Wow... look at that first drawing. It's amazing, yet you don't see that you were lucky to be born with that talent? And to find it when you needed it most? Very few people could draw that well, especially untrained...
Still don't believe me? Let's look at my story:
I was miserable in high school too, and bullied as well. I had planned to take a year off from school, which undoubtedly would have turned into forever. Instead I went only because a girl I liked was going, and I figured if she was around college guys I'd never have any chance with her. I picked my major semi-randomly, I liked video games so I picked computer science. No further reasoning than that...
Guess what? It turned out I had a talent for it. I'd never programmed before, my high school had a total of 4 computers and they only opened the lab for a couple physics demonstrations. Even keyboarding was taught by typewriter. But as soon as I started college Computer Science... literally for the first time in my life I was good at something.
Look, I'm not saying luck is everything. You had a talent, and you worked hard to get better at it. And you worked hard to improve your life and become self-made. But you also had talents and opportunities that lent themselves to that. It's both, not one or the other. If that teacher hadn't done that assignment, hadn't put your picture on the wall... who knows, you might never have realized your calling. If I hadn't liked a girl who was going off to college, I'd probably be running games on a carnival like my parents did... instead of making six figures leading an offshore dev team that does all the real work.
It's not just hard work. It's not just luck. It's both.
The harder I work, the luckier I get :)