Allow me to recount the extent that I despise myself.
Looking into mirrors has never been a practice of vanity, no matter the hours I’ve lost staring back at the monster I saw. Illustrations too close to what I am in reality holds no amount of aesthetic merit to me. Family albums are still devoid of years of my life from the fervency I duck out of photos, untag myself on social media, and conveniently crop myself out of.
As much as dysmorphia and disordered eating has dictated that I reject myself, so much of my existence has been poured into that self-hatred. I want to change. I’ve wanted to change since middle school. But recovery is a painful cycle of breaking free, stepping forward, and faltering back into those shadows.
Sometimes, all I can do is hide, and fall apart in isolation.
With the rollout of the new model of the Galaxy Note and a phone upgrade I’ve been waiting very patiently to cash in on, I finally got myself the mobile workstation I’ve wanted for years. I was nervous about the size of the stylus and sensitivity, but woof. My new baby blows my poor old Intuos out of the water, and the S Pen is the perfect size for my extraordinarily tiny hands.
I’ve been doing some pretty furious testing with art apps. I’m still blown away by how far digital art has come on mobile. As disappointed as I am that CSP isn’t on Android, I’ve absolutely fallen in love with ArtFlow (example: sepia tone sketch) and Infinite Painter (literally everything else). The former is extraordinarly similar to PaintTool Sai, and the latter is Clip Studio Paint’s little sibling with an emphasis on illustration and brush customizability. I uhhhhhh accidentally corrupted Infinite Painter app with a custom brush I made that had to be summarily ejected from my phone, but it’s been incredible having touch screen functionality and gesture commands.
I mention the story about broadcasting my edgy furry art in middle school because I started drawing an edgy fallen angel wolf girl as a joke, spent 30 minutes inking the entire thing, and then realized I would have thought this is the coolest shit ever as a kid.
How’s it going, kid? There are so many things I wish I could say to you. I want you to know that despite all your anxieties about your talents, you’re going to be an artist for decades to come. I want to reassure you that you are not as lonely as you feel, and you will fall in love sooner than you think. I want to be the voice of reason you never had with an adult - the one to tell you that you’re not so strange as you feel in the world you’re in now, and one day, you will find the home a part of you is longing to find.
I cannot tell you these things now, of course, but I can give you a gift. It’s the same gift you gave me when art really captured your heart in elementary school, because I cannot think of any greater reward: the first original character you ever made.
Ned’s Wookie costume has to be getting pretty gnarly by now. I could have gone for the full mask, but I was too tempted to give this take on his design a shot!
