Hollz Does Art, Part 1

Welcome to the first post in Hollz Does Art - where Hollz teaches herself how to become an artist!

I could never draw.  Maybe I could when I was a child, back when criticisms never mattered.  But as soon as the first kid laughed at my art project, I stopped all together.  I even purposely drew outside the lines to prove that I was not an artist, so no one would expect anything of me.

What a horrible attitude to have!  I decided to turn that around a few months ago, especially when I started to get a comic book idea in my head.  How could I produce my own comic without connections and without drawing skills?

So here's where I started - my very first drawing:

I drew the first thing I laid my eyes on - my computer speaker.  Then I expanded out, moving towards more of a cartoon style instead of realism:

I wonder if I could have gotten into one of those mail-in art schools with this drawing?

Q-Bert, one of my favorite classics!

Let me know what you think, and I'd love any tips!  I'll update with new drawings in a couple weeks.

Total XP from drawings to date: 500.  XP needed for next level: 1500.

Make Good Art

Do you need some inspiration to follow your dreams?  Maybe to record a song, or to submit your story to a publisher?  I know how hard it is to not only take the first step down the path you want to be on, but to STAY on that path until one day you finally wake up and say "I made it!"  

It's this video that helps get me through the day at work - I'm working for the paycheck, like most of us, but I long for the day when the paycheck comes from doing something I love, something I created.  I know I'll get there one day.

It's this video that motivated me to teach myself to draw (more on that in a later post).  I always told myself I sucked at art.  Any art.  I swore that I could mess up a stick figure!  But that negative thinking simply bleeds into other areas of your life, and I'd never become an artist if I simply complained about it.  So I picked up a pencil and I've been drawing ever since.

There's always room for improvement.

It's this video that reminds me to create at least one piece of art a day, whether it's my practice drawings, a few words in a journal, or even just a wildly vivid idea in my mind.  

It's this video that will keep me on the creative path - and I hope it keeps you on that path as well.

Becoming What I've Always Been...

Did you read my first blog post?  The long rant about...well it doesn't matter because I bet you didn't read it.  And that's great, because it was the typical beginning blog post that is therapeutic for the writer (meaning whiny and boring), but dooms the blog to never receive more than 10 page views - and those by accident!  So, I deleted it.

Let's instead start this blog with one of my main inspirations, Felicia Day:

Felicia Day addresses what it means to be a Geek, apparently from the Garden of Eden.

Geek.  That word really has come a long way.  When I was in high school some groups were proud of the word "nerd" (such as band nerd or theatre nerd) but not a GEEK.  Who even used that term?  It would have been a social death sentence, and we all know how important it was to be popular in high school.  And guess what?  I was definitely a geek in high school, but I hid from that label, and continued to run away for quite a few years afterwards.  I wanted to be liked, not shunned...I did not want to be a geek.

But today, it's completely acceptable for me to admit I'm a geek!  It's even fashionable, according to Hot Topic and other stores. Geeks on TV shows are now desirable instead of repulsive.  Shows like Big Bang Theory is still receiving top ratings.  But society is acting as if the word Geek is a fad, something that everyone cool will buy into (and I do mean buy from the consumer sense).  Geeks are just a way for corporations to make money.  We are perceived as just another demographic that will follow whatever trend the media throws our way.

But being a geek isn't a fad - at least not to people like myself.  Mainstream media doesn't get it.  Yes, we might be the sexy woman sucking on a lollipop while remembering how to execute more fatalities than you in Mortal Kombat.  Or we might be the loner sitting the the back of the class room, never raising our hand.    We're the gamers, the artists, the geniuses.  We collect comic books and paint miniatures.  We solve complex equations and write epic sagas. We might be too embarrassed to admit that we can speak Klingon, or we might proudly display our Cosplay characters on Facebook. We don't fit into a mold, and we never will.  There is no need to try to sell to us.  We'll buy what we like, and we'll partake in the hobbies we enjoy.  The media doesn't control us - we're the independent group that makes up our own minds - whether it's loving a popular game like Call of Duty, or an obscure MUD with only a couple hundred players.  We are Unique!  We are Geeks!   HUZZAH!

End Rant.

Now enjoy the rest of my blog as I journey down the path of geekdom.  It's what I've always been, and what I'm finally embracing.  I'll be Leveling Up (hehe, see what I did with the title, see?!) along the way as I conquer some of my dreams.  Welcome, and Enjoy!