Summary
Highlights
The speaker recounts her lifelong passion for drawing, which started in childhood. Despite initial parental delight, her parents soon discouraged her artistic pursuits, pushing her towards financially stable careers like pharmacy, engineering, or medicine. This led her to suppress her artistic dreams and focus on academics, eventually earning a full scholarship to university as a premed student.
In university, the speaker began to break free from her parents' influence and rediscovered her love for art. Although still wary of pursuing art professionally, she switched her major to Mechanical Engineering, viewing it as a creative yet stable and lucrative career option to satisfy both her creative urges and her parents' expectations. She excelled in engineering, even securing internships.
A series of personal tragedies led to a mental breakdown, during which she realized her deep unhappiness with engineering and her job. She turned to art as a coping mechanism, drawing compulsively on her iPad. This period of intense artistic engagement made it clear that art was essential for her well-being, feeling like a choice between 'drawing or dying'.
Despite knowing she wanted to be an artist, her art skills weren't yet professional. She started a rigorous self-study regimen, learning from art YouTubers, attending figure drawing sessions, and drawing from life. To accelerate her progress and learn diverse skills, she decided to create a webcomic, 'Covenant', which she posted on Webtoon, finding an audience and creative fulfillment.
Confident in her growing skills, she took a semester off university and attended Lightbox Expo, a convention for artists. There, she connected with professional artists who encouraged her potential. Shortly after, Webtoon offered her a full-time contract to publish 'Covenant' as an original series, providing a clear path to a professional art career, much to her parents' initial skepticism.
COVID-19 lockdowns led her to move back with her parents, which, despite the mental health toll, allowed her to save money from her Webtoon work. She expanded her income through Patreon and an online store, gaining financial independence from her art within a year. She quietly dropped out of university, and her parents eventually accepted her career choice after seeing her financial success. 'Covenant' grew to millions of readers and became a published graphic novel series.
She addresses common assumptions about successful artists, clarifying that she doesn't come from generational wealth, isn't neurotypical, and doesn't rely on a spouse's income. She emphasizes that her return to her parents' home during the pandemic, while a privilege, was temporary. Her story aims to inspire others to pursue their artistic dreams, highlighting that the rise of AI makes authentic human art even more valued. She advises taking small, calculated steps rather than making drastic, immediate changes.