Your very welcome!
I remember seeing that one a while back, to me although its very awesome of you to record that, speed paints like that really demoralize me. I'm not good at seeing a video and knowing "oh thats when the artist does THAT technique!" I really only learn anything when theirs commentary because I honestly don't know any techniques. I've tried so many times doing the (for lack of a better term) "put down some random color and values and see what you can make, like looking into clouds" trick and it was so frustrating to me, I guess I'm a drawing guy, because I neither had the ability to see or have the techniques to be able to paint it. I really have no idea how you pulled such perfect anatomy out of the air like that, the atmosphere, gesture and composition look so perfectly planed out. And when I go to paint I always hesitate thinking " no that not what they did in the video!" instead of what comes natural to me and I end up with a worse result. Although I really want to thank you for making the video, it really makes me even more confused how you did it, none of the techniques from what I can tell are familiar to me and I have no idea what to think when doing it and I can only paint if its exactly from a photo.
I remember seeing that one a while back, to me although its very awesome of you to record that, speed paints like that really demoralize me. I'm not good at seeing a video and knowing "oh thats when the artist does THAT technique!" I really only learn anything when theirs commentary because I honestly don't know any techniques. I've tried so many times doing the (for lack of a better term) "put down some random color and values and see what you can make, like looking into clouds" trick and it was so frustrating to me, I guess I'm a drawing guy, because I neither had the ability to see or have the techniques to be able to paint it. I really have no idea how you pulled such perfect anatomy out of the air like that, the atmosphere, gesture and composition look so perfectly planed out. And when I go to paint I always hesitate thinking " no that not what they did in the video!" instead of what comes natural to me and I end up with a worse result. Although I really want to thank you for making the video, it really makes me even more confused how you did it, none of the techniques from what I can tell are familiar to me and I have no idea what to think when doing it and I can only paint if its exactly from a photo.
Hmm, so what if you make a sketch first? It's how I did it with my latest - www.youtube.com/watch?v=u49LCy… . That way you don't have to guess everything, there is already a base and of course you can always use reference, I certainly did (I had Google Images open on my other screen after I searched for "red fox").
The thing is, it's all practise and daring, and persisting. We all have that internal voice that tells us we're not good enough, or that the artist who inspired you is so much better and that there's no point in even trying. Also, while I'm speedpainting I tend to hit several moments where I think it's starting to look bad, but I push through those moments and just keep painting. I think that's a big part of it - simply pushing on. Keep going even if you think it's not going anywhere, don't be afraid to pick a large brush and make drastic changes if that's what's needed. Work from big to small, try not to put any limitations or expectations on yourself.
It's possible that you simply have a knack for drawing that you don't have for painting, but I find that hard to believe. I think you're just much more familiar with drawing, it's your comfort zone and you've done it enough to feel like you know what you're doing. If you want to get better at painting, you'll simply have to do it more. And by the way - painting from a photo is not a bad thing at all. It's great practise in fact, and you probably should paint from reference a few times before trying to paint from imagination. It's hard enough to come up with something yourself entirely, and it's even harder if you have little to no previous experience doing it.
The thing is, it's all practise and daring, and persisting. We all have that internal voice that tells us we're not good enough, or that the artist who inspired you is so much better and that there's no point in even trying. Also, while I'm speedpainting I tend to hit several moments where I think it's starting to look bad, but I push through those moments and just keep painting. I think that's a big part of it - simply pushing on. Keep going even if you think it's not going anywhere, don't be afraid to pick a large brush and make drastic changes if that's what's needed. Work from big to small, try not to put any limitations or expectations on yourself.
It's possible that you simply have a knack for drawing that you don't have for painting, but I find that hard to believe. I think you're just much more familiar with drawing, it's your comfort zone and you've done it enough to feel like you know what you're doing. If you want to get better at painting, you'll simply have to do it more. And by the way - painting from a photo is not a bad thing at all. It's great practise in fact, and you probably should paint from reference a few times before trying to paint from imagination. It's hard enough to come up with something yourself entirely, and it's even harder if you have little to no previous experience doing it.
Very interesting sketch of a fox, thank you for recording it!
I don't think its from lack of experience, I've done hundreds of paintings. Hundreds from digital alone and hundreds from traditional alone so I've put in at least some mileage. I've tried sketching before hand,doing tight lineart, drawing with the brush, photo-bashing my own photos, working in multiple layers or just one and nothing. I've tried doing thumbnails, photo reference, value drawings, preliminary sketches,plein air, color theory, color studies and still nothing. I can't think of any tricks I haven't done. I've done so many still lifes even a art teacher would cringe. ( probably not, but still a lot of boring paintings I learned nothing from.) I feel all I do is practice, I can't do a single finished image to save my life.
