/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>4811740
Why did you want to draw in the first place? Don’t stress yourself out comparing your progress to someone else. Do ask for advice from people whose progression you admire. To get somewhere you need to have clear goals. The way you reach your goals and even the goals themselves should be fluid since a lot of shit can happen that aren’t in your control.

>>4811740
It's your own fault, if you are not willing to draw for hours and hours you will obviously see no improvement.
When you change your mentality you will improve, until then you will stay in this cycle of self hatred you've created for yourself.

Well OP I don't claim to know shit about drawing.
But as a fellow /beg/, do the following.
Read the sticky and try to use the materials there, then:
1. Find and draw subjects you enjoy, this will make you put in the hours since it's fun. Mindlessly grinding loomis isn't going to get you anywhere if you hate every second of it as your focus will be on how much you hate it instead of on trying to understand it. Extract the useful information, practice, then move on.
2. Use reference to draw these subjects, do a 1-to-1 copy if you have to in order to understand how a face is constructed for instance
3. If you are unable to copy from reference, trace part of it to understand what lines you need to put down
4. Like all the meme youtubers lately are saying, focus on shapes and making them clearly readable. I'd even go so far as to make straight, confident lines at first just to simplify the entire process. Focus on big shapes first, then add in detail later. It's tempting to do the outline of an eye and then start adding in all the eyelashes and the iris and so on, but don't do this.
5. Look at how other people draw, what do they do, what do they emphasize, what is their entire process. Deconstruct their drawings to really figure out how they make it happen
6. Have FUN and put in the HOURS

Lastly, disregard everything I said because I'm a stupid /beg/ and go listen to someone that is actually smart.

>>4811740
>I don't draw for a ton of time
>Maybe I just don't care about it enough
>I couldn't see myself drawing 6 hours every day in my free time
And you wonder why you suck you dumbass nigga

>>4811752
>Why did you want to draw in the first place?
I don't really remember, I think it was because it was fun and upon giving it a real goal for the first time I realized it was something that I could actually do, since as a kid I hated it and thought drawing was impossible.
but eventually I realized I was right in the first place and I can't draw
>Don’t stress yourself out comparing your progress to someone else.
But it's everyone else. I always here not to compare yourself to others, I know that it impedes your progress but I can't just not do it.
>>4811756
Thanks. I've done most of this but I guess I just can't put it into practice.
>>4811755
>>4811757
You're right, I guess I don't care enough then.

>>4811740
you're not drawing or studying like the artist you want to be

learn to have fun again

>>4811768
I don't really have fun doing anything atm

>>4811774
inspire yourself again
find new shit in odd places
find things you don't need to force yourself to like

>>4811776
I don't really like anything
and all the fun of drawing is killed by seeing what my work looks like

>>4811757
Don’t listen to the retards on here, you do not need to draw for 6 hours a day at all. They need to because they’re to retarded to do in six hours what you can do in two if you use your brain. These people are crabs trying to stop you from drawing.

If you want to improve stop drawing the same face. I don’t mean your model, but all the faces in the photo consistently have the same problems almost to the point it looks like an intentional stylistic choice. You need to focus on construction and recreating what you actually see. Clearly with the consistency of your mistakes you’re drawing a preconceived idea of “how to draw a head/face” rather than constructing the forms of what’s in front of you

>>4811740
Idk how much I can help, but make sure you study things progressively. You can do what you want, but one skill is built on the first.

Learn in this order:
1. Accuracy and observation(Betty Edwards)
2. Basic perspective theory (Marshall Vandruff)
3. Basic figure construction and anatomy (Michael Hampton + Bridgman)
4. Rendering (Vilppu)

Don’t move on from one until you significantly advance in the first. Yes, learning to xerox a picture is the first step to learning to draw NOT construction or perspective. You will flounder and plateau without 2D observational skills.

Basic perspective theory is very easily learned.

After that, you’ll be spending years and years getting better at constructive drawing. There’s literally no end to it. Even if you understand form, you’ll still constantly be building your visual library and flexibility and precision in handling form. But you’ll find it a lot less frustrating if you can observe accurately. Practice step 3 and 4 simultaneously

All this time you should be copying artists you like and studying references to build your visual library. Good luck.

>>4811740
if other people draw for 6 hours a day for a few weeks and months and you draw like 30 mins a day then yea ofcourse they're gonna become so much better than you

>>4811783
This was actually a page of me trying to be more observational rather than working from alot of construction, but it turned out the same nonetheless. I'm terrible at just putting the shapes I see onto a page, it's always completely off, even though that's the basic principle of drawing.
>>4811784
Thanks. I haven't really done any of what you said aside from some of right side of the brain, I'll work through them. But surely I should be better at observation than this? People who just start get it so much more.\
>>4811785
I understand that but I still know I should be better than I am.

>>4811765
>Thanks. I've done most of this but I guess I just can't put it into practice.

I haven't seen a single person in my entire life that would not be able to learn a particular skill. It's just about finding the right method that works for you.
To piggyback a little on what this poster said
>>4811783
It looks like you aren't really thinking when putting down the lines. I'm not saying you need to deeply contemplate each and every line, but if we take the mouth or the eyes in particular, there are lots of unnecessary lines there that don't describe the form at all. In addition, it almost looks as if you're scared to take those big choices of where a line is supposed to go so you kind of end up making a whimper instead of a bold statement.
As another example, that big face in the middle. You could emphasize the nose and the bridge of the nose a lot more to make it protrude more as right now it looks as if her nose is very flat, almost as if it's half the size it needs to be. Have the courage to push her features distinctly so that you can more clearly see what's going on.

