Welp... here we go.

[AfricanVoodoo]

(WARNING: I actually typed a lot here, just wanted to introduce myself is all)
Yo yo yo! I am the African Voodoo Child. I am an aspiring character designer/ character concept... person.

 Alright, I joined this website 6 months ago and I completely glossed over this thread. Whoops. It should of been the first thing on my list to do on this website. Welp, now I'm here with 9 posts on my sketchbook that involves me talking about my struggles while my art flies by with little commentary on it. I also notice that I type a lot more than most people on this website. I dunno, I feel empty when I post art and the caption is just "value study". So expect some words coming from me.

The main thing you are going to notice with me is that most of my stuff are traditional. And by traditional, I mean pencil and ink for like 99% of my work. It's not that I don't want to go digital (in this industry, it's mandatory at this point), it's that I currently have FireAlpaca right now and I'm dying every time I use it. Soon, Photoshop will be mine. For now, I only used the program for studies and ultra dirty value studies. I showed some studies on Women's Anatomy and Dog Skulls on here, so I guess you can find out how I do my thing.

As for my goals. One of my long term goals, is to have a stable life with this art business. That's pretty much everyone's goal on this website but there is more with me. I want to be an artist where companies will ask for my cooperation, find out that I'm busy with other shit, then visibly freak out. Not because I'm a last resort, but because they know I am the perfect person to do the job. I want to be an artist that gets interviews from groups like LevelUp! all over the place. I want to be an artist where I can actually stand side by side by people like Jim Lee and have good-ass dinner with them. I want to be the kind of artist that shouts out smaller artists, indie games, and lesser-known web comics because I know the struggle of getting your creations out there. I want to be the kind of artist that reminds people that art shouldn't be 100% influenced by the industry.  That is what I want to be. (Oh, and I want to open up my own studio)

For dream jobs... I'm not sure actually. My art seems... Cartoon Network level. My style is not exactly... "industry-friendly". What I mean is that most huge companies (video games) are leaning towards the hyper-realism side of character concepts, which is not that fun to me. Doing renders on each dragon scale, each chain on a mail shirt, each blemish on a person's face seems so... bleh. Realism is not exactly my go-to style is what I am saying. But guess who wants that shit?



The big bad video game industry. Blizzard, Besthuda, Naughty-Dog. HUGE companies that makes concepts that requires realistic proportions, anatomy, lighting, literally every single piece of art fundamental you can think of. Even though I LOVE this piece of concept right here (every single piece of art from Witcher 3 looks amazing), I do not see myself doing this for the rest of my life. I will feel disconnected from myself. Because I know I want to put some outlandish shit in my designs. Drama queen, you say? I agree. But like I said above, art should be fun. I would rather work on the next Darkstalker game than the next Uncharted because I know making up designs for new characters in Darkstalkers is going to be ultra fun. Meanwhile, Uncharted is just "make a dude in a shirt and jeans". Shit, I know making designs is work, but making me render normal shirts and pants are a new kind of torture for me, especially for someone who wants to create fantasy and mythology and other unrealistic stuff.

 For more insight on what I want:










1. Character Concept for Darkstalkers
2. Um... I'm not sure but it says it is for Blizzard.
3. Also, not sure but I love the design of the warriors. Also for Blizzard.
4. More concepts for Darkstalkers 
5. Official art of Cyclops in Marvel vs Capcom 2
6. Art for the book "The Edge Chronicles"
7. Official concept for Bayonetta

I see a common thing between all of this, imagination, design, brains coming together to create new things. Creating reimaginings of horror characters for a fighting game, making characters with exaggerated and unusual proportions and faces, incorporating my style on well known characters (which is just fanart but...). This is what I would love to do. But for now, I might have to settle for

I'll deal with it. Just have to brush up on my portraits, value, and material studies. I also have to create a new style, which helps with portfolios right?
(Also, NO DISRESPECT to these games or artists or their style. I sincerely, severely apologize if I came off as dragging them for doing what they do.)


Now some history about me.

