Hello, Steemit! An Introduction Through Self-Portraits

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Hello, Steemit! I’m Ashley, and I’m an artist.

I make (almost) exclusively digital art, including animated short films. I thought an interesting way to introduce myself would be with a timeline of self portraits.

Hope you enjoy!


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The earliest self-portraits I have.

This was my first year of college - I was attending UC San Diego with the intention of getting a degree in literature. I was drawing and painting with acrylics occasionally, and always just for fun.


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At the end of 2016, I took my first film class.

Two weeks into this class, and I was sold. I switched my major to Film.

I didn’t make any self portraits, but I was introduced to a new medium - experimental film. Cue a few ultra-pretentious short films that I will spare you from, and I had learned a genuine appreciation for the application of time to artmaking.


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Enter animation!

I took a class where we spent one week learning stop motion. I made an animated self portrait with a photograph and acrylic paint. My first-ever animation!

Unfortunately, at the time UCSD didn’t offer animation classes, so I bugged the one professor with some animation experience for book and lesson recommendations. I took an independent study and used that time to teach myself how to use Toon Boom.

I made a few practice animations, one of which was a self portrait:

Bonus drawing of me at my workstation:

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I animated myself in a recurring dream I have about a haunted house with a deep mystery.

I’m like Nancy Drew in this dream, but a version that's really bad at solving mysteries. So not like Nancy Drew at all, actually.

I graduated and moved to LA, where I landed a job working in True Crime TV. I didn’t draw much for the rest of the year.


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Work, work, work, work, work - but I actually enjoyed it.

I was doing a lot of organizing, scheduling, and research (and just a little, little bit of writing) for the show I was on, but I really missed MAKING things.

I decided to start making short films again! But this time, I wanted to have great fundamentals.

I ordered a fleet of drawing and animation books and started drawing regularly. I kept at it for a little over a month, and then bought a giant iPad to draw on instead. Best upgrade of my whole life.

Last year, I spent a lot of time testing different techniques and styles.


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This year, I resolved to work on art that is meaningful to me.

I am working on a self-portrait series called “Things I Don’t Do Anymore.”

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This is the first of them - swimming. All of the drawings will be centered around hobbies I’ve lost for one reason or another.

I’ll share the rest of the series as I finish it. I’m also working on a pitch for a short film I’m really excited to share my progress on.

Thanks for reading!

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From these samples, I see your works are cool and sometimes funny, too! I like it! 🤗

Welcome to the community, I'll be following you and I hope you stick around.

Be warned that this platform is not easy for beginners. You have to endure through many months of near invisibility before you start seeing real results! 😉

I am known to sometimes be funny! 😉 Thank you for the compliment, and I won't get discouraged too quickly.

Great first post, I hope you will enjoy steem!

Posted using Partiko Android

Thank you so much for helping me get started! Your advice was extremely helpful

Goodday and Welcome to the great community of Steemit,
Dear Ashley the creative......
YESS You are a new Steemian now!
I saw your #introduceyourself and its nice to meet you. We haven’t met before but that changes right now. Dont let all the replies and bots scare you.
Just comment if you get scared and i Will help out.
If you download the app Steemify for notifications you see what Will happen in your account.
Blogging, building and uplifting eachother is what steemit is and what its all about on this blockchain. The best part is that you could earn money to.

I love blogging, But always be carefull with all your passwords, Never give those up !!
https://steemit.com/community/@brittandjosie/4-o-clocky-steem-keys-key-to-your-succes-so-secure-them

The Steemify App I use is great, it is available in the Appstore and free, go cheque it out. Or read this blog
https://steemit.com/busy/@exyle/using-steemify-to-stay-up-to-date-about-the-blockchain-like-project-destiny-please-consider-blockbrothers-for-your-witness-vote‬

I wish you good luck with steeming and I Will See you around🍀
Good luck with your journey and may you find here what you are looking for.
Just remember that all good things come in good time and never giving up is THE key to big succes on Steemit.

Please vote for a witness to. You have 30 votes and if you dont understand let me know and i Will help. Also you could join the SteemTerminal Discord.
Or visit @heyhaveyamet #HHYA and My friend @xcountytravelers for more newbies exposure in the beginning very important.

Let me know if this was helpfull or you need more help, I am in Discord too @ brittandjosie3488
Greeting from the Netherlands
@ Brittandjosie
steemterminal discord invite
https://discord.gg/pxBj9b

Welcome to the Steemit community Ashley @ashleypox!
So this is my regular comment as a tool and a reminder about a couple of basic suggestions on here...
We sincerely hope you find everything you are looking for and have found a new home here.

Eight suggestions to consider:

  1. Guard your passwords carefully, and only publish with the posting key,
  2. Use your active key only for wallet transactions, keychain and steemconnect,
  3. The master password is only used to reset compromised passwords,
  4. DO NOT lose your passwords; copy and store offline,
  5. Do not publish other people's work, be it photos or written, without credit,
    be sure to source all of your work, even if it is your own.
  6. An introduceyourself tag is used only once, and
  7. When you open your steemit.com, in the upper right corner of the page there are 3 bars. Click on those, and then on the "welcome", and you will get a lot of reading material that will help you.
  8. Do NOT open any links in memos or comments that you do not know who they belong to. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is, so the old saying goes. There is nothing free here.

I found you because @xcountytravelers and @brittandjosie from @heyhaveyamet presented and promoted your publication to get more exposure and help you grow faster.

If you find yourself overwhelmed and need some guidance, or if you have any questions, there are informed Steemians available who can help you; you can click to go to the Steem Terminal in Discord here:

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Have fun and happy Steeming!

Welcome to the Steem community @ashleypox, and that is an awesome introduction, and I would like to request permission to use this post in my series of #excellentblogpost as an example of a great post for writing and drawing and showing others what they can do rather than some of the posts they do put out.

Wow, that’s amazing. Of course, please feel free! Thanks for asking! 😁

Esta publicación ha sido seleccionada para el reporte de Curación Diaria.

final de post.png¡¡¡Felicidades!!!

Moved to the Hive platform.

Hi @ashleypox! Glad to get to see the intro post! You're going to love it here. You certainly already found a good group of people to be involved with.

I also like to make animations, but I sit more on the stop-motion side with toys (lego's, in particular) because... well... they're legos.. and I have a tonne of them.

Welcome to steem! I'm really looking forward to seeing your work.

!tip 0.2

Thank you for the warm welcome! I love stop motion but absolutely don't have the patience for it. I always think of the scene from Parks and Rec where Ben Wyatt tries to make a claymation.


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Hi Ashleypox! I like your self portraits and animation is very cool. I'm fairly new here too, but welcome! I hope to see more of your work :)

Hi Allen! Thank you, it was encouraging pulling the materials together and seeing my progress over the years :)

Your illustration work is really nice, I hope to see more of yours, too!