Still, I totally missed the fact that about 2 or 3 weeks ago was my 10-year anniversary here on DeviantART. I joined on April 17th, 2003. My first two ventures into posting art online was on a forum (still around!) called AAW, (Akemi's Anime World,) as well as Elfwood. (Elfwood---hahahahahahaha. Oh those were the days... that make me weep.) I also posted on the Baka-Neko forums. A user there named Mathias (now ~CaseyLaLonde) talked me into posting on this crazy new site called DA. So I went with him. I chose the name fox-orian based on an old character of mine when I was a kid, but this particular spelling, (yes, the "a" in orian is a misspelling of "orion,") with the dash in the middle was the first appearance of this name and it kinda stuck since it was so unique. (Powerful in google searches!)

I was in highschool at the time, a second year student if my math is correct. At the time I was still a whole year away from owning my first tablet, the Intuos2 6x8 platinum edition, I didn't own my own computer, and Maia was only a couple of months away from initially being created for the old, old, old, old, old concept for Synthesis. I was super into Evangelion at the time, (well, I still am,) but I was just learning how to better draw people at the time, so I was doing fan art of various characters during classes. I owned a freaking How to Draw Manga book, man. Picked it up at my local comic book store. I was like "NYAHA! A SECRET WEAPON!"

Here is the first thing I ever submitted to DA, and one of the first things I ever did in Photoshop. I was 15/16 years old.

Anyway, I am one old-ass member here on this site. That's ten years of not abandoning this account to go randomly start a new one, ten years of no drama, ten years of only one brief hiatus, and ten years of repeated and continued support by all of you! Ever since I joined, the people that find me and interact with me on this site are one of the reasons why I do the things I do.

A shout out to my friend -- she was one of my earliest watches / watchers, and been on her same account for 11 years. How about THAT? True seniority! [Hey, for laughs, click here to go look at her super-old first submissions too. *smug face*]

Thanks everyone! Next up: 700,000 pageviews.