Chronicles in Code

We all have a point in our lives where everything is just tough. Whether you are waiting in line at the DMV outside in the cold for four hours, or are mourning the death of a loved one, there is always a point where you have to get through a not-so-good period of time. My Humanities class, "Endurance", is about preparing us for the absolute worse. As I soon go off to college, there will no doubt be challenges waiting for me when I get there. Before then, this is a story of what I already endured to get here, what I already accomplished, what I plan to accomplish, what made it hard for me to accomplish something, and how I grew over the years up until now.

I was a big fan of anime and video games. I always asked myself, “how I can make one of those?” You have to have the right tools, knowledge, and sometimes enough money to do so. That is why I chose to pursue making it my career. It was like a blind passion. At first, all I wanted to do was create something epic. My ideas still involved some good stories, but the story part did not strike me as more important than the action. This impacted the things I thought were a priority in a story. World building would be replaced with character development. The ultimate boon the protagonist gains in the end would be replaced with an epic fight scene of him defeating the antagonist. So, I drew a lot of characters and side perspective fight scenes. I kept drawing to this day.

I was in my sophomore year of high school when I discovered my talent of storytelling. I discovered this talent while I wrote a few stories for a Humanities class called “Stories”. I wrote my own origin story of how the Earth was created, and a fable of a shy mouse. They were both really good. I learned of the steps the protagonist has to take in a Hero’s Journey. This was when I started appreciating the story elements in my favorite movies, video games, and TV shows. I took inspiration from parts of stories I knew that I found most impactful. What each of these parts had in common were the protagonist had an epic duel that is very important to them in some way.

This was when my mission became clear. I had these things I wanted to do, and a talent that played a major role in doing them. My mission was to succeed in creating a video game and/or animation that involves one of my great story ideas.

The origin story I wrote for my class “Stories” is probably my first complete short story with an in-depth narrative that is documented in some form. It was about these Gods and Goddesses who made the Earth, Moon, and Sun. Then, they made humans who got scared and ran away. The humans were never seen again since then. So, they made a new kind of people called Chimeras. It ended there because the word count was too high. There was more to the story though. What made this so important to me is it was the first complete story I wrote, and I got an A on it.

Learning the Hero’s Journey was also pretty important to me. I thought it was an invaluable tool for story writing. It has kept me from being overwhelmed with all the possible things that can happen in a story. If you try incorporating so much in hopes that will make it better, it will fly to close to the sun and burn its wings like Icarus. The Hero’s Journey has also been a good reference for what a story should have. Nowadays, people pay more attention to all these elements that go into one thing, like a game or movie. It leaves a lot of room for critiques. You cannot stray too far from those key points your story must hit. The Hero’s Journey helps you hit all of those points.

Day by day, my drawing skills improved. Eventually, I moved on from just drawing manga characters to finding my own art style. When the COVID-19 pandemic rose in March of 2020, I had a lot of time to myself. I was working from home for the rest of my junior year and almost all of my senior year. This gave me so much more time to draw. My skills improved drastically during that time.

I felt like I was some kind of super soldier, like Captain America, who was constantly growing more powerful in cryosleep. Once I am released into the world, I would be able to spread my influence with my newfound powers. What I did was simple, I drew at least once every day. As I was drawing every day, I was analyzing each of my drawings. I wanted to see what could be done to make the next drawing look better. Doing this, along with researching what other artists did online, changed my drawings. They defaulted to something that would have taken me so much effort to make a few years ago. This was the way for me. I did not need to take some fancy class to get better at drawing. Like Saitama(One Punch Man), who did 100 of each exercise every day to become the strongest hero, I can also become the strongest if I do little bit of drawing every single day.

This process was not as easy as it sounds. There were days where I wanted to draw more, but lost patience after drawing one picture. This made some of my sketches look rushed and unpolished. There were also days where I could not think of anything to draw. Finally, there were days where I didn’t feel like finishing a drawing, like Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci had many great ideas that were ahead of his time, but was known not to finish them half of the time. However, some of his pieces we know of today were probably made after times he did not feel like finishing them. Like Leonardo, I went back to some of my half-done drawings and finished them. These were the mental challenges I had to endure on my journey.

The physical challenge I had to endure during this time was doing something that was not drawing. It was a pandemic and going outside was not as safe as it normally would be. I had to stay healthy, but I was constantly interrupted by the thought of how boring a walk would be. I felt not so good afterwards. My eyes were also hurting from looking at screens all of the time. I had to look at screens though because school was online. I don’t know how L from Death Note does it. His eyes probably look the way they do because he is in front of a computer all of the time.

This is a recreation of what my drawings looked like back in the day. Since I was a kid, I did not think much about how something should look and just drew from my imagination. They did not look really good, but they did to me.

I grew more aware of what needed to be done to progress as I got older. I found out the eyes looked better when I drew them this way. The face looked less weird when I used proportions.

As I was drawing a lot of manga characters, I was also trying to find my own art style. In the beginning, I wanted to make it look simple. Now, I strive to make it look more cartoony.

This is what my art style ended up looking like. As far as I know, I really liked it and wanted to stick with it for a while.

Throughout this timeline of sharpening my drawing skills, I have made many pieces that I am proud of. When shown in order, you can see the progression between every one of them.



Depending on how many people have seen my animations, or played my games, I might have made a huge influence in the game-making or animating industry. With the engaging narrative in a fun thing, I told people of all ages to tell their stories however they like. You don’t have to write stories only for books. You should tell your stories your way. Your way is the best way.