This guest post is by Benjamin Miller a young man who is diagnosed with autism and plans to attend Savannah College of Art and Design and major in Animation. Benjamin is applying for the Spring 2024 Making a Difference Autism Scholarship via the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference started by me, Kerry Magro. I was nonverbal till 2.5 and diagnosed with autism at 4, and you can read more about my organization here. Autistics on Autism: Stories You Need to Hear About What Helped Them While Growing Up and Pursuing Their Dreams, our nonprofit’s new book, was released on March 29, 2022, on Amazon here for our community to enjoy featuring the stories of 100 autistic adults.
I love to make art and animations because I like to tell stories and engage deep emotions within my audience, whether it is to make them relate, to feel sad, or to laugh, and my favorite is when they smile in joy. A lot of times, I like to make art because it makes people’s day, whether it’s a piece that uplifts others, or something that makes them laugh, and one day I hope to produce a lot of cartoons/anime that’ll resonate with people of all ages. No matter what I make, I assure all of my art is made with love and creativity!
I am a self taught artist who started with traditional drawing and by the age of 6. I’ve not only made a unique art style, but even started making my own original characters! My first art style phase lasted from age 6-10, and while I drew a lot, not much happened in terms of improvements.
My second phase started from April 2018-August 2019, and a lot of things happened in this time period as this was when I first had an online presence. For one, my art style drastically improved as digital drawing provided unique features and tools that is not possible when it comes to traditional drawing. This was the first time I really was exposed to other people’s art and animations. Seeing people creating amazing things inspired me to do the same!
From late 2019-Nov 2020 my third phase began as I installed IbispaintX as my main drawing app, and also started animating. In this phase, I made a lot of experimental drawings and tried a lot of the new effects and tools that were available. I was also a big fan of BFDI, a YouTube web series where 24 objects compete for a prize, and because of that I made a lot of original characters from that show and thanks to that, it taught me how to draw a lot of objects. Thanks to BFDI, I also started giving animation a shot, making some of my first animations as linked below!
Dec 2020-Dec 2022 was my 4th phase, and in this phase the animation aspect became much bigger as I was fortunate enough to have Adobe Animate! Despite not having a good laptop, I still managed to make a lot of animations! Camp MMM 2: Blue TNT?! I started to watch a lot of anime and read a lot of manga during this time which eventually would make me much better at human anatomy and my art style shifted from a cartoonish-based to an anime-based art style.
Jan-April of 2022 was a short phase where I decided to adopt a more cartoonish, simple, but appealing art style that focused more on quantity.
May-Dec of 2022 is the second to last phase. This was when I drastically changed my art style to the current art style I use today! In this era I really started to make a lot of creatures which really helped me learn how to draw common animals. I also started to put more thought when it came to making new characters, thinking about their personality, their place and the interactions to the environment they live with.
Jan 2023-Present is where I am currently and as of now, I am aiming to experiment with dynamic poses, and character designing, putting extra thought into the design aspect. I have also made a couple of drawings with a different art style; one that is more armature and simple. (Tohou fanart I drew in Jan 2023 of Suwako in a hugging pose)
Art has become my everything since I was young, as my art basically defines my personality. As someone with autism, I had trouble expressing my ideas verbally, so I used art as a means to express myself, and while I’m a lot more expressive, I still like my art to do some of the talking.
Follow my journey on Facebook, my Facebook Fan Page, Tiktok, Youtube & Instagram.
What happens to children with autism, when they become adults? | Kerry Magro | TEDxMorristown (youtube.com)
My name is Kerry Magro, a professional speaker and best-selling author who is also on the autism spectrum. I started the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference in 2011 to help students with autism receive scholarship aid to pursue post-secondary education. Help support me so I can continue to help students with autism go to college by making a tax-deductible donation to our nonprofit here.
Autistics on Autism: Stories You Need to Hear About What Helped Them While Growing Up and Pursuing Their Dreams was released on March 29, 2022 on Amazon here for our community to enjoy featuring the stories of 100 autistic adults. 100% of the proceeds from this book will go back to our nonprofit to support initiatives like our autism scholarship program. In addition, this autistic adult’s essay you just read will be featured in a future volume of this book as we plan on making this into a series of books on autistic adults.
