I really appreciate the feedback and encouragement I have been receiving on Steemit and it motivates me to keep pressing on and create more and more art to share with all of you. However, I want to dedicate this post to sharing some of my old art. I hope this will help give you a glimpse into my youth in high school and my journey as an artist. I will also focus this collection of art to the television series, Teen Titans.
The original Teen Titans show on Cartoon Network was very influential for me. I had always loved watching the classic Batman: the Animated Series but Teen Titans really drew in with their anime style art direction, focus on adolescence, and actually progressing the story from one season to another with some really powerful episodes that proved that even a kid's animated show can have character growth, struggles, doubts, romance, and great villains.
This is something I think Avatar: the Last Airbender and Young Justice perfected, but Teen Titans laid the foundation for quality shows that both older and young audiences can enjoy and walk away with feeling a deep connection for the characters and their fates.
Beast Boy
All of the drawings in this post were made in 2004. I was 16 years old at the time. I'll start with Beast Boy, one of the few drawings that I made of the shape shifter. It would have been cool if I actually took the time to draw the animals in the background, but I opted for the easy solution: Adobe Photoshop. I made this using my mother's laptop. The reason many of the shapes and shadows are so blocky is because I used the polygon lasso tool to create my shapes and colors. The touch pad is so limiting when it comes to freehanding.
Robin and Starfire
It's not a surprise that I was a Robin and Starfire shipper. They made such a cute couple with Robin being so over protective and Starfire being so naive and innocent. Robin, living in the shadow of the broodiest man alive (*ahem, Batman), it's such a funny contrast to her bubbly personality. The show does well to show how their personalities work well together and how sometimes they don't. But in the end, their loyalty and friendship carry them through their struggles.
Slade
Probably my favorite villain in the entire DC Universe is Slade Wilson (aka: Deathstroke the Terminator). His appearance in Teen Titans was a departure from his edgy mercenary comic book origin. In the series, he's a mysterious terrorist who excels in robotics and martial arts. He is not only a physical threat to the Titans, but also a physiological one as well. I love the episodes where he and Robin cross paths and dig deep into their character arcs. Plus, Ron Perlman provides the voice and he absolutely nails it.
Powerpuff Starfire
I thought mashing Teen Titans with the Powerpuff Girls would have been fun to do and Starfire made the perfect candidate for it (sorry Raven). I remember making this one in Arcsoft Painter Studio, which was the very first program that I used to create and color my drawings when I was transitioning from traditional art to digital art. I will be honest and say it up front, I did not illustrate the Starfire in the background. I didn't respect copyright and fair use laws at the time and I simply found someone else' drawing and used it with my own. I would never do this now and unfortunately I don't have the information from the original artist to give them proper credit.
Together Alone
Another cheesy romantic drawing of Robin and Starfire. They're cozy watching TV in the Titans Tower. It wouldn't surprise me if I was inspired to draw this because I was feeling lonely and desperate. I didn't have a girlfriend and I was too much of a nerd at school. I day dreamed romance and companionship, but I wouldn't find it for another two years until I met @keeperofthewoods in my senior year of high school.
Teen Titans Bebop
My best friend at the time was a huge anime fan, and one of his favorite series was Cowboy Bebop. While I enjoyed the few episodes I watched, I was never a die hard fan like he was. But I saw other artists creating cross over mashups with the Teen Titans and decided to give it a try with Cowboy Bebop. It was a smart choice because when I originally posted this on my DeviantArt it quickly became my most popular submission for a few years. It might not be a bad idea to consider redrawing this one for 2018. :)
Believe me when I say that this was just a small sample of my Teen Titans fan art drawings. Most of my Titans art was from my high school years, but I did recently draw a few Titans during Inktober last year. I'll post some of those when I'm done coloring them later this year. If you like seeing some of my old drawings in a themed collection, please let me know and maybe I'll do it again. I also have a huge collection of Zelda fan art, which could span several Steemit posts. Thanks for taking a look!
Love it. Your art was so colorful back then, but I guess that's how the show was too. I agree that Slade was a very compelling villain. Though I was never a big fan of the show like you were, I really did like the episodes I saw of Robin and Slade battling it out. Good stuff!
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