No Monet: My Journey to Realistic Art

Hey, guys! Sorry, this isn’t a new drawing, but I decided that for this post I will take you guys through a journey of how I started drawing. It’s a long story, so I’ll try to shorten it up a bit! First, obviously, everyone starts somewhere…

Okay, maybe this drawing is a bit creepy, but this was my first attempt ever of drawing my family. It makes them look like scarecrows, but I can personally guarantee that they are better looking in real life!

So, I had a phase in life that I don’t really enjoy remembering too much, BUT it is there and I admit that it was part of my life that I did enjoy. Yes… I was a weeaboo, in other words, an anime addict.

I have no hate toward anime. In fact, sometimes I find myself reading manga when I have spare time, but I used to be a HARDCORE anime addict, like one of those people who had posters of anime figures all over their walls.

But it was thanks to my anime addiction that I became inspired to draw. I wanted to draw because, honestly, I was one of those cheap Asian kids who didn’t want to buy posters because they are so overpriced—let’s be honest, no wonder why my column is called No Monet—so I instead drew posters of my favorite characters. Here is an example:

This is Yuichiro Hyakuya; at the time he was my favorite character from Seraph of the End.

Eventually, I did get out of my anime-obsession phase (BLESS) and began to go back to the “3-D world,” again discovering “3-D people”. Woah! I know, right?! And in this “3-D World”

I became especially obsessed with Korean idols. But I had a problem. You see, I was into these new “3-D people,” but I only knew how to draw “2-D people” (also known as anime characters). That was when I began to read Mika Yamamori’s work and became addicted to her drawing style, so I began to imitate it:

Above are examples of attempt to imitate her artwork: a combination of realistic and animation drawings. These were slightly more advanced than my usual anime drawings, but it was easy enough for me to do.

Eventually, I grew quite tired of doing the same types of drawings all the time, so I convinced myself to try realistic art. I told myself, How hard can it be? I’m just copying the guy’s face. No big deal.

Aha. As you can see above, it was a big deal. I sucked. But just as I started with scarecrow people when I was a toddler, I told myself that I could get better with more practice.

And eventually, with practice, I was able to draw one of my favorite singers, Jae from DAY6.

Finally, in the interest of wrapping this up quickly, all I really wanted to do with this post was to send as a message to my readers that there is no such thing as “natural talent.” What we usually think of as talent is actually years of hard work, so anyone can do anything as long as he/she puts his/her mind into it.