Back to basics

Where I started

If you have ever known me, then you know that I am always doodling. Since I was young, I have been interested in drawing and somehow had a slight talent for it. I remember in my middle school art class, we had to recreate a drawing of a woman in 19th-century clothing using just a pencil. I came into class with my drawing that I had spent hours on, receiving praise from the teacher and the whole class. Looking back, that was definitely a crucial moment in my development. I then spent more time drawing, sketching, and creating. A lot of that sketching and doodling involved drawing characters from video games and anime that I loved. I am sure that if I were to find any of those drawings today, I would cringe.

Years later, in my senior year of high school, we had an elective class with a few options. I opted for the Visual Arts Portfolio course, which allowed me to utilize all of the tools and supplies that the art department had to create a portfolio of my own work. Looking back, I am still proud of what I created. A mixture of watercolor, ink, and graphite pieces all reflected some portion of what I was most interested in. A mixture of monsters, photorealism, and abstract art culminated in the best I could produce at the time.

Where I am now

Over the years in college and into adult life with full-time jobs, my time doodling and creating never stopped but definitely slowed down. I practiced less, did not have anything I was actively creating, or was generally uninspired.

I am almost 30 years old now, and I want to get in touch with that creative side again. In my spare time, I have been reading more manga such as Berserk and Vinland Saga and am constantly in awe of the level of detail that goes into each frame, all done with just black ink. This has inspired me to go back and re-teach myself art, but this time be more thorough with my training. My dream is to get to a point where I am confident enough to start authoring my own comics, and to get there, I will need to know more than I ever have. This entails filling up sketchbooks with practice of failed attempts to learn how clothing folds, failed environments, etc. However, through each failure there is experience gained which I then apply to the next piece. Another piece of practice I have started is re-creating some of my favorite manga panels using Procreate on my iPad, which I post on my art Instagram @ianmcc_art.

Restarting from scratch with a new medium has been scary because I was not sure if I would be able to improve. Not to mention how messy ink can be if you are not careful, but having ink all over my hands has taught me how to be more deliberate with my linework and strokes. I've included a couple of pictures below from my sketch book. I am proud of the progress I am making, and I will continue to improve until I can no longer pick up a pen.