In the last email I shared a bit about how I gave up on drawing at one point of my life, and a lot of you shared some of your experiences.

We got so many responses! Thank you guys!

Here are some reasons why some of some of you have given up drawing before:
“I had the thought that I couldn’t improve much.”
“I was not satisfied with my work at all.”
“I wanted to get better but I had no idea how.”
“I was not loving my art and felt like it was going nowhere.”

And probably my favorite:
“I asked talented artists for tips and they all said: ‘Just practice’”

So annoying, right?

Practice what? And what do they mean by “just practice” anyway?

That’s what we’ve all been doing up until now! Practice, practice, practice! and is not working!

We practice and we are not satisfied with our work, we want to get better, but we have no idea how.

There’s gotta be something else!

Well, today I want to build up on this and share with you Waylon’s story.

How he went from being an amateur:

…to “putting it aside for some years” (AKA: “giving up, but I don’t want to feel guilty about it”)

…to finally drawing like a pro:

Pay attention because you might find some similarities between his story and yours.

This is the story of Waylon before he found out about 2DAnimation101.

His Childhood
When Waylon was 6 years old, he was watching his favorite animation show.

He kind of hated when episodes were done because he loved to binge-watch tons of episodes a day, and when a show ended, there was nothing else to watch.

After shows ended, he would fantasize about additional scenarios and making up different endings, this is how he started to get the desire to redraw those scenes and tell his own version of those stories.

The thing was that these were the drawings of a 6-year old, and so they didn’t look very good.

(We asked Waylon if he could provide some of those early drawings, but he didn’t have them anymore, they were from a time where there was no smartphones or internet storage).



Drawing in high school
A few years later, in high school, he discovered the magic of his first anime series…
Pokemon.

And later, the big juggernaut of a show…
Dragon Ball Z.

In South Africa, the internet was so slow that watching episodes online was a definite non-starter.

Also, at the time in his country there was no Mangas, so you had to read the pages from fans who had the manga, scanned it and shared it online.

He would’ve loved to buy as many mangas as he could but because there was no distribution in South Africa, reading online was the only way.



The dream of starting his own manga
With time, Waylon and a few of his friends wanted to make their own Manga. These are the images.

Waylon said:
“To be honest, I was fine with this level for years, but inside
I was always frustrated because it never turned out the way I wanted”

In his mind, he could see something better than what he saw on paper.

His imagination and drawings were TOTALLY different, always.

And after this… he gave up.



Giving up
It was around 2003 and 2006 when he gave up drawing.

Even though he really missed the feeling of holding a pencil in his hand, he knew the drawings were not going to come out how he wanted, so he didn’t draw.

Even if he tried drawing a lot, he knew he was not going to get anywhere.

And most importantly, there was school and work commitments that didn’t allow him to draw.

“…or at least that's what I told myself. “
–he said



Manga and Anime become accessible in South Africa
During the time Waylon gave up, anime and manga started to become more accessible, so Waylon bought his first copy...
My hero academia

He said:
“Man was I hooked. It brought back this desire I had as a teenager. Like a magical connection between the adult and teen inside me.”

His job as an accountant was never his dream. His original teenage dream was to create his own manga or comic.

That was the original plan!

But there was 1 single problem.... his drawing level was not quite up to it.

Waylon comes back to drawing with a vengeance

He didn’t draw for around 6 years or more.

Why should he? If he was not going to be good enough to what he wanted to achieve, why the struggle?

Right?

Well, he still decided to start little by little.
(ATTENTION: “Little by little” is one of the secrets here…)

He started looking up at some tutorials and spent another 3 years drawing every other day, and he got to this level:

Then… he sees something new cooking up in a Kickstarter Campaign…



Waylon finds 2DAnimation101
It was in 2018, when we launched a campaign to teach students how to draw manga.

It was called: “The Rogue Mangaka”

After one post we did, I perfectly remember he was the VERY FIRST supporter to reach out and sign up for testing some of our ideas.

He said:
“I believed this was the course I needed and so I backed it. I am so glad I did. Every frustration and question I had before, actually had an answer and the results showed immediately...”

Of course, that program was not perfect and we were exploring... experimenting.

I am truly thankful to Waylon for his kindness and his patience, because really, a lot of the ideas he tested were not really working.

What we wanted to achieve with Waylon (and our commitment as a school) was to get him to draw as he had never done before.

We were doing our best to make sure he had an amazing experience.

It was around 2019 and early 2020 where we got stuck for a bit.

Again, the program was not perfect.

After some calls with Waylon, we agreed that something was still missing…

He was good at reference drawing (copying a drawing from a reference or from real life) but he could not produce his own original work.

Something needed to be done, so we began.

When he started designing his own original characters, we felt that they were kind of “flat”, they were looking technically correct, but they were not very interesting.

It was “OK” but we were not crazy in love with it (…yet).

After trial and error, then more trial and error, we finally found a strategy.

Our strategy was -- to practice what he was going to use, and nothing more.

In art school, they give you tons of exercises to spend an eternity (and to compensate for the super high fees), but we wanted to be different.

We wanted to focus only on the stuff he would actually use.

It was like going on a trip packing only the essentials.

He got better and better, and now, in hindsight he said:
“This is what I love about art. The beauty of it is that you progress into what you need as you go through the various stages in your journey. You will start to be more aware of certain principles because you're always striving to be better.”

(Attention: This is the second magic key from this story – focus on practicing what you will use. No matter the stage you are on, it’s always good to practice what you plan to use)

Waylon finally got big improvements from this strategy, and noticed how good he was getting compared to his past drawings.

He also noticed this same thing even with some of his favorite mangakas.

Their early works were quite different to their later works because they kept discovering and kept at it at all costs.

(Just check out this post of famous artists with 50 examples of their before and afters)

And even after trial and error, and navigating through a sea of frustration, Waylon was able to get really big breakthroughs and now be able to start working on the characters he imagined.

He is now working on his first original manga. Exticing!

WHAT TO DO NEXT?
My recommendation, follow Waylon on Instagram. In there you will see his story from beginning to “end” – (the story is still being written).

Now – In here we share the emotional story.

WHAT ABOUT THE TACTICAL STUFF?

What did Waylon do, and most importantly, what can YOU do to get out of being stuck and start getting big breakthroughs in your skills?

Well, in the next email I am going to share with you exactly this.

For a lot of you, those simple tips might I am going to share could be what you’ve been looking for.

So, stay tuned.

And before I go, I am ULTRA interested.

Would you be kind enough to REPLY TO THIS EMAIL and let me know YOUR story? I would love to know more about you.

Seriously, if you haven’t got to where you want to be or you are feeling stuck, then, no worries, that’s why we are here :D

Take care!
Mark