I also want to be me in the future :v

That's pretty much how all artists feel, but with how fast the years go by, I wouldn't wish too hard on suddenly being in the future.

Sometimes taking it slow and steady is good. :3

Well... here's my advice. Don't strive to be you in a few years, because how many times will you do that? And then what? You realize all those years you missed, what you could have done. Because you're getting closer and closer to your final bed, that last resting point. So don't wish you were a few years older. If anything, wish you could go back. Because those years were once in a life time.

i can understand how you feel. but if you want to be like that now, you have to work hard, which can be very difficult. so it would be good to just take it easy and go at the pace you work the best at.

Ah, I know how that is. I wish that I had the skills now of future me all the time. D:

Or at least, I wish I had a head start on drawing digitally. I've only been using the tablet/digital programs for two years now-- and damn, looking back, my stuff was fugly.

Still learning. Always learning. :B

I'm not going to say, "I know how you feel", because in this scenario, I don't. I also know that anything that I can even say, you are already aware of. Though, just know that it's far better being "holyshitImyselfcan'tevenbelieveit, amazing" at one or two things than being "meh" at a lot.
Another thing, even though you say art is your only skill (come on, be more confident, please ), it's a skill that not only makes a difference in your life, but also in those of the people who see the amazing, beautiful things that your hands can produce.

P.S. I may not know what you mean art-wise, but I'm so there with you on the "insignificant" part... Suffice to say, I go existential at least once every few days.

Learning things slow will help you to learn to "learn", quick learners tend to get lazy...
Im one of these lazy assed quick learners, though, i feel like the quick learning doesnt apply to my art skills, which suck ;A;

I wish I felt that good about doing art. Usually I just feel bad for ruining a perfectly good sheet of paper.

COME TO ME BAYBEEEEE

What you're thinking isn't egotistical; it's just frustration and a desire for improvement (which is actually a good thing). You *want* to be better, you're not complacent with your skill set, and that ambition will take you as far as you want to go.

Just remember not to be too hard on yourself; art, and improving your skills is a long process. You can't speed it up, really, unless you work on nothing but art day in and day out (sort of like how professional athletes put in very, very long days learning playbooks, pushing their physical and mental limits, &c). Think about it in the long term, work towards that goal, and most importantly, if there's something specific you want to learn, like a technique, a new medium, then set that as a goal and work towards it.

Huh...

Why don't you make a game out of it?

Let's think about, for example, an art degree college. There, you would have teachers who teach you some stuff, and as being art, you need to pratice it yourself. This is achieved by the teacher thru homework or projects. Teacher says: "I want something like this for next monday." and then you do that for him/her. It's usually something specific but still with freedom for you to do your "personal touch", like "Draw a scenary with lots of perspective angles", then you think about something that you could like but with lots of perspective: A forest, street buildings, someone's living room... After you do it and deliver it to the teacher, then you're evaluated to see if you performed as expected.

This isn't much different from a RPG game with quests, if you think about it.

Colleges have some downsides tho. Often you're flooded with stuff to do so you're pretty much enslaved by it. Some schedules are tight so sometimes you have work that takes 10 hours to do and it's for tomorrow morning, so you pretty much have 2 hours to work and 8 hours to sleep... Guess what happens? Also there's the part of "I paid for it" glooming over your head, so failure = lots of time, effort and money wasted.
Also, sometimes you're forced to do stuff you don't like or even hate, or at least not ever doing again.

What you could do is comming up with some "quests" for yourself to do over the week or month. It could be stuff like "draw this in 10 minutes" to improve your speed or "draw something like that artist does" to improve your technique, or learn new ones. The advantages of doing it yourself then being in a college is that you can regulate how much pressure you can put yourself in (it's always pressure, it's a matter if you're annoyed by it or not, either time or difficulty). Also, if you fail these "quests", you don't lose much. You can always learn from your mistakes, or maybe you realized doing some art technique is not that good or you didn't enjoy it or it wasn't what you expected.

Setting up these "quests" wouldn't be too hard. You have dot A, which is you now, how fast and well you draw and the techniques you know and how well you perform them, and dot B, which is who you ideally want to be, your peak, being satisfied with your own techniques, whatever how and what would that be. Then you start connecting the dots! It can be either from top-bottom (To draw in this way what I need to know to do beforehand, which are it's requirements) so you kind of create a dot below B so you'll have to get there to then go to dot B, or it could be bottom-top (I already draw in this way, but I could try doing it better/faster) so you kind of creat a dot above dot A which means a way to eventually get into dot B. It could be a mix of both too.
Also, maybe you change your dot B or decided it was too much, or maybe even not enough! You'll have a "progress line" anyway, so any changes could happen.

For example... I used to draw sketches in 2 days. Yep, I was slow in drawing. I wanted to draw sketches like a friend of mine, in 15 minutes. So I setup myself some sort of drill to force myself to draw faster. Nowadays I finish them in about 2 hours. Still not enough but quite an improvement! Also, I must say, these drawings that I did "while on drill" sucked, but then when I was out of it (which means, not forcing myself to draw faster) I was drawing faster and better without effort! It's similar to those weights you wear while you do some exercises. It worses your performance when you do exercises with them, but when you remove the weights you can feel you're moving better.


Of course, what works for me might not work for you, but I see no disavantage in TRYING OUT new stuff, even when you fail, or just for a while. What I can say by experience is that most of the time you can't feel you're improving, but you are. This is where you are now. You probably don't know how you draw that good you draw today, but somehow you do. This is because nobody is trully aware of the process of learning*, but only the results of it. So in the end you improve and it's like magic. You can, by studying about it, understand how it works, but you can't see it working on yourself, or nobody else.

But hey, it's fun isn't? XD



*There is ONE process of learning that you can be aware of, and it is, paradoxically, The Process of Learning. So you can learn how to learn, and it's thru learning to learn how to learn. But yes, this is very confusing, it's like advanced phylosophy... So it's ok if you don't understand about this. I barely do myself... XD There's even a whole book only about this, trying to explain how it works. XD

Okay, I know I'm commenting almost three weeks after you posted this, but still...

THIS: " strive as hard or as lazily as I can" made me smile and internally nod with a "hey, that's me!"... maybe just the lazy part, but hey. :D