I was raised by a single mother along with my two sisters. Being the only boy I was always rather independent and spent most of my time out in the nearby forests and creeks. I always enjoyed drawing, but I was never any good at it. My passion for exploring the outdoors switched to art after I had seen my uncle drawing Dragon Ball Z characters — this made me want to create my own characters and stories.
I quickly became obsessed with art and my mother made sure I had all of the supplies I needed. Growing up, artwork had quickly become my main hobby until about the age of twelve, this is when my mom brought home a desktop computer. Playing on the computer was an amazing thing for me. I could learn anything I wanted at the touch of a button. Through free art programs, I discovered that my characters and stories could be translated into the digital world. I even attempted to make a game using blender 3D which, at the time, had a form of visual scripting where you didn’t have to code. I played with this all the time, bringing my artwork to life with 3D and drawing programs.
At the age of 14, I moved from home a thousand miles away from my mom and sisters to a very small town with a population of fewer than 1,400 people. In small towns, there is a very distinct atmosphere, more community-focused, and I had abandoned artwork and computers to spend more time with friends. I lived with friends and their families in this small town until I graduated high school, and went off to join the military.
After finishing my service, I was unsure of what to do. I tried a few different things and eventually decided to put myself through college to gain further education in something I actually wanted to pursue. This got me thinking about what I actually enjoyed in life — computers. I enrolled at a school for software development before quickly learning that you don’t actually do any programming for a couple of semesters and instead do basic education courses first.
Around this time a friend of mine had reached out to me to ask for help with some art, designing a patch for my old military unit. This got me back into art and I found I really missed it. I continued to draw art as a fun hobby and once again became obsessed. The same friend knew I was also interested in computers and this brought up NFTs.
After looking into it, I decided to make some NFTs of some characters just for fun. I made my first illustrative project, Tezumies. The Tezos community is mostly generative art based so I looked into it and realized I could learn to program while making artwork, combining my two interests into one! I proceeded to learn programming through YouTube tutorials and continue to improve my newfound passion every day.
