Be Creative!

one of my passions...arts

Being an artist led me to some of my great adventures in life...

I remember in grade school, I was often included to represent our school (Malate Catholic School) in on-the-spot poster making contests competing almost all the schools in the NCR area.

After high school, I got myself into an un-official" tattoo business; I say "un-official" because I never intended it to become one; I first earned money when my uncle (a Philippine team Wrestling Team member) asked me to come with him at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium (where Wrestling Association of the Philippines is located). He told me his co-members wants to have my "obra-maestra" permanently on their skin.

BTW, they got enticed by the repair I've done on my uncles' "bilibid" like tattoo (it was a Philippine Marine Logo (an eagle with an anchor in the background). The repair I did was turning the eagle into a wild cat or "musang" (in Filipino); but it was never finished as it requires a lot of work; the original tattoo was a thick (marker pen thick) which is very hard to cover; However, with patience from me and my uncle (I know the process is very painful); the unfinished wildcat artwork is more noticeable than the old eagle.

Then a little later than that, when I was with a band, we're looking for "old school" t-shirt logos (we're talking about voltes five, superman, mazinger Z, mekanda, transformers, and other justice league hero logos), but coudn't find any.

So we ended up creating our own (during that time, we don't have the privilege of using the net to copy the logos); just sketching down what we could remember and print it on our shirts.

My childhood bestfriend (kababata), his name is "King"; realized we could make a living out of this talents/ideas we have. during that time, I was more into shirt printing (commercially) and freehand drawing, and mural painting (not to mention of course, my drum playing); he's into learning to use the "airbrush".

He enticed me to put up a business (specifically a t-shirt printing business with "Airbrush" as our main medium). But as we're preparing for the venture, we were told that the idea is already in operation at the SM Sta. Mesa); we went there to see it ourselves and to our dismay...

But it didn't stop us to pursue our love for the craft. Some years after, he's into advertising (he does photography, graphic designing).

I'm still engaged in the business and managed to get projects from government institutions and private companies (school P.E. shirts/ROTC, company give-aways, etc.,), election paraphernalia; I experienced earning big bucks ranging from 5k to 300k per project.

I can say this is a good business.. a really good business.. all you need to do is don't stop being creative.