Mar 2018
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Mar 2018
Apr 2018
Kyuu
Mar '18

Alrite. For artists, KEEP DRAWING!!

I know sometimes we face art blocks, tough life, and other responsibilities such as school, work, and again life. It's okay to take some break, but never let go of art. Find art everywhere. Admire other ppl's work, look at the nature and how things work, and do a bit of doodle here and there. And when you find the inspiration to do art, GO. Don't hesitate, GO DRAW.

Now, I think there are two things to artmaking: Creativity & Craftmanship

Let me clarify.
Creativity: Basically the "art" side of the artmaking. This is your style. This is your own interpretation of the subject matter. This is your philosophy behind art and how things look in your idealistic perspective of the world.
Craftmanship: Basically the "making" side of the artmaking. This is your anatomy. This is the believability of your artwork (i.e. does your character look like he is stretching or his back is broken and he is a zombie). This is where color theory matters, the art education starts to factor in, and your experience shows you the faster way of drawing.

I think I saw my art improve conceptually (a.k.a. an improvement in Creativity) while I was taking a break from art. And an improvement in Craftmanship when I kept drawing for days, weeks, and months.

NOW for practical tips:
1) Draw from reference. Draw from life. Draw from a photo. This will help you improve your Craftmanship

2) Watch tutorials, and read some artbooks. Go look at artworks that you think are cool. This will help you improve your Creativity

3) Never stop midway because your drawing looks horrible. Keep going. I had a bad habit of drawing only the face, so I got really good at drawing faces. But now I'm still really bad at drawing different pose (which is what Im still working on)

4) Learn from everything. Make everything about art. Observe everything. Develop your keen sensibility.

5) Every tip, advice, tutorials are more of a guideline to give you an idea of things. However, your art is unique to yourself. Don't adhere certain tips, advice, tutorials. I.e. just because some guide tells you to draw the eyes a certain way, don't just do it that way. Study your eyes, how eyes look the way they are. Then you create your own way to interpret that.

6) Ignore everything I said, and build your own understanding of art.

Now, here are some of my art improvement to show you some credibility to my shitty advice.
This is 2010

chrome_2018-03-24_14-38-52.png731x516 194 KB

Then 2012

parcae__opening_cover_by_janusl-d4vieum.jpg1200x1400 381 KB

Then 2014

quick sketch 121014.jpg500x646 51.3 KB

Then I started practicing from photo:
This is 2015
Where do Flowers go.jpg1536x864 821 KB

Then 2016

160727 Color Study (Hallucineon).jpg2400x1920 972 KB

Then 2017 where I had the worst art block (I only drew like 7 artworks the whole year :<)

20171104 jelly_jilli fanart - Copy.jpg1000x1000 346 KB

And now (Ive been doing nsfw works this year, so only thing I can post is this incomplete one...):

20180228 face study - Copy.jpg1700x2400 339 KB

PS: as you can see, I don't often do full-pose drawings because of my bad habit. (but there are some, I just didn't post due to other reasons) SO PLEASE keep drawing even if the part you are drawing is horrible and you don't know how to draw it.

xanedis
Mar '18
jpnakashima

@jpnakashima Just wanna clarify on a certain point to avoid any possible conflict in the future: "just doing the deed" as a writer is the same as "doodling" is for an artist. There is a lot of conscious learning behind being a writer(how to arrange words to portray just the right kind of emotion, or how to illustrate a beautiful landscape without making the description sound like the reader has already read it a thousand times before).

That said, I realize that you said, "I feel like", which means that your wording conveyed what is your IMPRESSION on writing - not how it truly is. I simply wanted to speak my mind, since there was a risk of a trigger-happy writer noticing what you wrote and, possibly, getting offended.

I truly agree with all of your points, however. Here's to hoping that this community's artists continue developing and creating unique stories that we can all enjoy.

dawgofdawgness
Mar '18

Keep trying new things, over and over again. Once you learn how to draw a face, learn how to draw it at different angles. Once you've finished learning that, move onto the body and so on. It's a simple rule to follow, but it's something that artists forget time after time (including me). Once you're comfortable with doing something, immediately try something else that makes you "uncomfortable". Like for example, I have a problem with flat-looking characters, mostly because when I draw on paper, I tend to only draw my characters at a 3/4 angle, the angle I'm most comfortable with. In order to truly improve this, I need to practice drawing at different angles, no matter how difficult it may be.

tl;dr: step out of your comfort zone

Kyuu
Mar '18

yes. you can't improve if you are in your comfort zone!
Always try new things!

jpnakashima
Mar '18
xanedis

Oh, badly worded! There was an ''as'' missing! By ''just doing the deed'' I meant ''sitting your butt and writing''. Sorry if it sounded dismissive or something!
I say that as someone who fancies himself an amateur writer. I write scripts for my Tapas comics, can't draw to save my life. I certainly think there are more things involved in writing, I don't think it's simple at all. I do think though that it only amounts to something when you actually sit and put what's in your head in the paper, which was what I mean.
I actually feel the same way for writing as I do for art. You have to write what you're bad at. What makes you nervous and frustrated.

Thank you for pointing this and clarifying your position and I'm sorry if it sounded like I was making less of the writing side!

sirkbirb
Mar '18

im sorry i get all wanky n stuff i dont get enough sleep

punkarsenic
Mar '18

people are saying keep drawing and painting and trying new things - keep doing, basically - and thats absolutely, so important.

the other side is keep learning from others. not just classes and youtube tutorials - go to galleries, study artists you like, study artists you hate. watch movies, tv shows, study them. read comics way out of your genre, era, region... you like manga? read some 80s underground american comics. you like marvel? read some classic manga. you like comics in general? explore some fine artists, and some directors. shake it up, keep your reference pool wiiiiiiiiide open. you never know where the next big inspiration is gonna come from, and the route to originality is to extend yourself beyond the popular culture, and beyond your genre & medium.

