We were lucky to catch up with Tawfeeq Sadan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tawfeeq, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I did not always know what I wanted to do as a professional job. I still feel unclear about where I am career-wise and if I am “successful” enough to consider my art journey a career.

The first time I considered being an artist professionally was during the lockdown in 2020. There was a lot of uncertainty about what would happen in the world and I felt doing digital art was a good outlet for my emotions. I did a monthly exercise of doing four drawings with one colour palette and shared those on the internet and grew a small following. One day a friend offered to commission me for some art. I was trepidatious but took the opportunity and once the project was complete and I saw how happy they were with the art I created for them I felt fulfilled and thought “This is a nice feeling, I could do this for a living.” I was still studying Media And Graphic Design at the time and felt myself inevitably being pulled into a graphic design job, which is creative as well but i knew that it was not exactly what i wanted to do.

My mom fell incredibly sick at the beginning of 2022 after experiencing some strokes and with no one else in the family to care for her that responsibility became mine, I am still currently looking after her to this day and I balance my freelance art career with looking after my mom. For context: she has balance complications and shows signs/ symptoms of dementia. I feel this is one of the few ways I can make an income whilst having enough time to look after her. I am thankful for all of the patience of my clients and for them sharing my name with their friends allowing me to continue to grow.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

To the many people who do not know who I am, I am Totostuck, a freelance artist and animator from South Africa. I have been an art vendor at Comic Con Africa and I have built my main following on Twitch under the name Totostuck. I have mainly created graphics for fellow Twitch streamers, YouTubers, and content creators. I have an anime art style and have experience drawing pets and other animals. I provide Safe For Work art and animations for commission. I am most proud that I have developed my hair and eye shading in my latest drawings to be unique to me and am heading toward creating my own art style. An art style is tough to “forge” so to speak.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The obvious answer is that being paid for your work is the most rewarding aspect of being an artist. As much as I agree with this I do however feel that the most rewarding thing about being an artist is to have a genuinely happy client. Even when I am creating art as a gift for someone, if it makes them happy it makes me happy. By extension, the viewer, the person just seeing your art from across the room, if it makes them smile, that is the most rewarding thing for me.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Funny enough the story I would tell of my resilience has very little to do with actually creating art. I had developed a hobby of running and performed some 10km races during my early 20s.
In September 2021 I was hospitalized when my appendix burst and had a near-death experience. I was in and out of the hospital for a few months after with several surgeries some of which had complications.
Because of the abdominal muscles damaged from the surgeries I had, I was not able to walk for a few weeks and needed physiotherapy. It took me 3 years and on May 26th 2024 I participated in my first 10km race and finished it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/totostuck/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/totostuck
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@totostuck
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-785650474
• Other: https://www.artstation.com/totostuck

Image Credits

totostuck