Emily
Emily
UK
Slowly teaching myself to draw and paint. Love history, nature, and jazz.
Emily
I'm so stuck and I don't know what to do. I would really appreciate any advice. I haven't picked up a pencil or ipad to draw something in over a month. The last time I spent more than an hour on any drawing was probably a year ago. The last big project I put any effort into (a tattoo apprenticeship portfolio) basically got laughed at. Every time I try to make a start I just feel overwhelmed. I get stuck in the same cycle. I know I have to draw in order to improve so I can reach my goals. Then I think about all the things that I need to improve and get intimidated (I don't even have a solid grasp of basic fundamentals). When I can force myself to sit down and draw something I hate it so much I throw it straight into the bin. I try and psych myself up to draw but I know that most of the time I feel too overwhelmed to start or hate what I make and can't bring myself to do it. Then I'm back to square one and beating myself up because if I don't draw I won't ever improve. I know that Stan and Marshall say to plan out your art school and put the hours in and skills will come. I have ASD trying to plan a syllabus on 'how to draw everything' or even concentrate on something for more than twenty minutes is a nightmare. I've tried purchasing various online courses but find them so difficult to follow it makes me feel like an idiot. I know I started drawing because it used to make me feel relaxed and because I wanted to put beautiful things out into the world but now it just makes me want to cry. I haven't really seen any improvement in my drawing for a couple of years, if anything it's gotten worse because I haven't been drawing as regularly. Has anyone here ever been in the same position? How do I get out of this slump and back to drawing? I've tried forcing myself to draw but whenever I do the experience is so negative it makes me want to draw even less. I don't like giving up but I don't know what else to do.
Emily
I like how you picked such a difficult subject for your first drawing from imagination. It shows that you're really pushing yourself. There's two things that immediately jump to mind that I think could help you for next time. The first is the hair. I'm not an expert at hair at all, I find it difficult still. The best advise I can give is rather than approaching the hair as one whole shape and going in to define individual strands afterward is to approach it as a series of different shapes that make up the whole. Angel Ganev has a really good way of showing this, heres a video link (https://youtu.be/ClAMuGEfFNM) The second is the hips on the front character. Womens hips are higher up then mens and are also tilted at a more severe angle (this is what makes a woman's bum poke out more than a mans). Female hips are basically just a big bone bowl to hold a growing baby in place. On your picture the widest part doesn't start until after the public mound which isn't correct. When drawing women basically as soon as you go in at your smallest part of the waist you need to start bringing that line back out for the hips. Aaron Blaise explains it a lot better than I can in his human anatomy course. I've put a reference picture in a different pose just so you can see where the hips width is in relation to the tops of the thighs and the waist. Hope this helps!
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Emily
I think its really important to establish why you're drawing and putting your art out there. If you're drawing and sharing your art on social media because that's what you like to do and you want to share it I wouldn't worry too much. If your doing art as a hobby or only looking to make a little extra on the side it shouldn't hold you back. If you're putting your art out there and growing your following because you want to enter the professional art space its a little different. Employers will expect you to have the skills to render a piece fully. Get to a point where you're able to render things fully and then once you've established yourself you'll be able to embrace the sketchy vibe you enjoy again. Karl Kopinski is a good example of this. Also don't forget the skills you learn from rendering (light and shadow, colour, composition) can all improve your sketching as well. Finally, I just wanted to say that your work has value no matter how rendered it is because you took time to put your unique view of the world down on paper.
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Emily
Everyone here is so talented! Hi 👋 My name is Emily. I like to draw and paint with watercolour. I like to tru and draw a mix of cartoon and more realistic stuff. My stuff still needs a lot of work. I've been struggling a lot with motivation so I'm hoping to be able to get stuck into the community and find my mojo again! Here's some of my better stuff 😅
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Sarah
Hello, I am looking forward to creating in an art community where I can learn and share knowledge. :D I work for a small games company making mobile game art but I still need to keep my fundamentals up to scratch!  My dream is to make comics where I can subject the world to the utter abomination that is my mind :P.  - apologies.
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Emily
I love your style 😍
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Lucas Carvalho
Hey! My name is Lucas Carvalho. I'm a casual artist looking to learn about drawing, inking and maybe starting on painting. I'm still figuring out this site/platform. Anyway, here's a quick inking I just did.
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Emily
I could sit for hours and still not knock out something that good
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Hank Macleod
Hey everybody! I’m Hank, I’m from Massachusetts, and I started drawing about three years ago. Until recently, I had a casual daily practice of creating art, but for the past month I’ve been trying to buckle down and get good. I’m looking forward to getting to know some of you rad art folks!
