At 5/29/25 12:07 AM, EudaemonArts wrote:

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.

I’m not discouraged myself since typically putting more effort in gives me enough encouragement to continue illustrating. I will admit though I can sometimes feel intimidated by other artists since I do traditional and not digital, and hence I also don’t always have the time to ink and colour. I feel very confident in my style and anatomy but I also do feel my art lack 3D depth and doesn’t look clean enough to be presented or sold as a result of the use of solely a pencil currently. I’m currently planning on a piece that I can finally sit down and ink and colour and perhaps then I’ll feel like I might not be hit with the ‘DeviantArt quality’ perception and have my skills and the effort I put into a consistent style be recognised better. I’ve learned to put less pressure on myself to make money off of art and that I don’t need to be some legendary and perfect artist at such a young age, though I’ve learned to balance enjoying art and working hard - hence my greater output of consistent quality. I’ll likely create my own post thread when I make it - I’m going to give it my all into being my best art piece so fingers crossed! 🤞

I would very much love to engage and socialise with some other artists here - this is the closest to a general discussion hub I could find so I hope to hear back from some people :)

note: i just realised that being intimidated and being discouraged were the same thing. i did not english in this post lmao

At 6/1/25 01:20 PM, SpicyShark wrote:I’ve been loosing faith in myself as an artist right now, I struggle with hand tremors that make my lines terrible and every time I try to improve it’s only slightly. I’ve already had a lack of motivation recently and seeing me struggle with practicing just makes it worse. At this rate I just feel defeated

At 6/1/25 09:00 PM, pinmoBOT wrote:

At 6/1/25 01:20 PM, SpicyShark wrote:I’ve been loosing faith in myself as an artist right now, I struggle with hand tremors that make my lines terrible and every time I try to improve it’s only slightly. I’ve already had a lack of motivation recently and seeing me struggle with practicing just makes it worse. At this rate I just feel defeated

I'm giving my opinion since I still struggle with hand tremors to this day. Admittedly, there are things that cannot be changed with effort alone. Not only do we have to account for the means, the knowledge, and the practice required to execute any task: we also need to understand our limits and have the will to work around them (or at least try to push those limits as far as we can). The imagination is (and always will be) at odds with reality, so we have to make do with what we have and put in the work in order to bring ideas to life.

Consider that in martial arts, any developing martial artist has to train their whole body and push its limits in order to gain proper form. When I was younger and did taekwondo, I had to stretch my legs every day so I could do split kicks. Not everyone is flexible off the bat, so I had to consistently push my limits to do full splits because there was no other way around it. I did this because if I didn't, I wouldn't earn my belts. This is why discipline, perseverance, and self-control are core values of the art.

Drawing is not as restrictive as doing martial arts. There are many approaches to drawing that can yield all sorts of different outcomes. In order to develop your drawing skills, you have to find a method that works for you, but you can only do that by continuing to draw new subjects and studying other artists you wish to pursue. If you draw the same thing over and over again, you will not learn anything new. You will be going through what you already know and essentially learn nothing. You have to keep pushing. Find a new subject to draw. Draw an abstract pattern. Draw silhouettes. Draw animals. Draw inanimate objects. Draw something without even using your eyes (it apparently develops spatial awareness and improves motor skills). If you don't know what to pursue, then look outward. Look at art to get ideas. Use the forums. Find resources. Go to live drawing sessions. Take risks. What matters is that you find the will to at least put the work in if you want to achieve something, even when things get rough. No pain, no gain. With drawing, you have little to lose besides your time at least. If you aren't willing to put up with it, then you just have to accept there's no other way forward and that your energy might be better spent doing something else because doing something about it is better than feeling stuck and doing nothing.

At 6/1/25 11:43 AM, VioletGJ wrote:I’m slowly gaining more motivation to practice drawing again. I think just simply letting go of my desire for perfection is bringing back that motivation. I realized what pushed me to make art in the first place and that was to simply bring my imagination to life because it was fun!

I still wanna get to a point where I can make a living off of art but I absolutely won’t achieve that if I constantly ruminate so intensely on my fuck ups. It is just as important to recognize what you are doing right and what you enjoy about making art.

Be proud of what your imagination is capable of bringing to the table!

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?

