I understand how you feel Dahurg. This happens to all of us. ESPECIALLY when Art becomes work. We don't always enjoy doing what we must for money/survival. I will tell you how I work through this in my world, maybe it will help. But I know everyone is different. For me, I always just remember but much more comfortable I am making art than slinging pizzas or talking to customers face to face. I count my blessings and acknowledge that even though it isn't worse, I'm still allowed to feel frustrations and such. Even If I don't love every work I create, I remind myself if it's not for me, it doesn't need to make me happy, it needs to make my customer happy, and I can at least take pride in that.
On a less businessy note, perhaps if you do find time, draw something YOU want. Making personal art and intensely studying what it is about others work that sparks joy for me and learning from them, helps me love my art again. Whenever I feel a slog it means its time to progress my skills or learn something new.
Also, for my brain at least, having different galleries/ separating the work from the passion can help as well. So there's less pressure on your mind to love every piece.
Art is a lifetime journey. It's hard to accept that the work/passion project will never be complete. It isn't just one piece, its the whole lifetime of creating.
I hope you can find your spark again! Don't be too hard on yourself.

Thank you, I appreciate the advice.
I will be honest here and say I may need mental help. I can't get my antidepressants refilled and I can't see a doctor to get PERMISSION for a refill until June of NEXT YEAR, and well, I have never had ANY kind of luck with therapy. I think I am just stuck in a life rut, and that is spilling over to my art. The good news is that I am getting more and more comfortable leaving my house (working through emetophobia-induced agoraphobia), so there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.

I am just tired of it all; tired of feeling like I am going insane, tired of constant anxiety, tired of losing interest in absolutely everything. Art was the one thing I had left. I have all this free time...
Alot of stuff in my life, surrounding me, my friends, and my family, seems to be going down the shitter right now, so it is all just bleh. I am always ready to drop dead at any second, so maybe that's why I gave up on some art stuff. At the same time, I want to improve my art.
It is so very odd.
I think... art just feels like it takes SO MUCH more effort than it used to, even if I regressed. Even if I have a spark of inspiration or motivation to draw something I WANT, I never really do it because I am just way too damn lazy. I think you noticed an influx of commissioned work in my gallery recently; that is no coincidence. I want more art of my chars but I cannot be damned to actually draw my ideas anymore, I feel like I am just wasting time.

I don't think I ever drew "for myself". I ALWAYS posted EVERYTHING I made to the internet, "personal" artwork or not. whether that be a public gallery or a single DM to a single person. I just love seeing reactions. I feel everything I do in life is for a reaction. A few years ago I dropped like 500 USD on a Twitch streamer over the course of a month JUST to see them happy. I love when clients go full bottom-speak/keyboard-mash because they are overjoyed with the result. I love seeing an artist I commissioned's reaction when I tip them. I've done free art for people I barely know before because it makes them happy.

I love seeing it, but like... I don't know... it is literally all I do, for money or not.

Art has slowly become, for me, how I see video games: an outlet to be entertained that actually just feels like digital chores. Boring and mediocre.

What is worse is that, when I do seek to improve, it feels like there is a wall in my head each time I try to understand anything. That, or it is through one ear and out the other. I have 1000+ USD worth of art courses and I cannot be engaged in a single ONE of them.

Well, this might make you happy. I am working on a comic behind the scenes and when I was searching for inspiration, I created a folder of different dragons when I was designing the main character. I did not know it at the time, but your sona was a big inspiration for my character! I only actually found you a couple weeks ago and I thought.... WAIT I KNOW THAT DRAGON!! He's the one in my banner.

I noticed you are young, it may not help, but I WILL SAY, in my personal experience, and from what i've noticed from all the people around me and in my life, All the teenage years straight up are stressful. I am NOT JOKING when I say, when you turn 25, when your brain is fully developed, it LITERALLY feels that way. Something just /clicks/ and things really do feel better. I used to take all sorts of meds growing up and I tried therapy too...
I really do believe it is possible to simply grow out of it. Everything we experience is chemicals, and sometimes it just takes time to settle. Obviously trials and tribulations never go away, but something about growing physically into an adult makes things feel more manageable.
I'm not dismissing any real issues or anything you or anyone has, just sharing my experience and a possible hope for you. It may be as simple as just giving it time <3
I hope you can get what you need in the meantime tho.

