Born and raised in the US of A, I am a female enthusiast of digital arts; I am not a professional, and barely consider myself a hobbyist. The appropriate word for that is a "dilettante" - I like the dated definition: "an admirer or lover of the art" according to Merriam-Webster. The Wiki-tionary definition, though, is probably more fitting for me - "An amateur, someone who dabbles in a field out of casual interest rather than as a profession or serious interest."
Well, looks like I may have to re-brand my name if my casual interest becomes more serious in the near future...! :P
I have an interest in very many art forms, both digital and physical, although I am mostly drawn to digital art. Since I was little, I've loved singing, listening to music, playing console and online games, and watching Disney channel shows and cartoons. Although now, my interests are branching out.
I used to dislike reading books, and now I find myself lost in online news articles from highly varied sources, social media comments sections, online forums, and my (extremely) small physical book collection. I was also not very drawn towards traditional art; as a child, I envied my friends' doodles throughout elementary and middle school. However, after trying my hand at it several years later, I found that I just needed practice to come to like drawing and painting better.
Much of my family is very artistic, and I tend to take after them. I am currently enrolling in a state university in the United States, planning to major in Business (entrepreneurship) and work towards an M.B.A while minoring in art. I have no solid future plans... but, I now have a dream. One day I want to own an entertainment business that people will trust - with much integrity, away from the confines of Hollywood. Maybe I will reach big cities across the nation one day! :)
Who knows what it will be for, though. I haven't planned that far ahead yet. Music, movie-making, graphic arts, writing/journalism... one or maybe all of them, eventually.
If you haven't already guessed... yep, I am a Gen Z-er! In my not-too-distant past, I used to be an active online MMO (massive multiplayer online) gamer during my childhood aside from playing outside and playing dress up as a typical little girl. I used to play Webkinz, Dizzywood before it became "Secret Builders," a little Pixie Hollow, a little Wee World, a little Gaia Online... although, my favorite online go-to game was "Fantage.com," the short-hand brand name for "Fantastic Age!"
Fantage was a virtual online world where players could dress up, play mini games, and chat with friends. Fantage originally launched from 2007 - 2018. I joined in May 2009, and played online up until about early 2016. It had really shaped my online experience as a child; I had really learned a lot on it that I shouldn't have learned until middle school...
My favorite thing to do was not only playing the famous "Fashion Show" game and "Mission Center" games; I loved recording and editing together videos of the game itself. I had made everything from "Fantage Music Videos," to "Fantage tutorials," to even a "Fantage Animated Series." They were once uploaded to my former YouTube channel named "juliaroxall," but the channel has been deleted since late 2016.
What I was most captivated with was the thought of creating a fictional story called "Rise of the Clones" - so much so that I centered one of my college essays from a humanities class based on the story concept. You can read the essay here on this blog! I discontinued the story a couple years into making it, realizing that I had yet to do more research. But I am certainly picking it back up again... :)
Sadly, Fantage has long since been shut down since July 31, 2018. A month before the game formally shut down, I created a Discord server for former players to stay connected to their friends from Fantage. I reached out to as many people as possible, and I'm still reaching out to more people even today.
After my obsession with Fantage slowly died down in 2015-2016, next thing I knew, I found myself binge-watching shoujo (a genre of anime aimed at young teenage girls and young women) anime week after week. I grew fascinated with the eastern art styles as well as the heart-tugging soundtrack and story-telling that I had never seen before. Before I knew it, while I was studying in high school, during a lot of my downtime, I would use Vegas Pro to make AMVs (anime music videos), mess with a soundtrack's track structure and maybe extend the song, and I even dabbled with the nightcore music genre.
I even blogged about my favorite anime on Anime Amino, a popular niched community of anime addicts on Amino Apps. I would write about story troupes and even wrote a couple of series reviews, but mostly posted GIFs that I would quickly make in my spare time. This was truly a pastime hobby, but I rather enjoyed it for a few years. I stopped using Anime Amino around late 2017.
Presently, I've gotten into making mashups of anime songs with other popular songs and Miraculous Ladybug. I upload these (abominations of my mind) works to my YouTube channel and SoundCloud profile or share them with my friends on Discord.