For me, painting is super mentally painful. The entire process is not enjoyable, some find it very relaxing or therapeutic but I find it insanely stressful. With drawing theirs only so many things to get wrong, painting stresses me because their is SO much to think about. I hear this all the time "Paint in values? Well your colors will suffer, paint in color? Oh well your values will probably suck. you need to draw more! Only draw? Oh then your paintings will suffer. " I can never practice correctly!
In drawing you can draw through form and see whats wrong, Like in your fox sketch I believe I saw you draw boxy shapes and drew details on top of it, I hate in painting to work for hours only to have it covered up to start over again, that kills me, having a revision really kills the little energy in me. I feel like I'm only working on the surface scraping mud while everyone is in the deep exploring. When I don't put expectations on myself I always end up with nothing, I just give up and the painting becomes nothing but ugly blobs and I pretend its professional to keep my sanity, at least when I do that I have some painting, though terrible.
I use references all the time, but no matter what it always seems to be a strict copy of the original photo, so no fantasy was involved. I'll paint things I'm comfortable with and still nothing. I've bought James Gurney's books and dvds trying to understand light and values and I came out a worse painter because of it. I just can't understand lighting, I can SEE it, but not know why or how its there. I can't make anything the way it looks or how I want. I'm very good at persistence, its the only reason I think I got this far, but with others although its HARD its not soul sucking. Picking up the brush only makes me never want to draw after it and trust me, I'm still not comfortable with a pencil. painting makes my part time job look like a video game.
I don't think its from lack of experience, I've done hundreds of paintings. Hundreds from digital alone and hundreds from traditional alone so I've put in at least some mileage. I've tried sketching before hand,doing tight lineart, drawing with the brush, photo-bashing my own photos, working in multiple layers or just one and nothing. I've tried doing thumbnails, photo reference, value drawings, preliminary sketches,plein air, color theory, color studies and still nothing. I can't think of any tricks I haven't done. I've done so many still lifes even a art teacher would cringe. ( probably not, but still a lot of boring paintings I learned nothing from.) I feel all I do is practice, I can't do a single finished image to save my life.
For me, painting is super mentally painful. The entire process is not enjoyable, some find it very relaxing or therapeutic but I find it insanely stressful. With drawing theirs only so many things to get wrong, painting stresses me because their is SO much to think about. I hear this all the time "Paint in values? Well your colors will suffer, paint in color? Oh well your values will probably suck. you need to draw more! Only draw? Oh then your paintings will suffer. " I can never practice correctly!
In drawing you can draw through form and see whats wrong, Like in your fox sketch I believe I saw you draw boxy shapes and drew details on top of it, I hate in painting to work for hours only to have it covered up to start over again, that kills me, having a revision really kills the little energy in me. I feel like I'm only working on the surface scraping mud while everyone is in the deep exploring. When I don't put expectations on myself I always end up with nothing, I just give up and the painting becomes nothing but ugly blobs and I pretend its professional to keep my sanity, at least when I do that I have some painting, though terrible.
I use references all the time, but no matter what it always seems to be a strict copy of the original photo, so no fantasy was involved. I'll paint things I'm comfortable with and still nothing. I've bought James Gurney's books and dvds trying to understand light and values and I came out a worse painter because of it. I just can't understand lighting, I can SEE it, but not know why or how its there. I can't make anything the way it looks or how I want. I'm very good at persistence, its the only reason I think I got this far, but with others although its HARD its not soul sucking. Picking up the brush only makes me never want to draw after it and trust me, I'm still not comfortable with a pencil. painting makes my part time job look like a video game.
I'm curious then - do you actually want to be able to paint, or do you need to for what you wish to do with your art? I mean, it seems you've pretty much given up on painting for yourself, and if it's such a hassle and it's not a necessity then you may as well avoid it.
It still sounds like you're putting yourself up to a really high standard where you want your paintings to be successful or up to a certain level otherwise you "failed". This is a mindset that's doomed to disappoint - you'll never meet your standard, so you'll always feel like you're failing. It's not about success or quality, it's about learning and exploring.
I've never cared much for still lifes, haven't done many of them myself. They bore me and I never felt I was learning much. So what I did instead was learn on the job - take requests or commissions and pull out references for everything I'm painting. The fact that I was doing it for someone else was enough motivation to keep going, as well as push for the best result - plus when doing it this way there is the reward of someone's reaction to your work.
And trust me, I can't make anything look the way it looks in my head either. I know my skill is not up to par with my vision, but I can work to get close to it and I try to appreciate everything I learn on my way there, even if on occasion I will be disappointed and demotivated.