I also understand what you mean about seeing art as a consumable. The way i view art has very much changed over the years and I feel the pressure to stay relevant and produce content, but I guess this is just something that I don't let bother me. I deal with this specific thing by never letting myself get too stressed about one artwork, and focusing on completing the project quickly. This has helped me move past crippling perfectionism and my art has NEVER been better since I stopped wasting time re-drawing the same line 40 times. Working on line confidence has helped tremendously. And I love always having something new to present!

It's all about just... finding ways to cope <3 ≧◡≦

My sona is a dino, but I get what you mean lol; my main character.

I feel like I work too fast and my art quality suffers. The issue is; I have 0 patience. I will want to pull my hair out if I have to spend more than 1 week on something. I also have patrons, so I get anxious when I don't release finished art for more than 2 days. At the end of the day: if I don't put my heart into it, it won't be good, and that's what matters, I suppose. I used to have someone I'd go to for criticism, which is great. I'd show em a sketch, I'd fix issues they point out, and then I move on. There has been a falling out recently, so I just feel like my art will suffer tremendously now. Most of the time it was small stuff like a head or arm being too big, the perspective being off, but I think I depended too much on them, and that was where my confidence was placed. I was confident my art was going to be better because I had her to bounce off of to point out any objective mistakes in the piece for me to fix, but now I am basically on my own. I don't have any friends who know art, or have the heart to be brutally honest and tell me when something looks like dogshit. She did that very well.

At this point, I am willing to pay people like 5-10% of what a clientwork makes, each clientwork, just so that can brutally criticize my art each step, sketch to finish, to ensure quality, because I legitimately do not feel my art is good enough UNLESS someone has pointed out the mistakes for me to fix first.

Another thing; studies. I have no damn idea how to do them, and when I "do them right", I don;t learn a damn thing and feel like I just wasted time. Using references has always been so difficult for me because I don't know how to use them properly. When I do use them, then show the product ti that friend I had, she would tell me it looks worse. There has to be SOMETHING I am not getting, or I am referencing the wrong thing in a picture and pick up the bad parts. I recently started just drawing things normally how I draw things and then going back to adjust things/fix things utilizing references. For example, drawing an arm normally and then going back in after while looking at a reference so I can tweak the musculature to look correct.

One thing that upsets me the most is fur. I have never liked how I drew it. It always looked bad to mem, but I have no idea how to improve it that well. I even consulted  Cicada-King about it (someone who, IMO, draws some of the best fur ever, but I suggest checking its twitter for that since he doesn't post as much on here),and he did help. I followed its instructions and basically did this. This is the closest I've been to being satisfied with how I draw fur, if not this, but I am not sure if this counts because Arwuld's ref was supposed to be reminiscent of  Cicada-King's style.

And I think I figured it out. I legit cannot see shapes the same way other people do. I struggle so much with so many BASIC things because I legit feel like there is some kind of wall in my head that I can't jump over or break through. I feel like there is something genuinely wrong with me neurologically. Everything, no matter how small, feels like it takes a stupid amount of effort. Maybe it is my high anxiety? I don't know. I feel like I am on the verge of a stroke like 70% of the time, so maybe that has to do with it. It is all so frustrating.
I look back at my 2018/2019 art and feel like I have barely made a DENT in my improvement.
April 2019
August 2023
You can say "well, your style is the same lol", and yeah, I guess, but I don't know, it just feels the same, except I "picked up some tricks" along the way instead of actually improving.
Many have said my biggest issue is that I never experiment, but like, what am I to do??? I don't know how to experiment! I am creatively bankrupt! I don't even want to say Arwuld's current design is 100% my work because  Cicada-King helped me realize it better. Here is something he sent me when I was brainstorming with him.
Pretty damn similar to the final design, right?  Cicada-King really is full of creativity.

I can pitch some experimenting ideas depending on what you want to experiment with. Since WoW has been an inspiration for you in the past, why not do a "Draw all 5 aspects" challenge? There's new models for Merithra and Ebyssian.

You can do a "Give Sabellian a better model" challenge.

