When did you first get into drawing or story telling?

[vworksart]

I first started when I was 9. A friend of mine used to make comics based on the after school anime line up that consisted of shows such as DBZ, Sailor Moon, Gundam, etc.
It inspired me to get into drawing and storytelling myself and I just kept at it.

What sparked your love of drawing or writing? And when?

[mariusthered]

my drawing stared with an act of vandalism.. age 3 a clown face on mum's wall paper with wax crayon my first comic ...the result was not so good and some what painful in the seating area ( this was the 70's).
but I've been drawing and writing all my life.

[ryoko]

I've always drawn and doodled on everything for as long as I can remember, from notebooks to the wall behind my door in my bedroom as well as some of my clothes My mom didn't notice the drawing I did of Ryoko for about a year since it was always hidden if my door was open. They even painted around it when they repainted my room after I moved out. It's still there, too For the storytelling part, I was inspired mostly by anime and manga with some Western influences like Don Bluth and Chuck Jones.

[qwerty]

I started drawing 'seriously' about a year ago. Before that it was something I did only occasionally. I mean, I drew stuff as a kid (all kids do sometimes, right?) but I wasn't the artsy kind of person. I see so many artists who say they've been passionate about art since childhood, but I'm not one of them X)

[UrMom]

Started drawing at probably 3 years old, at least that's how far back my drawing archive goes. It a picture of a baby in a crib, and the drawing is weirdly comprehensible. I don't know what made me start or how I figured it out, I just did I guess. Didn't really get into studying the craft until the age of 12 though, after receiving some gift art from a friend which sort of "inspired" me.
Comics? I didn't really start drawing those till my early 20's, before then I did experiment with draw random snippets of stories in my head during my teen years, but it was just 1-2 page stuff that was totally out of sequence. You can say I'm a late bloomer with the who comic creation thing. Although I did write stories in my elementary school years (between age 6-10), even wrote my own version of Hans Christian Andersen's animated version of 'The Wild Swans' because I thought it was stupid. Lol.

Edit: Inspiration for drawing comics and writing stories? I couldn't tell you, it was just something I did.

[Raven_C]

I started drawing at age 4 or 5 (maybe earlier). My dad was (and still is) a freelance cartoonist and painter and used to work at a magazine/newspaper company as an artist. So i always saw him drawing at his desk and he made doodles of our family and pets all the time. I remember thinking, “I wanna do that!”
And then I really got into reading fiction and started writing my own stories when I was 9 or 10. I wish I still had my old stories so I can look back and laugh at them!

[Kann]

When I was 5, my preschool teacher told my parents my drawings are pretty and they were like "If a teacher says so, then it must be true". So they complimented my drawings and I've been drawing A LOT as a kid. I really enjoyed it even though my drawings weren't really that special. Maybe they were good for a 5yo. XD

I had a lot ideas for stories, but I wanted to make my own webcomic since I read the first one like 10 years ago. It might have been Power Puff Doujinshi at Snafu comics afaik.

[ar-ninetysix]

As a kid, I wanted to make my own video games and stuff and as a kid, the ideas I had were rip-offs. Ugh. Later on, as a teen, I started being more serious about it, I started making original ideas and world building.. I never really committed to it though. Around the same time, I was starting to learn how to play music, which led to me learning to scream (I like metal music so..) and that made me wanna write lyrics. Loads of angst and cringe go by, I'm like 19-20, and I got really serious about making music, my music and lyrics finally got more refined. I still tried making video game ideas, but again, the commitment was never there. Then, I started story-telling in my music and found it really fun. Now that my music stuff is kinda done (for now, anyways) uhh.. I took a dive into writing comics. So, yeah, here I am~

[MK_Wizard]

Honestly, it was since I was a little kid. I always told stories, made drawings with stories behind them and such.

[feardeer]

Probably around age 8 or 9. I had huge spiral notebooks filled with drawings that were somewhere between comics and picture books.

My longest epic was generically titled "Secret of the Crystal" and featured three kids transported to a strange fantasy realm by a talking monkey, to find a super magical crystal and do... something, idk. It was fun to make though, and I revived it for kicks in high school and had some more fun with it. I'm pretty sure I still have those notebooks around somewhere.

I drew sooo many comics before I started taking my craft seriously. It was more fun back then, but I still do wish I'd taken it more seriously so that current me would be more skilled hahaha. I didn't actually buckle down until college.

[gh0stcr33p]

I used to draw some cringy ass comics back in 3rd grade, then I kept getting ideas for stories and drawing concept art and sketching pages of them until I ended up making the final thing

[danitasibert]

I'm the same way i was like 9 or so and i use to make comics about Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Digimon etc.
they were so much fun and i just love make the characters into my own. it was some things me and my sister did a lot as kids growing up its gave us this bond that manifested this passion for drawings and story telling in her and myself!

