Well…practice also make perfection but I’m not perfect yet so it would sound irrelevant to say so. I mean, if people I look up to called themselves average, who am I to call myself perfect? haha.
I had always wanted to blog about this on my old blogs but every time I had the motivation to do, I’d lose it almost immediately after I’ve failed to remember my old log in to my past photobucket accounts. This post involves graphics, and a lot of them. From my old ridiculously laughable ill-favored graphics to my current average looking ones. One must think that I’m insane for having the guts to actually post these old graphics out, well not really. I just wanted to post it into a post for my self satisfaction, I mean, syok sendiri.
I started out with the simple Microsoft paint. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea where all my MS Paint graphics went but lets say that they weren’t /that/ bad. By the way, here’s a mini tutorial on how to make a gradient background on paint though if you’re on gimp, you could just make a gradient with the gradient tool, they even have presets available for you to choose from, though I personally hardly touch the presets. I’d prefer creating my own backgrounds.
Lets start with one of my oldest work that I’ve miraculously managed to find floating around the internet after googling my own photobucket username. Apparently that account was linked to my old email account and because I was underage back then, I’m pretty sure that my mom chose a different date of birth for me, leading to me unable to retrieve that account as I have no idea what d.o.b my mom placed haha.
These two were from 7 years ago. I have no idea which is older but yeah, they looked ridiculously laughable, I’m so sorry that Ashley Tisdale looks so blur over there ; A ; These two were made for others and I had no idea why did I even think that these were good to begin with haha, well you can’t blame me that the person was literally shoving me ” <3 <3 <3 ” -.-. Oh well, that’s what they call puberty changes everything (I think)
Soon later, I found out about this sorcery called “renders” or PNGs. Basically they’re pictures with a transparent background. In the above two graphics, I still had no idea that it was possible to “sharpen” pics. ._.
Not sure if you guys are aware of this but I had ALOT and A LOT of websites back then. I mean, once I get sick of a certain name, I’d get a new one. Since registering a subdomain and hosted under freewebs was like…free…? And I was like “People on the forums got also, so I also want. Let’s see, I was 9 back then. Yup.” Let me list a few graphics site and blogs that I actually remember of.
candy-twist, candiez-lyts, bittersweet fragments, sarcastic adventure, sweeten treats, fantasy kiss(latest but then turned into the current candy-yumi) and the list goes on. Whats more ridiculous was that I even had sites that I have not even updated! I have the layout ready, resources et cetera but the layout was just…unpublished. Silent Memories was one. Now let me show you some layout headers that I’ve designed previously. The graphics, no matter whether they were clear or not, I actually found these “pretty” hahaha. That’s why when I was gathering back these old graphics, I think I’ve went a little crazy laughing at my own work.
Alright, enough of the old ones, here are some graphics the later ones, probably 2 years ago. Being a Sixth Gun (GazettE fan) that has been editing graphics for 4 years during 2011, I’ve always admired those that made beautiful graphics of their idols, so I decided to give it a go too. Here’s what I came out with…
You don’t even know how much I hate myself. The one on the left looked alright though I’d wish that it was sharper, however the one on the right is just downright, I think I’ll remove it from the net later and just hide my face under my pillow. That has proven that 2 years ago, after using GIMP for 3 years + I still had no idea how to sharpen an image on GIMP. Wait wait wait, a month after those were released^ I finally learned how to sharpen an image. *cheers*
Well that went well, that’s what I meant by practice makes perfect improvements. Ok lets skip all the in between of average-not so good looking distasteful icons to this latest batch of icons that I made and was actually to be honest, quite proud of. Why? Because I used 0 icons bases for these. ; w ;
Well if you’re interested, these icons can be found in my graphics section.
Lastly, we’ll come back to signatures.
This was from 3 years ago. Pretty normal, decent looking plain signature with 50k downloads but only 3 favorites. wao.
Later on, this was from last year, I learned how to mess around with the layers’ mode. That’s how I learn how to blend images without using the eraser tool, well, at least not solely the eraser tool.
