(continued from part 1: And then suddenly, as if tripping over some tangle of fate, I stumbled upon the blog that would change my life forever...)

The Unknown Hipster. Now here was something really unique, I thought. Run by a Frenchman named Jean Phillippe-Delhomme, The Unknown Hipster is an illustration blog, where the guy draws simple, comic sketches of his day, of the people he meets, of his musings. He had a really simple formula: to take an experience, and turn it into a funny little picture. 

From The Unknown Hipster, "How to attract the attention of a French waiter."

And wow, did it spark something in me. A blog where I would post all my drawings! That was it! But at this point I was only a few days into my venture, and progress was slow, to put it lightly. I still couldn’t make a decent face to save my life, and so disembodied 2-dimensional outfits with their feet spread apart (because I didn’t know how to draw shoes facing the foreground) were what I ended up with.

Rofl

I persisted. I went through dozens of sheets before one not-so-hideous sketch cropped up. Soon I had ten drawings that I could live with. I made myself a Tumblr account, and in terror posted them one by one.

At first no one paid any attention to me besides my friends, and my mom. For months I had maybe a dozen followers, all of whom I was acquainted with. And then came my first “real” follower, someone I didn’t know personally. I was thrilled. I remember combing through her blog, wondering who she was, and recalled this one post she put up about how she was styling her hair. 

By this time I had made it known to my friends that I was interested to try my hand at fashion. Angela Alarcon, an old friend of mine from school, was at the time working as a freelance stylist. She had a big project coming up for a major entertainment network, and she offered to let me assist her at the shoot.

It was at a huge studio, and I remember trembling in my shoes as we walked in. She introduced me to the crew, the photographers, and the celebrities we were styling. This one girl came up to us.

“Oh Rachelle! This is Jose,” said Ange.

We shook hands, and I looked at her. There was something so familiar about her hair...

“Hey, I know you!” I said. “You followed my blog!”

Her face lit up in recognition. “Oh my gosh, you’re Jose Jose! I love your drawings!”

OH-EM-GEE, I thought. I HAVE A FAN! One whole fan! Vision of me walking down a red carpet, cameras flashing my way, throngs of people holding out sketches for me to autograph.

“Oh my,” I laughed bashfully. “That’s so kind of you.”

It was ridiculous, of course, but now I couldn’t stop drawing. I drew pictures of my friends, my sister, sketches of a gig I attended, all patterned similarly to Unknown Hipster’s format. I worked hard.

But because I didn’t have that innate talent to hold an image in my mind and translate it onto a page, I referred to my favorite blogs for practice. Menswear was my speciality, and I sifted through hundreds of menswear editorials, model shots, street style portraits, runway shows, anything that resonated with me. Bent over my computer, I used a clipboard to hold up sheets of paper that I would fill with different poses, expressions, shadows. Once I wasted an entire sketchpad drawing silhouettes of heads facing forward, heads in profile, heads tilted up.

I got better. Post after post, my skills improved, and slowly people began to notice. My followers grew at such a rate that I began to cut class just so I could finish a drawing to post.  I still get goosebumps when I remember this international male model whose editorial I’d illustrated, and who commented on my blog, linking me to the pages of the Italian magazine editors who’d made the drawings their profile pictures. It overwhelmed me to feel that things were finally falling into place.

~

But I knew this peaceful, golden time wouldn't last forever. Already, my required internship had begun to loom in the horizon...

I needed to find a job.

[end of part 2]