Make more confident lines so that you yourself can more clearly see the form you are trying to describe. Have some type of structure, even if that means your faces are blocky. It allows you to really see which way the shapes are turning and how they work.

>I understand that but I still know I should be better than I am.
No. That's your ego talking. Let go of any thoughts of where you think you "should" be. Have a goal, but don't put yourself down for not having reached it yet.

>>4811802
>I haven't seen a single person in my entire life that would not be able to learn a particular skill.
I guess it's a silly thought, but It's one that won't leave my head with anything that I try to learn or achieve.
I struggled alot with noses and I was trying to just observe it, I could see it looked flat but just didn't know how to fix it.
> it almost looks as if you're scared to take those big choices of where a line is supposed to go so you kind of end up making a whimper instead of a bold statement.
Yes, but also I just don't know where to place stuff, even though I'm looking at a picture and the shapes and measuring against the other features.
>Make more confident lines
Yeah I really do need to do that.
>Let go of any thoughts of where you think you "should" be.
But surely I just make terrible progress. I've practiced figures a whole lot more than faces and they're just as terrible.

>>4811740
Dude listen to me when I unironically say
F U N D A M E N T A L S
It's not a meme, everything you do in art relies on these and if your fundies are weak, so is your art. You cannot escape construction/values/anatomy/perspective/etc.

Your focus should be finding a book or a course that will aid you in your fundamentals.

Dont worry about style, because style is an abstraction of reality. If you dont understand human anatomy, you can copy someones stylized anatomy, but you will not understand it enough to create your own believable stylized character.

As for your rate of improvement, research methods on how to learn and study better. Ex: Barbara Oakley

Copying random girls on pinterest is a step forward, but analyzing their faces and constructing them using 3d forms is an even larger step forward.

>>4811919
Thanks, yeah I'm going back to learning fundamentals, since I guess I never learnt them all properly.

I feel like I have bugs in my brain, every time I sit down to practice or learn anything I can't think about anything except for how it's too late for anyone who didn't start things when they were very young. All I think when I hear about it not being too late to start a skill or hobby after like ~14 Is that it's all a cope for being a shit person who never gravitated to real interests as a young kid.

>>4813184
No matter what you do, time is going to move forward. You can start now and in a year, be better than you are now, or you can give up drawing and in a year regret it and continue to do nothing about it.

Man, it's never too late to learn anything you'd like to do. Dont let society or some random motherfuckers decide what you can and cannot do. A majority of society will try to stop you from reaching your full potential because it's not common to try and fail repeatedly when you're not a child.

I never learned how to ride a bike when I was young and now I'm an adult trying to learn how to just balance myself while the bike is moving. I can't even pedal yet. You can imagine the glares I got and the disdain people had on their faces. I was with my brother, and he was standing away from me. Some person nearby him kissed his teeth and put on a face of disgust and said "at this fucking age he doesnt know how to ride a bicycle? What a fucking disgrace."
So tell me, when I heard that from my brother, should I have picked up my bike, go home, and never try again, leaving the bike to rot in my garage because everyone hates me? No. If I want to ride, I'm going to ride. These people shouldn't be a factor in something I want.

As the saying roughly goes, its better to be in the arena, constantly failing time and time again, than to be a critic in the stands who knows neither victory or defeat.

A lot of anons on this board will give stupid excuses to explain why they cant learn.
> I dont have the talent so no matter what i do I can never reach a high level in art because of my genes
> I'm too old so muh neuroplasticity is finished and I can never learn a single thing ever again
These are just coping mechanisms to give you a reason to not try.
There are many pros out there like Anthony Jones that started drawing when he was in his 20s. And many who started in their 30s.

>>4813184
>>4814473
If the average life goes to 80+, if you started at 40, you'd have at least 40 years to practice. I took an art class once, and there was a 65 year old guy learning with us. He was outgoing and was the most energetic and ready to learn. When he saw art that was better than his, he analyzed them and tried to understand why they were better than his attempts. He didnt quit the class because he was too old to start or that people 40 years younger than him were leagues better than him. It was something he wanted to do, and no one in that classroom could stop his relentless pursuit.

The only thing you should compare is yourself from yesterday, and yourself today. Let other people worry about themselves.

>>4811740
i'm seeing 0 loomis construction is those heads, i don't care if you drew for 10 years 8h a day, if you don't know fundies you'll be beg

>>4811757
Ok loomis shitter, go be a crab somewhere else

>>4814473
>>4814475
Thanks! That advice really helps. I'm gonna keep going and try to push out of my mind all the other comparisons, this makes me feel a lot better. Also idek how to ride a bike either lmao
>>4814487
I normally do, but I always forget the markers and don't put them on right anyway

>>4811752
This

>>4811756
This

>>4811768
>learn to have fun again
This

>>4811776
This

>>4811783
This

>>4811784
This. Observation skill indeed is the first skill one should gain, only then construction. If Bety Edwards' book will be too boring, try Keys to drawing.

>>4811919
This

>>4814473
This one as inspiration

These guys gave you some really good replies.
Just keep in mind, that in the first place, before learning observation or construction or anything related to art, you should have why. People will often say "just draw, as you will improve, you will start to love drawing". Might not be wrong thinking, but if you will heve the "why" i am even doing this in the first place, that will be motivation in itself.
I am not fan of anime or realistic drawing/painting. But if that is your strong "why", if that (or whatever else) is what you love, just do it.