Category: Art Journey

I’ve always been creative ever since I was a kid really, writing and making up stories and characters has been my passion even before I could barely read or write as a child. Usually I got inspired by my favourite cartoons I used to watch and I’d draw them on paper, cut the silhouette and play with them inventing stories. Fanfictions with pupptes, sort of!

Random characters I did back in 2002-2003.

I drew hundreds of characters and scenes from their stories.

When I was 10 years old I started creating my official original characters that I still have the collection of over 100… something like poodle looking furry characters, thanks to my mom who didn’t throw those folder away even though I told her to!

Even before I got access to internet when I was 12 I remember roleplaying with friends. LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) quite often with the few friends I had, either Sonic the Hedgehog related stories, or Card Captor Sakura and Sailor Moon. But things got serious when I had internet connection at home and the first communities I joined were roleplaying through chat. That was inspiring for me, I had to create a personal sona for myself and write like if I was that character. That lead me to creating more characters and lots of drawings for them and my friends. Drawing the scenes from our roleplays and all kinds of stuff.

That was when I realized it wasn’t really about drawing. Sure, I enjoyed and still enjoy drawing but the main reason I draw is to create something, to tell a story even if it’s a silly dumb message. I can’t just draw whatever, I draw based on some idea, no matter what it is that sparked my imagination.

Anyway! Roleplaying’s been playing a huuuge part in all this. I’ve been RPing ever since I got internet and I can say pretty much all, if not all of my characters are based on RPs, or created for them. Because of this, I feel a strong connection to them as their stories are still in my head to this day, still shouting new ideas at me. Be it old characters or new ones, the way I find most inspiration is through roleplay.

Of course to start any roleplay first I do need a character! This can happen in a few different ways:

• I already have a character that I use for multiple RPs. Usually this character doesn’t have a canon story set or the canon story allows meeting new people.
• I create a character based on a random catchy logline that inspires me to create the character. Then I pitch that idea to see if anyone’s interested to play with me.
• I created a character while brainstorming with someone about completely random ideas.

Usually, these things are’t planned. That’s how they work the best for me! When I try to force the creation of a character or story, I don’t enjoy it as much and I think it’s shown in the final result. I create better stuff if it comes from motivation and inspiration directly, which happens quite often when I allow my mind to ramble and play with random ideas.

It’s also important to remark that the stories I draw aren’t an exact representation of the roleplays I play! They’re more like adaptations or simply just inspired on the RPs. I use to twist the stories when preparing them for comic format. Sometimes not a single scene is the same as the RP, but only the main idea and characters. Sometimes I keep scenes I loved but I change the main story completely. This is how I use roleplay to get inspiration. Of course, in all these cases I always ask my RP partners if they’re alright with me creating stories based on our RPs, or using their characters and ideas, or changing stuff. Some actually ended up in collaborations where I work with my RP partners on the stories! Some, prefer just to enjoy reading my own version inspired on the roleplay.

This leads to another thing that fuels my motivation and makes me more creative and do better art: my RP partners! Or, sometimes, just friends or people I tend to brainstorm ideas with. This is also why the commissions I enjoy doing the most are the ones where the commissioner participates, gives feedback and ideas. I think, to me, communication is the key, expressing excitement and hype is contagious and it shows on my art. That was how I’ve always been ever since I was a kid, I didn’t start drawing because I liked using a pencil, but because it was a way for me to express what was in my chaotic head. To this day, it hadn’t changed at all.

I hope you enjoyed this little journey I walked you through! This is not my beginning as an artist, I started drawing way, much longer before 2004, but maybe that’s a story for some other time! I also have so many characters that I’ve created through the years that all have been through lots of changes and stories, pretty much all of them through roleplay. I would very much like to create blogs talking about this characters every now and then, and share old and new art of them and how roleplaying played a huge part in these characters creations.

Thank you for reading this far!

Lots of love,
Roxy

I’m not intending to make this a rant post about social media but I’d still like to share my experience through the years with those sort of platforms, what my conclusion and decisions are after everything that I’ve learned so far and of course maybe it could be helpful for some of you to avoid burnout or getting consumed by social media!

After 5 years of full time freelancing (and being online and active on almost every platform since 2004) I’ve finally gave up on social media, meaning such as Instagram, Twitter/X, Bluesky and also webcomic platforms like Tapas and Webtoon. Internet is incredibly saturated with content and people shouting to get noticed and these places are nearly impossible to use for reaching new people.

I know there can be things to do about it like interacting a lot, following trends and posting a million stories and reels and stuff, but eh… I’m not gonna do that anymore. I did for over a decade and it only lead me to complete burnout and no results. Not to mention drawing quicker than ever to get posts out and forgetting how to work calmly on a decent illustration or comic page. I nearly forgot the joy of just sitting and creating what I loved, not whatever the algorithms of these sites wanted.

So I stopped to think… how did artists do things before these platforms? My biggest worry was, if I’m not on social media where everyone is… how am I going to reach people? How will they see my work? I think that’s one of the reasons that scare us the most, we stay on social media because they made us think if we’re not there we’re not connected to the world. But… is that true? No, it’s not. There are other ways.

My conclusion would be: communities, connections and ads (to the right places!). Like in my case would be Furaffinity, RPRepository, any other place where people gather together to share a common interest. Of course I would only join communities that I’m interested in. Final Fantasy XIV also works for me as it’s a game I actively play. Like RPR is a place where I roleplay a lot, and FA is the website where I post most of my work more than anywhere else. Just think about your own favourite things and if people might be interested in your art, characters designs, illustrations or comics there!

Another fun way is exchanging banners with other private websites that host comics. Their readers are interested in comic specifically after all, so big chances they might visit mine. Also, art trades, fanart of other comics, collaborations… I finally realized they’re all a much more healthier approach and also a much better way to meet other artists and connect with people.

Newsletters are also a great way to stay connect with people. Those who are interested in your work will gladly give you their email to get news from you directly in their email box. It’s a much healthier way to follow your favourite artists and for artists to contact their fans. I personally subscribe to these as much as I can and this way I build my own feed of content as I know I’ll only receive updates from people I care about and not the random content that social media forces on my feed.

Another thing that should be considered is creating evergreen content! This could be youtube videos, blogs, podcasts, comics, tutorials, any sort of content that offer some value and people will still find it in the future even years after creating it. Unlike what we do for social media, fleeting quick content that people consume in 2 seconds and move on, forgetting it forever.

We have to look deep into what we want to do and what works for us. And I absolutely know it’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s not impossible either.

Anyway! This is not meant to give any magical formula and I could write a really long post talking about my whole journey, the difficulties I’ve been through and all the problems I encountered but maybe I’ll do that some other time if I see interest in knowing more. Again, it’s not because I want to rant about these things but because I really believe that knowing what others went through and how they got out of it might be incredibly helpful. I know this mainly because that’s how I found my way out, by listening to many podcasts, reading blogs and newsletters of other artists in similar situation as me, struggling with the same.

With love,
Roxy