I am currently a Junior in high school with zero artsy friends and little connections to other aspiring artists. I'm basically alone on this one. I never considered art until the 8th grade because I was too busy playing video games like it was no ones business. When I started drawing, I found myself creating long running comics and characters that pretty much played out like a Sailor Moon episode. They were literally a bunch of stick figures with square bodies and circular heads. I do not have these comics with me anymore cause I made the poor decision to throw all of it away, now I only have a few illustrations. I swear, if the power went out in my house I would be binge-reading that comic just so I can entertain myself.

I gotten into the 9th grade, still considering art my hobby. I actually wanted to be a chef, because I love food. Then in the middle of my freshman year I was like..... "I do more drawings than actual dinners". I have more fun drawing my own shit than frying up some sausage. It was a gradual process, but I started to draw almost everyday, I even took out my sketchbook instinctively every single class period. And then it just clicked...

I wanted to become an artist.




Two years, going on three is me drawing my damn butt off. I worked on my anatomy and proportions like my life depended on it. I watched artists like Sycra and Proko who helped me get up on my feet in terms of anatomy. After that, I did everything by myself. Finding landmarks and new ways to make 7-8 head human figures efficiently and effectively. No joke, I did this so much, if I created a figure where it was not a perfect seven head figure, I will stress out. I will stop the character, turn to a new page, and study proportions for an hour. I mean that's a good thing, but the sudden anxiety for no reason wasn't. I was KEEN on making everything perfect to the model. "The bottom of the chest is equal to the bottom of the deltoid", "Put other cranium below the original to find the collarbone". I will tell myself this every time I made a human character. Then recently... I just said fuck it (The sketch above illustrates my change in thinking while drawing). I let loose. I didn't really think about the ribcage or pelvis anymore, I just drew.

2016 was the year where I finally started to expand my horizons. I ultimately moved on to animals, different body types, plants, insects, and women. I'm telling you, if I kept on doing my proportion and anatomy studies I would NEVER move on. And I'm not even sure what happened for me to be this way. I'm just gonna say that I finally got bored of drawing men every damn day, better not to think about it I guess.

I joined this site because I need to know how it feels to be in a community. Like I said above, I have zero friends who want to pursue painting and drawing. It's time to be around other people who knows the struggle. Also, me getting critiques is more infrequent than a JonTron video coming out. So now I am reaching out to the internet to help me. I also want to help other artists as well and give encouragement to them. Hopefully, I can start my own community on Facebook or something and do fun challenges and critique each other and pat each other on the backs... Y'know?

That werebunny sketch up there? I want to refine my skills and redo this as a full fledged painting and make it like that illustration involving that green bartender. That is the life for me. Cause if I can draw something that I actually like. Imagine if I can paint this and put it into my portfolio with turnarounds and notes...

Whew. That's it! (Told ya that I type too much). Thank you SO much for reading and keep on working on that dream art job. Bye now.

[Artloader]

Heheh - I think you get the prize for the longest Intro post I've read on here!

I admire your passion AfricanVoodoo, it should serve you well in propelling you into an art career.

Since you are still at high school, have you considered going to some kind of formal art college after you leave high school or is that not an option for you?

Personally I would love to go down that route as I believe it would furnish me with skills far superior to my present ones.  It is not an option for me right now however so I have to self learn in my spare time - which will probably take me 4 or 5 times longer.

Anyway - good luck with your journey and remember to stop to enjoy the ride from time to time :).

[AfricanVoodoo]

Heheh - I think you get the prize for the longest Intro post I've read on here!

I admire your passion AfricanVoodoo, it should serve you well in propelling you into an art career.

Since you are still at high school, have you considered going to some kind of formal art college after you leave high school or is that not an option for you?

Personally I would love to go down that route as I believe it would furnish me with skills far superior to my present ones.  It is not an option for me right now however so I have to self learn in my spare time - which will probably take me 4 or 5 times longer.

Anyway - good luck with your journey and remember to stop to enjoy the ride from time to time :).

I'm thinking about SCAD, Savanna School of Art and Design. I'll have to take a tour over there and possibly a summer program just to see if the atmosphere is right for me. Honestly, I want a college where the majority of the artists there have the same amount of passion that I do for art. But we'll see.

