So the problem with trying to draw consistently, is that you have to actually draw to do it. With work and other deadlines with University, I actually (ironically) find it difficult to find time to practice drawing on a regular basis.

This could be fixed if I had less personal time (though I have very little as it is) so the logical way forward would be to redistribute time. “The only way you can get better at something is by doing it regularly” is a life lesson my grandparents made me aware of regularly as a child and it has come in very useful for many years since. 

I think I need to create a table or work, similar to how an athlete would plan a workout or a traveller plans their route. If there is just an hour or so on one day a week, the week after I can increase it, the week after the same until I can spread hours over various days. If done correctly, I should hopefully be able to spare at least an hour a day to draw something. With my work, I find realism the hardest so I shouldn't start with that as it can very easily demotivate me. 

By starting with my own style, I can develop it and change it very slightly each time until it's easier to draw realistically and then spend a few weeks repeating the work until it feels natural. With luck and determination, I should be more confident pretty quickly!

As artists, the common trait for us that i have seen, is that we never see the good in our work. We only see the flawed work and the shaky lines, the ink that spread too far and the imperfections caused by rubbing out the same section of paper because how on earth do hands work?!

But I've been drawing long enough to recognise my strengths and my weaknesses at this point. 

My main strengths are creativity and how colours work. I absolutely love colouring digitally because there are so many subtle nuances you can create. I have managed to develop my own style over the years and it does well do my skills (though admittedly, it doesn't transfer well into 3D just yet for me and i think Disney might try to kill me if i did)

I do, however, suck royally at realistic drawings. There are days and occasions when I can look at a piece and feel proud at what I accomplish... The main being an eye, nose and lip set I did for a previous university, but more often than not, I find myself unhappy with realism. I can see that the nose isn't the right size for the face or one eye is too tilted while the other has a pupil twice as large as the other. Consistency is a major flaw in my work at the moment and i am aware of that issue. It is definitely a development area for me personally.

Even though i haven't had any 'professional' experience with Animation or 3d modelling or even game development, I do have an Ace up my sleeve. 

I used to be WWS-QA for Sony computer Interactive Entertainment Europe. 

yeah that's right, i used to work for playstation. 

And while that was not in any development position, I was in a unique position to see video games before they reached players. I saw games with bare bones details, I saw characters that were still being animated, I saw visible trigger boxes and hit boxes and missing characters and more crashes than I care to count honestly. 

But it was the key point in my short character arc. What if I did that? What if I could take everything I have learned from playstation (you learn alot as a play tester, mainly what NOT to do) and create something with it? 

I joined a university just one year after leaving playstation and while the University itself was awful, the people i met there were fantastic. I might be a first year student with my current university (SAE Institute, highly recommend it if you're interested and near one!) but I have two years experience with a different one. I learnt 3D modelling and character design and character modelling and so much more. There was so much I learned due to three amazing people and I will truly owe them everything I become at this point. 

Ofcourse, I haven't gone in blind with animation either. just before working with Playstation i took a dive into frame by frame animation on Photoshop CS6 (It barely ran and it crashed so much that i developed a nervous habit of saving every 30 seconds) and produced a small and choppy GIF for Toby Fox's Undertale. nothing professional but it was an eye opener into how much work goes into each and every frame. It certainly gave me a reality check when doing proper animations now!

I've done many pieces of artwork, commissions and character designs for people too and with everything, including some amateur voice acting experience and fan game writing experience, there is more than enough starting knowledge to follow my dream.

"My candle burns at both ends;

 it will not last the night. 

but ah my friends and oh my foes 

it gives off such a light"  

The final page of the Roald Dahl treasury that was gifted to me as a child. That book, and it's author, gave me such hope and love for the world and what we could do with it as creators. Mr Dahl envisioned fantastical worlds full of wonder and mystery, changing the mundane into something completely different so that young Kitti was scared to eat peaches for Years in case she hurt James and his friends.

As a kid the first film I remember seeing and absolutely falling in love with was Spirited away by Studio Ghibli. The colours and the story and the fantasy of it all was amazing. A single girl is pushed into circumstances she had no control over but somehow manages to pull through and make everything right again. She was the heroine of her own story and, as a kid, it stuck with me. Seeing the mystical nature of the spirit town, how all the spirits would convene in the bath house, the rise and fall of the absolutely beautiful musical score and the gorgeous detail that went into everything inspired me. I wanted to do that. I want to do that. I want to create my own illustrious worlds full of magic and wonder and excitement for everyone. I wanted the reader or viewer or player, whoever it would be, to see something that I have done and be inspired. 

I grew up with my grandparents mainly, two people of the generation that believed hard work and determination can get you to places you always wanted to be in but the one thing they never really understood was imagination. "what use is being an artist? it doesn't help anyone?" they would say. Now don't misunderstand me, I love my grandparents very much and in a way, the blatant unacceptance of what i loved to do, made me do it more. I began to write stories and create characters and build entire worlds, only for them to fade away with time as I never wrote them down. I remember distinctly that the first character I ever created was when I was 8 or 9. She was a young girl with blonde hair and bright golden brown eyes. She always wore white and smiled because she was kind and fun to play with. My first creation that I remember to this day, was named Celeste. 

I like to think this character grew with me, changed slightly over the years but i know that would be a lie. Celeste, before tonight, was just a memory, fleeting like a dry leave on white rapids. but that is also good. 

Remembering Celeste and what kind of character she was reminds me of what I want to become. My hopes are to create my own company. to create a place where there are no bad stories to be told. a place where we can create dreams and memories for others to enjoy. I want to prove mainly to myself that I am capable of doing it. I want to step back at the end and be proud of what I have achieved. I want the people who I work with to not just be colleagues but also friends and family. It's always cringe worthy when companies say "we're like a family" when you know full well that the staff co-ordinator can't stand the department head, but I truly do mean it. I want to create a company that gives us a chance.

If i grow old and look back on my life to see struggles and hard work and chaos, i don't mind so long as I know that I have inspired at least one person. If there is something out there that I helped create that helped someone feel the same way that I did when I was a wee bairn (Scottish child) of 7, sitting cross legged on the floor of my grandma's living room floor and seeing the beautiful reds and golds of the bath house for the first time..

well... that would be a life well lived in my opinion.