With a little bit of time spent without drawing, I forgot a lot of things. By the time I got back into it, I felt as if I was a newbie again. I got back onto DA and actually posted my stuff, which got praise, and I meandered along contentedly. Then I realized I wanted to be better. I follow a lot of good artists on DA, all with their own unique style. The more I see of their work the more I want to improve on my own. Initially, I thought my problem wasn't drawing, but coloring. I'm okay at coloring with colored pencils, can't paint to save a life, and was terrible at using photoshop. Since I liked the clean look photoshop provided, I tried to train myself to perfect this, to no avail.
See, my problem wasn't just coloring: it was the whole thing.
Now, I'm not saying I'm a bad artist. Even I think I'm decent, but I'm not where I want to be. An artist should work at their pace, going for a goal only if they want to. If they don't want to be at a certain peak just yet, if they're content where they are, then they won't complain and they'll chug along like they just don't care. This is a moment to leave them alone and let them. If an artist is like me, wanting to improve, aspiring to a goal, and willing to work their way towards it: this is the time to critique. Right now, my stuff just isn't up to par with what I want it to be and, while I find it decent as it is, I am willing and ready to move forward.
The problem however is I started off wrong. I used the wrong media to practice, thinking: if I'm only going to be drawing cartoons I should use only cartoons as a reference. I've taken a bit of advice from Tom Preston and Tracyjb: I'm starting over.
Literally, the past week has been nothing, but gesture drawing and...drawing hyenas because I want to use them in a comic...but that aside. I have been drawing real things rather than cartoons and I already see improvement. I still need a lot of practice, but anatomy makes a little more sense now (especially on hyenas) and my sketches are a little more fluid than they were before. I feel like I can actually improve and I'm hoping that with a little more practice in general (drawing backgrounds, drawing animals, drawing inanimate objects, etc.) I'll get even better.
This said, I may upload my practice sketches and I'm still working on Project E.T., but I won't be uploading any serious work for awhile.
Wish me luck and have a great day!
