My DeviantArt Story

I joined DeviantArt about eight years ago.  If you asked me what I was doing in 2006, I could probably tell you I was a junior/senior in high school and that's about it.  However, if you were to ask the same question and show pictures I'd made from that time, I'd be able to tell you a LOT more.



The year I joined DA was the year I started learning about digital media.  I was also heavily influenced by anime, since at that point I had had no formal art training and I was pretty directionless.  2006 was the birth of Vardengard and my reaching out to be part of a community.



In 2008 I went off to college!  I had a huge, marked improvement on my style, largely due to the fact that DA was a place where I could learn so much.  I never really considered myself as "self-taught" because as much as I intuitively understand or discover for myself, a large part of the foundation of my art is based in things I learned by observing others and gleaned from the things they have to offer in tutorials and walk-throughs.



Then in 2009 I switched accounts to the current handle of Nytrinhia and my gallery started to get filled with school work because that's pretty much all I had time for.  And so begins my history of personal projects that gets started and never finished.  Like the 100 Themes Boot Camp, Between Heaven and Hell, contests and tournaments, individual pieces etc etc etc.  






From 2010 to 2013 my time is generally dominated by commissions with a few personal pieces in between.  There was also the birth of the Narseakitteh and other silly projects.  It's also the time that I became much more invested in fashion and clothing construction.  Not in a literal sense, but my characters got much more fashionable and their clothing was in general, much more detailed.  I also started doing more turn-arounds and static poses for character designs and model sheets.






2014 and facing forward I hope to be able to focus on a single project and see it to fruition.  I'm much more confident in my technique, and though I know I have a long way to go to get where I want to be, looking back I can see I'm much closer than I used to be.  In a way, my DA gallery is like a recorded journal of my journey through art and life, which is a little ironic, since I only like to post personal information as it pertains to my art (as in if it will affect the output of my commissions or anticipated projects).  But I suppose it just goes to show that my life pretty much revolves around my art.  Because of this and a few other reasons (like the community, how the staff is always focused on improvements that will make the site easier to use and manage galleries and work) even though I see other artists leaving for social networks like tumblr or facebook, I'll probably be stubbornly sticking to DeviantArt until the day I stop drawing or the site goes offline, which will be a really long time I hope.

My following is really small compared to other artists on DA and it's likely you'll never see my art on the front page or as a daily deviation, but I still appreciate each and every person that chooses to follow my work and stick with me through all the ups and downs.  So thanks for sticking with me here, thanks for making me feel appreciated and like what I do matters.  And thanks to DA for a place to belong!  Happy Birthday, DA and may there be many more to come!

That is all.
~Yoko