Hello everyone,
My name is Quy. I'm 23 years old, and I'm currently living and studying in Vietnam.
Ever since I was a child, I was exposed to cartoons and comics at a very young age. Like any carefree kid, I picked up a pencil and started drawing my very first scribbles. As I grew older, especially during middle school, I began recreating my favorite manga panels and movie scenes with pencil. Looking back, that was probably the happiest period of my life—I could simply hold a pencil, draw for hours, and lose myself in the process.
Everything changed when I entered high school. The overwhelming amount of schoolwork and academic pressure left me with little time to draw. I used to spend three to six hours a day sketching and coloring, but those hours gradually disappeared. Eventually, there were days when I didn't even feel like drawing anymore. In the end, I gave up.
After graduating from high school, I didn't go straight to university. Instead, I completed two years of mandatory military service. When I returned home, I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.
Then I made a bold decision—I decided to go to university, but not to study the field I had originally planned. I come from northern Vietnam, yet I chose a university specializing in tourism in south-central Vietnam, more than 1,400 kilometers away from home. However, after experiencing life and studying far from my hometown, I realized that tourism simply wasn't the right path for me. There were also some personal reasons that I'd rather not go into, and together they led me to make the difficult decision to return home.
After coming back, I made another life-changing decision: I would pursue the artistic path that I had loved since childhood.
I enrolled in a local college and have now been studying there for about a year. However, what I truly want is to become an illustrator, and unfortunately that's not something my college teaches. Because of that, I've been learning digital illustration on my own, and I've completely fallen in love with it.
I sincerely hope that the knowledge and experience you share will help me grow as an artist, improve my professional skills, and allow me to pursue the passion I've carried with me since I was a child.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story.
