FA+
Shop
How to start in art and why practice is the last step
3 years ago
So, i've been teaching a few people how to do art. More or less beginners. I got a few tips for anyone else who has the time and wants to make art. Doesn't even matter what kind. This should work anyway:
Edit [2023 05 31]:
Dopamine detox: Seems that dopamine is more important than we give it credit. If you can increase your dopamine receptivity, you can do more difficult tasks, including art.
How to do that? - decrease the amount of pleasure you put yourself through. Less video watching, less gaming, dont watch videos while eating, dont browse while using bathroom, ironically (i mean im saying that here), less porn watching, less masturbation, most definitely avoid combining pleasures. Basically - be bored, let yourself be bored, and when it happens its good. Just make sure - dont torture yourself, that will also work, but its needless stress. You want to achieve neutrality, less entertainment, not more suffering. Besides torturing yourself will make it more difficult to resist all sorts of pleasures.
What to expect? - for me, the same day i did it, i didnt watch videos before all the work i wanted to do, so only in the evening, i applied all the things i just recommended and i already could make myself work. Usually it takes so much forcing it can cause a burn out, but that day it was easy. For me, the effect was instant, but i feel another, slower effect, that makes me more relaxed, and just feeling better. Slower i mean that its increasing very slowly
You must not get into pleasures before work! That makes you immediately less receptible to dopamine, and it gets way harder to do otherwise unpleasant tasks. You should reward yourself FOR working.
Lower your expectations. When you start, why do you? Its likely becouse you looked at peoples art and you decide 'i want to do that too' If you are thinking realistically, you'll say that you will take a long time to get there, so you should expect to be able to do a 100th of that. That is wrong. You will be able to do a 1000th at best. Lower your current goal. Draw very low level things, expect them to look nothing like the art that inspired you. When you start you really do start from 0. Imagine the worst art you've seen. Expect that. Its better to be surprised that its better, or that your expectations are met, rather than be frustrated that its not even close to what you want it to be. However, that wont work unless you still have fun.
Have fun. Seems obvious but its a skill of its own. How does one have fun while doing art? And isn't it different for everybody? Well, the second question says that the first can only be answered by you. Keep your expectations low for figuring that answer too. My advice is - low effort, high reward, aka, doodling.
Doodle, but follow a few rules - Don't ever, ever, over-detail a doodle. Don't work on it much. The lines or whatever should be rough, and if you feel frustrated with it, you don't see any easy way to progress, put that one aside, start a new one. They are meant to never be finished. Don't work on it more than an hour. Use low resolution, talking about 1k by 1k at most. In that resolution you wont be able to do much detail. You are supposed to materialize your ideas in a very rough way and keep thinking of them. And at some point you will notice that you end up spending hours upon hours on a doodle, and art will happen spontaneously.
Idea making is also a skill. Nothing in art is given to you from birth, except maybe good eye sight, and lower energy levels. But even then, if you want to do it, you can. Or rather, you are the only one who can decide whether it can or not be done. Anyway, said skill of idea making will start off from 0. So ill give you a hint. In case you draw NSFW like me, write down a list of things you're into, and try to think of a situation where a scene includes multiple. The more limitations ( in this case its your fetishes ), the easier it is to decide what you want it to be. When its super open ended, its way harder.
Make it simpler for yourself, start with orthogonal view, draw characters in simple poses, maybe one character at a time. Use plenty of references. Trace it, becouse looking over it and drawing over it will make you discover very different things. However, don't post traced art, that is very scummy, do it only for learning purposes.
Tools are important, but not as much as you think. You can draw with a professional tablet with a screen that costs multiple thousands of euros. You can draw with an hb (medium softness) pencil on printing paper ( that is how i started ), and take photos if you want to upload. It takes time to master either, and both can produce amazing results. Sure, if you know how to use the tablet, and software, it will be easier, but it has its own drawbacks. It is complex and over-complicated compared to pencil and paper, and ultra expensive. You could also aim for an in between option - and use a cheap screen-less graphic tablet. Either on PC or phone (tried it, its a little wonky, but really cheap for the benefits). Now if you want to actually get something, i have few recommendations:
-> https://www.storexppen.com/buy/artist-12-pro.html <- Its super cheap in comparison, ~200 Eur. Ive been using XP-Pen and i have few complains. For the price, its definitely a good pick. (now would be a good time to get sponsored by XP-Pen... )
-> https://www.storexppen.com/buy/deco-m.html <- really cheap, and it even gets cheaper. If you're using it with your phone can only draw vertically, but you get most benefits from PC digital art ( works with IbisXPaint app )
I tried them both.
And if you are going to use PC, Krita is a good option. Has what you need, is free, just has bad blur options and may benefit from optimizing some of the cool features it has like clone layers and transform masks.
By the way, noticed how i didn't use the word 'practice' the whole time? Let me be a bit salty here. A good artist is not necessarily a good teacher. In fact, in most cases, they are really bad at it. Not saying that i'm good at it, but i'm good enough to tell you that practice is not the first step to art. Its the LAST. Once you lower your expectations, set you mind to learning how to have fun all while doodling and making it easy for yourself, have your tools ready and dedicate some time to it, that is when you start drawing. And practice is the result, of doing all of this successfully.
