At 4/5/25 06:46 PM, TinFoi wrote:Not sure if anyone would respond to this, someone might since I just bumped this one up.

My problem with doing art is sharing it in general. All the sites but this one are just horrible for posting art on, but that's the least of my worries for right now, it's when I actually show it in person, because either they would judge harshly, give fake praises, or destroy it.

I have it with all three, especially with my parents before, I have this old art piece that one of my parents tried talking to me about (which doesn't make sense since they already went through the book, they must've saw that), but before I could get to laying down my argument, they crushed it and were about to toss it in the garbage..

And people wonder why I don't share what I make anymore.

At 4/20/25 02:17 PM, AldilusRex wrote:

At 4/5/25 06:46 PM, TinFoi wrote:Not sure if anyone would respond to this, someone might since I just bumped this one up.

My problem with doing art is sharing it in general. All the sites but this one are just horrible for posting art on, but that's the least of my worries for right now, it's when I actually show it in person, because either they would judge harshly, give fake praises, or destroy it.

I have it with all three, especially with my parents before, I have this old art piece that one of my parents tried talking to me about (which doesn't make sense since they already went through the book, they must've saw that), but before I could get to laying down my argument, they crushed it and were about to toss it in the garbage..

And people wonder why I don't share what I make anymore.

I had issues with my physical art getting destroyed and being damaged, too. You could always hide your work or use a protective covering to keep the paper safe. May I ask what the subject matter normally is in your art that makes people react this way?

At 9/6/23 08:32 AM, Thetageist wrote:Hello!

I was seeing a lot of threads in this forum related to losing motivation, impostor syndrome, and feeling like you’re not enough as an artist. Considering that a lot of the original posters struggled with the same emotions, I wanted to create one place where all the artists who are struggling can talk to each other and see that they’re not alone in their problems, and the others who have come out the other side of those problems can offer advice to every artist, rather than repeating themselves across different threads.

So please, feel free to vent or to share your experiences and advice. You never know who’s going to need it.

At 5/17/25 09:08 PM, SpicyShark wrote:I’ve been feeling frustrated with myself with how I take advice, I feel no matter how much advice I get I take some of it but not all of the advice I’m given, as if I’m gaslighting myself into thinking I’m improving a lot when it’s really just improving slightly. Maybe it’s because I’m a slow learner but it makes me disappointed in myself and makes me wish I was better at using advice

At 5/18/25 08:22 PM, pinmoBOT wrote:

At 5/18/25 12:33 PM, irkomatose wrote:oh hell yeah hi everyone
i suffer from uh. everything listed here and more. it sucks ass.

I want to encourage you to make your style more eclectic and explore other art that compels you. I understand you must like Jhonen Vasquez's work a lot, but your work is being undermined by how much it reminds me of it. If you want to stand out, you should try changing your approach and perhaps explore other forms of shape language. I love Jhonen Vasquez's work as well, but it is so distinct that it casts a shadow over any imitation. It makes your work look like a pastiche, not something that stands on its own, and as a result it makes people give favor to his work and not yours. I know what its like to be frustrated and I get that, you must've put a lot of work in trying to nail the style so my recommendation for you would be to understand what makes his work unique and eclectic. Think of the different kinds of source material he draws inspiration from like: The Matrix films, David Fincher films, Lovecraftian fiction, Tim Burton's Mars Attacks (which is aesthetically much closer to his style than the previous films mentioned), etc. All that and more adds to the visual language he uses to convey features and shapes. I would explore other ways to draw facial features, hands, figures, and use different color palettes to find other ideas you can work with as well. I say this with compassion because I used to draw Invader Zim fanart when I was a kid and made my own OC's in that style, but in order to grow I had to shed that cocoon so I could move on to other things because I can't do Jhonen Vasquez better than himself! You have to try and figure out what speaks to you and try to synthesize something that makes people stop and say "woah, I haven't seen something like this before" you know? It takes work, but if you want to move up on this or any other platform, then try wandering out of your comfort zone to see if you find something new that you can show to other people. I'm pretty sure every artist (including Jhonen) has had to reckon with this in their journey, so you are not alone in this. Keep trying and eventually you will prevail. If that is not the battle you wish to fight, you can always pursue other things. What matters is that you try something new when something else isn't working for you. Doesn't necessarily have to be to "draw more".

At 5/19/25 03:26 PM, irkomatose wrote:

At 5/18/25 08:22 PM, pinmoBOT wrote:

At 5/18/25 12:33 PM, irkomatose wrote:oh hell yeah hi everyone
i suffer from uh. everything listed here and more. it sucks ass.

