 Dan Salvato's twisted visual novel, Doki Doki Literature Club, has been played by millions of fans across the world. Players have fallen in love with the complex characters within the game. There is sadness in the story, but also a beautiful satisfaction that comes from the experience that players love. Dan didn't create this game alone. He was aided in his work by some phenomenal artists. One of these illustrators, who goes by the name of Satchly, learned and grew a lot while creating art for the project. Over more than a year of work on Doki Doki Literature Club, Satchly illustrated the game's beautiful artwork, pushed to finish high school, and created a portfolio of artwork that allowed her to follow her dreams by studying design at college. This is the story of the artist who gave Doki Doki Literature Club its iconic look and how the game helped her to overcome some of her own insecurities. From her earliest attempts at creating art, Satchly was a storyteller. When she was young, she drew inspiration from the worlds of Pokemon and Digimon, and drew to create new monsters of her own invention. She would spend hours coming up with ideas and imagining the adventures that these characters would go on together. Her art existed first and foremost as a way of telling stories, and this continued as she grew older, as Satchly found herself drawn to anime and manga art styles. She loved Studio Ghibli animations, and was also a huge fan of many visual novels and role-playing games, studying the art of many of her favourite creators. There was something about this cute, clean, neat art style that really spoke to her, particularly because of the large, expressive eyes that were often seen in this style of drawing. She loved how easy it was to convey emotion using Japanese-inspired art, and so explored it to see what she could learn from drawing this style. That said, this was far from the only style of illustration that Satchly learned to draw. She was happy and eager to experiment with different styles, and would take inspiration from wherever it came. Architecture, fashion, video games and graphic design all informed her study, as she learned as much as she could about a wide range of different art forms. Satchly was self-taught through the medium of the internet. This felt like the best way to grow as an artist, as she'd use tutorials and guides, as well as reference art, in order to practice and get better over time. She drew with a Wacom Intuos tablet using the Clip Studio Paint drawing program, which was otherwise known as Manga Studio. This was a fairly authentic setup for creating digital anime-inspired artwork, and while it took some getting used to, Satchly soon felt comfortable drawing on the computer. Eventually, to help her grow, she began sharing her artwork on DeviantArt and Twitter, as she slowly developed a following of fans who enjoyed her work. It was gratifying to read messages from people who enjoyed what she was doing, and Satchly was always pleased when someone said that she'd inspired them to try harder in their own creative pursuits. Most of all, the best reward came from feeling that she was developing as an artist, as she saw her progress over time. This wasn't to say that Satchly felt comfortable with all aspects of her art. As much as she wanted to improve, some elements of character design, such as drawing hands and legs, felt particularly difficult, and when she was just drawing for fun, Satchly tried to avoid pushing too far out of her comfort zone when she could avoid it. It was always easy for Satchly to be critical of her own work. If she came back to look at a piece that she'd drawn even only a few days previously, it was hard to ignore the imperfections that she hadn't noticed at the time. As her knowledge and understanding of artistic theory grew, it was sometimes hard to silence the voice in the back of her head that pointed out her own imperfection. Eventually, as her online audience grew, Satchly decided to try doing something brave. She was going to offer commissions in order to make a little extra money. She was apprehensive about offering this service, worrying that people wouldn't like her art enough to hire her to draw for them. At first, it didn't seem as if this was going anywhere. Over time though, as Satchly kept working to create more art, people began inquiring about her work and started asking her to draw things for them. One such person was Dan Salvato. He had an idea for a little indie game that needed a Japanese anime inspired art style, and Satchly was the perfect person to help make his vision a reality. After the fact, Satchly honestly wouldn't be able to remember who contacted whom first. One day, she simply found herself talking to Dan, and the pair agreed that she ought to create art for his game. Dan laid out the plan in detail. He had ideas in mind for what he wanted the characters in Doki Doki Literature Club to look like, and so he sent Satchly through some reference pictures that helped her get an idea of what he was looking for. Then, where necessary, he would send through additional pictures that showed off clothing