My Personal Identity Essay cz2l

Ange Patrick Amessan October 8, 2019 Professor Anthony

Drawing Me: The Three Beings of my Identity

In the early morning, I woke up, crawled down the stairs, and began to make toast. It happened before I could even blink, and like that, my mind began to wander. I stood there as my eyes dug a hole into the toaster I was staring at, and in that moment, my body became a shell, my mind absent. My thoughts were swimming with ideas for art, begging to accompany my drawing with words to tell a story. Eventually. I couldn’t take it anymore. I ignored my breakfast and hurried up the stairs to my desk, eagerly grabbing my pencil to get to work. As my pencil soared across the page, I smiled to myself. As a person, I find myself as an artist dreaming to make something cool, a writer looking to give my art additional, personal meaning with a story…and sometimes, at the end if I’m not happy, a contemplator working towards self-improvement. My pencil swung back and forth as I rounded a curve, and my inner artist exploded with happiness. When I’m an artist, I usually end up eagerly drawing when I find myself inspired by another artist, leading me to comparing my art to theirs, slightly wishing mine were better, before finally buckling down to find ways to improve my craft. I distinctly a year ago, around the month of May, browsing Twitter one morning, and coming across this artist called Fauxame, or Raw Gummy, as he’s known. This person, to this day, still remains my most favorite artist online. The way he draws his characters, focusing on their style, posing, colors and coolness – it led to hours getting lost, scrolling through his gallery. Eventually, I would land on a particular drawing that would really make me itch to get working right away. Character art and design is probably my most favorite thing to draw, so seeing an artist I like do it, and do it so well, inspired

me to give it my all and try to be as cool as them. However, that thought led me to compare myself to them, an action I still find myself doing time to time. I have another memory, a memory that caused me to stop moving my pencil in contemplation. One of my good friends is an artist online, and she’s somewhat my mentor. I when I first discovered her online in the year 2016, I felt a huge pang of jealousy, where normally I would be struck with inspiration. I looked at her art and felt I simply wasn’t good enough to get to her level. To this day, I’m still trying to come to grips with digital art, spending money on a graphics tablet and ing a program. I did what I could, but in the end, it simply couldn’t compare to somebody doing it for years. When I expressed my frustrations, she told me something, she told me to keep going, that at first it is always hard to get used to something, but if I keep practicing, I’ll get better. So, I heeded her words and did just that. The pencil I held in my hands were fueled with the desire to improve, so I stopped thinking and tried to better myself. The final thing that makes me an artist, is my burning ion to get better. In the summer of 2018, just after I got my graphics tablet, I began to watch the “professionals” at work – the professionals being some of my most favorite artists online. Every day I love the fact YouTube exists, because on that platform, my favorite artists videos showing the way they draw, and they talk a lot about what brushes they use, and their tips and tricks. This is where inspiration strikes once again, they tell me what to do, and I reciprocate it, sprinkling on some of my own touches to make their process mine. I came across another artist, Telepurte, that took time out of his day to teach me how to animate in the art program we use. I learned so much from his livestream, that I’m currently in the process of making my own animation because of his input. Every day, I come across someone new. Every day, I might get discouraged, but every day, that’s an opportunity to learn and improve. My creativity is endless, and that’s why I express it through my art. It changes with the times, and so do I, as I improve.

As I continue drawing, I find that art is more effective if it tells a story, and that’s when the writer in me comes out. The art is only visual companion, paired with something that can emotionally hold the reader and move them with ease. When I write, I always try to play with the reader’s emotion that art can’t just aggravate. When I write, I always try to take the reader from point A to point B, and when I write, I always try to make sure they understand why I did all of that, hopefully to make them better people in the end. The day was March 3rd, 2018, when I ed the fifth chapter to my fanfiction story. That chapter was a very important chapter that was needed to move the story along, and I like to think that it did so. Up until that point, the overall tone of the story had been lighthearted with the occasional down moment, but the chapter I ed that day subverted that tone, and it took the reader on a ride. The whole chapter was tinged in a darker tone, complemented by the actions of the antagonist’s point of view conflicting with the protagonist’s view of that chapter. One of my reviewers noted that they loved the juxtaposition of “a long, violent birth of the antagonists highlighting the quiet, short birth of the main protagonist”. Their words told me that they loved how I surprised them, and rewarded their continued reading with a powerful chapter. That meant, as a writer, I succeeded in capturing the reader’s emotion of shock and surprise, making it a chapter they can for a very long time. Of course, that one chapter is but a piece of a larger whole. The whole story was built on a journey, and as a writer, it’s also my job to take my reader on one. April of 2017 was when I republished my fanfiction, “Maverick’s Sinnoh Adventure”, back on the web. It’s a story about the titular character and his companions traveling throughout the land to reach their dreams, and discover who they are. To this day, I’m still working on it, but my goal with the story is to not only bring the world to life through the plot and the characters, but to highlight the movement from point A to B. In the beginning of the story, Maverick is just like anybody else – a young kid

