Looking back at my graphics life, I don't really remember how I got here. I do remember making stupid banners for my blog, designing a layout for my multiply page and doing manips of celebs. I vaguely remember editing pics for my blog entries but honestly, I don't know what I do before icons, it was such an eye opening experience.

I didn't really 'get' icon posts back then. I thought if people want icons, they can make it themselves, no big deal. I know I would make my own icons. At that time I was not in any particular fandom and was obscure to what purpose does a community on LJ serve.

One day in 2008, I became obsessed with an American Idol cast off. I soon found my way to related communities, and somehow bonded with the people there. The first ever LJ icons I made for public was Danny Noriega. I don't even remember how and with what software did I make those. THEY ARE UGLEH, obviously. But of course I thought they were pretty cool, and remembering how bad I was in photoshop (still am -___-) they aren't THAT bad, I guess. I made some other stuff too, hmm wallpapers. They aren't that bad, but if you look back you can definitely see that they are made by some amateur. Rough cuts, (too) obvious use of brushes & texture, it was just stupid.

The next fandom I was invested in is ... Tommy. Well, Adam fandom but the Tommy portion of it. I grew a lot as a graphics artist starting from that point, and I owe it to eamesie and paintcans. I bugged them for PSDs, asking questions on how to get an effect, stalking their graphics community, it was almost scary. I was very determined back then, because I think there were not a lot of good icon makers in the fandom, and if I could provide a good quality and fun icons, a lot of people would want to use them! And it was ... great. I was popular, my icons were also, but I think it was the factor that I was Tommy's number 1 fangirl back then, and that I was close with a lot of people in the fandom that makes them like my icon? I have the sense of art, so as far as the cropping and the taste of it is alright, but again technically, I was not there yet.

From the start it was obvious that my style is colorful and full of experimental texture feel on them. It doesn't really change, but I've got far better understanding on how to use a certain techniques and how to achieve certain effects. I read more tutorials, learn different styles, watch more comms, download more textures, and being active in icon making community in general.

The next phase of my graphics life involves this fandom (or should I say person) I was obsessing, Andrej Pejic. Now this is not easy. Not easy because I wasn't really part of the Andrej Pejic community on LJ, and since he is from the fashion world, not a lot of people are even aware of who he is. So basically I was iconning for the sake of iconning. Fashion offers pretty, but not storyline unlike most of the active fandoms are about. From my observation, most of the active fandoms circle around something that has two characters/persons that they can pair up for slash. They can't make up something from nothing, they need base materials for slash. There are two obvious fandom categories; RPF (like from music or casts of a movie/tv) or fiction like characters in a anime/tv show/movie.

When it comes to RPF, I can say a lot since I was in the Adam fandom (main pairing : Adam/Tommy). Examples of other fandoms I know of are MCR (main pairing : Gerard/Frank) and Tokio Hotel (main pairing : Bill/Tom). They go on tour, and they'll provide us with behind the scenes video/pics, music videos, photoshoots etc. We are desperately looking for something we can be excited about in those.

When it comes to fiction like anime/tv shows/movie, the characterization and storyline is there for us fans to mess with.

As for fashion, or this Andrej fandom that I'm in right now, ... there is nothing like that to offer, really. I mean, yeah we got a lot of pics of Andrej with other pretty boys, but in fashion world, they offer no character. The character is always different depending on how the fashion world want them to portray. Besides, the fashion world mostly sells the garment and sometimes sells the fashion/artistic concept, not the character itself. Granted, there are interviews but it plays a very small proportion of what Andrej does, and shows very little of his actual character. Other than pics, we don't know how their interaction was with each other. Also, there is almost no interaction of Andrej and fans since his work is not depending on them. It's kind whole lot of a different fandom.

In terms of material for graphics work though, this fandom is perfection. Andrej is a beautiful, active young model, he has TONS of quality pictures of him that differs in look, make-up, outfit, style, etc. There are a lot of good quality materials to play with! It has been so fun working on his pics. It kinda sucked that after all of your hard work, nobody comments or use them because they don't even know who that is, but I'm happy that I have the opportunity to grow as a graphics artist and I'm really enjoying the process. I think that is what important to keep me in the business.