I want to encourage you to make your style more eclectic and explore other art that compels you. I understand you must like Jhonen Vasquez's work a lot, but your work is being undermined by how much it reminds me of it. If you want to stand out, you should try changing your approach and perhaps explore other forms of shape language. I love Jhonen Vasquez's work as well, but it is so distinct that it casts a shadow over any imitation. It makes your work look like a pastiche, not something that stands on its own, and as a result it makes people give favor to his work and not yours. I know what its like to be frustrated and I get that, you must've put a lot of work in trying to nail the style so my recommendation for you would be to understand what makes his work unique and eclectic. Think of the different kinds of source material he draws inspiration from like: The Matrix films, David Fincher films, Lovecraftian fiction, Tim Burton's Mars Attacks (which is aesthetically much closer to his style than the previous films mentioned), etc. All that and more adds to the visual language he uses to convey features and shapes. I would explore other ways to draw facial features, hands, figures, and use different color palettes to find other ideas you can work with as well. I say this with compassion because I used to draw Invader Zim fanart when I was a kid and made my own OC's in that style, but in order to grow I had to shed that cocoon so I could move on to other things because I can't do Jhonen Vasquez better than himself! You have to try and figure out what speaks to you and try to synthesize something that makes people stop and say "woah, I haven't seen something like this before" you know? It takes work, but if you want to move up on this or any other platform, then try wandering out of your comfort zone to see if you find something new that you can show to other people. I'm pretty sure every artist (including Jhonen) has had to reckon with this in their journey, so you are not alone in this. Keep trying and eventually you will prevail. If that is not the battle you wish to fight, you can always pursue other things. What matters is that you try something new when something else isn't working for you. Doesn't necessarily have to be to "draw more".

than you for the advice !! i actually was worried that my more recent art was moving away from his influence but maybe that was actually a good thing. I'll try to think about this for future pieces. though i do wonder which drawings you were looking at when you came to this conclusion cuz a lot of stuff on my page is a little old, so im just curious.
my newer stuff has been kind of influenced by a few more stuff rather than just vasquez works (a lot of pikmin fanart if you're curious) i again was worrying that was a bad thing, but I'll try to maybe embrace it.
thanks !!

At 5/20/25 12:37 AM, pinmoBOT wrote:I made the post in response to your most recent work; the last 5 pieces uploaded to the art section. It is worth mentioning that I am not familiar with Pikmin so that might have been lost on me, which isn’t your fault. Keep cataloguing stuff and adding to the mix. Create mood boards. Cultivate an aesthetic. If one is cooking but doesn’t know what to make, then they find a recipe to follow so they can try it out. I used to watch my friends draw and I would learn many things about their process. I had a close friend of mine who would draw with a pen straight onto paper without sketching anything. I saw him gesture the motions he would make and rehearse what he would do before drawing lines. He would focus on picturing what he saw on the page while exceeding caution around overlapping areas, etc. It was very different to my own method, which was very blobby and messy. He and I made joke doodles in which we tried to imitate each other and in the process we learned new ways to approach doing work. Perhaps it could be of benefit to find other artists with overlapping interests who stream on occasion which you could observe and learn new methods from, or even better, find a group of friends and make something like a drawpile where you can doodle with low stakes and draw over each others work. That was real fun to me and I learned a lot when doing that. There are many artists out there on Newgrounds. See what you can find and learn from your favorite chefs. It also can’t hurt to ask questions when they come up. A teacher once told me long ago “If you ever feel dumb for asking questions, you’ll feel even dumber not knowing the answer to anything” so have at it. Remember though: be mindful and be reasonable. I know this is a lot, but I I want you to have courage, keep your head high, and when you can, get cooking.

At 5/23/25 08:18 PM, SpicyShark wrote:
I’m probably gonna go to traditional for this cause I really hate the proportions on my anatomy and I need to practice more. Still though it feels like I can’t improve and I gaslight myself into thinking I’m taking criticism well when I’m really just emotionally responding to it well

At 9/9/23 12:28 PM, vlsrb wrote:

At 9/9/23 09:20 AM, MondoBilby wrote:I'm having a bit of trouble getting myself to work on a comic I really want to make. I've been having ideas and making plans for it for maybe a couple years now, and I really want to get started on making it, but I'm scared to commit to something I'm not even sure will work out. I'm worried it won't be well written enough or have bad pacing or that after a few days I'll start to dislike it, and I know that these things are perfectly normal and bound to happen for a first comic, but I get so embarrassed when I make mistakes and I don't want people to think I'm incompetent at what I'm doing. I love getting constructive critisism, but at the same time I'm scared to share the comic to people if I do make it because I don't know if anyone will like it.
Anyone have any tips on how to overcome these feelings?

Honestly, I could have written this. I very frequently struggle with a lot of the things you mentioned here.

Don't know if it's going to be helpful, but a piece of advice I could give you (and that I should really start following myself) is: just do it. The only way your story is going to be brought into existence is if you draw it, page after page after page - no other sequence of events will lead to that outcome. Is it going to be perfect? No, you've said as much yourself. But nothing is ever perfect, not even published graphic novels by professional artists. Better to put in the effort to have your imperfect ideas actually exist in the real world than to cultivate an unobtainable platonic ideal stuck in your head, never to be seen by anyone.

