I grew up in Colombia. In South America anime has a HUGE influence (I actually found it weird how looked-down-upon it was here in the States). Pretty much since I was a little kid I was watching anime. The ones that influenced me the most were Saber Marionette J and J to X, B't X, Slayers, Those Who Hunt Elves, Saint Seiya, Digimon (1-4), Cyberteam in Akihabara, Evangelion, and the most important was probably Cardcaptor Sakura. I have the Clow and Sakura cards as my first collectible items I ever got. I was so into it! I remember drawing the cards, making my own cards, and carrying around a key like a fucking n00b just in case I became a cardcaptor LMAO!
The first comic I remember doing was a Cardcaptor Sakura fan comic. The plot revolved around the Love card (Nameless card, I thought it was called Love because it has a heart on it and I was a kid and yeah). Anyway, somehow the card got loose and possessed Keroberos and I don't remember how the whole situation was resolved or what the conflict was because of the possession, I just remember it being funny as fuck. I did it in a notebook, which I still have stored away, and it took me about 20 pages to do. That was back when I was in the 4th grade.
My second comic was in the 5th grade for an art project. We had free reign to do whatever we wanted so I went all in. I remember this comic was pretty damn big, I think the dimensions were 17x20 inches, oh god why! And about 10 pages long, front and back. This one I don't remember too well... I think it was about twin sisters who had digivices type things that would turn them into these mecha-type angel heroes, and there was some sort of... turtle monster (?), and when they killed him he turned into data and they absorbed the data into their crystal necklaces or some shit like that hahahaha. I need to find that comic, I don't know if I still have it. I actually remember my teacher being all like "wow, can I have?" and me being a dumbass kid being all like "sure! But give it back later though!" But when he didn't give it back my dad showed up to the school and cursed that guy out, hahaha, my dad is a pretty scary dude, so my teacher returned my comic by the end of the day.
After that I stopped making comics until 11th grade in high school when I started drawing BH. I started drawing it chronologically, but would stop because I didn't like the direction it was taking. I did this about 5 times before deciding to stop and just write the story before illustrating it. At the beginning BH was about me and my friends in high school and we got superpowers through a Dues ex Machina (yeah, not good lmao) and then having to deal with our regular lives with powers. BH is so far from that now, I'm glad it is haha, although the characters are still based on me and friends. I still drew scenes from later on in the series that I definitely wanted to keep in, like a telekinetic who can control matter to the atomical level lifting the Empire State Building from the ground, then teleporting to France and getting the Eiffel Tower, and many other landmarks, then arranging them into a city and launching it to the moon where it becomes an artificial Lunar Satellite, a citadel for metahumans. I drew them during my Honors History class because I HATE American history (so boring), I have about 40 pages of just scenes I want to include in the comic someday. Also, I did so much character design. SO much!
Now I am 24 and I started officially illustrating BH last year in April! So, we can say that at 23 I started my "official" comic career, LOL!