Life & Work with Danay Bradley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Danay Bradley.

Hi Danay, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today. 
My name is Danay Bradley, but I go by Daxaniart (or Daxani) on socials. I started drawing maybe sometime in kindergarten – I even won third place in a bookmark design contest, and I drew a dinosaur. As I got older, I would just doodle and started off drawing anime characters. At the time, my brother and I were watching Dragonball Z, so a lot of my characters had this square shape with pointy chins. Eventually, the style developed to be more round and “kawaii” like Sailor Moon. Eventually, my love for Disney animation had grown as well, and I was so fascinated with the Disney style and the princesses, and all of the artwork developed by Disney. I put together my own Manga back when I used to read the Peach Girl mangas. (I can’t remember if this was early high school or late middle school). But I was experimenting with a lot of ideas. 

My parents used to by me all sorts of giant poster paper to draw on; I drew the main characters from Kingdom Hearts on a poster board and framed it, and hung it in my room at the time. I always thought, “Why buy a poster when I can make my own?”. I even painted on blank statues I used to buy from different craft stores as well. 

Later in high school, I was on and off when it came to drawing due to playing basketball, so it was mainly just a hobby, and I never considered anything more until college. That’s when I wanted to learn more about digital art, and my parents gifted me my first Wacom drawing tablet. I was really taking a liking to it and used to watch people on YouTube draw both digitally. Ever since that, I think it developed my love for art more due to not having to constantly buy traditional art supplies because they got so pricey, and I was trying to save money as a college student. However, I never majored in art. I was taking classes for Cinema, television arts. 

As social media developed, I kind of just started posted my art online and made friends with like-minded artists and teaching each other different techniques and giving critiques on each other’s artwork. I still have that same account to this day, and it’s grown quite a bit – almost at 10k, but the numbers keep going up and down, so I stopped paying attention every now and then and just focus on the art and not so much the algorithm. 

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No and yes. In the beginning, it has been because, I would say, for most of my life, it’s always been a hobby, so I never really beat myself up about my art or my progression. Of course, I struggled drawing hands – and I still do! But every once in a while, I’ll redraw an old piece and it’s a good reminder of how much I’ve grown as an artist whenever I do feel like I’m struggling. 

However, I think with social media, it becomes stressful because one of my videos went viral for a ‘draw your witch challenge’ or something like that – and I got up to 10k, but the follower come and go VERY fast! And I’m stuck at this 9k number. Eventually, I stopped paying attention to it because the struggle to produce art and post just about every day to be “consistent” is super stressful. Even with short-form content like TikTok, it can be fun, but I don’t want to have to record my artwork in some “fancy” and “trendy” way all of the time just to get my eyes on it. I just want to simply relax while I’m drawing without having to figure out “how can I turn this into content.” Every once in a while, I’ll have a nice idea, but I don’t want to fall out of love for drawing for the sake of views/likes. At the same time…I want my art to be seen, so it’s a bit of a battle. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Although I do draw traditionally in my sketchbook to get away from the screen, I do specialize in digital art. I’m known for drawing a lot of black women/girls in a fantasy aspect like vampires, cyborgs, a “pretty cute aesthetic” type of vibe, etc. Recently, I’ve been dabbling in more of a storytelling approach with some original characters I’ve drawn through and practicing on posting and anatomy. 

One of my works that I’m most proud of is a short little animation I did of my character I animated that lipsyncs to the song “Reminder” by the Weekend. It’s one of my favorite songs, and it gave me the idea for a scenario of my character looking into the mirror, and her “inner demon” shows up and lipsyncs to part of the chorus of the song. I animated in Procreate (before Procreate Dreams was released), and it turned out much better than what I thought it was going to be. 

What sets me apart from others is that I’ve been told that even though my inspiration has been inspired by Disney, I put my own “spin” on it. People love how I render my art and how vibrant the colors are, and they even draw-the-line art. 

Are there any books, apps, podcasts, or blogs that help you do your best?
Oh, mostly YouTube videos and TikTok videos where I follow other artists. Just to see how other artists have developed different techniques on coloring, drawing hands, anatomy that might be easier to understand or draw to other people. YouTube has definitely been the main source for sure for many years. 

I even watch Berleezy, who is one of my favorite gamers, that help me relax while I draw, as I have a love for video games too. He makes me laugh as well, so it’s chill to watch his content while I draw. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://daxaniart.carrd.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daxaniart/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/daxaniart