I'm still working on mine and it's nowhere near ready, but I wanted you to know that I like your challenges and will try to participate more in the future. So please keep these challenges going! :-)

Hi Dan :) We've definately all been there! I'm going to recommend you watch two videos I found recently which are all about NOT leaving your comfort zone, and the practical ways in which you can still improve within that comfort zone: Learn to Draw Better Faster: NEVER leave your comfort zone!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZhb5hRs5g AngryMikko - Comfort zone is not the opposite of growth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkf3Vza1rfE You already know that you love to draw, and you enjoy drawing insects, so you could start there within your comfort zone and slowly build from there. Something else I'm reading in all your posts in this thread is how disheartened you feel when you see other artists work and compare your own to theirs, and again we've all been there - it's hard not to compare our skills to others. However it's not healthy or helpful. You are you, your artwork is unique to you, and you'd be much better off putting that time and energy you spend comparing your work to other artists into improving and enjoying your own artwork. Another thing I'd suggest is to take joy in the process! e.g. do you like to draw, then ink the drawing, then paint over the top? If yes you know you can apply that process to every artwork you create and then you can get into the "flow" state faster because you're not worrying about the process - basically your tools and methods are getting OUT of the way of your creativity which is the ideal approach. Figure out a process that works for you, document it step by step, and then follow it until it becomes second nature. Something else that has really helped me has been learning about my subjects. So for example I love to paint animals, and I also love studying them, learning about them, and writing all that down, then I can add that information along with my drawings and paintings of that animal. Pick a new animal, rinse, repeat :) So you could do this with all different kinds of wasps, bees, crickets, moths, whatever interests you. Sketch them in different poses and under different light. Sketch their body parts close up and jot down the latin names for them (very Natural History approach without the crazy attention to detail). If you aren't already doing so try to draw every single day, for at least 45 mins if possible. There is something weird that happens in our brains when we do that, I don't understand it, but it's like the more we practice something the more we want to practice it, and vice versa. So try to make at least 45 to 60 mins a day, and more time on weekends, if you can just to sit down and sketch. You could also use this time to work on a larger piece. I do this all the time, I get up every day at 6am and I draw/paint on my ipad until around 7am and each day I do a little bit more work on a larger artwork so with a bit of extra time added on the weekend I can have a good quality finished piece completed almost every week. Another idea is to keep a digital scrapbook of ideas that inspire you. They may be other people's work, reference photos, images with interesting light shapes or shadows, then when you feel stuck go to your scrapbook and pick something that jumps out at you and maybe create your own version or use it as the starting point for a new piece. You may never publish that piece, but that's fine, it's kept you drawing and it's provided you with important practice time to improve your skills. And finally, try not to worry so much about posting your work online or especially about what others think. There's a ton of negative pressure in doing that and it can lead to toxic productivity. Do any of these ideas help?

@Yiming Wu this is so good!! It reminds me so much of that kind of classic early American artwork. Your colors and the way they push the eye towards the central focus areas is really good. Excellent attention to detail as usual. This piece has so much character. And the Kodak border - so cool :)

Hi I go by Rainbow Ichi / Ichidoodles010101 Let's see, I consider myself in between of hobbyist with a little bit on freelancing on the side now and then. I draw/doodle more for fun. I used to do a lot of digital art years back, but long story short a good friend of mine encouraged me to give watercolors another try ( watercolor had a bit of a uh...bad experience when I was younger ) and you know what? I enjoyed it. I've been playing with watercolor for more than 6 years now, and I love how gratifying it feels to finish a piece. So most of my recent works are in watercolor, and I still continue my journey in having fun with them. As to why I'm here, well I like...lurking and checking out art videos..for future studies when I have the free time. Nice to meet everyone ^_^ I lean towards anime-style stuff, my recent obsession are corgi and shiba dogs because of my plush animals - they are one of my sources of inspiration.

Greetings everyone! My name is Michael. Huge thanks to sir Stan & art teachers for creating an awesome community & space for art to grow & develop! I've been drawing for 4 years (self-taught) , but sadly I just begin to learn in a proper way/method recently. I'm truly interested in realism art (portrait & figure drawing) . Here are just my recent studies & wish you all have a great day!

Congratulations to Stan and everybody at Proko for creating this wonderful community. I'm Kyle, and I work at Adobe on several projects: helping to build Adobe Fresco, creating educational content for illustrators and artists at Adobe Live, and making custom brushes for the official Adobe brush library. Nice to meet you all.

I'm Michael, I'm from Omaha, Nebraska. I've done art for over 20 years, but never made a full career out of it. I'm a chef by day and a dad to two boys, and I do some gallery work and art fairs. I have had my biggest commercial success with live caricature. I'm currently at a place where I have time carved out for my art and enough money to get more education, so I'm throwing myself back in. I've worked in digital, watercolor, ink, marker, colored pencil, acrylics, spray paint and oils, and I try to keep a good balance of mediums in order to learn from each. I've done very little in the way of 3d, but I want to reacquainted myself.

Hi friends! My name is Candice and I am pursuing freelance illustration as well as developing my own brand of content through my Etsy store. I love the vibes on Proko and just entered the My Movie Poster Proko Challenge. I want to participate here as a way to keep my drawing/sketching fundamentals in shape. https://www.candicebroersma.com

I love Aaron B! This is actually not a bad painting at all. I would suggest one thing to really "complete" it for me... there's a nice C- shaped gesture you created with the hair direction in the mane. Where the mane comes against the smoother fur of the back, the gesture gets cut off. It just stops. I would continue those strokes into that area, eliminate the totally flat brown area of the bottom left corner. Where the hair touches the blue green background at the neck and the crown of the head, I'd soften the tension from the one color to the other a bit. Very nice convincing lion that I'm sure Aaron would enjoy

Love it! ❤️👍

Your insect drawings are great Dan and I love how you annotate them as well 👍 are you familiar with the work of natural history illustrators the Scott sisters? They’re not only a great inspiration but it might give you some ideas for backgrounds and things if that is something you’re after - https://australian.museum/learn/collections/museum-archives-library/scott-sisters/ Personally I definitely enjoy painting moths and butterflies and bees 🐝

Too late for the deadline but I'd saved this guy on my phone for next time I had the palette ready to go - Oil on 'PaintOn' paper with a base of Black 3.0. Recorded the process too so sorting out the footage now had so much fun :)

So I discovered two more possible resources, there's the good old pixabay.com - https://pixabay.com/ - of course and also Flickr Creative Commons search, e.g. https://www.flickr.com/search/?license=2%2C3%2C4%2C5%2C6%2C9&text=panda&advanced=1

@Aaron Blaise has a website heavily geared toward animal art resources called creature artteacher.com. I was telling someone today about an app called Handy that includes some 3D models of animal skulls as well

Unsplash.com can be quite good for reference photos. There's also https://wildlifereferencephotos.com, but they have a watermark unless you pay... iNaturalist is also a great source for reviewing specific species (if not generic pets/farm animals etc). It depends on what animals, a lot of museums will let you search their specimen catalogs, but generally better for smaller things and they often just contain observation descriptions rather than photos (except invertebrates). Nothing beats a good old book though for technical references, i.e. Eliot Goldfinger or Ellenberger. Also have a look around at Veterinary sites (or youtube channels), they can be very good for detailed anatomy.

Hi @Yiming Wu im late to reply but just wanted to say these look awesome! I really love your illustratory detailed style and thumbs up for experimenting 👍🎨👍

It’s beautiful @James Doane very expressive!

Awesome! Really painterly I love it 👍❤️

@Serena Marenco I am totally tagging you on this one 😁😁😁