I'm reminded of something I read a long time ago in, of all things, a Cracked article. To paraphrase: imagine two writers who both have a similar idea, but writer A pumps out 1000 words a day and writer B just endlessly thinks about their story and waits for the "perfect" moment to start working on it. One year later, A has the first draft of a novel and B has nothing.

Hope this was even remotely of use!

At 5/24/25 02:43 PM, AbstractOutliers wrote:I was going to make my own thread about this, but was worried it may have already been made. Don't wanna spam. Plus, it is discouraging, so fits here too.

So, what would you do if you noticed an anatomical issue after being mostly done with a piece? You have already rendered the majority of it. It would likely just barely be faster to fix than to just restart. This might be a me thing, but it's definitely because of the breaks I've taken between. A lot of things popped up, so I've been working on this in bursts over the last 4 months. And this time, I noticed it. If I just finished the piece quicker, was done and then noticed, it'd be easier to say "well what's done is done, I'll fix it when I redraw it next time"
It's hard to keep the momentum currently.
It's not horrendous. But I tried to do an angle, that ended up making a bit of a bobble head effect. Her shoulders looked too small.
Any advice to get over it would be appreciated , or similar experience. Either way, nice to rant about. Thanks for listening.

At 5/25/25 02:23 AM, SourCherryJack wrote:

At 5/24/25 02:43 PM, AbstractOutliers wrote:I was going to make my own thread about this, but was worried it may have already been made. Don't wanna spam. Plus, it is discouraging, so fits here too.

So, what would you do if you noticed an anatomical issue after being mostly done with a piece? You have already rendered the majority of it. It would likely just barely be faster to fix than to just restart. This might be a me thing, but it's definitely because of the breaks I've taken between. A lot of things popped up, so I've been working on this in bursts over the last 4 months. And this time, I noticed it. If I just finished the piece quicker, was done and then noticed, it'd be easier to say "well what's done is done, I'll fix it when I redraw it next time"
It's hard to keep the momentum currently.
It's not horrendous. But I tried to do an angle, that ended up making a bit of a bobble head effect. Her shoulders looked too small.
Any advice to get over it would be appreciated , or similar experience. Either way, nice to rant about. Thanks for listening.

The good news regardless of what you decide to do with this drawing is you've noticed an issue, next step is for your next drawing to look out for and plan to avoid this sort of anatomical issue in the future. Whether that means catching it earlier, utilizing references, or building compositions that will work better to capture what you're going for.

As for this instance, depending on the severity of the issue and importance of the piece, I might just push on, finish the drawing and post it. But if it's too critical an error and a simple fix is absolutely impossible and I don't want to redraw it. I'd just move on. There are other drawings to be made at all times; it's good to not be precious with your art, you can always move on and destroy something that isn't working, and come back to the idea later.
That being said, if this is a digital piece, I'm willing to bet there's some editing you can figure out to fix your problem that would be faster than complete starting over. If I'm wrong and there isn't, since you already know most of how you want to do this drawing you can probably draw it a lot faster a second time.
Hard to give feedback on these types of issues without seeing the WIP in front of us.

At 5/26/25 10:52 PM, ShadenLines wrote:I rarely draw or paint anything these days, but I do have reasons.... They're not all pleasant. Without going into details, let's just say that while I do own property I am technically homeless (my parcel doesn't have a building); I was trying to get it ready for a foundation to be dug & poured, but chronic health conditions are acting up now. Another problem to be solved.

The above are all legit reasons to not do any art. Artmaking takes mental energy, & these days I usually don't have much of it to spare. What worries me is the possibility that once I'm settled one way or another, I may not feel the urge to create anymore...it could disappear & never come back.

Can't help but wonder: is being an artist a young person's pursuit?

There are too many examples of aging painters/sculptors/singers/etc. who lose their inner fire & start to do the same thing over & over... They become technicians. One-trick ponies. I don't ever want to live like that.

At 9/6/23 08:32 AM, Thetageist wrote:Hello!

I was seeing a lot of threads in this forum related to losing motivation, impostor syndrome, and feeling like you’re not enough as an artist. Considering that a lot of the original posters struggled with the same emotions, I wanted to create one place where all the artists who are struggling can talk to each other and see that they’re not alone in their problems, and the others who have come out the other side of those problems can offer advice to every artist, rather than repeating themselves across different threads.

So please, feel free to vent or to share your experiences and advice. You never know who’s going to need it.

At 5/29/25 05:24 AM, LilFangs wrote:Hope it's okay to butt in, I just feel like I'm stagnating and like art maybe isn't for me? I've been drawing since I was 14 and sure I've improved in those years but it feels like it's not enough? Honestly I don't know if my art is even good at this point, I love to make art but it's like i'm too much of an perfectionist to even enjoy it to the fullest?