Need be, ask me for advice, even if you don't know what is wrong ( ill be able to tell ). I mean i'm already teaching people, and i enjoy it. Also, comment if you got any more questions
Edit [2023 05 31]:
Dopamine detox: Seems that dopamine is more important than we give it credit. If you can increase your dopamine receptivity, you can do more difficult tasks, including art.
How to do that? - decrease the amount of pleasure you put yourself through. Less video watching, less gaming, dont watch videos while eating, dont browse while using bathroom, ironically (i mean im saying that here), less porn watching, less masturbation, most definitely avoid combining pleasures. Basically - be bored, let yourself be bored, and when it happens its good. Just make sure - dont torture yourself, that will also work, but its needless stress. You want to achieve neutrality, less entertainment, not more suffering. Besides torturing yourself will make it more difficult to resist all sorts of pleasures.
What to expect? - for me, the same day i did it, i didnt watch videos before all the work i wanted to do, so only in the evening, i applied all the things i just recommended and i already could make myself work. Usually it takes so much forcing it can cause a burn out, but that day it was easy. For me, the effect was instant, but i feel another, slower effect, that makes me more relaxed, and just feeling better. Slower i mean that its increasing very slowly
You must not get into pleasures before work! That makes you immediately less receptible to dopamine, and it gets way harder to do otherwise unpleasant tasks. You should reward yourself FOR working.
Lower your expectations. When you start, why do you? Its likely becouse you looked at peoples art and you decide 'i want to do that too' If you are thinking realistically, you'll say that you will take a long time to get there, so you should expect to be able to do a 100th of that. That is wrong. You will be able to do a 1000th at best. Lower your current goal. Draw very low level things, expect them to look nothing like the art that inspired you. When you start you really do start from 0. Imagine the worst art you've seen. Expect that. Its better to be surprised that its better, or that your expectations are met, rather than be frustrated that its not even close to what you want it to be. However, that wont work unless you still have fun.
Have fun. Seems obvious but its a skill of its own. How does one have fun while doing art? And isn't it different for everybody? Well, the second question says that the first can only be answered by you. Keep your expectations low for figuring that answer too. My advice is - low effort, high reward, aka, doodling.
Doodle, but follow a few rules - Don't ever, ever, over-detail a doodle. Don't work on it much. The lines or whatever should be rough, and if you feel frustrated with it, you don't see any easy way to progress, put that one aside, start a new one. They are meant to never be finished. Don't work on it more than an hour. Use low resolution, talking about 1k by 1k at most. In that resolution you wont be able to do much detail. You are supposed to materialize your ideas in a very rough way and keep thinking of them. And at some point you will notice that you end up spending hours upon hours on a doodle, and art will happen spontaneously.
Idea making is also a skill. Nothing in art is given to you from birth, except maybe good eye sight, and lower energy levels. But even then, if you want to do it, you can. Or rather, you are the only one who can decide whether it can or not be done. Anyway, said skill of idea making will start off from 0. So ill give you a hint. In case you draw NSFW like me, write down a list of things you're into, and try to think of a situation where a scene includes multiple. The more limitations ( in this case its your fetishes ), the easier it is to decide what you want it to be. When its super open ended, its way harder.
Make it simpler for yourself, start with orthogonal view, draw characters in simple poses, maybe one character at a time. Use plenty of references. Trace it, becouse looking over it and drawing over it will make you discover very different things. However, don't post traced art, that is very scummy, do it only for learning purposes.
Tools are important, but not as much as you think. You can draw with a professional tablet with a screen that costs multiple thousands of euros. You can draw with an hb (medium softness) pencil on printing paper ( that is how i started ), and take photos if you want to upload. It takes time to master either, and both can produce amazing results. Sure, if you know how to use the tablet, and software, it will be easier, but it has its own drawbacks. It is complex and over-complicated compared to pencil and paper, and ultra expensive. You could also aim for an in between option - and use a cheap screen-less graphic tablet. Either on PC or phone (tried it, its a little wonky, but really cheap for the benefits). Now if you want to actually get something, i have few recommendations:
-> https://www.storexppen.com/buy/artist-12-pro.html <- Its super cheap in comparison, ~200 Eur. Ive been using XP-Pen and i have few complains. For the price, its definitely a good pick. (
-> https://www.storexppen.com/buy/deco-m.html <- really cheap, and it even gets cheaper. If you're using it with your phone can only draw vertically, but you get most benefits from PC digital art ( works with IbisXPaint app )
I tried them both.
And if you are going to use PC, Krita is a good option. Has what you need, is free, just has bad blur options and may benefit from optimizing some of the cool features it has like clone layers and transform masks.
By the way, noticed how i didn't use the word 'practice' the whole time? Let me be a bit salty here. A good artist is not necessarily a good teacher. In fact, in most cases, they are really bad at it. Not saying that i'm good at it, but i'm good enough to tell you that practice is not the first step to art. Its the LAST. Once you lower your expectations, set you mind to learning how to have fun all while doodling and making it easy for yourself, have your tools ready and dedicate some time to it, that is when you start drawing. And practice is the result, of doing all of this successfully.
Need be, ask me for advice, even if you don't know what is wrong ( ill be able to tell ). I mean i'm already teaching people, and i enjoy it. Also, comment if you got any more questions
Caustic
~makahest
some good advice here, not just for art either!
