instead.

And now? Now I'm gonna be doing a webcomic that I'm hoping to launch Jan 1/21. Best way to marry the two, no? =D

I started when I was about 16, I was never really into it and did horribly in art class qvq and then one day on tumblr I saw this drawing of Squidward as Rei from NGE captioned something like 'as an artist I have the power to do this' and I thought wow I'd like to make abominations like that too, and it just kinda developed from there haha

ART
I remember drawing since forever, my school notebooks from when I was seven or eight were already filled with way too many doodles between the homework. I'd say I actually started putting in more thought on my art when I was around 11 or 12. I do remember getting this pencil box with 36 colored pencils and I thought that was the best. I did some pixel art when I was 8 or 9 and I did think about getting better on it but, as we can see from the absolute lack of pixel art on my galery, it really didn't pay off. Me learning how to shade hair with two or three different color pencils may have though.

Digital art started to get more serious as well around 2015, though up until the middle of 2016 I still used bases for most of my art.

WRITING
I think I got into writing fanfic around 2014? At least that's the earliest I can find on my old forum accounts. It was a dating sim game so we were kinda encouraged to write a bunch of romance stories with the characters, especially because it took ages until any actual dating started on said game (first kiss was on episode 28 out of 40). It was most certainly absolutely terrible, but I give some slack to 12yo me. Original fiction was probably around 2015 though as that's the earliest I can find of my original character art and when I created my dedicated OC blog on tumblr but it may have been earlier and I just can't find those old urls. I still never finished a single story but I do have fun brainstorming and sharing ideas for that matter.

ORIGINAL CHARACTERS
Every single fanfic I can remember ever writing had OCs in it so definitely 2014 or earlier as well. I think I do remember having some named characters in my earliest sketchbooks from when I was 11 but they didn't have much backstory other than being sisters with blue and pink hair. The first ocs I remember by name though are Ami Yumi Lovegood (don't judge my name choices, I was 12-) who was a demon with white wings and a very gentle personality, Universe (not his real name, not sure if he ever got a real name) who was an angel with black wings and a very naughty personality (he and Ami were on an on-and-off relationship) and Myko (a half bunny half cat The Amazing World of Gumball OC. I shipped her with Bobert.)

Speaking of my 2014 fanfics, I already had other characters by then and, on a forum dedicated to writing about the characters in game, I somehow thought it was a much better idea to write about two of my own ocs with the actual characters of the game as background characters (and sometimes love triangle fuel). They were Yang (a tomboy with short white hair) and Yuuko (a really feminine yet straight guy with purple hair. whose best friend was the blue haired canon gay character of the game.) They got surprisingly popular for two really one-dimensional characters created by a 12. I remember I even got a fanfic about them written by someone else and the guy even got his own fan club.

i started drawing about 9 or 10 years ago because of creepypasta lmfao i was super into it. the best drawing i did that i can remember was the tails doll and then later tails running from sonic.exe. i drew jeff the killer, smile dog, grinny cat etc. then i got into warrior cats and started watch MAPs on youtube (multi animator projects!!) i remember having a black and blue cat oc lol. and i went through a super edgy phase that im still not completely out of. i still really like creepypasta

Art- I guess I could try and search for a rlly fricking old drawing tomorrow lol but I basically started drawing since I could hold a pencil like many others, so like, over 15 years ago to stay vague. My reason is very simple as it was just a fun thing to do and I didn’t think much about it, but looking back I definitely drew way more than an usual kid my age. I’m prob autistic (still in the process of being diagnosed, we’re also considering adhd) and that definitely, definitely helped push me towards drawing. Being always content alone and not social at social gatherings, as a kid I’d just borrow a pencil/pen and paper or napkins and doodle in my corners. I also can’t concentrate on teachers without unfocusing and daydreaming either so my solution’s always been to draw while the teachers talk(even if i didn’t realize I had that problem as a kid), it helped me listen and understand rather than hinder it so the teachers were most often ok with it. I was the known "girl that obsessively draws" in my class and that made me interact with classmates artistically too! Smol comics, pokemon drawing sessions, I also had a phase where I drew stuff for my classmates! Like, kinda like a smol art shop but free and it’s not an oc it’s just a badly drawn human with a certain vibe and omg it got so much traction. I remember doing rainbow gradient colored hair once and everyone lost their shit and wanted one ggsnhsgd gosh... good times. So yeah I’m sure the support helped me stay interested in art too! I started taking art more seriously near 11 I think. From then on it’s just been grinding and learning new things, trying digital only to steer away from it for another few years gdbgd

Making ocs, well, it’s also something I’ve kinda always done. I mostly drew random characters rather than ghe occasional fanart, oh except pokemon i did a lot of that, but I never really kept them or drew them a lot. There was a time where I tried making mangas so I’d draw the same char in a few pages worth of panels before giving it up, but I didn’t care about keeping them or anything. There was a roadrunner coyotes ocs romance I drew a lot of tho omfg... This post is just me remembering wild stuff- soo my first actual ocs were around... 12 I think? My first ones before it that more closely resembled ocs were prob my hobbahotel  and minecraft avatars, and a random vocaloid mary sue, but then again wasn’t interested in keeping them much, they kinda just existed subconsciously. Then came the aesthetic kagerou project inspired guy, gaiaonline avatar, then the one word designs challenge, and I found toyhouse around that time. God it’s scary to think of how much of my art journey I owe to gaiaonline...

