My first digital painting ever. My first Japanese anime style painting ever.

In 2012, as a high school senior student, I was introduced to tablets when I was doing my college application with my friend Maria. I was amazed by the lovely figure she drew with her tablet within a few seconds. I asked her if I could give it a try, despite the fact that I had zero painting experience. I chose a seemingly simple screenshot from Angel Beats. However, I spent almost an hour drawing with only a black brush and came to a point where the figure didn’t look good but I just didn’t know how to improve. Maria then helped me to fix the face shape, color the eyes and add some simple shade to the hair. And boom! I got the image above, apparently surprised myself.

I posted it on a Chinese forum called KeyFansClub and I got tons of replies and comments. People in the forum were so nice and friendly. They gave me a lot of advice and encouragement. This gave me tremendous motivation to keep drawing.