wanting to make a name for himself, but what separates him from others is how he gets there, and that is revealed to the reader. My job as a writer is to make the reader experience what Maverick experiences, to make them see the world he lives in, and how it grows and changes alongside him. As Maverick grows and changes, as does the reader, I do too as the writer. My writing each chapter becomes stronger and better than the last, Maverick becomes a stronger character through development, but most importantly, the reader takes away my message, and applies it to their own life. The final thing that makes me a writer, is the ability to make the reader understand my message. If I write an entire story, and the reader can’t take away one lesson to apply it to their life, then that means I’ve failed at my job. For example, in my most recent chapter I published back in August, Maverick learned a lesson of trusting in himself, despite the future being unknown and daunting, and that’s something the reader can use as a life lesson. To bring it back to read life, I’m a college student, literally taking my life in my own hands. I have goals, yes, but I don’t know what would happen in the future, and that thought alone is scary. However, despite that, I have to believe in myself, and in the end, I should be just fine, and that is the exact lesson Maverick learns, as well as the reader. That lesson, and many more, will be explored as they story goes on. All of that is what the writer in me strives to accomplish, as I put down my pencil and look at the art I’ve drawn up to that point. Hmm...maybe the nose is a little crooked. I flipped over the pencil, and the rubber tip of the eraser did its job, erasing some of my progress. A little part of me felt sad over this necessary, but important step. Another thing that defines me is when I’m analytical about myself as a person, my skills, and my results. Myself, as a human, I realize, was never tooled to be perfect. I make mistakes, and I own up to them whenever I can, and it all comes from a good place. One example was when I was high school, in 9th grade. Then, being young and immature, was concerned about

that everyone thought of me, and as a result, I criticized myself, wondering if I’ll ever be liked. Looking back, it was quite dumb, but at the time it felt like a very real crisis, that I didn’t have my own identity. Nowadays it’s a little more realistic, with myself being worried over my skills. I’m growing up, and that means jobs everywhere. I have to take on what I know and what I can provide to the table. Another example was when I was resume building over the summer. On the skills section, I put down coding, but what else did I have that would seem valuable to someone? My ability to play instruments? My love for the arts? I doubted that I didn’t have enough to sell myself, which leads to another facet of my personal struggles: sometime I don’t think I bring results. When I’m assigned a task, I usually try to do it in the allotted time, but if the task is too tall, I could give up on it. I the last quarter of senior year was when I had a programming project. I spent hours working on the thing, and eventually got it working in the end, but not in a way that showed off my knowledge or capabilities of coding. I’m a flawed human being that takes himself seriously, but it shows that as I reflect on my downfall, I want nothing but the best for me when I try again next time. Just like writing, and drawing, I have to use my pitfalls as motivation to climb higher, and in the end, I’ll be a better person because of it. My life, I see, is an ongoing wave of hopes, fears, and dreams to become someone great. Along the way, I do fall down, but I spend time to reflect, and grow because of it. As the pencil in my hand slowed to a halt, I put on the finishing touches, brushing away my eraser shavings. In front of me is a finished piece that I spent so much time and effort on. It began when I was struck with inspiration by the artists I look up to, molded by the story that I wanted it to tell, before finally looked under a microscope to represent my efforts. It took many trial and error, but I felt achieved. I felt I created something that I could be proud of, and I created something that I hope others would come to love as well. I put my pencil down, and took a deep breath in satisfaction.

I was complete. Well...until another person entered my life, and caused another strike of inspiration.