My dA account is 5 years old, but I've been lurking around the site for a fair bit longer than that.
DeviantART has always been a site that I come to to find awesome art. It should hardly be a surprise that the art I looked for on here was dragon art. I think I first discovered the site because of a friend who was posting some personal art on here and shared it with me, but I really started to frequent dA when I came across awesome art like this.
I started building up a "collection" of my favorite art from dA even before I had an account here. If you go through my favorites and go all the way to the last pages, you can see which pieces I favorited as soon as I started my account. This drawing by
cryslara was one of the very first. It was then and continues to be today one of my all-time favorite pieces on this site.
It took me many years to create my own dA account for one simple reason: I didn't draw. I didn't want to be on the site without having a reason to be here. Viewing and enjoying others' art could be done with or without an account, but I didn't want my own account to be empty and stale. Even when I did start drawing, I didn't make an account for some time. I wanted to be "good enough" to put my art up on dA. I guess I finally got pestered enough by my friends that I gave in and created an account to upload my first pieces.
This is where my dA story also becomes the story of my art. This happy-looking dragon was the product of my first legitimate attempt at drawing. I was 17 at the time. Most artists don't wait until 17 to start drawing! But that's my excuse for why my first piece ever actually looked okay.
Once I finally had an account, I could start watching people. But I wanted to find more great artists. It took me some time to build up the pool of great artists that I watch today. I would spend a few hours every now and then looking through the latest submissions of dragon art on dA. I tried to meet new people through this process, so I commented frequently. Some of those comments have remained unanswered to this day; others have lead to massive conversations filling up the deviation's chats. One of my friends around this time was
Orm-Irian. She was a dedicated artist, but still learning to find her style like I was. We had plenty of conversations in deviation threads and notes, and I learned a lot about how to motivate myself to draw and how to look critically at my art for opportunities to improve. Here's one of Orm's pieces from that time.
Shortly thereafter, I went on my two-year hiatus while I served a mission for my church in the beautiful country of New Zealand. I haven't ever updated any pictures from this time, because my gallery has always been reserved for my dragon art. New Zealand has hobbits, but not dragons, unfortunately... with one exception! And I just happened to photograph it.
In more recent times, DeviantART has remained a site that I frequent to enjoy others' art and occasionally visit to upload art of my own. I'm really still a budding artist; I don't draw frequently, but, when I do, I draw lots of dragons. I intend to hang around here for quite a while longer. As long as I have the desire to draw and enjoy people's art, you can be sure you'll see the occasional of random dragon favorite or deviation from me!
