I’m An Autistic Artist Who Creates Vivid “Tradigital” Illustrations (16 Images)

Growing up autistic wasn’t easy, I rarely made friends and I spent a lot of time alone. However, my mum taught me to always have a notebook and/or sketchbook and pencils and pens. I filled up my loneliness with creativity. And now, having grown up into an autistic adult, the world isn’t much less confusing. Education and employment was difficult to navigate, I had many bad experiences.

During these experiences, I continued to draw and create as a hobby in my free time. I would doodle or work on pieces during my work breaks, during night shifts and in between studying at college. Sometimes instead of studying. It was an escape for me.

While I don’t find illustrating to be a relaxing process (I’m not a very relaxed person), when I complete a piece and take in the final product, it gives me a huge sense of achievement.

Over the last two years, I have been focusing primarily on my illustration techniques. I’ve been working to try and turn my hobby and passion, into a career.

As I was growing as a young artist, I often felt like the only way I’d be “good enough” was if I could replicate what I saw perfectly, this greatly hindered my creative journey and caused a lot of frustration for me. So instead of aiming for realism in my work, I decided to explore and really discover my true individual style, and in turn, embrace it; although I continue to study anatomy, composition and colour theory.

Using both traditional and digital (tradigital) methods, I create my illustrations. I use black Unipin fine-liners and Faber-Castell ink brush pens to create the lineart and some shading. Then I use a scanner to import the image into Adobe Photoshop. I use a graphics tablet to digitally colourise the images in layers with vibrant, coordinating and aesthetically pleasing tones. Continuing to draw traditionally on paper, allowed me to feel more free with my pen strokes and colouring digitally makes me feel like I have more control than I do with paints. So this is a style I work comfortably with and I feel that it represents my artistic style well.

I have OCD with colours, so I enjoy working with a limited amount of them and creating a complimentary balance between the tones. My style is often described as featuring macabre elements while also being balanced out with cute characteristics; cute but creepy if you will. I enjoy venturing out of the norm and my inking style allows me to use lots of detail as I’m naturally a very tense and tight artist.

Drawing, doodling, sketching, illustrating, painting, it’s all been there for me during the toughest of times. I’m somewhat thankful for those tough times as they allowed me to reach the point I’m at now with my artistic adventures.

You can find me on social media under @missinktrovert

https://www.instagram.com/missinktrovert/

More info: missinktrovert.com