This piece was inspired by a relationship I once had with a friend. I chose to draw Neon and Vinyl as they were similar to my friend and I. The main aspect of similarity in this piece is the height difference – Neon/my friend is incredibly tall whereas Vinyl/I am incredibly short. Other similarities included our personalities, and the fact that we lived so far apart meaning we could rarely meet up.

Though I have now broken off contact with this friend (He eventually became a massive jerk that I didn’t want to spend time with any more), I’m still proud of this piece. It gave me the courage to act on my situation, which at the time was a big deal to me. I’m still nowhere near as confident as where I want to be, but standing up to this “friend” helped to show me how strong my real friends and I could be without him.

If I had any advice to give someone in my situation, I would say that you shouldn’t be afraid to act. You are the only one with the power to change your situation. Whether that’s making plans to meet with a friend you haven’t seen for a while or just having a conversation over the phone. But you should also realise that people change, sometimes for better or for worse. If you don’t like something that a friend has done, or the person that they have become, you have every right to challenge them on this. Friendships come and go, but the ones that truly matter are the friends who really care about you, through thick and thin.