Growing up in Puerto Rico, I remember being surrounded by an environment that lacked creativity and still kinda does at this point as well. Most of my friends at elementary school were struggling with homework due to being impossible to make with basically no internet; and those who had it didn't use it to it's full potential. When I was still a very young kid, I would draw on my table and get busted for doing so, not because I drew obscene things, but just because it was (in a way) destroying the property.
I would draw anywhere and anything. Not the best doodle but we all start somewhere! You could say that I was the kid everyone would come up to whenever our teacher would give us a type of homework that required some sort of drawing or creation.
Moving up to graduation, I wasn't really sure on what I wanted to do with my life and believe it or not, I still don't. A friend of mine commented to attend (along with other friends) this video game college/university and I should just give it a chance. With no idea on what mayor to take, I took video game and went on from there. The place itself wasn't the best looking one, institution itself was very old and rustic looking, as if almost going back in time 50 years. Professor were at random age gaps but that didn't bothered me at all, being in a "modern" and "youthful" mayor kinda helped me to move around and just make me feel like myself. Expect history and psychology, those where fossil for professors! Taking classes there, with basically 5-6 people, didn't quite motivated me to even attend college at all. Everyone was very slow-phased and most (to all) classes were almost things that I took back in school. I knew that I wanted more out of this place, I wanted to start creating and stop wasting my scholarship on going to a ghost (odd kids-infested) place. Most of the students there only relied on one thing and one thing only to pass creative classes: ANIME. Not that I seemed to bother with that but even the professors themselves prohibit the use of anime for reference in drawings and stuff, it's just not a natural way of making and learning things yourself.
Realizing that I had stumbled upon a dead-end in my education, I decide to quit college and start from scratch. One day, I woke up with the determination to be productive and make something out of this hollow feeling in my chest. Driving to Best-Buy, I got a simple drawing tablet and ran back home to my laptop. Luckily, some friends from college hooked me up with a bootleg version of photoshop (because, let's be real... I can't afford it). Sitting down with PS opened, I stare at the white canvas, waiting for me to make a move and draw one line at least, to see how it feels. Right there on, I closed my laptop and lowered my head to sob. I didn't know sh*t of PS! But that didn't stop me there. I had the power to surf the internet and look for tips to how exactly get started in the program itself. One site popped in my head: YOUTUBE. Youtube was my school, my classmate, my library and professor. I would spend hours upon hours, just sitting on my best, looking at drawing tutorials and PS speedpaints on basically anything, even anime. I learned what college didn't really put any interest on teaching me. I never used PS there either! I saw and studied how people used and manipulated such complex program to create stunning images and artworks. When going back to my white canvas, all I did was copy exactly what I saw: QUICK LINEART. It wasn't the best one, of course but it was a start.
A few years later, many mental breakdowns and a few broken tablets, I can officially call myself a professional illustrator...
http://pocket-size-super-villain.tumblr.com/