Heya, my name's Zenith, nice to meet ya! I love the way this site looks already and I'm excited for what the future holds for it. Let's drop some of our art down in the replies and a little message introducing yourself if you want. Here are some of mine:

Seeking feedback is necessary for artistic growth, but it is also possibly the hardest thing to find reliably. Good teachers and excellent peers can lead you on the path to having a thorough understanding of your craft. Being a helpful teacher yourself is another acquired skill-set. How do you know when you have helpful advice, or just a personal preference? It’s worthwhile to make the effort to be a helpful peer to your fellow artists. You’ll make good connections, broaden your appreciation for different art and ideas, and strengthen your understanding of art concepts by verbalizing them to others. === HOW DO I GIVE A GOOD CRITIQUE? === A good critique tries to consider the artist and their goals. Give context for your opinions, and try to be objective about what is technical vs. your own personal tastes and biases. Ask artists what they want to improve on, and be curious about their interests. Try to frame things positively, and push people to have hope and want to work hard. “I like this pose, but the shoulder is looking dislocated. You might need to move it forward to make it feel more natural, like in this reference.” “There’s a ton of detail going on here, but it can be better to have a few places of lower detail to balance out the composition, here’s an example.” “What sort of art do you admire? I feel like you are aiming for this style, but knowing more about your goals might help us give advice.” === WHAT ARE EXAMPLES OF BAD CRITIQUES? === Bad advice does not consider the person receiving it. Critiques shouldn’t be designed to crush someone's spirit or make them feel hopeless. If something just isn’t your thing, it may be better to let people comment who are more experienced and interested in that area of art. Even if someone is picking up concepts slowly or getting frustrated, it’s not an open invitation to treat them poorly. “There is nothing I can say to you other than read lots of Loomis books.” “Stop drawing anime.” “Fan art is unoriginal.” “This style is a fad that will go away, you should just do something else.” “You just need to try harder.” “You’re too much of an amateur for me to even start critiquing” === HOW DO I GET USEFUL FEEDBACK ON MY WORK? === Help us cater to your artistic needs and goals. When posting work, consider including this information for context: - Tell us what your objectives where with the piece you want critiques. - Share anything you were struggling with while you were working on it. - Tell us what your goals are as an artist. Are you a hobbyist learning landscapes for fun? Putting together a portfolio to get into art school? A professional refining your skills in a certain area? - How long have you been practicing this form of art? - Who are some artists you admire who's style you strive to have in your own work? === HOW SHOULD I RESPOND TO CRITICISM? === There are a lot of ways you can respond. Generally, it is polite to show that you appreciate that someone took the time to give you feedback on your work. It’s important to keep in mind that critiques on your work aren’t personal attacks. Feedback is meant to help you see things from a different point of view. An artist might be trying to guide you away from mistakes they feel they made in the past. Arguing with the person critiquing you won’t be productive. It is their opinion based on their knowledge (or lack thereof). Think of them as simply opinions intended to help you out. You don’t have to accept every critique that comes your way, especially if the critique is subjective rather than objective. With time and experience you’ll have a better understanding of where you want to go with your work. Try to keep an open mind, but also have confidence to shed advice that doesn’t serve you. If someone is being hostile and rude or is actively trying to discourage you, report it. === KEEPING YOUR EGO IN BALANCE? === Egos come with being an artist. It is just a fact. If you didn't feel good about your work and didn't enjoy creating it, why would you do it? The sense of accomplishment is a great feeling, and you SHOULD feel good about the hard work you do. In communities, it’s easy for egos to get a little out of control. When a bunch of artists in a room, each with their own opinion of what is good art and what isn't is always bound to lead to a bit of head butting. This is a community that is meant to be friendly and helpful. Be proud of yourself, be proud of the work you do, but keep it in check. Be respectful to your fellow artists who are different from you. As much as possible, be open to criticism from people of various skill levels. Whether you choose to use them or not is up to you, but be open to the fact that they're going to happen. If you accept them with courtesy and grace, and maybe try to learn a bit from them and open your mind, you will help make this a strong community. If you choose to disregard everyone who gives you advice because you consider yourself better than everyone here, then this is not the community for you. Finally, people who post rude, off point or otherwise useless comments posed as criticism will be penalized by the mods. If you see posts such as this, use the "Report" feature to get the attention of the moderators. === WAIT, WHAT IF I THINK I SUCK? === Everyone has to start somewhere! Art takes hard work, and it doesn’t help to get down on yourself. Being humble is fine, but remember that having a little confidence is sometimes needed for motivation. Believe that you are worthy of kindness and that your art has value, even if it's just to you. Find enjoyment in learning and studying, it’ll guide you through the times when you are getting down on yourself. Just remember, begging (or demanding) praise, attention, or sympathy won’t generally go over well with your peers. Wanting to work hard is what gets you support. Embrace your work ethic and show effort whenever you can.

