As you may know, today is DeviantART's 14th birthday and one of the fun activities for today is to submit a journal called My DeviantART Story. I will try to write one. I fear that it may be very brief compared to some of the ones I've read today, but I hope that it is still a worthwhile read.
I came to deviantART a very long time ago; I believe I was in 8th or 9th grade. At the time, I was just getting into the art community. Even though I've been drawing since I could remember, I never really interacted with any other artists until I took Art class in 8th grade. There, I was introduced to anime and became addicted pretty quickly. I found deviantART while I was surfing pictures posted to an anime-art site. Many of the pictures were submitted by people who were also submitting them to dA. The picture that brought me to dA specifically is no longer here but it was called '100 anime faces'. Even though I had come to dA I didn't join until month's later because, unfortunately, I had a Win98 machine at home with a lame CRT monitor with color issues. DA's scheme was fairly dark back then and it was too dark for me to navigate the site at home, so my account stayed dead for about a year, haha!
When I came back to dA, I was pretty much over my anime craze and had just gotten into dragons. I made some friends here and grew to popularity surprisingly fast. To be honest, I really don't know how that happened? People continue to ask me to this day and I really don't have an explanation for them.
The way that dA has shaped me as both an individual and an artist is by providing a wonderful and open community.
Most of the best friends I've ever had are here on deviantART. I spend all of my spare time on the internet to talk to and hang out with my friends. I even met my wonderful boyfriend of 3 years, Ryoseth-CP, here on deviantART.
I had my very first art idols here on dA: like Nobody, Nobody, Nobody, and Nobody. This is really the first time I had been introduced to other art styles. I fawned over all of the beautiful works on dA and was introduced to so many things (like digital art!) that I had never even heard of. These artists and others inspired me so greatly that my style developed very quickly. Influence from these artists contributed to the style I have today.
Lastly but certainly not least, I also have all of my most wonderful supporters here on dA, without whom it wouldn't even be worth it to post art on the internet. All of this has been such a fabulous experience for me and it has really allowed me to put tons of energy into growing as a person and as an artist. I am always so thankful of each and every comment I receive on my art and on my profile and every favorite and watch. I'd like to thank you, everyone, for being so great and making my stay here such a great one. While I don't have as much time these days to post art, I still make sure to reply to all of my comments and I will continue to post art as long as I have people who wish to see it.
I'm supposed to feature artwork here in this journal, but I don't really want to feature my own. I feel that the most uplifting art to look at is fan art that I receive of my own characters. Especially during the times where I am too busy to draw them myself, you guys keep them alive by creating art of them. Without you, I would have burnt out on commissions way sooner than I did. I would like to feature some of my favorite recent fan arts here in this journal. After that, I will be ending this journal, but I hope that all of you know that you are the ones that keep me here and I love you all
