Hey man, I draw in pencil too (when my moods let me anyway-.-) and there's nothing lazy about it. You do great work. Just tell those asshole nay sayers to fuck off.

Whoever keeps telling you that needs to shut their fucking mouth. Seriously. -_-

If it was one person, it wouldn't be a problem. It's pretty much everywhere I go these days.

well your pencils are better than mine. The cliche answer to your question is you should draw because you enjoy it, and not let critics bother you. But other factors could be you like to challenge yourself, or you can't build a genetics testing lab with human subjects in real life so you're stuck just drawing it out (for now...)

Anyways another issue what's your endgame? what is your overall goal? for instance for me it's usually a goal like "I want to animate like artist X" and "I want to draw pictures like artist X", or "no one's doing category Y material, I want MORE of that!".

My "endgame" is "I wanna draw stuff that I wanna draw." Yeah, I'd love to see comics and cartoons and toys of my stuff, but I know I lack the advanced skills to do it myself and no one outside of a fairly insular community cares what I do...I chose being a husband and father over continuing my art studies, and now I'm too old and broken down to go back it seems.

Right now, I draw for fun and to flesh out concepts of stuff that I have yet to work up the guts to write. I have NEVER had confidence in my work, since I was raised to forget my talents and focus on getting "real work"...only now I'm too injured for most jobs and my only apparent hope for actually making a future for myself that doesn't involve homelessness or McDonalds is a Hail Mary play on what miniscule talents I DO possess.

And having the representative of an entire community of artists tell me I suck hurts. That's all it is, really. My art teacher in high school used to tell me the same thing, it's why I had to teach myself...but, sometimes, after decades of being told you shouldn't, you start to wonder if maybe THEY'RE the ones who are right.

whoever is saying that is a royal ass

your last submissions are the cleanest, tightest pencil work i've ever seen out of you

and as someone that actually likes to color sketch work, rather than intermediate line work, i can honestly say that these would be easy to work on, compared to what you have been posting in the past

How could they said this to you? That was disrespected toward a artist.

Pencilwork generally isn't as clean as digital, especially in early phases. Anyone who doesn't understand this is not knowledgeable enough for you to take seriously as a critic.

That was really uncalled for, and I bet most of the people that have said that to you probably can't even draw! It can be hard sometimes to deal with negative reactions to your best efforts, but sometimes you have to let what you don't like being told go out one ear, and wait for the few genuinely appreciative comments.

I mean, I've been kind of dealing with a similar problem with my Pacific Rim X Daikaiju Academy idea, mainly in getting people to even pay attention to it; your comment on it was the thing that made my day, which made it all worth while! I hope this helps.

Not in the way you probably intended, but thanks. Hearing my comment helped you want to continue with your work means a lot to me.

That's great to hear!

Those who can't draw, critique those who can.

They're jealous.

Whoever told you your pencils suck probably couldn't draw their way out of a piss-soaked paper bag and is just hatin'/trollin' 'cause they can.

Don't let the bastards get ya down, old buddy. Brother... you're actually one of the first people I'm thinking of to do concept-art for my riff-project... since I myself can't draw to save my life.

I still don't get why people are criticizing you for your pencil sketches of all things.

Any schmoe who takes five minutes to go through your gallery will find that you are, in fact, a pencil sketch artist. If people don't like pencil sketches, they shouldn't even be commenting on your work at all.

It's like criticizing Godzilla movies because the monsters are too big. Of COURSE they're too big! That's the point!

But if you're truly frustrated by this, maybe you should do what JollyJack does and just vent via drawing.

http://fav.me/d4wlzqs
http://fav.me/d2ojgxn
http://fav.me/d2rr0av

Next thing you know they'll be ranting at an apple salesman because how DARE he not sell bananas.

Ignore them. If they can't understand the basic idea that a pencil sketch is fundamentally different from digital artwork (both with their pros and cons), they don't have enough understanding of illustration to be worth their weight in dirt as a critic.

The pencil is the be all end all for drawing.

