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One of the island’s up-and-coming artists has been recognised for his unique artistic form as well as his tenacity to work at a stretch.
Aryan Sudhir Shetty, 15, spent more than five hours in one siting drawing an image of viral social media basketball celebrity Tristan Jass, known colloquially as T-Jass, in action. It was reviewed and lauded by T-Jass himself.
During an interview with GulfWeekly, Aryan said: “I have been drawing for a long time, but starting last year, I started doing it more seriously. I started because my brother was drawing as well and I just wanted to get better at it than him.
“In fact, he gave me the idea for this drawing. He suggested doing a picture of T-Jass doing a layup with really bright colours. So I did the sketch by hand and then added colours digitally.”
The Grade 10 Indian School, Bahrain student then posted a tweet saying: “If @TristanJass replies to this tweet, I will draw the layup king for five hours straight.” To his delight, T-Jass responded: “Let’s get it!”
Aryan started off with a pencil drawing of the nearly 20-year-old basketball player, who gave up a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball scholarship because it would have restricted his ability to create content. Since 2017, T-Jass has garnered 1.9 million followers on Instagram and more than 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube for his highlight reels, which show him doing near-impossible dunks, layups and bank shots.
Aryan, who also goes by Ren, was drawn to T-Jass due to their mutual affinity for basketball, which he plays recreationally.
Sudhir, Aryan’s father, said: “To be honest with you, I had not even heard of T-Jass before this. I had suggested that he draw an Indian star like Amitabh Bachchan or Virat Kohli. I was even more surprised when T-Jass spent more than 20 minutes reacting to the video of Aryan drawing.”
Aryan’s drawing of T-Jass was artistically inspired by the assortment of Japanese anime shows he watches, including Seven Deadly Sins and Naruto.
After completing his pencil drawing, Aryan went over it using a fine liner pen and then scanned it to his computer, where he was able to play around with various colour backgrounds in Krita, an open source digital art tool as well as a Wacom tablet.
After posting the picture, as well as the video, on his Instagram and YouTube channels respectively, Aryan received a lot of positive feedback but the icing on the cake was when T-Jass posted a reaction video the next day.
Aryan said: “A couple of days after I posted the video, I woke up in the morning for my online classes and checked my YouTube notifications. I was shocked to see one from T-Jass with my drawing next to it. I drank some water and watched it with my mother. It was gratifying to see him react and all the other people responding to it.”
In the video, T-Jass commented: “That was fire. Mad props to the artist. Keep doing what you are doing. You have mad talent.”
Meanwhile, the artistic amateur, who has been creating when he isn’t busy attending online classes, hasn’t rested. He has posted three videos in the last week where he is drawing social media creators and streetball players Dexton Crutchfield, Larry “Bone Collector” Williams and Grayson “The Professor” Scott Boucher.
He concluded: “I am hoping to become an animator one day and make shows like the ones I enjoy watching. I even went to Japan last year and have picked up some Japanese, even though I haven’t had a chance to meet any Japanese animators yet.”
Check out Aryan’s art @r.e.n_26 on Instagram.
Scan the QR Code below to check out a video of Aryan’s latest work.
