Yourself as an Art Enthusiast

XieRH

XieRH

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I thought it might be interesting to try a discussion about your personal traits and experiences in doing art, or the way doing art influences your life (and the other way round).

I'll get started...


- It may sound a bit ironic saying this here but I typically don't like to discuss about stuff relating to my art or how I draw, not because I hate it, but because I'd probably fuss over it like an obsessive idiot.


- I've been doing digital art since 2009, that was when I got my first tablet, a Genius Mousepen 8x6. It's currently been replaced by a Wacom Bamboo I got last September. The Genius is now with my cousin.


- I am super OCD about not scratching my Wacom's surface:
Photo0532.jpg

That was after using it for a month and realising how easily scratched it was.


- I take a very long time to finish lineart.


- I'm still at the stage where I strongly feel that there is a vast gap between my sketch quality and CG quality


- Every time I see someone ask someone else what tablet/program/brush size they use, I feel like that person is secretly wishing that if he uses the same thing, he can draw just as well. I was like that too, with lineart, following someone else's technique (50-60% opacity, multiply blend)


- I'm very reclusive when it comes to drawing. Nobody in my real life social circles knows that I draw, or that I have a DA account, etc. I don't really know why but I unusually hate it when people watch me work (on art). Thankfully my family doesn't pay attention to when I'm drawing.


- I got SAI because tons of people were gushing about how good it was. In the end I've only done 1 full CG in SAI in my entire life so far. It's funny because the reason I'm hesitant to use SAI is because I'm uncomfortable with working on 2 softwares together (the other being photoshop) because there's stuff in PS that I use which SAI doesnt have, like polygonal lasso.


- I hate a lot of my old drawings. Like this.


- Actually tbh I late a lot of my drawings in general, so much so that when people on DA praise them I feel like it's more of an act of courtesy and that they're just praising because their critic mode isn't turned on.


- Sometimes I don't know if I'm drawing because I like it or because I'm bored. Maybe that's why I hardly improve, lol.


- Sometimes I draw stupid, abstract stuff on impulse. This piece is probably going to be wiped from my DA gallery sooner or later.


- I'm secretly biased towards illustrations. That's why I don't tend to fave photographs or GFX art, etc. on DA.


- Before I started using it, I always thought Photoshop was the best. That's not true. Photoshop is just lucky enough to lack viable market competition. And even then, SAI is pretty dominant in the CG art community now.


- I feel left out that I'm not using SAI as much as I would like to :(


- Every time a new pokebeach member adds me to his DA watch list I'm tempted to ask him if he just added me simply because I was "from pokebeach". I kinda have this thing against watching for the sake of watching (IMO TheDarkLucario watching me on DA is a prime example of this) but I dont feel that it's right to force it on other people so I keep quiet.


- When PS lags on me while doing lineart, I stroke even harder and faster out of frustration. I'm still working on kicking this habit.


- I switch between brush and eraser a lot. Which is why on SAI and PS I remap brush to 'Q' and rest my middle finger on Q, and index finger on E (eraser). My thumb rests on SPACE for panning.


- When I do a new avatar or sig or ID pic, I "test" it by print-screening the place the pic is supposed to go to, and then pasting the pic there to get a feel of it. This is done on gimp (out of habit)


- I once drew a Kyurem because Xous drew a Kyurem. Dunno if it was inspiration or sheer boredom. Probably both.


- Every time someone praises Gimp over PS and cites the reason as gimp being open source, I mentally laugh at him like he's a fool (and this happened once on DA). There are things that I do feel gimp is superior in (like the mechanism for drawing straight lines using hold-shift in brush tool), but open-sourceness is not synonymous with quality. As an information systems undergraduate I am always reminded of that fact.


- For the record I believe that saying Gimp is better "cos it's free" is stupid as well. If you have to bank on monetary cost as a "selling point", that just means there's hardly any other substance you can talk about to raise as a selling point.