At 5/28/25 01:07 PM, sleepytart wrote:I feel llike im stagnating a bit art wise and my art hasnt been getting much in the way of views anymore. I know I shouldn't do it for views or people liking it or anything like that but its hard not to think that way sometimes you know?

At 5/27/25 08:56 AM, ShadenLines wrote:

At 5/26/25 11:55 PM, ColinsCreations wrote:
Actually, there are a lot of artists who started later in life. Sure, not all of them became rich, but they earned enough to live comfortably.

In my case it would be "restarted"...I was productive & dedicated throughout my twenties & thirties despite not always being in a perfect place to work. Even got paid here & there.

At 5/20/25 08:00 AM, irkomatose wrote:

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.

thank you so much !!! I'll try that, sometimes i do silly drawpiles with my friends but they do make me a little anxious drawing live where everyone can see my mistakes. but i will try to fight that.
thank you so much i really don't know what to say.

At 6/2/25 12:24 PM, Thetageist wrote:

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?

To help you figure out the problem: what are you more concerned about, skill/tiny mistakes or making your art look as "good" as other people's is to you?

At 4/22/25 06:56 PM, majinkomori wrote:

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.

The biggest issue plaguing me is a lack of interest/motivation to finish an art piece. I find myself tending to primarily do small doodles rather than the full illustrations I used to be able to do on my phone with ibis Paint. Part of it is that I am comparing myself to my inspirations and thinking that I'm not able to reach where they're at with my current skill level, but another part of it is ADHD not letting me stay focused on one thing for too long. I tend to work on one thing, then get an idea for another, and abandon the original idea in favor of this new one, and vice versa. Not something I'm particularly proud of, and it's something I wish I could get better about.

At 6/2/25 12:54 PM, LilFangs wrote:

At 6/2/25 12:24 PM, Thetageist wrote:

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?

To help you figure out the problem: what are you more concerned about, skill/tiny mistakes or making your art look as "good" as other people's is to you?

both perhaps?

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 6/2/25 12:54 PM, LilFangs wrote:

At 6/2/25 12:24 PM, Thetageist wrote:

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?

To help you figure out the problem: what are you more concerned about, skill/tiny mistakes or making your art look as "good" as other people's is to you?

both perhaps?

At 5/28/25 01:07 PM, sleepytart wrote:I feel llike im stagnating a bit art wise and my art hasnt been getting much in the way of views anymore. I know I shouldn't do it for views or people liking it or anything like that but its hard not to think that way sometimes you know?

At 6/2/25 12:31 PM, Thetageist wrote:
If you're worried about losing your passion with art and becoming some kind of human art machine that makes the same thing over and over, I'd say to keep looking for inspiration and art challenges everywhere. Experiment and imitate everything you see to find things to learn from them. That way, you'll always be adding to your work and taking it in new directions.

At 6/3/25 01:19 PM, FunnyPlush wrote:I wish I could just get my comic done, but nope! Now it feels like a total chore to do!
Istg everytime I open a page's project file I either draw at a snail's pace or I rush it to the point that it looks like ass. And I won't get to drawing the next page until like a month later if I'm lucky.

I know just how painful it can be to wait until the next issue of a comic comes out. And for what? I'll be done reading the issue in like 15 minutes at most, and then I'm gonna have to wait for another month for the next one to come out.

At 6/2/25 10:52 PM, ShadenLines wrote:

At 6/2/25 12:31 PM, Thetageist wrote:
If you're worried about losing your passion with art and becoming some kind of human art machine that makes the same thing over and over, I'd say to keep looking for inspiration and art challenges everywhere. Experiment and imitate everything you see to find things to learn from them. That way, you'll always be adding to your work and taking it in new directions.

Thanks for the good advice. Currently I'm returning to lettering & calligraphy after mostly forgetting about it for well over a decade...been thinking it could be a great design element if used correctly. It's not the kinda thing that gets beaucoup views on NG but, well... Drawing & painting girls gets old after 20+ years. 🤷🏼‍♂️ I'm mostly leaving the figure & cheesecake stuff to the younger artists here.

At 6/2/25 10:43 PM, ShadenLines wrote:

At 5/28/25 01:07 PM, sleepytart wrote:I feel llike im stagnating a bit art wise and my art hasnt been getting much in the way of views anymore. I know I shouldn't do it for views or people liking it or anything like that but its hard not to think that way sometimes you know?

