The original dragon character was not even one of my own creation, at least not its basis. Simply put, it's Vegeta, but a '00s-style noodle dragon - nothing more, nothing less. 2004 was a year heavily steeped in fandom and the birth of exposure to online communities and the concepts therein. It was also the year of introduction to digital art beyond MSPaint, as I had obtained Paint Shop Pro 8 and began using it to color scanned drawings for the first time.

In addition to Pokémon fanart and random animals/creatures, a defining subject of this period was Vegeta and things relating to my fixation on him. However, I was a bit different of an obsessed, artistically-inclined fangirl in that I often let my self-awareness of my unrefined skill hold me back from outright drawing the characters I liked because I knew I wouldn't "do them justice" so to speak. Sometimes I drew them anyway, but when I couldn't bring myself to, a workaround I used at the time was to draw the character as some other creature I DID feel I could draw at a passable level. This was first done in 2003 with Kenshin (as a Pikachu), and again in 2004 with Vegeta as a dragon.

GALLERY

A wallpaper made from that first drawing. I was really into making wallpapers back then - something I haven't done in ages!



Here are a few other things from 2004. One is also on the miscellaneous dragon page, but the others are related to an OC I was using to represent myself at the time, who will get her own space in an OC section of my Dragonball shrine once it's made.



Until 2023, the Vegeta dragon was only revisited once in 2008, as a brief subject for art style/expression practice alongside other characters from 2003-04.