It still sounds like you're putting yourself up to a really high standard where you want your paintings to be successful or up to a certain level otherwise you "failed". This is a mindset that's doomed to disappoint - you'll never meet your standard, so you'll always feel like you're failing. It's not about success or quality, it's about learning and exploring.
I've never cared much for still lifes, haven't done many of them myself. They bore me and I never felt I was learning much. So what I did instead was learn on the job - take requests or commissions and pull out references for everything I'm painting. The fact that I was doing it for someone else was enough motivation to keep going, as well as push for the best result - plus when doing it this way there is the reward of someone's reaction to your work.
And trust me, I can't make anything look the way it looks in my head either. I know my skill is not up to par with my vision, but I can work to get close to it and I try to appreciate everything I learn on my way there, even if on occasion I will be disappointed and demotivated.
Well, yes and mostly no, I love paintings but hate painting so much. Really the only reason I attempt is because the only way to make money in art I like seems to have painting real mandatory. All my inspirations paint so I pretty much feel I have to. I actually REALLY hate painting though, but with the internet making everyone's standards so high, great art isn't a surprise anymore, its expected and it seems everyone wants a similar western painted style , I feel its basically mandatory anymore. As much as as I'd like to feel like exploring and learning I can't understand that mind set. I'm not good enough to even practice with commissions if I don't have the skills to even get one, I feel like I'm lying to myself if I'm not constantly trying to compare myself to pros and when I feel like I'm learning, looking back the image always suffered from it.
I've heard that its good to not have a plan b so you'll just practice art, for me I may suck at painting but I suck even worse at everything else. I have no plan b, so even though I hate it, I don't know what else to do.
Your the first fantasy artist who said that about still lifes! I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates them! I spent almost a year doing nothing but still lifes with painting and I felt so miserable and confused and when I tried to transfer the skills, I found all I could do was random objects. I couldn't learn on the job either though, all the challenges at once was just too much and I never get much reaction from what work I want to make either so its a lose lose situation.
That sucks though, I've always wondered yes artists can get better but do they ever get good to the point where they have the skills to do what they want? At least you have the skills to get your vision materialized, that sucks its not like whats in your head. To me I'm almost always a blank on the page.
I've heard that its good to not have a plan b so you'll just practice art, for me I may suck at painting but I suck even worse at everything else. I have no plan b, so even though I hate it, I don't know what else to do.
Your the first fantasy artist who said that about still lifes! I'm glad I'm not the only one who hates them! I spent almost a year doing nothing but still lifes with painting and I felt so miserable and confused and when I tried to transfer the skills, I found all I could do was random objects. I couldn't learn on the job either though, all the challenges at once was just too much and I never get much reaction from what work I want to make either so its a lose lose situation.
That sucks though, I've always wondered yes artists can get better but do they ever get good to the point where they have the skills to do what they want? At least you have the skills to get your vision materialized, that sucks its not like whats in your head. To me I'm almost always a blank on the page.
Nothing is mandatory in art - you could take your speciality and rock it. You could be an awesome cartoonist, for example, or a storyboard artist. Or a comic book artist that just does the linework. In fact you could make your own comic or book using only your drawing skills. There's plenty of directions you can go where you don't have to paint. You could even team up with a painter and become an "art duo" (others have done this successfully) where one draws and the other paints.
I've never heard of people having a plan B - of course there are people who take a "regular" job to kickstart their artistic career, but most artists I know do art and want to continue doing art. If there is something else you are passionate about you may as well do that. It's the same for me - art is all I have and am good at, I have no idea what I'd do if I didn't do art.
If you can't get commissions you can do requests - that's how I started too. People will always want free art, nobody is going to say no and most people are going to be appreciative regardless of the result exactly because it's free.
Have you tried looking for what actually interests you? It sounds like you might hate painting because all the things you've tried to paint have been boring things that you don't care about. What inspires you? What gives you the urge to draw? Perhaps that's a direction you should be looking.
I've never heard of people having a plan B - of course there are people who take a "regular" job to kickstart their artistic career, but most artists I know do art and want to continue doing art. If there is something else you are passionate about you may as well do that. It's the same for me - art is all I have and am good at, I have no idea what I'd do if I didn't do art.
If you can't get commissions you can do requests - that's how I started too. People will always want free art, nobody is going to say no and most people are going to be appreciative regardless of the result exactly because it's free.
Have you tried looking for what actually interests you? It sounds like you might hate painting because all the things you've tried to paint have been boring things that you don't care about. What inspires you? What gives you the urge to draw? Perhaps that's a direction you should be looking.