- Doing art has led to a sharp decline in gaming for me. The last game I bought was Mass Effect 2. For the uninitiated, that means I have gone for over a year without buying a new PC game (and I dont have consoles). No, I didn't buy Pokemon BW either. I actually like art more than gaming. It's less intense and less "competitive".


- I'm guilty of wanting to draw better not for myself, but because I keep seeing people on tumblr, DA and pixiv whose art is just so much better. It's the Envy Effect, and I can't help it as much as I hate it. The guys I added on my DA watch list? Totally Envy Effect working its magic.







Now feel free to share your own stuff
 
ok here we go
im really cool
i draw really cool things
i draw really cool things really well
ok that's it

Oh, wait, I'm at 70.
I'll just mention one thing that came to my head, and that is that I much much much prefer to draw my own things than anything else. That's why I draw Pokemon very rarely (other than in random doodles during english). It's not cuz I'm snooty and think you have to be original to be a "true artist" or whatever, it's just because I don't draw other peoples' characters very well (case in point).
Most of those examples are old, but whatever.
 
This is sorta like my "art cycle", like how I used to do things compared to the way I do them now.

~I used to do art with a regular pencil, but when I started using mechanical pencils I got a LOT better. I was surprised when that happened, I never thought a simple change in pencil would affect my art so much.

~When I learned how to use GIMP, my art got much better once again. Before that, I colored things with colored pencils, but I didn't do it very often because it would smudge my art. But, in GIMP, although the smudge problem was solved, when I colored things, they left white around the edges of the outlines. I was frustrated at how to fix this problem until I stumbled upon a coloring guide that told me everything I needed to know.

~Now, my biggest art need is a graphics tablet. I use the mouse and touch pad on my laptop to do art right now, and since I have been practicing a lot, I think I am getting better. Example: My first attempt at drawing with a mouse/touch pad vs. one of my most recent attempts at drawing with a mouse/touch pad. Big improvement. Yeah.
 
Um,here are some of my few details:

-I started drawing better at the age of 6.I tended to draw lots of stuff regulary when I was little.I guess thats how I got better each time.

-Now,I tend to draw more Video Game stuff than normal stuff for some reason.

-Everyone thinks I trace my drawings,when I dont really trace them.

-When I was smaller,I tended to draw small Pokémon drawings and also color them from behind.Then I would cut them and play with them as action figures ._. I also made drawings for the attacks (This is more like a younger childhood detail than a art detail,but you know...)

Hmm...I guess thats it.But if I remember some more details,I will update this post.
 
Here's some things:

~I've never been good at drawing.

~I procrastinate too much. (seriously)

~I go to culinary school, which is basically the only thing art related I'm somewhat good at. I didn't even realize culinary arts was art until a year into it. ._.

~Before I draw, I have to research what it actually looks like beforehand. The first time I drew Jellicent, I messed up the eyes horribly because I was basing all of my work off his sprite. I had to make the eyes using a circle tool when I scanned it.

~I like to sit down and stare at my works for around ten minutes pointing out everything horrible about it. I think I stared at this for longer than that. Ugly art.

~I just realized, while typing this, that I criticize myself too much. Is that a bad trait or is it that I hate to gloat?

~lol reserved

/modest
 
We're our worst enemy. We often criticize the work we do. Its a natural thing.
 
I've been drawing ever since I was concieved (Or well, as far back as I can remember...according to my mother possibly around the age of 2. They were, of course, 'kid scribbles').

I graduated last year from an Art College with a degree in Media Arts and Animation though I truly prefer doing pre-production. My favorite program is between Photoshop and Corel Painter as I will switch between the two, though since I have a newer tablet PC I need to reinstall the program again. Art Rage is also pretty nifty. I will occasionally draw in Flash if I want quick vector art for character concepts and color swatching. I do love talking with other artists and seeing different styles and ways of going about work, especially traditional. I'm much more of a digital artist but I will sketch out my work, save it, and resume coloring in Photoshop/Painter at times. If I had more money I'd probably invest it towards Copics.
 
