Since you've been doing this for some time now, my question is this: Was there anything way back in the day that made you say "You know what? I want to try this art thing!"
I’ve been big on illustration based entertainment since I was a little kid, including cartoons, comics and such. I was the kind to fill his school notebooks with doodles depicting silly action scenes, vehicles and the such. I would guess that only my obsession with tech and video games prevented me from following that path that early on, pushing me to pursue a computer and IT engineering degree instead.
But growing up, it was obvious how much of a seminal geek I was. I became part of the first wave of anime fans in the west, starting in the early 90′s, and I believe that I played a considerable part in the spread of its popularity in my country, helping organize the first, modest fan conventions at youth centers near Lisbon.
I have always held enormous admiration for those who are able to bring their visions (and those of others) to life on the canvas, make them seem real and plausible as to be shared by everyone, and even make them move on a screen. Being in a position that allowed me to observe other fans interacting among themselves, I knew that such admiration was shared (and even more enthusiastically) by most anime fans. During the small, rickety cons that I helped organized, the fan artists were always the stars of the show, since… well, for a long time, we didn’t have the resources to bring any actual industry figures over. I had dabbled in fan art myself, but I guess I never had enough of a passion for the process itself to lend myself to it, allowing me to improve my skills to a point where my work was really able to catch a stranger’s attention.
I guess witnessing that kind of reverent reaction always stuck with me. After burning out on my old DBA job, which led me to give in to my wife’s suggestion to move to Brazil, I was alone and isolated in a society in which I felt I didn’t fit in at all. I guess those memories of the way fan artists were treated back then, as well as my then-recent beginnings as an MLP fan (and crappy fan artist) all contributed to the decision to invest in the improvement of my artistic skills, as a way to bring like-minded people to notice me and approach me. By striving to become like one of the figures I had always admired, I would be offering something to the world as well as helping myself feel less lonely. From now on, the main thing missing is achieving self-sustainability, I suppose.
I guess the moderate (arguable) success I was achieved in this niche is the only thing that makes me believe that my presence in this country was not a totally, absolutely, completely disastrous decision.
