Who?
Hello! My name is Andrea, and I’m the artist behind everything you see at Smudged Pixels!
I’ve been drawing for a very long time, longer than I can remember. I’ll show some of that further down, but lets start with the who.
There’s not really any doubt about how nerdy I am, I’ve ventured into hundreds of fandoms, I have drawn something from literally everything I have ever found myself obsessed with. I’m definitely obsessive, a little too much so in some cases - But this is not where my only passion lies. Outside of drawing the fanart, I’m also a little bit of an Ao3 writer, dabble in computer repair and tech, Horse rider, Graphic Designer, Now a professional Concept Artist, and very much working my way through an addiction to those little wooden building kits and they are taking up so much space in my room please send help.
Since I’m moving my everything to a new platform, I thought this was a good opportunity to properly shed some light on who I am, and what I did to get from where I was to where I am today.
So, Lets get started, shall we?
This is probably the most familiar image I can show you that you would probably maybe recognise? Even so, things have changed so much since then.
Early days oh my gosh I cant believe I’m showing you this
Please Don’t Look
I used to draw horses when I was younger. Not like, one or two horses, literally almost everything I could find from back then was either a horse, or a ninja turtle :’)
I spent a lot of time drawing in my books at school. If I still had any of them I would show you just how much more art was in those books than actual words. I had murals drawn on the back covers, I had ponies in the margins, I had dudes fighting dragons in the top corners. I was unstoppable.
No one actually tried to stop me, thinking about it.
So basically unstoppable.
I had my favorite classes, obviously, anything creative I just took too easily. Highest grades in Art, Drama, Music, and anything agriculture. Math, Science, English… Nope. I had no interest. Likely these workbooks had the most drawings.
But if I’m going to be completely honest, things didn’t start for me until after Highschool. I started really getting into it in my senior highschool years, drawing more elaborate pictures seemingly out of nowhere, I couldn’t tell you how I learned to do them. Lets check them out in the next section!
Some of the earliest artwork I could find!! The top left is my very first digital art, using Paint and a mouse! my mum made me sign it.
Traditional Art Matters!
Highschool sure was a thing, huh.
I managed to dig up a book cover! The dragon one was inside my English book, on the front cover. I remember drawing that, people asking me what I was doing. I was just having fun. I remember I had this massive dragon puzzle that glowed in the dark, it was actually pretty sick. I don’t have it anymore, but it was defs the inspiration for that cover.
A lot of the horses turned into Dragons at this point, I really couldn’t tell you why. Dragons were just so flexible because they were something that didn’t exist, so you could draw them anyway you liked! I think it was around now I was purely focused on traditional media, because I just didn’t have a computer I could make anything with. I remember the day I got my first drawing tablet though - It was a massive old thing, A Medion something something that was bigger and heavier than I was! I kept that thing for a long time, I think it still works? Unsure. Will have to see if its still around somewhere.
I found the dragon image I used to have as a puzzle! it was so cool, dragon glowed in the dark!
Lord of the Dragon by Max Henkle!
How to really slowly start your career
When I left high school, I, much like every other teenager I have ever known past and present, had no idea what I wanted to do.
I wanted to work with animals, but that wasn’t an option really. I wanted to do something creative, Also not really an option where I lived. My home town was pretty small and very far from the city, so jobs were pretty much Nursing or Hospitality.
Thankfully, I didn’t fall into any of that.
I went to TAFE, studied IT for 6 months to have written qualifications to be able to get any kind of computer repair related job - because as a female, It was hard for anyone to take you seriously when you said you knew your stuff.
But while I was there, I stumbled into a Multimedia class that taught us to 3D model, video capture and edit, make interactive DVD’s, Animated music videos - the works. Best class ever. It was a 6 month long course, but it became really obvious a couple weeks in that no one else in the room had any kind of creative background.
My lecturer noticed and he pulled me aside one afternoon and asked me if I would be interested in a job drawing. Thrilled by just the idea I could make money with art, I jumped at the idea.
A week later, I was being sent emails about an art test for Redline Games, a company that made games for pokie/slot machines. Here’s my art tests on the right! Don’t judge me, this was a long time ago ^^;
The art tests were pretty basic, Just wanted to see if I could draw something along the lines of the style they sent me, then asked for a portrait.
Somehow I still got the job!
Sometimes when theres an up, theres a down waiting just around the bend.