Do you just watch a video and get to work? What about more complicated and longer lessons, such as demos and feedbacks? Do you take any notes? If not, why? If you do take notes, how do you approach it? — Do you prefer to write down text summary or draw visual notes? — If you do text notes, do you try to keep it really brief or write down every detail possible? — If you do visual notes, what do you usually try to capture? My approach was to write text summaries (usually after watching a lesson once without taking any) with my own words — it forces me to think lesson through and sometimes come up with ideas and conclusions that weren't said directly by the teacher, which is obviously a good thing. Also, helps remember (although simply rewatching a lesson would help with that too, i guess) On the flips side, it takes so, so much time, and makes me wonder whether this is some form of procrastination i should get rid of. Like maybe doing another homework attempt instead would be more fruitful, perhaps? also while seemingly useful it's really boring to do lmao So yup, im really interested how other students approach note-taking.

How do you find the line between fixing things and making it differently bad? Obviously if you are at a certain level of skill and you've hit that point you can't really make it better only differently bad but if you just give up too early you won't improve. How do you find the line between spending too much time on something and not enough?

Hi everyone, recently I feel stiffness in my forearm, and I suspect it is due to drawing much more in recent months. Do you have any favorite stretches or exercises that help you stay injury free?

Every cell in my body wants to quit drawing. I can't remember why I started drawing in the first place. I'm a college student and I've been drawing for three hours max a day for at least two years and I've improved a lot ,but as I keep going it's getting harder and harder. I don't think I have it in me anymore

Anyone know if this is still in the works, and if so, has a rough eta been mentioned anywhere?

There are a lot of different career paths when it comes to the arts. What is your dream art job?

So I have found that since beginning in programs like proko and DrawABox, I have been struggling to do any drawing work that isn't technique based, like ghosting lines and confidence lines. But I can't seem to motivate myself to draw from imagination, I typically get done the sketch and structure phase, but then find my self unsatisfied and moving from the piece. Should I just move on to a different piece when this happens? I feel like I should power through so I'm still finishing even if I'm not happy with it, but on the other hand I think learning to let go and start over might be equally valuable. I used to only draw creatures but I'm trying to draw people, which is when I started to have this challenge. What are some thoughts about how I should approach this?

Hey, I'm a professional Art worker and make lot of cartoons, comics, memes, and animation and now I want to take all these tasks from a photo and video editing application. So I need your suggestion which app will be best for handle such kind of art work. Waiting to you valuable suggestion. Thanks!

Hi! I am looking for a critique on my illustration portfolio. My focus right now is mainly editoral illustration. Most of the artworks were drawn under a time limit (from 8 hours to a few days) to practice working with a tight deadline. I made sure when putting the portfolio together that it would cover as many subjects as possible (food, nature, portraits, technology, etc.) I am constantly studying and creating new portfolio pieces so I would love to know what to improve. Link to my portfolio: www.natalisantini.com I will appreciate all feedback. Please be brutally honest with me, I can take it! :D Thank you!

Hello everyone i am being too much of a perfectionist in art and it sucks i don't wanna be but i can't get rid of it

Hey, im looking for beginner artists who are in the process of learning art. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in joining a discord were we could share our work progress and discuss improvements as well as doing regular exercises, looking at our favourite artists and have many other topic discussions, Basically think of it as a classroom and getting to know and grow with other fellow students.

So I started drawing between a year to a year and a half ago. I just finished a year of university and I am looking to take much more time this summer to work on my artistic skillz! BUT.... I don't know which courses I should do here on proko, I have some of my most recent images here, and tbh I want to be more comfortable drawing people, but I don't know if I'm ready. Are there thoughts from fellow art peeps on here for what course I should begin with?

hello everyone my goal as an artist is to make comics and illustrations and i want to ask what areas should i focus more on for eg anatomy,perspective lighting shape design or composition etc.

I really need some help focusing where I'd like to work. I want to be a freelance illustrator but I don't know where my art fits! I'd like to someday do a lot of things, but I need to pick a lane at least to start. I'm just not sure where my art fits? If anywhere! Or if it'd even good enough.. I started with a lot of portraiture but I've been wanting to do more narrative/illustrative work. Attached are various pieces that you could say are my "rough portfolio"? Any feedback will help! Thanks! FYI, the one with the bear is unfinished!

Hello! Since the Proko Dawing Basic course I scetch a lot more than before. What do you do to make your scetching the most fun experience? I love how to be loose and just try stuff. Today I scetched an axolotl with white pencil on black paper. This was super fun and an interesting experience that the white can be used for such light lines, that they are nearly invisible. What do you do to create variations in your scetching approach? :)

What are the links between art and math, and not just perspective. Fractacls, Chaos theory, Information theory, algorithms, tessellation etc. I would love to talk to anyone who has thoughts on this subject.

So this is something I have had in my head for a fair while now and I'm kinda at a crossroads. Basically I just dont really enjoy art anymore. I do still enjoy doodling and sketching but sitting down and concentrating on a piece is becoming a real chore. I had aspirations of becoming a pro artist but to become one you must put together a pro portfolio, learn to market yourself, take rejection upon rejection on the chin and keep going,develop a style that helps you stand out from the crowd, land a contract and work for less than what i make in my current job. Plus on top of this I am experiencing something of an existential crisis in terms of art itself What does art do for the wider world ? how is it meaningful ? yeah cool its good for the individual in terms of expressing themselves but honestly.. when has art ( drawing and painting ) really changed the world ???? Now, maybe I am being overly negative but I cant find an answer for myself or have dedicated so much of myn life towards art that Im now thinking I want to move on before I waste my whole life. I would be very interested to hear from you guys on this one. Have you had a similar experience and how did you over come it ?