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Art skill level is a gradient, it improves with study and practice. There are many areas to study and practice, and each can progress at different rates. Some people don't know how to progress, or don't know that they don't know how to progress. I hope this thread will help!
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The focus of this thread will be:
Avoiding common pitfalls in an art journey
Directed practice over random, unfocused practice
Finding communities of supportive, healthy peers
Art tutorials/teachers/mentors
Resources for reference
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Avoiding common pitfalls in an art journey
Directed practice over random, unfocused practice
Finding communities of supportive, healthy peers
Art tutorials/teachers/mentors
Resources for reference
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Skill requirements vary by field. Most of my knowledge is for digital illustration/concept art, and that's where most of my advice is focused. Traditional artists, 3D artists, animators, and others, please share your thoughts and links to your favorite resources!
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I am emphatically exclaiming that using reference is not cheating. Most artists make extensive use of reference! When artists draw w/o reference, it's often because they have already studied/drawn the subject hundreds or thousands of times! Learn to draw from ref and w/o
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Everyone learns differently, there is no universal approach to follow in your art journey. Art school often isn’t required. It tells you what to learn, and you network with your peers who can later find you work, but in the US it usually comes with unreasonable debt.
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Finding out what to study is the first step, after that put in the time and effort to study and practice. Do what you need to to stick with it! Even Amundsen says to learn to love to study, others suggest scheduling "free play" time.
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Take a quick look at Suzanne Helmigh’s art journey. Early on she was drawing without studying, and while there may have been some progress, the pace accelerated with dedicated studying and practice
https://twitter.com/SHelmigh/status/1235514052522250246
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https://twitter.com/SHelmigh/status/1235514052522250246
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Art journeys are not trivial, it's easy to become frustrated as you become aware of how much you do not know, and what you cannot do (yet). Many artists have resonated with this chart as they progress, and feel worse about their work than they did at lower skill levels.
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Currently just about everything needed is out there, but many popular art channels are more about entertainment than education, and there's a pervasive belief that buying the perfect brush pack or tablet will improve the quality of your art. There are no shortcuts
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Learn to work with good posture and how to loosely hold your stylus, how to move your arm rather than just your wrist/fingers. It's more difficult in the short term, but in the long term it could save you from chronic pain and reduced functionality/health in your career!
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You don't need a tablet/screen tablet to learn to art good, you can learn the fundamentals with paper and pencils. It's often encouraged! You don't need Photoshop- Procreate, Clip Studio, etc, are all viable.
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If you want a cintiq but cannot afford the premier brand or a giant size- the budget brand screen tablets are just fine, and many artists only end up using a small portion of their tablet surface area anyway. If have access to Black Friday deals, try waiting for those
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How do you get started in art? I suggest learning to sketch from reference & learning the fundamentals of art.
FZD has a great video on the intro to sketching, you don’t have to watch all his YouTube videos (you can), he does a fresh start at Ep101. https://fzdschool.com/blog_posts/sketching-101
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FZD has a great video on the intro to sketching, you don’t have to watch all his YouTube videos (you can), he does a fresh start at Ep101. https://fzdschool.com/blog_posts/sketching-101
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https://gumroad.com/alexhuneycutt this is a great guide, it directs you to both free and paid educational materials that cover most of the fundamentals. This is meant to take years to practice these lessons, don't rush through it. It has both a free and paid version of the guide.
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There's also http://drawabox.com to focus on learning perspective, which some consider to be the most difficult skill to advance. http://Ctrlpaint.com is another excellent broad view of the fundamentals. Both have free and paid versions.
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MtG artist Swatches also has a good series of tutorials on the fundamentals, which give some functional advice for practical application that is often overlooked in other tutorials.
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MtG/Riot/Blizzard artist Forrest Imel has a fundamental series and a design video on his gumroad, with the first video free on his YouTube channel to see if you want to hear more from him. It’s great and touches on many of the things in this thread.
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Hue Teo is an instructor at CGMA and a concept artist, he has a fundamentals course that is fairly light on lecture and it focuses on exercises for you to do for the next year or so (if you follow their timetable). It’s $70 but a good all-in-one.
https://gumroad.com/hueteo?sort=highest_rated
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https://gumroad.com/hueteo?sort=highest_rated
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Proko has an excellent video on an intro to gesture drawing, and he is also well known for his videos on anatomy for figure drawing as well. He also has an art podcast that you may enjoy.
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Another gesture study instructor to check out is Steve Hutson , where they talk as they do their studies, giving more information as they go.
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Marco Bucci has an excellent series called 10 minutes to better painting, many of which will help artists of most levels to improve their results.
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Artstation is currently offering a large selection of courses/lectures/tutorials from their vault for free. It is included in a link below to @teacup_art’s tweet thread on resources.
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If you are willing to pay for education, schoolism is about $300/yr, which is relatively inexpensive, and last year that had a sale for $100 off during the holidays.