[adrienclifton]

Among a LOT of crazy career ideas (including but not limited to an undercover spy who posed as a pop star,) I wanted to be an artist in 3rd grade. My great gradmother was locally famous for her paintings of historic places around the county, and my grandfather (her son) was an accomplished knifemaker, so it seemed like I was lined up to follow. However, I was mostly terrible and completely unfocussed.

In 8th grade I bought my first manga at a book fair, Tokyo Mew Mew A La Mode vol. 1 (the sequel to the original TMM series lmao) and having already had some weebish tendencies, I was enamored. This really pushed me to teach myself to draw, as did a friend I would meet in 9th grade who was also a weeb, but a much better artist.

As time went on I grew out of anime and manga stylistically, in favor of finding my own style that would suit the kinds of comics I wanted to make. I went to college briefly, and rediscovered my love for western cartoons. After leaving college, I knew that I needed to push myself even harder to learn and grow.

I got into Homestuck in 2015, and it blew me away. Not long after, I found a roleplay group full of some truly impressive writers. My earliest forays into writing were also in roleplay, but this time instead of a bunch of kids on Neopets, we were all adults who shared a love for storytelling and creativity. One of the people from this rp group would go on to become one of my best friends, and my biggest collaborator.

My first real attempt at making a comic was a homestuck fanfiction, clumsily posted on ao3 despite its... poor ability to host a visual story. The art was bad, but the story was compelling. I had learned just how long and tiring completing a project like this would take, even if the art was in an "easy" style. Still, I continued to push myself creatively.

I had several story ideas at various stages of delopment and now I was itching to try something original, posted for the world to see. Having already been a fan of Hayley Mewsome/ LavenderTowne (Unfamiliar), I decided to look more into Tapas as a comic hosting site. The terms weren't frightening and the rules weren't overly strict, so I felt like I could create comfortably here until I was able to pursue my own website.

March 2018: I set out to write an outline for a comic to use to test the waters. I come up with Alli Ascending, with much help from the rp friend.

As summer approaches, I see a contest on webtoons, and I race to format my outline to meet the requirements. I quickly realize that I would probably burn out long before the contest ended, bc I simply could not keep up with the page requirements while also working, sleeping, and living my life. But, by now my story has been polished and divided into chapters. It's ready to be posted somewhere, if not at such a high speed as the contest would have been.

June 5th 2018: After a lot of preparation, Alli Ascending begins!

And That brings me to the present! Sorry, that got kind of long winded lol

[droidmonkey1]

I always drew, my first memories are of drawing marvel characters, than watching the original Flash and drawing him while watching. but only in the lest not so few years when I started to try and realize my dreams I saw the must improvement.
all self taught

[lil-sea-salt]

I was 8. Spend a summer writing horrible fanfiction getting mad that I couldn't write 10 pages a day. There were days I did do that. I just had this desire to write as much as I could.

Seriously probably when I self published an e-book at 16.

[alliascompany]

I've been making up stories and writing since I could remember. I think I was around the first grade or so when I came up with a mystery story about a Princess's missing necklace. I think around the the second grade I started making little cartoon strips. Didn't really get serious about writing until I was about in middle school. Made a bet with my sister if I could publish a book in twenty years she'd have to give me twenty dollars XD.

[dawgofdawgness]

Hum... I grew up watching a lot of cartoons and movies such as Ben 10, Kim Possible, and ATLA. But I never payed any attention to the stories - I was always obsessed with the scenes. Moments where Ben was transforming into aliens, teasing his cousin, or fighting bad guys were really interesting to me. I used to replay the same scene over and over again, even making my own characters and slapping them into the situation.

When I was 11, I made a 200 page comic book about a group of 3 kids trying to capture a rogue criminal with a machine gun. As a whole, the entire thing didn't make much sense. It was mostly just interesting or funny scenes poorly tacked together into a long comic. But I had a BLAST making it. I guess that's how I got into webcomics. With webcomics, each update can be its own mini story. Crosscutting is easier, and you can get away with making your pages "their own thing".

[Rowein]

I draw since forever, but I think I started to taking it more seriously since when I had 13 years old. I watch Lady Oscar, a VERY good anime (I recommend it) and that triggered me to imagine stories and create my own world that I wanted to share. But I was very bad telling stories, that's why when I take a workshop about telling stories (about a 5 or 6 years ago) it gave me courage to make my own comic for real. And since then I cannot stop

[vfinnigan]

I got into drawing when I was two, and despite noble efforts, I haven't improved much since then, which is why I usually delegate pencils to others. The same can't be said for my writing. The first foray into creative writing I remember making was a commentary on how shoes can't talk even when they have tongues. I wrote that when I was four. Maybe, forty years later, now that my talent has matured (somewhat), I might add my thanks for their sake that they can't taste our feet either, even if they smell.

[darkone4587]

Well I've kind of been telling stories since I was a kid and kept doing it in way shape of form until I finally started writing down the stories I had come up with.