that the characters should be wearing, and poses that they should strike, so that Satchly knew exactly what was expected of her. Of course, tackling all of Dan's requests meant that Satchly had to leave her comfort zone, particularly when it came to drawing anatomy, especially within scenes. This was for the best. It pushed her to learn, to practice, and to work to overcome one of her own personal insecurities as an artist. There were tricks to helping make sure that her artwork looked realistic. Satchly would periodically flip her canvas so that it would appear as a mirror image. By doing so, she could effectively get a fresh look at the picture, so that if her brain was overlooking flaws or imperfections in her art, she could break the illusion and get a more objective look at the image. While working with Dan was a lot of fun, Satchly also had another big project on the horizon that needed her attention. She had to apply for college and decide what she wanted to do with her future. Satchly had been studying at a high school which focused on art, but she needed to decide whether she would continue trying to turn her art into a profession, or whether she would do something else entirely. Satchly also had the opportunity to study medicine if she so chose, and it took a while for her to decide between these two very different career paths. Ultimately, Satchly chose to follow her true passion, and she elected to apply for art and design college courses. This wasn't going to be easy. Satchly needed to build a portfolio of 30 pieces of artwork that showed off her varied talents. These were entirely Western in style and influence, as Satchly was worried that the stigma surrounding cute anime art might mean that college professors wouldn't take her seriously. One nice thing about this was that Satchly could step out of her comfort zone little and try new things. For his part, Dan Salvato was very understanding as Satchly was working on this. Sometimes she had to delay sending him finished artwork for Doki Doki Literature Club, and he understood the crunch that she was going through as she prepared for college and finished up her high school education. Eventually, everything wrapped up. Satchly finished her work on Doki Doki Literature Club, and her portfolio of artwork got her accepted to study at a wonderful design college. Attending college turned out to be an incredible experience. Satchly was thrown into a world of new ideas and artistic forms that she'd never studied before. In her first semester, she covered film and animation, graphic design, illustration, product design, and many other topics. Satchly even got the chance to choose classes that would teach her new skills that she'd never experienced before, such as graphic design, typography, and interactive design. She didn't know anything about these subjects, but she was eager to learn. At the same time, bit by bit, Satchly was becoming aware of just how much of a big deal Doki Doki Literature Club was becoming. Neither she nor Dan had anticipated the game to become the enormous hit that it was turning into. She could have imagined a few hundred people trying out the game and leaving reviews on Steam, but as millions of people embraced Doki Doki Literature Club and experienced her artwork, Satchly was blown away. With this came critique, both positive and negative. Satchly was the first to admit that she wasn't a perfect artist. The overwhelming majority of the comments that Satchly read, though, praised her artwork. She found herself with countless fans, all of whom were hugely impressed with her creations and the way that she'd managed to breathe life into the characters of the game. It felt really wonderful to see so many people appreciating her artwork, and Satchly enjoyed the community that sprang up around the game as people shared jokes, memes, and an awful lot of fan art. Satchly still had a long way to go as an artist to get where she wanted to be. There were a lot of things left to learn, and as she considered the future, she was aware that there were still many challenges to face. That said, she'd grown a lot as an artist in just a few short years. She'd been able to turn some of her own perceived weaknesses into strengths, and now she had the support of thousands of people who were excited to see where she would go next. The moral of the story is that life is too short to waste time on things that make you unhappy. Satchly's greatest achievement was not allowing her own doubts or fears to get in the way of her progression as an artist. As she worked to improve, she was able to find inspiration all around her in little things. By focusing on the positive and her ability to improve, she was able to create something that people enjoyed and that she could be proud of. You can find happiness and inspiration anywhere in life. Whether you look to movies or games or simply the world outside your window, there's a lot of beauty in the little things that can guide you to improve. As you grow and develop, and as you work to overcome your fears, you'll find the joy and happiness that comes from doing the things that you love.