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Emily
Your chickens are so cool! It makes me think of 'Space Chickens In Space'
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Jeremias Fritsch
Hi everybody! I was eagerly waiting for this Website. Unfortunately it took me a long time to be motivated :/ Recently I started reading the Saga of Elric of Melnibone and reading it has inspired me a lot. Here are a few of my latest Paintings.
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Emily
The sixth one is really interesting, is the saga any good? I'm always looking for new reading ideas
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Ragnhild Wisth
Hi. I'm hoping this is where I say hi to everyone. :o I'm rather hopeless with figuring how to and where on sites like this so... anyways. I draw mainly, and with that I mean all the time, digitally. Right now I'm trying to improve on my portrait drawing skills. From techniques to the all inclusive anatomy, coloring, shading etc. Guess that means I'm pretty much an omnivore when it comes to learning. :D But enough about that. Here a few of my latest drawings.
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Emily
Oh my gosh your work is so good. Your lighting/shading is great
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Emily
I love the colours in the sixth one it's so striking!
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Emily
Have you seen the pencil extenders you can get? They've got them in all the big art shops/amazon and they make it so much easier https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lengthener-Holders-Aluminum-Extender-Muiti-color/dp/B08FQRCB72/ref=mp_s_a_1_10?dchild=1&keywords=pencil+extenders&qid=1632591664&sr=8-10
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@jdn
to. everyone. well ive been slowly but surely getting better fiscally. and ive been doing some drawings here and there. every other day. and ive been doing more wood carving's lately. and here are some photos of everything that ive done this past week up to this moment. hope you all enjoy ✌😉 god bless and keep being awesome
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Emily
Hey jdn I hope you're doing ok and still able to do your drawing and carving
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@shackman
Week 2 Feedbacks given: 3 Asked for feedback: 0 This week I’ve been doing a lot of Blender, working my way through a Polygun runway tutorial. I just finished following along, so now I’ll do my own version of the scene to incorporate what I’ve learned, I will post it next week. I started the 250 box challenge, which is a lot more than I thought. I try to do every single line with effort and intention, so each page of 5 boxes takes me 20 minutes on average. The exercise includes extending all the lines after each finished page to see your mistakes more clearly. For the first time I forgot to do a watercolor painting from life, so I did 2 the next day to not get into the habit of letting it slide here and there, which is the first step towards letting it die completely. This is where I am, nowhere near a painting a sane person would put on their wall, but way better than my first ones which looked like someone had punched a palette and then punched a piece of paper and trampled on it with muddy shoes. Despite poor results I feel like I’m making progress and enjoy it a lot. Watercolor feels like working with actual magic. Right now I’m more of a Terry Pratchett kind of wizard who constantly blows up his lab or accidentally turns his assistants into rodents, but with enough practice I will get there. I watched Marco Bucci’s recent live stream where he told his water color story. He did it almost every day for an entire summer, and ended up with a huge stack of bad paintings but a much deeper understanding of watercolor. Since I wrote about self reflection here last time, I figured I’d take a look at why I didn’t make it as a game developer. My mistakes, more or less in order of gravity, and how I try not to make them with art: 1. Starting and abandoning projects Finishing a painting is a lot faster than finishing a game. I should hold off a bit on my ideas for animated shorts though…. 2. Starting projects that are too big This is where I laid the ground work for abandoning projects. To avoid those mistakes, I added a column in my blender and painting ideas spread sheet for estimated time. I will force myself to start at the bottom. 3. Not enough of a structured approach. Also my biggest mistake in my drawing career so far. Which is why I now work my way through the fundamentals and write (and adjust) my overall plan. 4. Not enough feedback I tried hard to find other game developers to work with, joined endless projects etc. The problem was that the pros had no interest in working with some random, unaccomplished guy. I already have a schoolism study group where we critique each other, that helps a lot. Further more I’ve decided to ask for feedback here, and I will make sure to give even more feedback to others. 5. Started teaching too late At some point I made a youtube channel with game dev tutorials, which is a great way to learn. The problem with drawing is that anyone can see how badly I suck, so I can’t make tutorials yet. At least I can teach simple stuff in Blender, which I’m already doing. 6. Not enough tutorials/not being a good student I always wanted to work on my own stuff, and watch the tutorials ‘later’. While I watched hundreds of hours, I should have done more in the beginning. Even more important, I should have done more than just following along. I try to correct that now by first taking notes and then take the learned material and do things with it until they became ingrained. 7. Not taking my health and mind serious enough. Just do it ;-) Next week I want to finish the 250 box challenge, make a scene in Blender (a sci-fi toilet), and continue with Schoolism’s Story driven illustrations. I will also try to go one week without any kind of distractions. No news, crypto, stocks, reddit, facebook etc.
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Emily
I really like your linework on your boxes and the inking in your watercolour. Sometimes I feel like getting confident, crisp likes can be half the battle. Watch you don't pile too much stuff onto your plate though or you might get stressed out :)
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