One way to break that mindset: stop making stuff to post online, & do it for yourself for a while. Draw/paint/render/etc. just for yourself for several weeks, a few months, maybe a year if you have to. It will give you a chance to figure out why you're an artist, if you need to.

At 6/4/25 12:05 PM, pinmoBOT wrote:High expectations will always lead to frustration or disappointment. Comics are intense because you have to draft panel compositions within panel compositions. Rendering each panel also adds a lot of time and work to making one.
There are many different approaches to making comics, and some of them are more efficient than others. Some people make their comics black & white, not solely because it is an aesthetic choice, but because it gives them more time to draw and focus on the story. Some people forgo drawing elaborate things to focus on writing, and this is common for people who focus on comedy because even if the panels look good, if the comic is supposed to be funny (but isn’t) then you’re screwed. Rendering and adding color is a nice-to-have, but realistically it’s going to take time and effort to bring it somewhere. Adding color tends to be a luxury afforded by publishing or having networks of support that will give you the time and the means to do the work. If you worry about the output being slow, then you either have to cut back or be willing to delegate tasks to bolster productivity. If you’re not willing to make a compromise or cannot make that happen, then you and your audience will have to accept that output will be slow.
To be honest, expectations can be quite off when people are basing their work on production models that aren’t for making comics. “I wanna make a comic that has writing that is as good as this TV show”, but the TV show has a team of like a dozen writers. “I wanna make a comic that looks like this other one”, but it has four people doing writing, sketching, inking and coloring separately OR it was all done by one artist in the span of like 3-5 years.
There’s also the skill aspect. You have to be able to execute something consistently at a steadfast pace, so you have to shorten the amount of time it takes to draw in order to keep up with the breakneck pace of the internet. Some people get around this by simplifying aspects of their work or finding methods that accelerate the drafting process. If you wanna get faster, you should sketch things from observation on a time limit. Ten minutes to fifteen minutes tops drawing entirely separate things to develop your dexterity. Things obviously look bad when you rush them, but in the process of accelerating failure, you’ll be able to troubleshoot what you’re doing wrong and learn to put more focus on the things you actually NEED to convey ideas. I say this because I feel like you have to focus less on making “finished” pieces and more on the visuals conveying the bottom line in a way that feels intentional. Maybe reduce the amount of panels you’re drawing and lean in more on the text, or close in on something so that you don’t have to worry about drawing a characters face if you’re focusing on the eyes. I write all this because I feel like your drawing needs some work, and if you feel like you’re toiling then that is probably an indicator that whatever you’re doing isn’t working for you. Take a step back and think about what needs to change so that you can make things easier for yourself. Suffering always ain’t a panacea for growth.

At 6/4/25 02:25 PM, FunnyPlush wrote:

At 6/4/25 12:05 PM, pinmoBOT wrote:

My main gripe with how long it's been taken is that the whole story is episodic with an (albeit a bit overblown) overarching plotline and arcs.
I still haven't gotten the 1st issue out.
And I also took like 6 months for a prologue and it's been so long since then that with the way the lore is now I had to retcon it into a pilot.

why couldn't I go with an easier profession.

At 6/5/25 05:14 AM, NightfallGloam wrote:I'd like to start drawing again, but, since April last year, I haven't really done much actual drawing, and have been procrastinating the lessons I'm taking here.
I really want to continue learning and (hopefully, after I've done the lessons and gained the confidence) start posting stuff that I'm actually proud of, instead of uploading things I later end up deleting anyway, but, I can't seem to get in the proper mood to really start drawing at the moment, and now I'm worried I might have actually lost some serious morale since my last upload.

At 6/5/25 02:46 PM, pinmoBOT wrote:

At 6/5/25 05:14 AM, NightfallGloam wrote:I'd like to start drawing again, but, since April last year, I haven't really done much actual drawing, and have been procrastinating the lessons I'm taking here.
I really want to continue learning and (hopefully, after I've done the lessons and gained the confidence) start posting stuff that I'm actually proud of, instead of uploading things I later end up deleting anyway, but, I can't seem to get in the proper mood to really start drawing at the moment, and now I'm worried I might have actually lost some serious morale since my last upload.

Would you mind elaborating as to why you feel unmotivated? Has something occurred since then that is preventing you from carrying on?

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.