David K. Coleman Jr.
I am a multidisciplinary artist, author, father, and mental health advocate from Philadelphia, Pa.
I started drawing as a young child, taking after my mother, also an artist. The praise I received from teachers and classmates motivated me to continue practicing art.
Years later, I auditioned for the prestigious Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts where I was admitted and I went on to graduate in 2003.
After graduation, I turned my focus to music where I did hip-hop recording and production under the name “Victor King” until 2012 when I decided that I wanted to make a career out of my first passion: visual art.
In 2015 I began posting my fine art sketches on Instagram. This is when I first started to build an audience for my art on the internet. The positive feedback encouraged me to continue to showcase my art. To date, I developed a following of over 45 thousand people on the Instagram platform.
I taught myself digital art in 2016. Learning digital art allowed me to create more content and expand my reach to an even larger audience online. I sharpened my digital skillset and went on to do hundreds of commissioned sketches, dozens of brand logos, and merch designs.
In 2019 I began doing pixel art and 2d animation. I started uploading short, animated clips to the Giphy platform. My animations were a huge hit and my account was verified by Giphy in 2019. To date, my content has gained more than 300 million views on the Giphy platform and my Giphy Stickers are used by Instagram users daily.
In 2020 I started releasing coloring books on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform. The most successful of my books have been my Coloring Queens series. The series features original images of women of color. I have received a lot of positive feedback from parents about the impact the books have had on them and their children. I am proud of those books and I hope to continue the series for years to come.
I currently work as a freelance artist following the completion of my associate’s degree in Interactive Media. My goal is to create interactive experiences that allow users to express their own creativity.
Art has helped me fight depression and find purpose and positivity in my life. I want to share that experience with as many people as possible.