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Design is largely important in making your work look interesting/appealing, even if you don't intend on being a concept artist, it will still help in other fields like illustration. Find the Design, Thumb War, Visual Remix, Wield and Weld lectures on https://www.autodestruct.com/
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DotA put up a free design workshop that goes over how they design their characters, it holds a lot of interesting and useful info.
https://support.steampowered.com/kb/9334-YDXV-8590/dota-2-workshop-character-art-guide
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https://support.steampowered.com/kb/9334-YDXV-8590/dota-2-workshop-character-art-guide
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This is one of my favorite lectures, it puts together how the fundamentals can be utilized as design choices to hit on an emotion and/or communicate with the audience
(the audio sucks, admittedly- notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1679Lea_VF2eIwqnUGccSenBJDUbZuAw3Y8BDJKBtQl0/edit )
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(the audio sucks, admittedly- notes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1679Lea_VF2eIwqnUGccSenBJDUbZuAw3Y8BDJKBtQl0/edit )
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If you are having difficulty progressing on your own, consider hiring a mentor. Instructors like @AllieBriggsArt will offer mentorships for artists of all skill levels, including those who are working on their fundamentals.
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Other mentors are available for those who are on the cusp of a professional career, and need help down the home stretch. They're not inexpensive, but they can make the difference. @abigbat and @EvenMAmundsen.
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Other artists that I have heard offer mentorships- Clint Clearley, Anna Steinbauer, Anthony Jones, Adum Duff, Tyler Edlin, Justin Gerard, Sal TheDarkCloak, & Cloverkin. http://www.smarterartschool.com & https://www.theworkshopacademy.net/ have great, but a bit pricey, courses
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It’s important to reach out to mentors before hiring them on their Patreons! Some are already at or over capacity, or they may not be a great fit for providing the areas that you wish to grow in.
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It's dangerous to go alone, find peers to study with. Most art streamers on Twitch have a Discord server, and most servers have sections to study together. Art Corner is another great public artist Discord to consider. (Thread continues- click "show replies")
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Networking is important, but be genuine. Don't make relationships just in transactional nature. Hang out on Twitch art streams and make friends with the streamer and their viewers. Support them because you want to support them, not to obligate them to help you.
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Nobody wants to work with a jerk, regardless of their skill level. Part of why "it's who you know" is because people want to avoid those who are difficult to work with. It's possible to rebuild a reputation, but it's easier to not have to.
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The people that are in your peer learning group may someday be your colleagues or bosses. They'll remember how you acted in the past, and project that to the future. Try to leave a positive impression, be kind and helpful. You can help others as much as they can help you.
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As mentioned earlier, these steps will not work for everyone. People like @jayaxer and @forrestimel will have advice that worked for them and deviated from the more typical guidance above, and they're incredibly skilled and successful. Their paths may or may not work for you.
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After you have skilled up a lot, how to use reference effectively varies from person to person. There's huge room for discussion. Some people build theirs in Blender and Daz3D, or maquettes, or only at the end of the process to fix something. There's no definitive way!
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How you balance gesture and reference, use of 3D, use of photo reference, maquettes, etc, will impact your final product. This is for music, but it stands for art as well- change the process, change the result.
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If you're brainstorming ideas of what to work on, allow for humor to direct you, don't settle for your first idea, relax and give yourself time. Be productive and focused in the closed mode, but be free and creative in the open mode-
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This thread is only talking about improving skill level, not pricing for skill levels. If someone's having trouble finding clients at under ~$10/hr, IMO they'll benefit more from either improving their skill level (or marketing), rather than having clients for under ~$10/hr.
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Everyone has bills to pay, that's understandable. Many artists opt to have a job that pays more than minimum wage, and train up art in the off hours- until they can make the switch to full time art at higher pay. Everyone's different, but don't ignore this possibility
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If an artist has boosted their skill to the level of *anyone* in r/fantasyartists, they should be able to find clients at $30+/hr. If they cannot, it means they are lacking in marketing, which is discussed in the prior thread-
https://twitter.com/MooCheese/status/1381635299604901893
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https://twitter.com/MooCheese/status/1381635299604901893
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Some will say 'skill is irrelevant because look at (example)'s work, they're not super skilled but they're making money doing what they do'- this is because of marketing. They found something that an audience wants, even if it isn’t derived from their artistic skill level.
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Thanks to my awesome friends, all amazing people and great artists in their own right, for helping me review/revise this thread.
@Teacup_Art
@Joby_Dorr
@WadeAcuff
@JohnDerekMurphy
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@Teacup_Art
@Joby_Dorr
@WadeAcuff
@JohnDerekMurphy
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There are tons more worthwhile resources out there, please feel free to share your favorites- and look through the thread to see if there are others being posted.
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Disagree with something(s) I wrote? It’s cool, we can disagree without being rude. As I mentioned throughout the thread, there’s no one size fits all approach to art journeys.
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Want this all in one thread? Here you go.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fknhULBcOzQBX7jx1Fmf5VK4qlCeGT-F2QMqc-px5NI/edit
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fknhULBcOzQBX7jx1Fmf5VK4qlCeGT-F2QMqc-px5NI/edit
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