Shanny8
Mar '18

ALL of the above.

Keep drawing practicing stuff that you feel you're not good at. Keep the basics in mind and try to improve...find your flow and try to become consistent.

xanedis
Mar '18
punkarsenic

Quite. And originality is(in my experience - feel free to dispute this) somewhat overrated. Sure, we all want novel experiences, but we also tend to gravitate towards certain types of stories again, and again, and again. Call it a tendency, call it nostalgia, but we long for something and repeatedly seek that "something" from stories. That's why many people identify as fans of a certain "genre"(fantasy, horror, film noir) - they contain those "somethings" that we look for in a story.

Philosophical tongue-wagging aside, there's much room for originality and novel ideas in modern storytelling, as well. But not everyone desires originality, and there's a place for storytelling that doesn't pursue novelty. Let's use fanfiction as an example: fanfiction is often(not always!) just a rehashing of an old plot, but the way the writer handles their characters provides a new viewpoint into the original story. In the same vein, there's new ways to approach old things, even fairy tales, to bring new life and longevity to long-dead narrative cliches.

I am sorry for a complicated and possibly hard-to-understand post. Summa summarum, please don't seek originality first and foremost - seek to convey your own story the best way you can.

@Punkarsenic Though this post was my reply to you, it became a message to new writers in general. I would be eager to hear what you have to say on the topic(on top of this), though. :smiley:

IdiotWithPencil
Mar '18

depends, now if you're and idiot like me who was born with no idea of how to draw anything other than a scribble, you will have to go the traditional route, which is draw life and use any and all traditional drawing books for help when you're stuck, if you're a genius who started drawing like Da Vinci at age 16 then you just need to draw what you your petty little heart desires

punkarsenic
Mar '18
xanedis

i think we have different understandings of originality.

of course, nothing can be truly original, and people on search for that often end up creating novelty instead. but when you put a 'new viewpoint,' thats originality. its more about not falling into cliches and bringing a new argument to the table - or building on a preexisting one. fanfiction actually leads to a great deal of originality and innovation due to the mass recycling and evolution of tropes - when people turn a trope on its head, you can get a really great fic, and that is originality.

i agree that a creator shouldnt seek originality first and foremost, largely because theyll just go after empty novelty, but a creator should strive to be widely read to have a wider frame of reference in which to create work. everything we do is referential to our surroundings - when you expand those surroundings, your work has greater potential to be exciting and meaningful, and avoid the cliches of any one genre.

xanedis
Mar '18

Well said. And I agree with what you said, even your definition of originality. I wasn't sure if you'd accept the idea of fanfiction possibly being original, so I didn't go that route when I wrote my post. XD

And you raise a good point about studying life. Just like artists, writers need to study life - people, societies, conversations, psychology, arts, school subjects, science... Writers are scholars of the mental side of life, just like the artist is a scholar of what life looks like - the visual side of life, if you will. This goes beyond books and written medias - obviously - but I agree that writers have to be well-read to understand how they should portray different aspects of society in writing.

This is getting kind of meta, and we're getting derailed from the original subject... But I feel like we established some good reasons for why both writers and artists need to study life itself.

Hodge
Mar '18

Ehh well people have already given good advice, all I can recommend is take on a project, like a comic, that gives you the drive to improve. The rest will just happen . . . or not, this is just my experience. But it's important to get a mix of building skills by learning the technical stuff/doing studies and also applying what you've learned by creating your own work. Don't be afraid to make big goals and don't ever let your feelings about your skills hold you back.

xanedis
Mar '18

waves I certainly second the idea of starting a project. Nothing motivates you like trying to get your big idea down on the paper.

jpnakashima
Mar '18
punkarsenic

This. I feel this is so important.
To understand what you don't like about something and even to acknowledge the great in what you dislike is sometimes one of the more productive exercises to me.

Jenny-Toons
Mar '18

Everyone really hit the mark with getting out of your comfort zone!

I think that's the biggest thing a artist/writer/creator can do for themselves. Of course, there is that thought of "if I step out of my comfort zone, I'll realize I'm not as good as I thought I was"

That's kinda the point, but without the cynical aspect to it :joy:

We all have things that we're not very much good at. But then again, those very things are something we might not have dwell a lot of time in.

The person who's "a whiz a landscaping" probably spent a few good hours learning how to get that city scene just right. That lady who's "a genius at drawing the body" probably went to so many drawing classes and studied anatomy and real life to get there. The gentleman who "is brilliant with making cars and mecha" most likely went with references and asked questions and made notes.

Time and effort to learn new things is what makes us so good at them. It doesn't have a lot to do with natural born talent, though that's not to say it doesn't help. Some people just pick up on things easier and faster than others.

So don't be afraid to step out of your zone -- you're not a bad artist if you don't know how to do something different "amazing" right off the bat. That's completely normal.

You wouldn't expect a beginner cook to know how to make a souffle with ease. The same applies here :blush:

nekhcore
Mar '18

I had a bit of an extra boost when I started drawing because I discovered Flipnote Studio (an animation program for Nintendo DSi that's now discontinued) so while I was drawing every single day I was also doing my best to improve my art and animations and making a style that's easy to draw an animate with. I studied how other artists I admired did things, and I took elements from their style and added it to mine. I mean, I'm a little handicapped now because of it because my specialty is furries, but human heads are really problematic for me. I also can't draw living things in the same space as things like buildings because it looks weird. But I'll get over that by practicing, taking from other artists, studying art books, etc etc.