Programming

I started studying it when a friend introduced me to it. We learned together and was very lucky to have another friend who was good at it. He taught me how to program in C language, back then I don’t have any personal computer of some sort so I started with a phone, luckily phones are modern at that time and there were some apps that lets you compile C language. After I get a bit proficient, I started borrowing my brother’s laptop and learning through the book “Learn Python the Hard Way”, and it was from then I started to think I can earn at least a bit of money with it.

I have been very lucky to get into the software engineering industry after I dropped out of college. Earning my first freelance work was as challenging as others described it. Until someone took a chance on me, which where essentially my career took off to. Then it was a string of good people who taught me in every part of my journey, leading me here with good people in a good company.

Art

It started really in wanting to do some 3D art with blender. I have been really wanting to design some scenes in 3D, as there were some visions that flashes to me whenever I was holding a charcoal pencil and a pocket notebook, although it was just a hit-or-miss. Some days I produce good scenes, most days are just bad. Nothing really special.

Then, I encountered some voxel art and it was quite amazing I thought. I wanted to do some of that too but got overwhelmed when I downloaded the voxel art tool. Went back to Blender but it frustrated me thinking “ah, I may need at least some good art skills”. So, I went to paper and tried working on my drawing.

There was no direction really, but I wanted to have at least some roadmap. So, I went to https://drawabox.com and started doing drills. It was fine after few papers, but I got bored easily and got tired of it. Thinking back, I should’ve focused more on doing it properly instead of finishing it quickly, that might make it more enjoyable.

Then, I started looking into digital painting because it was a long-time dream to learn. Produced a lot but really going nowhere. It was just frustration after frustration. Which was funny, when I was working on some paintings, it looked good to me, then after a while, it gets ugly.

It’s just that then, I started to watch some YouTube videos. Learning first whatever is important, whatever I can learn to boost my progress. Learning what should I prioritize first. Then went to online courses—shading courses to start, learning how values work, then using shapes, then using colors, and so on.

I’m at the point where I can start inventing some characters. I’m not good at it yet, but I found that participating in daily challenges in the internet helps a lot. Another point is to also improve your visual library as you go on, and it can be just meditating through drawings and patterns or whatever that gets your hand working.