Writing- you made me remember I made my parents write down short cautionary tales/fables/one shots back when I didn’t know how to write bc I was fricking young. I wrote one about a broom flushing some dust down the toilet bc they were ennemies. I’m. I need to find that book again oh god. Skip to like 5 years later I’ve tried writing some short mangas like mentioned in the art section, then some good years later writing a good 50 notebook pages for my Bleeding gods story I’ve got some info on in my folders(scrapped ideas and bad writing for the most part). I’ve written some poems and short stories(many for school) but nothing crazy. Recently when I actually write (not only snippets of scenes for my ocs) it’s fanfic! I super super love fanfics, my sanity anchor and emotional fuel through so many things. I fooking love them and it feels really great to give back to fandoms I love, make a tribute for characters dear to my heart, all that good stuff! Writing is a really fulfilling thing, it’s a shame I don’t do it more. Bc yeah as much as it’s nice and I like it, it’s been way less of an hyperfixation and a constant in my life.

This was fun to reminisce on, nice thread, ty!

drawing - one word.. kirby LMAOOO i started drawing when i was like? 8? and i legit only drew kirby 24/7 back then. i fucking loved kirby. watched the kirby anime all the time. played kirby air ride / 64 / ds kirbies all the time. i had an obsession drawing every single version of kirby i could think of (including smash variants).. made kirby COMICS. i drew the goodest round boy so many times i don't even know. it eventually evolved when i started making comics of more than just kirby (it was pokemon tracing, then pokemon gijinkas and so on). i really just loved kirby and wanted to draw him having fun and ... existing. i liked seeing him do a lot of things, ya'kno? i guess that kinda ties in w/ why i started writing and making ocs..

making ocs - prob around 8 too?? i loved smash and kirby so much back then, and each kirby started becoming their own characters in my weird kid brain comics. eventually, i started making pokemon comics and those pokemon comics REALLY started my oc life.. it was basically just its own little silly comic but this was when i realized i loved making characters, giving them personalities and a story...!!

writing - around 12 or 14.. basically connected to the above! i loved giving life to characters most especially, and later in life i played a lot of video games with stories that inspired me. so, i've always thought-- i want to make stories like that. stories that would make someone go, 'wow.' ...tho i'm not as focused on that anymore dfhnbdfchdfh i'm not much into writing as i am drawing since i'm really not good with words or ... brain. i don't really roleplay anymore either, it's rly not my thing. i'm more of a headcanon person i think-- the whole writing aspect is too much for me. i'm a slow writer and my thoughts get jumbled up very quickly. i do write little skits for my charas sometimes, but it's nothing serious or actually "real writing", it's more just like scriptwriting which ties in to me wanting to see my kids feel like they actually exist??

tho i do love worldbuilding and conceptualizing a whole lot! my main story atm is mostly just.. them exploring and interacting w the world around them with a few story elements sprinkled in. just like how i loved seeing kirby live his life thru my drawings, i just love seeing my kids live out their lives, become fleshed out n see the world.. 

I technically started drawing ever since I could hold a pencil, like some other people here, but that didn't really help me much, actually, since I didn't really start taking it seriously until recently.

When I was younger, I used to want to do art a heck of a lot. I would always start drawing with great enthusiasm, but then get discouraged quickly when whatever I drew didn't come out how I wanted to, or measure up to other artists that were better. It especially didn't help when my own family members were really critical of my art, and voiced to me that they thought I should quit. Nothing really hits harder than that.

In highschool, I had a girlfriend who was really into drawing, so I took another gander at it, and became even more discouraged when I barely made any progress at all (a lot of the artist friends I had made became really nitpicky about what was wrong with my art. Their criticism was an attempt to help, no doubt, but they mostly just made me feel terrible about what I had achieved).

It wasn't until 2017, well into college, that I actually found a genuinely nice group to share my art with, and became more encouraged to draw frequently, without the pressure of my art measuring up to my peers. Suddenly, I improved a heck of a lot, and really fast too, because I actually enjoyed making something for other people, whether I saw it as a good product or not. The more I did it, the more I wanted to improve, and the more motivated I felt to do studies and research anatomy to make my art better and prettier for other people. I haven't stopped doing art since, and now I feel a lot of pride in my art, having come such a long way from just a few years ago (proving that it doesn't really matter when you start. Anyone can learn a new skill later in life)

Bottom-line of what helped me is just people being nice! It makes a bigger difference than most people think. Harsh criticism can help you improve in the long run, but you don't need that much, and at the end of the day, what encourages people to learn and improve is really just a little bit of support <3 So I think that's all new artists need, especially in the beginning, when their art could go a million different directions still! Heavy criticism is certainly important later, when even the artist has trouble finding what they can improve upon, but when you're just starting out, a gentle push is all it really takes. At least that's what I found in my art journey so far.

EDIT: I forgot to share examples! If don't have a lot of my art from before the internet, since old sketches and whatnot got thrown out, but my 13-year-old art was really beginner level anyway, so it's almost completely the same. Here's some stuff from my early days of internet life:

Some of my first internet drawings in general, on what I'm pretty sure was Photoshop Elements 5, fricken 10-12 years ago: I was actually really proud of this dog at the time haha. I was looking at a lot of realism tutorials at the time, trying to copy the forms I saw, but there was still way too much that was new to me. My first ever human attempt :') I was such a baby. I saw other people making OCs and whatnot, and I was like "hey that's heck of cool, I should make my own!" But I'd literally never drawn a human before, and clearly was fresh off of watching Bleach haha. (I had the hots for Ichigo as a 14/15 yo)

And here's some stuff from the last few months:

I've shown this one in way too many forms already lol. My pride in it is already fading quite a bit, but it's still decent. I'm already looking at how I can improve my shading consistency, and the mistakes I made with it. But! It is a good example of how far I've come! And I can't hate it too much since I spent a good 14 hours on all the details. A recent refresher with cell shading, though I think I could do better still. Probably my favorite comm I've done all year :)