Ashlee Bok
Ashlee is a talented 14-year-old teenager from Singapore who does a lot of digital art. He uses Adobe Photoshop to create his artwork and FireAlpaca for animation.
He has been drawing non-stop since he was 4 years old. He loves art as it allows him to make anything fictional come to life. In fact, Ashlee has a love-hate relationship with art because most of the time he struggles with drawing the things that he wants. It is stressful when a drawing does not turn out the way he wants it to be, especially after drawing for a long time.
Many things have influenced him since young—they are mostly video games, dinosaurs and dragons. He has always been fascinated with those huge reptiles because of how radical and gory they are. A huge fan of old and retro video games, Ashlee also has a fascination for owls and hyenas and he wishes he could meet them face to face one day! Ashlee also collects comic books like Archie.
Apollo was a furry character that Ashlee created a while ago as his fursona. It was his first time joining the furry fandom and he realised that everyone had their own furry persona. Thus, Apollo was born.
Ashlee was tasked to do a reference sheet of a human character. To simplify things, he decided to do a human version of Apollo for the art assignment. Surprisingly, he had lots of fun doing that reference sheet, which is unusual because he usually doesn’t enjoy drawing full bodies of human characters.
Ashlee used to be a fan of an artist’s channel and felt like drawing fanart as a birthday gift for him. He found out that one of this artist’s favourite game was a role-playing maker game called OFF. Ashlee liked OFF too and decided to draw his persona as the main protaganist of the game.
Second artwork: Edgy Cat
He was playing around with his art style when he was younger and felt like experimenting it with one of his characters. He ended up creating an entirely new character, which is the sinister cat shown in the drawing.
Third artwork: Firebug and His Mutated Pal
This is an artwork of her TF2 (a game) pyro character, hanging out with a mutated bread monster (which is also from TF2). Ashlee is a huge fan of TF2 and really wanted to draw some fanart of the game, especially after watching “Expiration Date” from TF2.
It was an artwork commissioned by one of Ashlee’s friends for his Instagram profile picture. Ashlee had drawn a bunch of stuff for him in the past, so one day he decided to commission Ashlee. Ashlee’s friend was planning on making a photography Instagram account and wanted Ashlee to draw him for his profile picture. Ashlee enjoyed drawing it and he hopes that his friend liked how the final piece turned out!
Second artwork: BLU Sniper
This is fanart of the sniper class in TF2. Ashlee wouldn’t have drawn this drawing if it wasn’t for his art teacher. He had assigned the class a task to experiment on lighting in their drawings. Ashlee did this piece as part of the assignment but scrapped it because he had other plans. He still likes the version without the shading and just the base colours, thus this drawing.
First artwork: Comic Page
This was an assignment that Ashlee was given during the traditional art lessons he had attended. It was like a final test for him to finish before he could continue on to digital class. It was his first time doing a 5-page comic. It took him a few months to finish the entire thing. This is the first page of the comic, created using pencil and marker.
Second artwork: Inktober
Ashlee did this piece for the yearly October art event called Inktober. He did not have time last year and only managed to do one of the prompts given in the event, which was “Roasted”. It reminded him of the Pyro from TF2, so he drew the pyro and the sniper form TF2. Ashlee also used pencil and marker for this piece.
To get into Ashlee’s head, we asked him these questions:
1. Please walk us through your creative process.
I don’t usually think much whenever I’m drawing, I just draw whatever that comes to my mind. However, sometimes I’d imagine the world my characters live in and different type of reactions/problems they will face in different scenarios to help with my artwork.
2. Why is creativity important?
Creativity helps us to think of new ideas! It helps us find different solutions to problems and innovate new things. Without creativity, I’m pretty sure this world would be a boring place.
3. What does creativity taste like?
Sweet and tangy… with a pinch of salt.
4. Who is your favourite artist and why?
Sinix. I’ve looked up to his artwork for years! There’s something about his art style and the way he paints that intrigues me a lot! I really like his mech pieces, they look really rad. I hope i can achieve that kind of skill in the future.
5. Choose 2 colours that represent your mental state and explain why.
Red and yellow. I’m usually kinda hyperactive and really weird—so those colours stick to me for some odd reasons.
6. If you could be a drop of water or a kitten, what would you be? Why?
A kitten. No one can judge me and I can be as weird as I want.
7. What will finally break the internet?
The Bulborbs from Pikmin.
