Limitless possibilities

Art is often regarded as an innate ability you either have it or you don’t. Art is also ever-evolving with designing and illustration morphing from pen and paper to tablet. Today, we hear from Sam, who has a keen interest in digital illustration. Sam is largely self-taught and shares how he has come to discover this interesting hobby.

What inspires you to draw?

It started off as creating extra content for stories that I knew like trying to create a “what if” situation. Over time, I started to shift towards visualising and expressing my ideas to create original characters as well.

What do you enjoy most about digital art?

I like the time I can actually visualise and communicate my imagination with people that might share same interest or hobby as me. Drawing my imagination out allow myself to explore more possibility and story that could happen.

What influences your drawings?

Many factors influenced me alongside my journey of illustration and creation. But the very first influence is my father, who is a talented model ship maker. After I started to create my own original work, most of my friends became my influences

Do you ever think you could make a career out of it?

Yes, it’s a possibility. Yet since the market is really saturated now and since I only treat it as a hobby, I don’t see myself doing this as a proper career.

On average, how long does it take to create a piece of artwork?

Depends on the content I’m making. On average, doodling and idea sketches takes about 2 hours, one full illustration take about two days. Illustrating a comic or short story, depending on the length, may take three days to a week.

What do you do when your run out of inspiration?

I enjoy sharing my ideas with friends and discuss the various possibilities. Other times, I will consume other media, including movie, comics, anime, drama, or even reading up different facts on Wikipedia.

What are some challenges that you struggle with?

The more I draw, the more I got influenced by how others view my creation and subconsciously started to struggle to create “perfect” story with “perfect” illustration. so some of the idea or illustration stop at the moment when I think “this might be good, but not perfect”.

What has been your favourite piece and why?

My favourite pieces is probably the 30 page comic I created as my first ever published short story comic, because that is something I want to draw, that is the chemistry of relationship between trust and fight toward freedom I want to illustrate.

What’s a common misconception about digital illustration?

People might think it’s easy to draw, the truth is, it’s easy to copy, like how we can draw things that we can see or copy other comic’s character, or photo. It make the illustration looks good, but to come up with something that is original, takes a lot more effort and time to truly understand what you want to create and what is the thing that you want to express.

Any advice for someone who’s afraid of trying this for the first time?

There’s no such thing as “perfect”, sure we might want to achieve certain kind of techniques but what is most important is to express who you are and what you want in the process. Illustration is a way to communicate, so it doesn’t matter if you got the skill or equipment to do so, just dive into it and explore what make you happy. You are your first audience, so why not just create something that you like and enjoy?