I will try and be honest but open minded here. I think many artists fall into a couple of categories, at least among line artists. There are those who lean towards precision and those who have a more sketchy approach. Artists like Jolly Jack fall under the sketchy category. His work is enormously popular and he even sells reproductions of his sketchbooks. He also worked professionally as a concept artist, all with a sketchy style, which disproves the Internet myth of how pop artists and cartoonists can't find pro work cause they don't draw like grand masters from the Renaissance or something. Even when he inks his art, it still looks sketchy in comparison to precision leaning artists. None of this has held him back or kept him from publishing his own comics.

I recall how, back in the day, inking was considered a bare minimum requirement for publishing. Now, in the age of Internet art sharing, the standards are more blurred a bit, but that old standard is still what many think of, especially when it comes to cartoon art which has its roots in comics and animation.

Far as your own work goes, I think you can see when comparing it to some of the more popular sketch artists where your areas of improvement may be required to reach another level in your art. Your work, like their stuff, may never be about precise lines done one at a time. But cleaning up stray lines and artifacts while still maintaining the sketchy style may help your work communicate its value.

If you do want to try a potentially helpful approach to line work in digital form, I suggest trying Paint Tool Sai with the English pack installed. Zoom in to 100 percent view on a large canvas and try some lines with pressure sensitivity turned on and examine the results until you find what feels right for you. Many people insist that they could not consistently make decent lines directly on a screen until they tried Sai and gave it a chance long enough to adjust to it. If you need to, save up for a display tablet, which may also help.

In any case, a proactive approach to the problem is in order if this is bothering you. I think by now we all know that it does bother you, so it's no use delaying tackling it. Art is an endless process of learning. Tools are not everything, but they can make things easier, so try lots of stuff. In natural media, micron pens can also help with achieving final inked version if you prefer that approach. I know my own work turns out messed up half the time, but I have some experience with digital line work and would be happy to help with shared drawing sessions or something. Anyway, good luck. I think you can do whatever you like in the end if you persevere.

When I first got into art in the late 80s, it was actively discouraged for anyone wanting to break into professional comic book art to do ANYTHING but their chosen medium. Pencillers pencilled, inkers inked, colorists colored. Nowadays, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades, so I'm coming into the game trying to buck 20 years of habit. It's...tricky, but not impossible.

I've been trying to be proactive since, but I will be honest that my personal pride keeps poking me about doing it "for THEIR sake"...which is total bullshit since I HAVE a tablet and have been (totally failing at) teaching myself digital coloring methods for a couple of years now. Like I explained over at dA just now, I was more angered by having the person who denied my admission call out pencil work in general as being "unfinished" and "lacking in effort," which is a prejudice I have been encountering for over a decade now (and not just in regards to my work).

Another part of me wants to go full "ARIA" and do these huge pencil drawings to prove the medium is viable and that calling it "lacking in effort" by design bullshit, but, as the "Plant Girl" sketch I did in response reminded me, a big part of the problem isn't a personal lack of skill in drawing, it's in my sketchbook being twice the size of my scanner surface...I used to get pieces refused by the mods at VCL for not being reassembled cleanly enough, too.

If there's one good thing coming out of my years of depression blockage seemingly resetting me back to high school skill levels, it's that I can try and see if I can work my skills into more current methods as I restore them.

Yeah, I thought of VCL policies while reading your initial post. Funny how we have the opposite drawing problems... I grew up drawing on post-it notes, so a larger tablet would be of no use to me as large surfaces only confuse my eye for lines. But in your case, maybe you could one day get a huge used Cintiq 24 or something to help with your size of drawing surface needs and it may help.

Cartoonists are already at a strange disadvantage in terms of respectability. While painters are allowed to use as many models and references as they like, toonists are expected to only draw from memory plus anatomy knowledge and be proficient at inventing ways of depicting expression on human and non-human forms alike. They also must communicate grace and emotion in only a few lines, which can be harder than impressing audiences with light and shadow. And a comic artist is the director, the actors and the writer for every scene. They are held to higher standards in some ways, yet only the holy realm of painting gets the glory and respect of the art world...even though every other grown up kid, deep down, wishes they could draw cartoons at one time or another.

But it's no use complaining of such weird assumptions about art. As they say, if it was easy, everyone would do it. One can only continue to strive to get better at capturing imaginations with each effort. To be honest, I used to think of art as a form of self imposed torture more than anything else. It has only been even remotely "fun" for the past couple of years or so.