Thought I'd use this thread as a sort of a way to introduce myself to the community here. I've been watching some of Sycra's videos on youtube and I thought I should join the community.

My name is Alex(my username is a sort of hybrid romanization of アレックス [arekkusu] which is my name in Japanese. I have been studying how to read/write/speak Japanese for over 12 years at this point.) I'm 27 years old now, and while my career of pursuit is in writing fiction--both short as well as long-- and other pursuits in writing, I have always been drawn towards drawing. My tool of choice is the pencil and the nib/ink as well as sharpies. I've always been fond of the manga style, but more than the somewhat overdone concept of manga, the fact that these artists are able to produce beautiful stories using only black&white colors. This has always fascinated me.

While I may not want to pursue a career in illustration, I believe that by improving my ability to draw--and understand-- what I see, I can strengthen my skills as a writer; tools such as storyboarding, character concept/design, and all other sorts of miscellaneous advantages to being a competent artist.

I found my deviantart from a few years ago, and it showcases my gaps in drawing. I have pretty much drawn a very small amount over the past 14 years, and never really took the time to understand the fundamentals. Now that I am older, I would like to practice and work on improving my craft.

Nice to meet you all!

~Alex Loranger
https://areckx.deviantart.com/

Hi! Welcome to the forum

Looking forward to seeing how you improve your skills over your time here

Looking forward to your drawing journey, keep this sketchbook up ^^

Thanks! I'll be uploading scans as the pages fill!

Nothing too exciting; just doing a bunch of exercises, such as the ones in Mark's Drawing Tutorials as well as gesture drawings. Hopefully I am improving; these posts are to mark my progress as I improve.

Practicing Photoshop CS2(For now; this summer I'll start any classes if I can and then I will upgrade to CS6) with my new, first-tablet-ever Wacom Bamboo One!!!(CTL-471) Hopefully I will get better as I continue to practice!

Hey! It's been quite some time since I've been around here.

I decided to get back into drawing again. I set up my desktop and laptop linux boxes with Krita and Inkscape, although I think I don't really need to worry about production at this stage. I can sketch out everything in Krita for now. When I reach the stage where I can produce high quality illustrations, I will probably have to start using inkscape and gimp for certain things.




Pretty big update.

Since I was last here, I have since completely changed my focus on my college education and career. I have gotten back into music, which is one of my major passions and talents. In high school I had played trombone in concert/marching/jazz bands, and in 2015 I had gotten into the community college jazz band playing trombone. I had always wanted to play woodwinds, particularly clarinet and saxophone, however, so I bought myself a clarinet and quickly got up to speed to join the symphonic band. During the summer I got myself a tenor saxophone and I've been practicing clarinet, tenor sax, flute, and sometimes soprano sax ever since. I've been studying theory and plan to continue my education as far as I am able. My career goals include teaching, performing, composing/arranging, and anything else I can manage.

Of course, I still work on my writing. My novel is getting close to completion. Computer programming is another major part of my life.

I feel like drawing will always be a part of my life, and i really think everyone should do it.

That being said, as a computer programmer/web developer as a potential means of income, learning to create digital artwork will prove useful in that respect. I know (much more talented) artists in the music program who do commissioned art as a primary source of income, so if I get good, I have options.