Here's all I can think of at this moment:

  • Back when I first started doing art (at what age I'm not sure, I always just tell people "when I could first hold a drawing utensil"), I mostly focused on drawing dinosaurs because I was obsessed with them. My kindergarten teacher gave me a dinosaur sticker book for all of the "nice" drawings I made in class, and I think that's what really sold me on the idea of doing art for people. It made me realize how nice it felt to know people appreciated the work I made.
  • For the majority of my life, I drew non-digital art. The first medium I liked and got "good" at was colored pencils, then I improved my skills with watercolors. To this day, those are still my favorite media to use.
  • For some reason I used to look down on digital art a little. I felt it took less skill to do, because you were able to just undo something you didn't like. Of course now I know it takes just as much skill to do digital art as it does to do non-digital art.
  • Lately I feel my non-digital art is at a standstill, or that I can't seem to get any better at making it look more realistic. I think this is because of my shift in focus to digital art and my inability to go to college.
  • When I do non-digital art, I like to do portraits the most. I like to give the portraits as gifts, too.
  • I didn't start doing digital art with a tablet until a little before Generation 4 news came out. Before then, my digital art was limited to what I could make in Microsoft Paint, where I mostly made sprites of monsters and other things.
  • Though the artwork I make now is very stylized, my ultimate goal is to become capable of making photorealistic art.
  • I feel my ability to get digital art done quickly is limited by the fact I seem to only work at a pace determined by how inspired / motivated I feel at the time. I'd like to be able to get past this.
  • I'm extremely hesitant to try new art tools / programs. I get very attached to the programs / tools I use normally, and will almost never stray from them. For example, I've had a new tablet to use since Christmas, but I haven't even opened the box yet. I'm worried it won't be as good as my current, more simplistic, tablet, despite the tablet being several years old.
  • I wish I could work on more things than just Pokémon art all the time, but I haven't been motivated to draw anything else.
  • I'm terrible at giving advice about art and explaining how I did something. I think it may be because, when it comes to art, I just "do" things and don't think about them too much. This is an odd contrast to the rest of my life, where I think about pretty much every little detail before doing something.

... If I think of more later I'll post them, I guess.
 
Gleafeon said:
-I started drawing better at the age of 6.
Click to expand...

I envy the ones who start early. I started late (like I said, less than 2 years experience) and at this stage in life, being in uni and all, the amount of free time to draw has diminished a lot. I've spoken with guys who've done art for 5 or more years and they agree that the sheer amount of free time when they were young was very instrumental in shaping their skill.

Plus at the same time, I'm not so into art that I crazily strive to improve nonstop.
 
First, um, actually, I LOOOOVE your Serperior comic 0_0 and you're very very very very good with all the shadowing stuff. Don't critise (sorry my spellings bad) yourself, you're amazing at drawing.

And for me

I'm 13, and I started drawing as soon when I was really young (if you call sketching random butterflies and animals drawing). I continue to draw, and some months ago I got a Wacom tablet.

here's one of my works

http://sketchpan.com/swf/DrawPlayer_en.swf?uid=chanakim&p_id=&p_dir=&skin_name=&skin_layer=0&skin_layer_img=&item_no=335674&dir=1301008043750&playable=&pan_type=&pan_img=&

FIRST, press play.

Then, see the SECOND BUTTON at the bottom left? press that until it's 64, or else everything would be super slow.
 
Let's see..
I like drawing, on paper and I only realized that, after I had gotten my tablet.

I have a Wacom tablet too.
My hands shake waaay too much when I try and draw on my tablet so I normally just give up on it. It drives me insane that, I can't make a nice straight line.
I try drawing, especially when I get inspired. I always try on my tablet first and then I see myself failing, I give up entirely.

