What inspired you to draw?

[VerdeICe]

I had a 2 friends. One hated me (the f*** if I know why.) and one that accepted me. The one who hated me was extremely talented in art, the one who accepted me became talented in art. At the start, I didn't consider them rivals. I had no doubts I could surpass ether of the in a matter of weeks. So I slaked of. That was a mistake. They ran passed me so far I couldn't see them anymore. But still it didn't matter, I still was stubborn enough to believe I could be better. Till one day I saw her work, the talented one. She was beyond average. professional level. I became jealous then, for the first time.

Later I met the one that became talented, all on her own through hard work. Her art was beautiful and funny. Not serious like the other ones. But It was just as good. She told me how she hates how good that persons work is, but she didn't realize just how good she was. For all the things I learned in art, I was also a talented one. But I never really practiced. So it meant nothing, I was so immature it was sickening. But I guess art only meant that much to me at the time.

I was so used to being coddled by my "yes men." I dint realize just how low my level was. My loathing for everything I made only grew further.

Recently I ran into a work on deviant art, I never get affected by "nice" pictures because I sketch very well and learn from what I sketch, but this work brought me to tears. When looking at that picture I felt so much disrepair for how I treated my own art. I could have been just as good. But now..... her pictures are very beautiful.

Well after all that whining, I dug out my old art supplies and started to draw again so I too could make beautiful pictures. I doubt Ill ever stop hating my work though. Just the fact that they are made by myself pisses me off. Maybe that will change, eventually...

So people. What inspired you to draw?

[magbie]

I was drawing since kindergarten. I won some kind of stupid contest. The prize was a doll I broke immediately.
In elementary I started drawing fanart, and got into manga using tutorials form papers and howtodraw books but than I stopped when my "friend" told me that drawing pretty was my only redeeming quality. So I know it's silly, but I worked my ass off on karate lessons to prove her wrong.
I picked drawing for srs 3 years ago and really got into it thanks to depressions and other shit. Now I have a lot on my neck, like passing exams, graduating and shit and after that: moving out, but I still find a time to art (I progressed some but since I'm going to art school I'm trying to do a bit of everything and that means turtle speed).

[Pyonkotchi]

^^ that
i used to draw before then too but it wasnt until i started watching tokyo mew mew and other anime that i got really into it???

[Deji]

I have no idea o_o
Probably illustrated storybooks from when I was little? I've been drawing since I can remember.
When I was a kid, I'd draw whatever comic/cartoon/anime character I liked at the time. It just kept going until I decided to study something art-related o_o.
(looking back, I'm a slow improver, because I didn't care much about improving seriously until a couple years ago at best "Orz)

[Anna]

Well... it was fun? Plus I needed some way to vent my creativity and shape my ideas or I'd go mad :p! I was drawing since I could hold pencils pretty much. Fun thing is that I didn't pick an art-related study, because I figured it would stay more fun that way and I could learn at my own pace. Turned out to be a good decision; it's still really fun .

[Auro-Cyanide]

I've drawn ever since I was little, since that's what kids do, but what got me to looooove drawing is games. Games in general, but Jak and Daxter specifically. We used to do things like still life and portraits occasionally at school, but nothing lit the spark in me like character and world building. Games had that immersive environment of a mixture of story and art that could take me worlds away and it was a drive to recreate and become apart of that lead me to practice my arse off. Always I wanted to be a tiny bit closer to creating what I saw in my mind. Cartoon, comics and other artwork also played a huge role. While I was at uni I didn't have much time to draw my own thing, though I did work drawing into a number of projects. I still do it at work actually. But working on visual novels has given me a very structured and driven way to create work and that is why I'm here specifically. I can't really imagine just drawing pictures all the time for no project any more XD

[dramspringfeald]

um... "H" that's what inspired me to draw but now I'm moving towards legit and cleaner works in the furry community.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Hmm. I started out by drawing for fun as a kid. I liked to take pictures from story books or comics and see how perfectly I could copy them without tracing. (One reason I think I became such a good mimicry style artist today.)

