Okay, so this one is being posted a little early--but somewhere in the world you'll be seeing this on Friday. XD I'm going to have a busy day tomorrow and probably won't be able to get online for very long at any point. So, I'm going to post this series journal today, instead. Welcome to a series of journals where you can learn about me--the artist and friend to all good people. :)

Today I said I'd talk about my hobbies. Hobbies always influence the way a person acts and what they draw. Like media, your hobbies have a great influence on how you draw and why you draw and even on the style you learn to draw with. So, I'm going to divide my hobbies into two categories: primary hobbies (hobbies I indulge in the most and constantly) and secondary hobbies (hobbies I engage in when I find the time and/or money).

My primary hobbies are READING, WRITING AND DRAWING. The drawing part is probably one of the things you could've guessed, since I am here and I do post artwork on this website. But what some know or some remember me speaking of in the past, drawing was not always an easy hobby for me to enjoy. There was one point in my life--where I was loving drawing and everything--and then I had a teacher in high school who was extremely critical of people who wanted and liked to draw in an animation/comic book/cartoony style. Back then, at the time, I loved doing stuff similar to the comic books I grew up with--a dynamic inking style was my thing. Yes, I did the projects in art classes by the rules I was told to go by..........but in free draw times or in my sketchbook, I drew what I wanted, which was an animation or comic book style. My teacher was harsh and critical and many times I tried to get transferred to other teachers for art class, but my counselor kept placing me in this teacher's classes. By the time I exited high school, I hated drawing and my art and I stopped drawing for many, many years. Eventually I picked up drawing again and............while I lost a LOT of my skill, I struggle with mental blocks over what I suffered, but I try to produce what I can.

Because of that, I encourage young artists to never give up. You can lose so much if you do give up--it'll place mental blocks in your head that you may never break down again. If you love to draw, KEEP DRAWING--don't ever let anyone get you down, do it because you love to. :)

So, my love of reading and writing go hand in hand. I probably love to write (mostly fan-fiction, though I do produce original works and worlds) because I love to read. You know, I read and re-read everything I write pretty often. XD When I write, it's usually fan-fiction--based on whatever my love of fandom is strongly at the time--right now, I produce mostly Transformers fan-fiction. As far as reading goes............science-fiction and fantasy are my primary loves. My technical fave is science-fantasy, but it's a hard genre to find REALLY GOOD works in, so there's not a lot in that category I read.

My secondary hobbies are collecting comic books, collecting artbooks (mostly video game and manga artbooks, but I have some fantasy artist ones, like Michael Whelan and Joe Jusko) and playing/collecting video games. Although, with comic book stores fading out and it becoming too difficult to acquire comics on the usual weekly or monthly basis--I've had to give up my comic book collecting and simply have had to resort to occasionally getting collected editions/graphic novels of some things nowadays. My largest piece of my comic book collection is my DC Comics stuff--and the largest group I have is Justice League and Justice League related titles. Although, I do have a huge chunk of specific serial items (such as "Sonic" comics by various companies and "Transformers" comics by various companies), I also was a large collector of independent series titles...........and I mean truly independent company stuff. :p

When it comes to video games, in the past--when I was younger, my hands ached less and my coordination was better--I was more into action and platformer games. But nowadays I play RPGs--and my favorite RPGs are tactical-types. But I love the occasional Sonic and Mario games, even though most often, I can't seem to finish them anymore because the platforming and action is too difficult on my old hands. sigh I am currently playing the strategy-RPG "Fire Emblem: Engage"............it usually takes me ages to finish RPGs though. XD

Any questions you want to ask about my hobbies? What about you guys--what kinds of things do you like to do or collect? :)