We were lucky to catch up with Kieran O’Fallon recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kieran, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
I found my purpose through the media I consumed. When I was younger, I loved to read and would always find myself lost in fictional worlds. It helped me escape the loneliness of my real life and I still do that to this day. I was in middle school when I really gained my passion for art through creating fanart for my favorite shows and books. As I got to high school, I continued to create this type of work, while also exploring my own original works. I also started falling in love with graphic novels and consumed them voraciously at the time, which inspired me to start looking at being a full time artist as something I might want to pursue. When I was applying for colleges, I wasn’t actually 100% sure if art was what I wanted full time, I knew how hard it was to be an artist and the many sacrifices I would have to make, but SCAD was the only college that accepted me and it forced me down the path I am on today. While I still reminisce on what could’ve been, I am so grateful that SCAD is where I ended up. In majoring in Sequential Arts, I realized that this was my purpose. I love creating the diverse stories that I saw myself in as a kid and I’ve realized my purpose is to pass down that feeling to the next generation of readers and creators.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am a student at Savannah College of Art & Design majoring in Sequential Art and minoring in Concept Design. I hope to one day write and illustrate my own graphic novels and work on concept design for indie video games. I love getting to have control over my own stories and be able to create the representation I’ve always wanted to see for myself for others. Character creation has always been one of my favorite aspects of this creative process; I love creating an eye-catching character with an interesting design and giving them a complex background that someone could see themselves in. A big part of my art lies in my identity as a queer person, so I love to portray that strange and fantastical, something that many queer people, like myself, see themselves in as well.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Practice, practice, practice! It’s cliche, but it’s true. I constantly see budding artists say that they could never do what a more experienced artist is doing and it hurts to see people give up because of that. I know how demotivating those feelings can be, but pushing through is such an important part of the creative process. You will never be as good as you want to be, but you will never be as bad as you think you are. It takes a lot of time and effort to be good at something, so don’t give up. My advice is to look at what inspires you and draw from there. Whether it be fanart or fashion or environments, draw something you love and keep drawing it. Enjoying the process is half the journey.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
As always, I think it is important to find a balance. When I was starting out as an artist, I went all in on what I perceived as my strengths for a long time before I started branching out into my weaknesses, which I believe kept me from quitting it got hard. A lot of budding artists stop creating because they look at the various aspects of art and aren’t good at EVERYTHING, so they think they’re bad artists. This has happened to me multiple times throughout my life and every time, I have had to take a step back and realize that I can’t be good at everything at once. In these moments, I like to focus on my strengths, because creating art I am proud of makes me want to continue to improve in the areas I’m not proud of.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://krofallon.wixsite.com/my-site
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kro_the_crow/?hl=en
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/kieran-o-fallon-a9a8b3357
