First Art of 2026! My First Fanzine Piece

Starting the year strong with my latest drawing of a fanzine I had the opportunity to be part of! Quick story time, I've been wanting to be part of a fanzine for YEARS but I always lacked the skills for it. The first fanzine I ever applied for was for Voltron Legendary Defender back in 2017. And of course, I was rejected. The moderators were kind enough to let me know that my anatomy skills at that time were great but I lacked a lot of backgrounds. Just like many artists, backgrounds are just an after thought. But because of that rejection, I wanted to make it a goal to improve those skills. It took years.

It was only until 2025 I started getting comfortable drawing backgrounds. Unfortunately, I still struggle with planning compositions and making sure the perspective fits my idea.

Which brings us to this drawing! I started the initial rough sketch in November 2025!

But the composition was so bland! I really hated it! Seeing all the contributors work-in-progress inspired me, but also made me self-conscious. I wanted my first fanzine to look good! Especially since I will have my own copy of the physical book. I want to look back and think I did a great job. And so I did not touch this for 2 months.

Figuring out how to place all 5 of them was a challenge. I couldn't find the right photo reference that matched my general idea. Even more so in a vertical format. Technically I didn't have to put it in a vertical orientation. I don't know about you all who are reading this, but if I'm reading a magazine or manga, I'd like to not turn the book around to see the next page. It's just extra work. Yes, I know, I can just rotate it in less than a second but I'd prefer having the information ready the moment I turn the page. Just maintains the flow of your eyes! Eventually I managed to figure out how to place them all in a dynamic way! From there, figuring out the perspective and lighting was a breeze. I definitely felt more confident in really my 2nd attempt. Unfortunately, I feel like it could be a bit better since I drew this 2 days before the deadline. And that was after we were all given an extension. So you can imagine how much I was rushing to finish this. But it's done and it's the best I could do given my circumstances.

I'm still proud of myself overcoming the composition obstacle. And all things considered, it still looks great! I definitely love the lighting and mood I created. I also love how Caleb is subtly the focus of the the entire piece. Generally, I just love how they're all interacting with each other! I wanted this drawing to capture the communal relationship with college students and their school routine. My fondest memories of college were the mundane things like getting food together or just studying (not actually studying) in the resource rooms. So I'm happy to put in my own experiences into this drawing! And so I came up with the idea of the love interests going for their routine-convenience store-breakfast run at a family-owned store. Having to fill of the empty space with references to the game was very fun. It was even more fun basing their posing from Jujutsu Kaisen. And yes, Caleb is referencing Gojo.

I'm very excited to see the book get printed. I'm not entirely sure when it will be shipped out but or when pre-orders will be announced, but I'll be sure to post about it when I get the information! Anyway, that's all I wanted to talk about! Thank you for reading all the way here! - I've been meaning to using up this blog space to talk about my art. Social media just doesn't really like long posts so I figured might as well ramble about my thought process here for my drawings. Maybe I should also may an email subscriber list to announce new art? I don't post too frequently so don't worry about getting spammed by me. Let me know what you think!