You can draw all the WoW drake mounts.

You can draw all the WoW drakonids.

You can try different art tiers, like colored sketches or speedpaints so that not everything is meticulously detailed.

If you feel creatively bankrupt, there's always source materials to pull from.

I don't really want to pull from source materials because that's copying. I also live under a rock, so Sonic, Warcraft, and Kaiju are like all I know.

I don't think it's copying if you just draw those characters in various poses. They're just convenient, accessible, existing models for you to pose and practice your art skills on. That's what fanart is essentially :P

If you want to reach out on Telegram or discord, I'd be happy to provide critique and idea brain storm with you. I think a step back or a break might be what you need tho. Maybe. I don't have all the answers but your art is very very good!! Maybe we can talk more about what your mental block may be.

I don't really use Telegram, though I have one. I primarily use Discord: dahurgthedragon

I struggled with that for a long time, since last year I was hating my own art, not enjoying it and feeling unsatisfied in the end. I found out my biggest problem was because I was focusing too much on drawing what other people wanted (such as commissions) and never drawing anything for myself. I also worked with an art style that I never intended to hold onto for such a long time. It took a long time to finally figure it out but after stopping commissions and moving to a new art style drawing for only myself for once I have started to feel good about my art.

I do understand that commission are essential too for money but that's why keeping it balanced between commission and personal artwork is a good thing too. It's not up for me to tell you what works better but it's what I found to work for me. Exploring personal artwork and my own ideas is what gives me motivation. Commissions never gave me the motivation that I wanted in art.

Also in my personal opinion I think your artwork is already amazing

Oh man, yeah, I stopped liking my art style a while ago lol. Sometimes I get physically angry at my art, if that makes sense. I just feel complete rage, especially if I am criticized. Not because I "can't handle criticism", but because the criticism is always correct and I get really damn frustrated at myself, like unbelievably pissed off.

In my case I get mentally angry at my art, my motivation dies and it feels like torture just to finish artwork that I'm not enjoying. I see all the errors in my own work, sometimes I have to let it go and accept that I won't be able to fix everything. But when I'm doing art that I do enjoy and feel motivated about it's easier for me to not focus on the small things and let the creativity and motivation flow naturally.

It is less perfectionism for me and more I am furious at myself for displaying such incompetence. It makes me straight up walk away from my PC and I sometimes even want to start breaking shit lol

I haven't gotten to that point but I would "destroy" my art by deleting it permanently on many occasions

What exactly triggered this feeling? When was the point you decided art isn't stimulating you any longer? It might not look good to you, but if others enjoy it, I guess you are doing something right, yes? And well it is well established that artists, no matter their skill level, will never be pleased with aspects of their art, or their art as a whole.

I personally like your art and there have been a number of pieces that I very much enjoyed seeing, such as the WoW art related pieces. There aren't many artists doing those :D

Tell me: do you like the WoW pieces because the market is small for them, or because the art is objectively good?

As for what triggered this feeling; maybe it is the fact that the past 2 years have been a life-ruining clusterfuck for me.

The art is objectively good. They are loyal to the in-game character models and have pretty insane details. I think it is important to not overlook the importance of what you create as an artist. Many, many people are and will always be way below your level. And many will be above your level. As for those WoW arts being scarce, that gives you even more of an edge to keep creating this type of art because WoW is a game that millions of people are into, but not that many create art for.

Life being shit isn't your fault. Nor your art's fault. Don't blame yourself for circumstances you would not have a say in. You're doing the best you can with the situation at hand, and I personally find it admirable. Would quitting art make you happier?

I've quit my art several times thinking it sucks, and I've returned to it because drawing shit art is better than doing no art. Maybe taking a break from it would help restore some of your motivation and confidence in what you do. It always did in my case. The more you draw the more tunnel vision you get and the more you start resenting your art. But I think you've also had moments where you looked at some past art and felt a sense of accomplishment over it. Maybe it represented a new milestone for you, or maybe it was a piece that really turned out nice.

This derg looks better than the in-game ones: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/53278562/

It really really does.

I see. Thank you.

As a programmer I couldn't relate more, it just feels as if everything that I do can always be much better than what it currently is.