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.

Proktober starts now! Throughout October if you draw and post your work in the Proko community you'll have a chance to be featured in our IG story and Twitter.  Update: Thank you to everyone who participated!

Hey everyone! As part of Lightbox 2021 this year I was able to get some pro artists together to do some portfolio reviews for you free of charge :) This list may grow during Lightbox, but so far we have @Tj Geisen, @Anthony Francisco, @Scott Flanders , @Tayler Olivas , @Antonio Stappaerts, @Christina Cornett, @Tyler James, and @Marco Bucci that will review the work that you submit. Feel free to post your portfolios between September 6th and September 12th for a chance to have your work reviewed. If you want to be a career artist this is an excellent chance to get feedback from others that are already succeeding in the field! Please remember to write a few sentences about your goals so our artists know what feedback to give and attach up to 10 images when you post. Thanks! Special Note: Posting does not guarantee a review by a certain artist or artists. This is also an open thread and artists will be popping in and out to leave reviews during Lightbox.

Jeremy Cranford works at Blizzard as Hearthstone Art Manager (former art director WOW TCG and Magic: The Gathering). He will be doing an AMA and portfolio review here in this thread on Friday, June 4 at 12pm PDT. If you want to work as an artist in the entertainment industry this a your chance to get feedback from the person that hires artists! You can start posting now. Write a few sentences about your goals and attach up to 10 images. Or just ask him . . . anything . . .

I'm guessing that several people in this community are going to be participating in Inktober, so I figured we could share our art here. I'm going to comment the prompts and you can put your drawing under the prompt you drew for that day. If you want to see the rules or don't know what Inktober is, here's this link https://inktober.com/rules Good luck to everyone participating!

Irshad - or Uncomfortable, if you know him from Drawabox - is a concept designer, illustrator, game developer, programmer, and for lack of a better word, a self-taught instructor who has been teaching the fundamentals of drawing for just short of six years. He doesn't know how he got here, but here he is, so you may as well ask him some questions. Want to know what it's really like working for a small no-name studio? What about the ups-and-downs of drawing a web comic? What about his opinions on the idea of talent, or the notion of a "dream job"? Everything's fair game, so ask away, starting NOW! The answers will start flowing at 1PM PDT.

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

Power art couple Erik and Meadow Gist will be answering questions about illustration, fine art, and . . . anything . . . Start asking your questions now! Erik and Meadow will answer at 3pm PDT on June 15th. @Erik Gist is a horror illustrator and teacher at the Watts Atelier. Erik’s clients include Dark Horse Comics, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Disney Entertainment, TOR Publishing, Wizards of the Coast, Upper Deck, Boom! Studios, Palladium Books, Blizzard Entertainment, Viking Children's Books, Monkey Brain Books, Quart Publishing, and Chiat-Day. @Meadow Gist is a fine art painter currently focused on Native American themes and instructor at Watts Atelier. She is represented by Sanders Galleries in Arizona and Bear Tooth Gallery in Montana.

@Marco Bucci is here to answer questions about art stuff and non art stuff! Ask him anything you want. He’s taking your questions now and will start posting answers at 12pm PDT on June 18th. Make sure to check out Marco's course - The Color Survival Guide! Marco is a professional artist with 15 years of experience in the film, TV, game, and print industries - primarily as a concept artist and illustrator. Marco’s previous clients include: Walt Disney Publishing Worldwide, LEGO, LucasArts, Mattel Toys, Fisher-Price, Hasbro, Nelvana, GURU Studio, C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures, Yowza! Animation Inc., Pipeline Studios, and more. He has been on YouTube since 2008 with videos about painting fundamentals, applied painting demos, and insights into how to grow (and work) as a creative person.

Artists have clearly expressed that they don't want their copyrighted images being used to train AI image generators. So, until this ethical issue is figured out, all pages on proko.com now have the NoAI tag on by default. Proko people don't have to do anything to turn it on. AI is a technology that has impressively positive benefits that we already enjoy, but they need to figure out a responsible way to collect data. We've never sold or given artwork to data scrapers. We're doing this as a preventative measure for the future. Will the AI scraping robots honor these tags? I'm not sure, but I'm hopeful. Stable Diffusion recently announced they will let artists opt out of the data set. Still more to be done here, but at least they're thinking about the issue.

I have been lucky enough to work with many artists that I admire. If you could apprentice for one artist, living or dead, who would it be?

Dark Mode is now available for Proko users! Check it out by logging in and clicking the Moon icon on the top of the page.

