Hello!! Thank you for wanting to know a little about me and how I started my art journey. Lets begin with the basics shall we:

My name is Adina (Dina), located in the USA. My ethnicity is Chamorro (Guam) and German/White. Art has been a huge part of life for me since childhood. Drawing anything that caught my attention.
In elementary school art class was my favorite class. Being able to create something from your mind is amazing. My art piece I did was of bamboo. It was a painting. Simple black and gray. The school I attended submitted it to an art show and if I remember correctly I placed second in the art show. From there I continued to sketch and shortly afterwards, anime became something special to me. Guess you could say an escape from reality.
Anime became a huge piece in my artwork. Fan art was something truly enjoyable for me. Shipping certain characters and drawing them as a pair was a lot of fun! That's where weapons come into play. The detailing of weapons was a lot of fun and a huge learning experience for me. Shading, detailing, getting everything as accurate as it would need to be, depending on the style you're doing. Still till this day weapons are so fun to draw.
In high school was the very first commission I did for a classmate. They wanted me to draw out their very first tattoo. I won't go into too much detail, but it was to resemble their father who passed away. Once the sketch was completed, I showed them the work and they broke down in tears. They were so happy with how it came out. The words "better than what I pictured" were said, and honestly that was the best feeling ever. After that I continued to learn more and wanted to improve, but then life happened and I stopped drawing in 2012.
Meeting my best friend in 2014 was the starting point of my life. I've attempted to draw numerous times, but the motivation that was once there was no longer there. So drawing wasn't really part of my life anymore. Stopped learning and stopped drawing all together again.
2020 was yet another starting point in my life, this time for my art. My sister started her own twitch stream and asked me to draw emotes for her, so I did. Shortly after she started receiving messages of people wanting my art. That spark I felt a long time ago hit me and I wanted to draw for them, so twitch art became my main style and where most of my commission comes from. Word spread of my art and not long after a planner community showed interest in my character creation commission. Still that planner shop orders the same character we created together doing a bunch of different stuff. The owner of that planner shop is actually my best friend. She found potential in me and my art and wanted a special character created that would be unique to her shop, so that is how Petunia was born.
While my support base was growing my best friend (husband) had been encouraging me to never give this up. Wanting me to challenge myself more and go out of my comfort zone. He also supports me making my art into stickers and other merch so that others who love my art will have those available for them to purchase. So that's how I opened up my own shop allowing my previous and future clients to purchase merchandise of the art I've done for them. Art is now such a big chunk of who I am, and honestly I'm really happy about it.
Thank you for wanting to learn more about me and my life. I'm sorry it's not short and to the point but that's okay, cause life really just isn't short and to the point.