I've talked to another artist about what I want to do, I really just want to do dragons, but he showed me that the only thing that makes money with dragons is paintings because no one animates them, theirs concept art (which as you know involves painting.) but, that world is WAY out of my league, I'm too dumb after seeing real pros, and many other reasons. I've considered making my own comic but I suck at writing stories, I still feel I'm not good enough and even though I have a story, I feel it would be wrong because I personally don't read comics. Also my lineart alone is terrible, my crappy painting skills at least hid my awful line art and made my art look kind of done. My skill sets don't match what I want to do.
If I do make any personal project I really just want to make it by myself, I'm not very good at working with others on the same project if its my vision, so probably no duo for me. Everyone I talk to doesn't have the same art interests as me, or if they do, my skills are too bad to work with and they could do better alone.
I think having no plan b is good if your actually good at plan a, when I see your work, even though your better now, it always had a finished look to it even your early art I saw. I can't get that, no matter what skill level I'm at I can't make art that looks like its done and people would want to download it let alone buy it. Mine always looks like a finished step TOWARDS an end result.
I've tried getting requests, I can't even get those either! Miraculously I've gotten some before but nothing came from it, some didn't even comment back and noone wanted work or even requests after. No luck their.
I try painting what interests me all the time, no luck their either. At least in still lifes though it was boring and soul sucking, I had an objective, "heres a thing, paint it." Its so hard because what I want to do I can't get reference for, so I have to think of the image first, which often never happens, so I just stare at a blank page. It irritates me that what I want to do everyone else is having a good time doing it and getting amazing results, surrounded by supporting artists they respect but I'm getting the opposite experience. I hate seeing art I love and knowing I could never do that because among many reasons I don't know what I'm doing or why I'm getting a bad result. Even when I paint dragons the process is still unnatural for me. I've drawn thousands of them and I'm still utterly lost. I'm stuck at a crossroads where, either I try making art that I don't like but I hear sometimes makes money OR make art that is super difficult, the process is very hard and unnatural to me, doesn't pay good or at all, I hate the images I make and others don't respond to, but at least I'm making art that I've seen others make look good that I like.
I don't live in a place that buys fantasy art so I can't do anything locally, my art is clearly not good enough for the internet (even if I practiced a lifetime with my luck by then people would want something else) so no hope for me here either,I can't do storyboards either for a number of reasons, the only thing I've considered doing is amusement park caricatures because at least I've heard it pays well, its funner than dragons even though I don't like the end result even by some pros but its easier to look at a picture and draw it than making stuff up realistically, still I suck very bad at that as well, it wouldn't be fair otherwise.
Sorry for writing a novel, I'm just completely lost. Thank you for all your replies!
If I do make any personal project I really just want to make it by myself, I'm not very good at working with others on the same project if its my vision, so probably no duo for me. Everyone I talk to doesn't have the same art interests as me, or if they do, my skills are too bad to work with and they could do better alone.
I think having no plan b is good if your actually good at plan a, when I see your work, even though your better now, it always had a finished look to it even your early art I saw. I can't get that, no matter what skill level I'm at I can't make art that looks like its done and people would want to download it let alone buy it. Mine always looks like a finished step TOWARDS an end result.
I've tried getting requests, I can't even get those either! Miraculously I've gotten some before but nothing came from it, some didn't even comment back and noone wanted work or even requests after. No luck their.
I try painting what interests me all the time, no luck their either. At least in still lifes though it was boring and soul sucking, I had an objective, "heres a thing, paint it." Its so hard because what I want to do I can't get reference for, so I have to think of the image first, which often never happens, so I just stare at a blank page. It irritates me that what I want to do everyone else is having a good time doing it and getting amazing results, surrounded by supporting artists they respect but I'm getting the opposite experience. I hate seeing art I love and knowing I could never do that because among many reasons I don't know what I'm doing or why I'm getting a bad result. Even when I paint dragons the process is still unnatural for me. I've drawn thousands of them and I'm still utterly lost. I'm stuck at a crossroads where, either I try making art that I don't like but I hear sometimes makes money OR make art that is super difficult, the process is very hard and unnatural to me, doesn't pay good or at all, I hate the images I make and others don't respond to, but at least I'm making art that I've seen others make look good that I like.
I don't live in a place that buys fantasy art so I can't do anything locally, my art is clearly not good enough for the internet (even if I practiced a lifetime with my luck by then people would want something else) so no hope for me here either,I can't do storyboards either for a number of reasons, the only thing I've considered doing is amusement park caricatures because at least I've heard it pays well, its funner than dragons even though I don't like the end result even by some pros but its easier to look at a picture and draw it than making stuff up realistically, still I suck very bad at that as well, it wouldn't be fair otherwise.
Sorry for writing a novel, I'm just completely lost. Thank you for all your replies!