Here's my personal take on your questions, @Robert: the only deal breaker for making art in general is simply not wanting to make art, not feeling moved by or interested in the act of making it. If, for any reason, at any given time, you somehow felt compelled to start making art, that should be enough to justify making it. You say you don't really have a reason to do art in the first place, but I think that the mere fact that you somehow got interested in learning drawing fundamentals, even if just mildly, is enough of a reason. Sometimes, we don't even have a rational explanation for why we make art, we just "feel" that we want, need or should. The way I see it, art is a sort of existential practice. Of course, it can be a job or a career path, too, but not only and not necessarily. We make art because it makes us feel good, human, connected, valued, significant in some way, whether big or small. We make art because, on any level, making art matters to us. Of course, growing as an artist is a lifetime journey, and figuring out what we wanna say with our art (or if we have anything at all to be said) is part of maturing our skills, our minds and ourselves throughout that journey. The feeling of "not having anything to communicate" at the moment could be a sign that there are other aspects of art-making that we might need to grasp before finding our own voice: maybe we need to level up our knowledge of the fundamentals, or our technical skills, or maybe we need to keen up our critical observation of the world and consider how our art could have an impact on it, or maybe tune into our own emotional and subjective motivations, or maybe we need to get to learn more about other artists and see how their shaped their journeys so that we can have some models of what can be done, the possibilities. We don't need to have a precise route all the time, but just constantly reassess our journeys, see if we like where we're headed towards and let our intuition guide us to readjust whenever necessary. Scott McCloud (a famous comic book author) compares an apple to the process of maturing as an artist: the desire to make good art is often the red shiny surface; as we go deeper, we start to deal with the other layers (fundamentals, techniques, influences...), and the ideas, "what we want to say" with our art, the major purpose of doing it, is in the seeds, and might only reveal itself after some time. Bottom line, you don't need to force yourself to be creative, and you certainly don't need to force yourself to have your own artistic voice figured out early on. As you keep learning, practicing and evolving, the need for creativity and personality might gradually emerge, and you might naturally feel the calling to start making more and more sense of it.

Wow! This sounds like great news, @Anubhav Saini! I'm glad to have been able to help you somehow along your path so far. Keep going! And congratulations!

Hey, @Anubhav Saini! It seems to me that the idea behind your drawing is rooted in strong personal feelings… Since you tagged me, I believe you’re expecting feedback, so hope you allow me to share my perceptions. I understand that the “4 people” in the saying is a popular way to refer to “other people” in general. In your drawing, you chose to depict exactly 4 other characters in the scene - as if there were literally just 4 people that could say bad things about the main character and, if just these people got out of his way, he could be “free”. I think that playing with the literality of the words is witty and opens up a path for humour - but I believe that showing the people with their faces covered and a gun pointed to the back of their heads becomes a bit too violent and explicitly shocking, which, for my personal taste, kind of takes away the humour aspect. Personally, I think I’d rather try to find a more subtle and perhaps metaphorical way to explore the same concept so that a violence component wouldn’t obscure the wit and humour. But, of course, this is just my personal opinion - a lot of the choices artists make depends on their individual takes and on the intended audiences, so of course you’re free to take other directions that might make more sense to you if that’s the case. Ah! And I should say that I’m noticing some visible improvement in your illustration technique compared to previous artworks I’ve seen you post before. Looks like your studies are paying off! Hope this helps in any way. If you need anything else, feel free to let me know. Best regards!

I have a question for you that learning human anatomy is necessary for cartoons or not ? As I make cartoons for my 2d animations .

The thing I'm seeing is that your highlights are too light- The horizon line is in the middle and too even- the trees are also evenly spaced and leaning the same way- and there is nothing past the trees in the far background. I did a quick diagram to show you what I mean and what you could do to fix it :)

I’m taking a break from critiques Hey, everyone! Many of you know me from critiquing student work here in the Proko community. Now, I need to tell you that I’ll be taking a long break from the “critiquer” job. It’s for a good reason: I was recently approved on a PhD program, which will be a very important next step in my career, and this new endeavor should require a lot of focus, time and energy from me over the coming years. I’ve been collaborating with Proko since 2018 and it’s always been a blast. I’ve always been proud to be a part of this worldly renowned hub for art lessons, and I’ve also always felt extremely valued and professionally respected by everyone on the team. I’m glad to see that the Proko website has grown beautifully to become a self-sustaining community and I’m truly grateful and honored for having been one of the people entrusted with the opportunity of contributing with it over the past few years. For all that, my deepest thanks to Stan, Sean, Kimberly, everyone else in the Proko team, and, of course, to each and everyone of you, students/artists whom I shared insights, feedback and guidance with. I bet I learned much more than I could teach. For all of you, as you keep learning and unraveling your unique artistic journeys, I wish you all the best of luck and a bright future with all the cool ideas, true excitement and youthful fun that great art is made of. Whenever possible, I’ll still check in once in a while to say Hi. Warmest hugs. ~Liandro

I would love to see a posable model of the pecs. Where you can move the arms and see how the pecs change with different poses. Is there anything like that out there? If not can you make one proko?

The hardest thing is to be consistent and give time to drawing every day. IT IS REALLY HARD. Many factors are obstacles. Having full time job does not help too. I find myself constantly blaming myself for being lazy and not drawing. But in fact, I am just dead tired every day. So hard to keep balance and dedicate time to drawing. The only trick I found working for me is to make a slot of time just after the breakfast when I get up early. But even that trick does not always work. But sometimes I just do not want to draw in the morning, especially when I had a blast with drawing at evening before. There is some kind of battery of motivation to make art in me and it is very small battery, unfortunately.

Oh, wow, @Anubhav Saini! I’m sorry that your friend’s attitude didn’t match what you wanted… it really sucks. Oddly enough, I’ve been suffering my whole life with something similar: my birthday is on December 31st, and, many times, I’ve had to put up with friends and even some family members not showing up because they’d have other appointments for New Year’s Eve. When I was younger, it was pretty common for me to celebrate on a different date, often several days before or after my actual birthday. On the bright side, I think it’s awesome that you chose to transform your inevitably bad feelings into fuel to make art!

I meant "DM" me. I need no preventative maintenance.