I loved my job at that game studio. I could draw all day and I was getting paid decently for it. I even got to see the release of my first project I ever worked on for them! But, as it always finds a way, Life pulled me out of that career. I ended up moving away, and I regret everything about that decision. It was wrong and I knew it, but being young and stupid and excited by the idea of moving on with life at a young age just got to me. I could do things my friends weren’t doing yet. I felt like I had everything figured out but…
Everything quickly came crashing down. I had no job, I had to prospects, No money and 3 months later I had no partner. I was forced to move back home basically overnight, and its situations like this I was grateful I had the friends I did. Everything went downhill from there, basically starting over from nothing and building myself back up after losing everything.
I managed to pull a favor with a local IT shop I frequently visited, who set me up with a job for a while until they were unable to pay me anymore. I had to start looking for something else, somewhere else, and do it fast.
So… Losing whatever self respect I had left, I moved into a graphic design/IT call center Helpdesk role on the Sunshine coast.
I did not know Graphic Design.
I didn’t pretend to.
But when some older people hear “digital art” they definitely think its the same thing, and will not take no for an answer.
But, I had a job. I could get everything back on track again. Just had to learn to swim in the deep end…
Top - My first ever game anything! Even now, I’m still proud of this one.
Bottom - this is how much that studio helped me improve my art!! this was a little more than 2 years apart!
A few Bad years lead to some really great ones.
I swam.
I learned how to do graphic design on the most basic level. I made some forms, some banners, some website stuff, Some trade show podium designs, reworked some logos, learned Illustrator, of all things but… That job was a stress nightmare. The sound of those ringing phones still haunts me to this day.
I’ll spare you all the moving around details but I soon picked up work in Brisbane as a Graphic Designer/Printshop hand, by the only guy willing enough to take a chance on someone who needed to relocate for the job. He didn’t regret it. But he did tell me one afternoon when I was printing stuff for a convention that this wasn’t the industry for me. He told me that he believed in what I could do with my art, and told me he knew I had better things waiting for me. He supported my dream job of being a concept artist, and wanted to help me where he could to find it. I switched to part time work and took up study at JMC Academy in Brisbane, studying Game Design because he told me I could do it.
Tragically, He passed away less than a year later.
But, I met some great people because of him. I made new friends. I made connections, I learned what I could really do, and how far I still had left to go.
I made a whole art book for my final. This animation of my concept was one of my favorite things I did during the whole course. It still is to this day.
Sorry she’s a lil’ crunchy!
The connections you make are your greatest asset
It took time. Everything takes time. If it didn’t take time, you didn’t do it right.
I didn’t find a job right after study. We got hit with the pandemic, and lost a lot of our networking opportunities.
I was lucky enough to do an art test for Half Brick, but I panicked too much about the end of week deadline while I was working (at yet another print shop) and didn’t make it past the second round. Balancing full time work and time restricted art is a really hard thing to get used to.
Things went stale for a few months, until I got a message from a friend of mine from Uni.
He asked me if I was potentially still looking for work.
I asked him what he had, because I would give anything to not have to show up to a workplace where the manager hated me for some reason for yet another day.
He said he was working at a game studio, and some positions for artists had just opened up. Asked me to send through my portfolio and email address to pass on to his boss.
I heard nothing for weeks. I gave up.
Until one afternoon I get this email, asking if I was open to work. He set up an interview at the game studio a few days later and I found myself travelling to the gold coast with my three closes friends from Uni. They couldn’t resist. They had to come for this one - and I’m glad they did! I would have been a mess if it wasn’t for them.
The interview was the most casual thing I had ever experienced. The studio felt like home. Popculture all over the walls, a gigantic mural across the back wall overlooking the desks. He asked me if I wanted to tour the studio, and I fell in love with the place. I just hoped with everything I had that I had done enough to get the job.
And a week later I got a call asking me when I could start. It still feels like a dream 3 years later!!
It was great to be working back in a studio again. I’ve learned so much, and met so many great people! Check out these released games I’ve worked on since I started!!
The Saga continues…
I’m not done yet!
This is just where we are right now!
I spent a good portion of the time between high school and now running conventions and getting to know some incredible people. But I think this next chapter wont include that. There’s no room for it right now, it just doesn’t fit. So I decided to take a break, focus on my career, rebuild this website and work on some more online traction instead.
If you made it this far, Thank you so much. You’ll never understand what that means to me.
Please feel free to drop me a message in the contact form below. I’d love to hear from you! <3
Contact me
Got a question? Want more? Send a message! I’ll get back to you as soon as I can <3