But what actually got me started drawing seriously, for art's sake and for a career choice? Well... I was a perverted kid (and teenager, and ... yeah) so I quickly picked up through visiting art galleries and museums that there were a LOT of naked girls in paintings. And then I learned artist's get to use MODELS to draw from. I decided that any job that let you draw naked girls while looking at real naked girls was even cooler than being an astronaut or firefighter. So, at the age of seven, I knew I wanted to be an "Artist". (And you know, dig for dinosaur bones on the side, because I was obsessed with dinosaurs like all kids.) I didn't play "Doctor" with other kids like so many do - instead I played "Artist and Model". My mother was never thrilled to find my naked drawings and would always ask me why didn't I want to draw landscapes or a still life. I would always make a disgusted face and intone with my childish authority - "Who'd want to draw trees instead of naked girls?" as if such artists were hopeless weirdos.

[Lumen_Astrum]

I had been drawing ever since I was little. My brother used to love it too. I still remember when my father had bought us both a huge coloring book, and my brother and I would argue on how do we split the works between us. We never finished the entire book, but it was really fun when it lasted.

One Christmas, my father bought me a watercolor set. Since my drawing were, of course, mediocre back then, I'd ask my dad to draw certain things and I'd color them. From the images in a book spine to cartoon characters. My father is actually the person who got me interested in drawing, even though he's an engineer and isn't really an artist. But when my father became really busy and he can't draw for me, I was the one who did the drawings. My drawings sucked, and most of my drawings back then don't have faces because that's how dad did them back then. So when I entered school, that was the factor I focused on.

I even remember doing this silly thing called a "photo studio shop" back then; I'd draw several things like eyes, noses, mouth/lips, hairstyles and face shapes, poses, clothes, etc. then I'd make people pick the ones they like, then I'd draw them all in a single image. Strangely, my brother made me do the idea after he drew me with a perfectly triangle chin.

My style developed when I was in 6th grade, and I got started on digital art when I was in 1st year high. Practically, the style development started when I started collecting the Bone comic book series, read a classmate's manga, watched several anime, and helped dad on his Naruto manga/anime database.

I drew a lot of fanart back then, even until now. Practically, I draw mostly fanart now, but they're mostly from VNs most people don't know, so many people think I'm making comic books because they thought the people on my sketchpad are my OCs O_O I don't forget to correct them though.

I'm actually happy I'm drawing for VNs now, because I feel like I'm drawing crap if I'm not... "purpose-driven". I felt my goals are much more straightforward. I can't imagine myself spending all night drawing for some drawing that's just for fun now (like what I do back then).

Right now, drawing's pretty much my life. I don't know what sort of person would I be without me drawing. Many people had already praised me because of it, and I won't feel special or I won't feel like I'm having a purpose without it. I felt like it became me, yeah. I can't last any day without at least doodling something, even just a couple of faces. So yeah. Sorry for the long useless raving and ranting ^^;

[nyaatrap]

As I said on another topic, I was a mathematical. I knew my logic able to make me draw in a short term, so I did to prove this. It's just came from a random conversation XD
If there are people who is thinking they have no talents nor experiments which made them give up drawing, that's wrong. It's proper logic and a strong will that they lacked. I'd say blaming lack of talents or experiments is just a loser's excuse.
Logic. I always emphasis this importance on any arts. (I wouldn't say about will here, because anyone already knew this importance)

[llplldll]

I used to love watching cartoons as a kid and wished to be an animator after seeing a 'behind the scenes' promo on the disney channel. It showed artist drawing live lions in a studio, it was for the movie Lion King I think. I thought that was the coolest thing ever so I bought a bunch of drawing books and decided to try out animation. Needless to say, I quickly found out I do not have the attention span for it. I decided to try drawing comics instead.
I improved my style as time went on and in classes I used to doodle my favorite characters all over the margin of notebooks, other kids and sometimes even my teachers thought it was neat, so that was what encouraged me to keep drawing back then.
Nowadays I don't draw quite as much but I enjoy writing even more.
Its become hard for me to just doodle anything without some sort of planning. Im the total opposite of how I used to be creatively.