Hey everyone! I've been seeing a few people ask about general art book lists to look at when learning how to draw. I thought I'd make this thread to share my top 10, and so others can share theirs. Hope this helps! 1. Figure Drawing: Design and Invention by Michael Hampton https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819 Michael Hampton's book has had a huge effect on me. It's not as clean as I'd like to draw, but the gesture, and anatomical break downs are extremely good. Everytime I look at his book, I find something new I didn't learn on my first time through. I've had the book for about 6 years now, and it's travelled with me all over the world. 2. Figure Drawing for All It's Worth by Andrew Loomis https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986 This is the classic book everyone recommends. It is dated, but the concepts are timeless. The way he explains things, and his examples are worth way more than the price of the book. Just owning it to see him apply these extremely simple concepts to complex images is worth it. 3. Constructive Anatomy by George Bridgman https://www.amazon.com/Constructive-Anatomy-Dover-Artists/dp/0486211045 I don't recommend this book for beginners, but everything he's done is a master class on shape design. Some of his students include some of the most famous Illustrators of the past 100 years, including Norman Rockwell. Jim Lee describes Bridgman as one of the most important drawing books in his life. I'll admit he is an acquired taste, but once you do start appreciating his drawings you'll always be impressed by him. 4. The Art Spirit by Robert Henri https://www.amazon.com/Art-Spirit-Robert-Henri/dp/0465002633 I can go on an list hundreds of books on learning how to draw, but all of them art pointless if you don't have a why. I'm not sure how I feel about Henri's art (it's good, just not my taste), but his why to art could inspire anyone. It's a book that's not meant to be read in one sitting. It's something you look at while you're feeling discouraged, or burnt out on drawing. 5. J.C. Leyendecker: American Imagist https://www.amazon.com/J-C-Leyendecker-American-Laurence-Cutler/dp/0810995212 To preface, I have no interest in painting like J.C. Leyendecker. I love his images, but they're too precise for me. The reason I'm putting him in this list is because of his dedication to his craft. He has hundreds of illustrations that are all master works in commercial work. Leyendecker's love for his craft doesn't have to be said, it's demonstrated in his body of work. Even if you don't want to paint like him, just his work alone will inspire you to work harder and do better. 6. Eleeza: The Art of Eliza Ivanova https://www.amazon.com/Eleeza-Art-Eliza-Ivanova/dp/1912843080 Eliza's work is incredibly inspiring to me. She worked at Pixar as an animator for years, and still found time outside of work to dedicate to doing these drawings. They're so different from her work at Pixar, and the reason that's amazing to me is that she was able to have two distinct artistic voices. Another reason to take a look at her work is it's an example of how you don't have to do hyper precise drawing to make pretty drawings. To me her artwork is an expression of her, not an expression of how she wants other to see her. That confidence is something that I want to aspire to in my own drawings. 7. Eclipse: The Well and the Black Sea by Justin Sweet and Vance Kovacs https://www.amazon.com/Eclipse-Well-Black-Justin-Sweet/dp/069252469X Justin and Vance's book for me is an example of what art is supposed to be all about. Just playing around with ideas and telling stories. @Scott Flanders turned me onto their work, and since then I've been obsessed with their drawings. It's so loose, and free but still does a really great job telling the stories they want to tell. Another example of doing art for the message, rather than to just impress other people with how "good" a drawing is. 8. The Big Kopinski by Karl Kopinski https://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Kopinski/dp/B07KZG7D51 @Karl Kopinski's work speaks for itself. To me he's like a 12 year old who's REALLY good at drawing. It seems like he just plays all day, drawing orcs, robots, sexy ladies, and pirate battles. He's another example of a love for the craft and how much fun art can be when you love it. 9. Figure Drawing for Artists by Steve Huston https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Artists-Making-Every/dp/1631590650 Steve Huston's book came to me later in my art education, so it didn't have that much of an effect on my development. That being said, his explanations for using simple concepts to create complex drawings are extremely useful. Also his philosophy on art is something that I admire greatly. 10. SPARROW: Phil Hale https://www.amazon.com/Sparrow-Phil-Hale-Number-Book/dp/1600100406 Phil Hale is my favorite living painter. His wacky, disturbing, ideas combined with insane painting skills make me smile. I'm not sure I'd want to paint the things he's painting, but that freedom he has to paint car crashes and robots inspires me.

Ever since 31 May 2021, I’ve been keeping an Art Diary to keep track of my progress. I’ve uploaded my entries + sketches/exercises every day onto my Twitter and Instagram (though it’s hard to look for them on my Twitter since I like to retweet fanart, hahaha). Anyway, I’ve decided to share my progress and diary here too. I hope it’s okay! ^_^ I’ll start off with Entry 43! If you’re interested in the previous Art Diary entries, I’ve uploaded them into my Albums here, as well as my Instagram and Twitter. Current Goal: To be able to consistently draw a clean lineart in under 10 minutes! Ultimate Goal (for far, far in the future): Reach WLOP and RossDraws level and be able to consistently produce a gorgeous artwork every day within 1 hour.

This is the start of a new art community, so it's important to have fun and introduce ourselves! People can use this post to say who they are, what they like drawing/painting, and maybe show off a piece of theirs or two (or three!). Thanks everyone! o/

I know this is sort of a dumb challenge, but I thought it would be a fun and silly undertaking. I'm going to use this thread to post my results! Also I'm making a youtube series about it. May the universe have mercy upon my soul. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPjSm0hhQWc&t=15s

It’s Inktober, the month where many people create ink drawings and post them to social media daily. You can follow the prompt list, or create your own ideas. You can post your drawings here so we can share them with each other.

Last week during the @Loish Livestream, she mentioned two of her current favorite artists. Yun Ling (www.instagram.com/lingy000/) and Andrew Hem (www.instagram.com/andrewhem/). What living artists currently inspire you?

Hi everyone! I'm new to the Proko community but I've been drawing for most of my life, mostly portraits and characters, and I'm excited to have a place to post my work and see other artist's work. That social aspect is what I miss about in-person art classes. Any other newbies to the community out there?