Many people started random hobbies during quarantine, but few stuck with them after the lockdown ended. One student artist-turned-businessman, Charles Santo (12), did just that. He dedicated his time and talents to developing and sharing his art through social media, which later blossomed into a merch business that is still going strong today. 

“By the time I created my art accounts, I already had lots of filled-up sketchbooks and I wanted a place to share my art,” Santo said.  “I also enjoy having a collection of all my art that I can look back on and see how I have improved and developed my style.”

Santo started his Instagram art account (@starluvr0) in January 2021, and his TikTok later that year in June, which gained almost instant traction. The art style he focuses on is character art and cartoon-like drawings that he shares across his social media accounts. On his TikTok, he posts compilations of doodles living in his sketchbooks, while on Instagram, he showcases his finished digital pieces. Around the end of July 2021, one of his TikToks blew up reaching 170,000 views and 50,000 likes.

“I was really surprised because, to be honest, I didn’t really think my art was that good, but it was nice to see that so many people enjoyed my art and it inspired me to continue posting,” Santos said. “My TikTok account gained over 10 thousand followers and I also started selling some of my designs on clothing and merchandise.”

However, digital art is not the only thing he posts. Recently, he created an animated short film that he posted on his TikTok. The idea came to him from a doodle in his math workbook, and he immediately started working on the film from scratch. His process started with creating a storyboard to mark important beats and movements, which he used to draw a rough animatic to see how it would look in motion. Then, he drew background art for each scene, adding a smooth animation topped with music and sound effects. His hard work paid off; his short film won a gold key in the Scholastics Art Awards in the Film and Animation category. 

“I was really surprised. At first, I didn’t intend on submitting anything to the competition, but I saw that there was a film and animation category and I had just finished making my short film for my college portfolio, so I decided to enter it,” Santo said. 

Santo plans to take his talents with him to college next year to eventually pursue a career in character design and animation. His goals include creating more short films and designing characters for animated movies and television shows. 

“I’m excited to study animation because I think the process is really fun and I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else,” Santos said. “ It took me a while to develop my personal art style, and I still think it’s constantly changing.”