Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tosin Akinkunmi. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Tosin, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
I think it’s a process. It’s not something I’ve completely conquered myself, but a key thing to remember is that if people like and engage with your work, if people are telling you — either ones you know or ones you don’t — that your work is good and enjoyed, then you can’t be an imposter.
I think artists can often be their worst critics; they are critical, which helps their skill grow because seeing areas where one can improve upon their skill is how growth happens. At the same time, there is such a thing as being too critical — where the imposter syndrome stops us from working due to fear that nothing we do is good, or that we’ve somehow lied or tricked our way into certain positions. The work will — and often does — speak for itself.
It does take time to release the tightly clenched muscle of ‘am I good enough?’ or ‘I can’t be good enough’, but eventually, with time, you’ll unclench and the imposter syndrome you feel will lessen! Also, having friends and family who believe in you and cheer for you really helps. When I couldn’t trust my judgement, I could rely on theirs and them telling me that my work is good and that I’ll keep improving the more I practice. Havings someone reliable to defer to when I couldn’t trust myself meant that I could practice unclenching that anxious muscle and over time, I began to trust myself a lot more!
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember, but I started working professionally in 2021, just before I finished university. I got my first commission from Channel 4, and one soon after that from Superdrug, and it was full steam ahead in making art and illustration my career. I’m self-taught and spent much time after university putting myself through the paces of artistic study — portrait study, character art and design, perspectives and interiors. When there’s something I want to succeed in, I dedicate myself to it fully, so I fully threw myself into being a student of art while working professionally.
I’ve grown up with my art, and naturally, there have been growing pains; I know many artists struggle to find an identity and niche. That was especially true for me, as I drew inspiration from so many different mediums and was inspired by so much that it felt impossible to limit myself. Through the years, however, I’ve always been drawn to illustrating people and telling stories with my art and was drawn to publishing. I got my first professional book cover in May 2022 (The Bones of Me, by Kel Duckhouse), and found a real passion for working in illustrating in the publishing world. Since then, I’ve done two more book covers (Waterbaby by Chioma Okereke and King of Nothing by Nathaniel Lessore), and I’m looking forward to doing more of that work in the future.
Whilst I do love helping bring other people’s stories to life, I am looking to start telling some of my own! I’m committing a lot of time this year to developing characters I’ve created and fleshing out their worlds. I really do enjoy coming-of-age stories, but for young adults. I feel that graphic novels would be an excellent medium to explore so many themes and ideas relating to growing up into adulthood and finding ones place there, and I’m excited to continue working on these in a more dedicated capacity.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I think it’s really important for anyone who wants tod develop in their field to have a wide range of resources to pull from. Something that I think was invaluable to my artistic development was tutorials that I found in abundance on Youtube. I was self taught, but I was getting free advice on how to build skill from industry professionals who had worked for big companies and corporations or who had gone to art school. I felt like I was learning from people who would cut through he unnecessary jargon and give succinct but incredibly helpful advice, and it did wonders for my artistic practice.
Also, having a group of peers definitely helped. I started posting my art on the internet in a time where things were more community focused — places like Deviantart and Instagram and Twitter (before the algorithm and cultures of those platforms changed). Still, making other artist friends really helped me, because I would be encouraged and inspired by them and vice versa; I felt I had classmates, so to speak, and they were more than happy to provide me with resources I was unaware of, or to look at my portfolio and tell me what they thought, to boost my art or to collaborate with.
It almost goes without saying, but passion for your subject will take you very far. With art specifically, if I was less passionate, if I felt more detached from art, I wouldn’t do as much personal study that is needed for growth and development. You can force yourself and you might see results that way, but it’s not sustainable. Drawing and creating actually has to be enjoyable for you to want to keep doing it; creating artwork for artwork’s sake is its own reward!
If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?
It might seem strange, but the idea of putting myself — my ideas, my vision, my stories — out there is completely nerve-wracking and it’s something I’ve been struggling with ever since I started posting things on the internet. There’s something different about storytelling; it’s more than creating pretty images that don’t really mean anything. It requires a lot more from you; more vulnerability and more bravery, because you are sharing something very personal with a lot of people who might not understand. You’re sharing things about yourself with people who know you, who might have never seen certain aspects of you and might extrapolate things about your character or nature due to what your story explores. It’s something I’ve been grappling with a lot! I wouldn’t say that I’m a private person, per se, but I am someone who doesn’t necessarily love putting myself forward for things. It took a long time for me to even show my face on my Instagram page because I was nervous and didn’t really want to expose myself to potentially thousands of strangers. I feel that way with all the stories I’ve written, that I’ve illustrated, because they feel weirdly personal and very mine. However, I’ve got some lovely, encouraging friends who have been gently nudging me to post more of my stories and characters. I’ve warmed up to the idea because it’s boring only drawing pretty pictures; having something to say is far more interesting to engage with — as a reader myself — and feels more fulfilling to create!
I’m really looking forward to sharing more of my work and stories and characters later this year!
Contact Info:
- Website: artbytosin.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/artbytosin
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/tosin-akinkunmi
- Twitter: x.com/artbytosin
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGeH3z-xPr50GlHMkfxBVbA