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/079/3/2/dag___meg_by_tibbsocks-d3c27qu.png
^
That's an example of digital. :l

http://th05.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2011/110/c/9/is_it_smiling_and_barking_____by_tibbsocks-d3eh161.jpg
^
Traditional.
(Unfortunately taken with a camera. Couldn't scan it since it was on my desk...)
 
Tibb said:
I can't make a nice straight line.
Click to expand...

IRL use ruler,

on photoshop/gimp, hold Shift in brush tool mode

:)


Straight line by freehand is suffering. Especially if the line is horizontal and I have to tilt my wrist funny on the tablet.



About this from Xous
Xous said:
[*]I'm terrible at giving advice about art and explaining how I did something.
Click to expand...

Generally, advice about technicalities (rule of thirds, brush sensitivity, etc) is easy to teach.

It's stuff about techniques(stroke control, depth perception, etc) that's difficult, because those are the things you really need to demonstrate, not describe.
 
XieRH said:
Plus at the same time, I'm not so into art that I crazily strive to improve nonstop.
Click to expand...

Hehe... yeah, that is exactly what I do though. Art is just the thing I love to do almost every day.
 
Here are somethings:
~I like to doodle.

~I am a terrible drawer.

~I always try to draw my best, and then mess up.
 
Oh,here is another detail:

-Most of the time,I never feel comfortable with the current drawings and draw new ones.
 
Gleafeon said:
Oh,here is another detail:

-Most of the time,I never feel comfortable with the current drawings and draw new ones.
Click to expand...

Typically by the time you get the sketch/doodle up you should already know if you're gonna be comfy with it.

Usually I just scrap outright if I'm not comfortable, unless the art is important enough to warrant a redraw. This actually happened yesterday with my deviantart ID pic. I redrew it in the middle of the night. Because.
 
6-Dimension said:
ok here we go
im really cool
i draw really cool things
i draw really cool things really well
ok that's it
Click to expand...

This.

Naw, but I'm totally sick of all my art and my style, and I hate myself for not being as good as people who are six years older than me (Emmy Cicierega), which I guess is kinda dumb, because I'll probably be better than them by the time I'm 21, but it upsets me that I'm not as good as possible.

Oh but I'm also really lazy, so I don't want to work hard to get there.

I like using pens, but I never have any.

I would post art but I'm too lazy to scan it.

Oh yeah, and I'm he leader of the only art group on PB.
 
LORDY JONES said:
I hate myself for not being as good as people who are six years older than me
Click to expand...


You know, it's normally the opposite with most people. The best artists I know online are pretty much at least half a decade younger than me. When people say it takes half a decade to train art, they're not kidding! Nor are they exaggerating btw. Art requires just about as much training as any other thing out there you can imagine needing to train at (like sports).

But yeah it's not age that matters, the experience and knowledge is what counts.

I guess I still need about 3 years before I can say I've been doing art for half a decade...

A funneh from today: PokeFanJosh commented on a pic I made on DA. I had almost forgotten who PokeFanJosh was. Every time a pokebeach person pings me on DA it takes a while for me to recall that they're pokebeach. I live my life over here separate from DA so it's a bit funny when guys from 1 realm cross over to another realm... did that sound weird?
 
Well...
-I'm way better with a sharp pencil and paper than with a computer drawing program. I mostly am just able to combine pictures or crop them on a computer...
-I kind of hate how my earliest Fakemon pictures turned out, but I refuse to scrap them or redraw them because they look more like Pokemon than my newer ones (especially the Bug types, which now look frighteningly like super close-up pictures of real bugs) and also because the concepts are really good.
-I rarely erase. I usually just scribble over.
-I CANNOT draw people no matter how hard I try. I can only draw them in anime/manga style, and even then they tend to end up looking hydrocephalic. I especially stink at shoes, hands, eyes, and hair...
-I'm absolutely terrible at designing Psychic, Fighting, or Ghost types. The Ghost type part may be because I don't believe in ghosts.
-Though I always find myself struggling to design Grass types that are plants rather than animals, I also always find myself with too many Grass types.
That's about it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top