Going to college, admittedly... gives me more time to AT LEAST get my name out there. I can finally start getting a damn Youtube channel, maybe go on Conceptart.com and find some book cover jobs, and of course... meeting more people and interacting. But for now, I do have to learn by myself. 
Thank you so much for reading!

[John]

Hey African Voodoo,

Your post reminded me of me. This will sound ridiculous.

I started out trying to get into the comic book industry. I was into it thinking my art will beat everyone out there. With it, fan following, adoration, and occasional signing of boobies. I kept saying to myself that one day, I will be one of the locals, the best one in fact, to get his name at an international level.

I came across a local comic book artist (who works for the big two comic book industry), who pointed out to me that if those are the things I wanted out of myself in art, better quit while I'm ahead and go do something else that will get me there quicker. Harsh reality is, as you may have already heard before, the art game is tough. And me using the word 'tough' would still insufficiently describe how insanely difficult it is.

This is not to discourage you to go for your goals, but maybe present you with a little bit of perspective. There should be a certain balance between doing work as a job (catering to other people's taste), and doing work as a hobby (catering to your own discretion). Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and it seems, judging by your intro, that you have a glimpse of how torturous it would be to do commercial work!

Maybe it's better to think about the former later in life, because people tend to forget the latter when they're in the trenches for so long! I think you'll get it when you realize that art is the thing you really want to do in life. Not the glitter and gold that's presumably at the end of the road, but loving the road itself. You sound so young and what you're doing right now is probably the best thing you can do with the art you're making, which is to enjoy just making them. You have no idea how many artists lose sight of that.

Well, no sense of welcoming you since you've been at this for quite some time now! So see you around more often then?

[AfricanVoodoo]

Hey African Voodoo,

Your post reminded me of me. This will sound ridiculous.

I started out trying to get into the comic book industry. I was into it thinking my art will beat everyone out there. With it, fan following, adoration, and occasional signing of boobies. I kept saying to myself that one day, I will be one of the locals, the best one in fact, to get his name at an international level.

I came across a local comic book artist (who works for the big two comic book industry), who pointed out to me that if those are the things I wanted out of myself in art, better quit while I'm ahead and go do something else that will get me there quicker. Harsh reality is, as you may have already heard before, the art game is tough. And me using the word 'tough' would still insufficiently describe how insanely difficult it is.

This is not to discourage you to go for your goals, but maybe present you with a little bit of perspective. There should be a certain balance between doing work as a job (catering to other people's taste), and doing work as a hobby (catering to your own discretion). Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and it seems, judging by your intro, that you have a glimpse of how torturous it would be to do commercial work!

Maybe it's better to think about the former later in life, because people tend to forget the latter when they're in the trenches for so long! I think you'll get it when you realize that art is the thing you really want to do in life. Not the glitter and gold that's presumably at the end of the road, but loving the road itself. You sound so young and what you're doing right now is probably the best thing you can do with the art you're making, which is to enjoy just making them. You have no idea how many artists lose sight of that.

Well, no sense of welcoming you since you've been at this for quite some time now! So see you around more often then?

Thank you John! 

I did sound hella naive on that post even though on the back of head, I knew only... 1/16 of those things could happen to me. But honestly, optimism is the only thing pushing me to even try to get into this industry.

Thank you so much for reminding me that I do need to put things into perspective.

See you around!

[John]

I hear you. I hope you didn't take it as me outing you as this naive person. I mean, dude, you think I stopped fantasizing scenarios that'll bloat my currently inflated ego? Plus it's pretentious for me to say that it's silly to be goal oriented when I catch myself checking my social media accounts for an uptick.

You're alright. Not a bad thing to be driven.

[AfricanVoodoo]

I hear you. I hope you didn't take it as me outing you as this naive person. I mean, dude, you think I stopped fantasizing scenarios that'll bloat my currently inflated ego? Plus it's pretentious for me to say that it's silly to be goal oriented when I catch myself checking my social media accounts for an uptick.

You're alright. Not a bad thing to be driven.

No, never thought that about you. Still, it was good advice.

[gregorkari]

hey AfricanVoodoo,
the second one is by Rafael Zanchetin who's also had a sketchbook here (just look up "Danger Zone" and you'll find it :)) years back. Good luck on your path and see you around!