ADVANCED DRAWING: Alter Ego

The first thing going into this assignment I thought was that I did not want to do a literal interpretation of myself. However, I also sought to create a piece that carried a sense of importance in my personal life, I wanted to convey a subject matter that carries an importance to my overall identity. In addition, I sought to create a piece that to which one who understood the subject matter would be able to connect with and draw out my inspiration for the subject matter. So, I self-examined and tried to think critically as to what I would choose to depict within the piece itself.

Generally speaking, I've enjoyed playing video-games for the majority of my life and while my time is not as lenient as it used to be, it still is a form of escapism for me in the greater sense. Admittedly, the game I grew up playing the most was World of Warcraft, playing from a young age and making a lot of close friends through that. Yet, there is still almost a minor sense of shame or embarrassment that I receive when telling people my age that I've played due to past experiences of teasing, harassment or bullying. Nevertheless, it's undeniable that I have been playing the same character since fifth grade, since the age of ten years old, so in pure numerical value it's a greater portion of my life. Whether or not I wish to admit it this online avatar has served as a digital representation of myself for the greater portion of my time on earth to many friends.

I sought to create an understated and not very complex pencil and pen drawing. I wanted to obscure the characters face as to not be able to tell any discernible details about them. In terms of inspiration for other artists to draw upon, while less focused on portraiture I admittedly drew stylistic choices from my favorite artist Kentaro Miura. I find his black pen ink illustrations of fantasy settings to be beautiful and I perfect mix of realism and fantasy for a subject matter such as the one I conveyed. Also the conceptual art from FromSoft video games was an inspiration as to the outfit of the character, creating a bit more of a stylistic approach.