Hi there! Hi I'm Samantha Lim but many know me as "Sammacha” my online name.

I have been drawing for most of my life and enjoyed it thoroughly. I have made arts and crafts using various materials and varied subjects. I found I really enjoyed drawing. I didn’t need much to do it just a pencil and some paper.

Despite the love of art I have never taken any professional training courses. For the most part I am virtually self-taught.

From my point of view, in the end, hard work leads to success. And this stands true in many aspects of life. Previously, I have displayed and sold several pieces or artwork in Gala’s and fund raisers. I have also won several poster contests which were later displayed to the public. Several posters are still being displayed publically during events to this day. In addition I had my painting displayed in the City's law court.

Growing up I wanted to enter a career in comic or game animation and design. I hoped that one day people would look at my work and think, “wow that’s so cool, I wish I could do that!” as I have done with so many different things. I really wanted a fun job where I could make money doing something with my drawings. That never happened. It was far too expensive without a guarantee of getting a decent paying job doing anything art related, so, like others, I went on to do different things. Over time I never gave up on my artwork, I still felt the need to draw and create things.

One Christmas my dad bought me a tablet, “This is Awesome”. I had wanted one for a long time before. I never thought I would have one. I was excited.

For a year it did nothing, I didn’t get it. I didn’t know how to use the program very well, and my drawing with the tablet was sloppy. Finally one day, I sat at the computer looking at what was on some old floppy disks to see if there was anything worth keeping. On one disk there were some silly drawings from MS paint by me, my dad and my brother. One picture stood out the most was a Growlithe (a pokemon) that I had spent hours drawing with the mouse, pixel by pixel. It was really good! (Considering the age and using the mouse)! It was exactly how I drew it on paper (which was not very good at the time), and I remember my friends and family saying it was so cool. It was the best thing I had ever drawn with the mouse, and the last drawing I remember it made my wrist hurt so much.

When looked at that picture, all the time I spent on it came back to my mind. How much I wished I could draw on the computer. After that, I spent hours trying to learn how to draw with it, and then how to color and use the program. I got out my tablet and within a few hours learned how to use it to draw. It was a lot easier once it was properly set up! I tried all the different programs I had and played around with them learning how they worked. It was awesome; I could try so many styles without having to buy materials. No cost, no mess, and a million colours!. My dad was happy to finally see it being used.

The tablet really helped my to improve all aspects of my artwork. Finally I am able to look at my artwork and say “yes, this is good!”

From there I decided to try posting my pictures on the web where I could get comments and advice on my art. So far it has been all positive, and with my skill constantly improving, I decided to finally take a shot at freelancing, so I opened my website, Sammacha.com.

 

The Name: Sammacha

The name Sammacha came to me one day when I was talking to two of my friends after school. I was saying something about a kite I made in grade 7 and how I really wanted to write my name in Chinese on it. I wanted my name to be in the sun between the dragon and the phoenix I drew on the kite. The characters for Lim fit just fine but I wanted to write "Samantha "Lim"" on it. Of course I had no idea how I would do this. "Lim" was the only thing I knew how to write.

I asked some of the other Chinese students to write my name for me but nobody could think of anything. I didn't care if it was correct in Chinese; I just wanted it to sound like Samantha when it was read out loud. “Nope it’s impossible,” I was told. But I didn’t believe them, there must be a way!

A few years later I tried this again. Two of my friends thought hard about how to write my name in Chinese). After scribbling in the talking dictionary we got nothing, and then I thought "HEY I KNOW!!" I scribbled some basic Chinese characters that I had learned in mandarin class. The characters meant three the character used to indicate a question (ma) and the word tea, respectively. The dictionary read Saam Ma Cha. They both laughed! It sounds ridiculous! 3? Tea What is this? but it work Sammacha! That was the closest I ever got to Samantha from anyone!! Many of the other people who knew Chinese thought it was funny! So I kept the name.

My Character

Sammacha is based off of me and was created when I was  assigned an art project to make a character and a fantasy comic that resembles you and had X abilities that you chose frm a list. The hardest part for everyone was that it had to look like you, so it had to be a person!

Everyone chose the basic and most common ones, flight, magic, and wielding of a weapon then made their character original. My character lives in a world shrouded in miasma, and flies with wings that can create fire. She can wield a sword and her wounds excrete a toxic gas.

As well as Sammacha there were several other characters in the story and of course a ton of fantasy creatures.

The comic did get me an A,  but beyond the grade, I was not satisfied with the final product as a whole.

My drawing skills weren't that good and the story was weird because of the assignment, and there was much room for improvement. Though I did like some of the comic after it was handed in, it was basically lost forever as I never got it back. Maybe one day I will make a new one.

Anyways I used my character as an avatar all over the web and then she just sort of stuck. Though, she will never be finished, like me, will always be a work in progress...

My personal Quotes

Always Drawing...
Good, but never great...
Finished, yet never complete...
Corrected, yet never flawless...
Striving for perfection is a long hard road
And when you get there...
you still have yourself, to compete with....
~Sammacha

I fell it describes me very well. I always want to get better, and even though I know that perfection is none existant I will continue to chase it down, as will many others.

"Time is a teacher
time is a friend,
but time...
is your enemy until the end"