Now people, 7 years. This is the product of 7 years of practice, constantly getting feedback from all the fellow graphic designers on the webs and forums. The gap for me to reach perfection is still far away and I’m well aware that editing graphics won’t earn me a living but this had been that one and only hobby/interest that I had not give up on. At some point of life, my ambition, my ‘cita-cita’ was to be a graphic designer haha. It was hilarious, I know, I had been laugh at for having such an ambition but I don’t know the future, maybe…just maybe I’ll be able to influence people to fall in love with graphic design, just maybe…I could be successful with this ambition, I don’t know, I’ll let time tell.
Okay, enough of that, what I wanted to say is, to everyone that has told me this exact same line of words that I’ve told the graphic designers/freelance graphic designers that I’ve looked up to, “Oh my gosh, your graphics are sooooo good! Please teach me!” Sure. Teaching one is aye okay, but one has gotta put some effort into it. I’ve taught a few kiddos(which miraculously are from the same age group as me haha), they’ve put effort and practice and they’ve succeeded, each piece of graphic was a level up for them. Though trust me, if you’d like to be as amazing as the people I look up to, I’ll be telling you this. “Dream on.” Harsh, I know, but…that’s what I call life. If I go on any further, this would turn into a rant, that’s not what I’m hoping for, if possible, I’d hope that this blog was rant free, so treat this as a piece of advice. From this post, you’re clearly able to see one’s improvements. Now let me show you my utmost recent work which were freshly baked this week.
The above are premades, the taylor swift one even has a recorded video available in my YT Channel.
The below graphics are some of the latest commissioned graphics. Which explains the heavy watermark. I mean, it wouldn’t be fair to have a custom made graphic being used by others without their permissions right? DISCLAIMER: I claim the design but I don’t claim all the resources used to make the magic happen.
I guess that’s pretty much it. Now for some FAQs I had been getting. I shall answer them here.
1. How old are you? My birthday’s on the 10th of September which makes me 15+
2. What program are you using? GIMP 2.8. It’s free to download so go ahead and download it at GIMP.org as if you’re interested in watching my speed tutorials, you’ll need GIMP.
3. Your inspirations. No one in particular but Marapets.com ‘s graphics forum was the start of my journey, there were many talented people there 8 years ago when I started playing in that site. Funny thing was, I was originally looking for Neopets cause everyone in school was playing and I got sick of it and signed up for Marapets haha. Anyways, people like Peter, Azure(something something), Jiishi and Ruby were the ones that inspired me to start graphic designing.
4. Who are the designers you look up to now? If you’re on marapets, well, Laura & Loned.
5. Recommend me some resources? Check Punk-rose.com , swimchick.net , Celestial-star.net , http://missesglass.deviantart.com/ and of course, http://blackyaisa.deviantart.com/ .
6. Exactly how long have you been using GIMP? After I’ve checked back on my old stuff, I’d say 7-8 years. /wao. And I’ve only started improving recently. -_-
7. Your goals in the future? I’d pretty much like to master web designing and learn how to use photoshop. Because GIMP even exports PSDs, I just left my CS5 hanging there as I have absolutely no idea how to use it. “Tutorials are all over the net.” they said. True but I’m someone that’s way to lazy to watch any tutorials haha so everything I’ve learned up til now are really by trial and error. <- I think thats how one spells is, I’m not sure. Maths teacher’s always like ” Trial and error” during Quadratic expressions.
8. Can I order a graphic from you? I’ll be happy that you do. I’ll be updating my portfolio sometime sooner, not sure when. But if you’re interested in ordering something, please email me your orders for the time moment ( hello@candy-yumi.com ) or ( yumizo10@hotmail.com ) would be fine as well.
9. Can you teach me how to do this and that in GIMP? I’m more than glad to, just drop me an email or use the contact form which will be up soon. If I can help, I’ll always be more than willing to do so!
10. IS THIS YOUR LONGEST BLOG POST?!?! ARE YOU TRYING TO WRITE A NOVEL HERE? Yes and no. Ciao ciao~ More tutorials and lens reviews coming up!
I hope you had a good “What?! Her graphics were THIS bad back then? HAHAHAHAHA” time.
I mean, this was what the bestie said when I showed her my latest work and my old T-Swift one.
Trust me, this lady is damn cute hahahaha.
Last but not least, hard work always pays off. So, Good luck! 
