Summary of my current feelings
9 years ago
General
You know, i just sat down for a moment and decided to do a..how to call it. Resume? Sort of count of all things around me and one would almost say in me aswell. So why i did that? Well for fact that its a new year and maybe its time to do that and to think of where to go and what to do. But i wont bother you with my inner feelings of decisions of my life. But i will come down here with decisions about my artwork and things that connects to it.
So first thing i want to bring is.. Should i continue? My answer is.. I dont feel like i should. Now, why and reasons to how i come up to this. Reasons are simple, im drawing for..years. Literaly i started drawing on basic school. Thou my art back then was more realistic. I was drawing pictures from books and they looked almost like their copies! Then with time as i started to draw more cartoonish, its when i also started to play wow.. And.. i just see almost no progress or at least progress that i dont think its worthy of that time i already spent on it.. and im just..too far from what i hoped to achieve. I look at other artists who i feel like were behind me in progress and now they are..miles ahead and .. im not eaven close and i feel like im stagnating. Now, there are reasons to that.. First im not an english speaker (as my grammar probably shows. ) and reading long texts in english, just making it very difficult for me. So reading up things or memorizing things.. Just doesnt work for me and i have noone close near me to teach me or help me with things. That is what brings me to one possitive “Feat” and that is a fact that everything i did and drawn.. I learned myself.. through blunt experience and to a fact this consumed alot of pen’s and rubber.
So these doubts now leads me to thing that semi approving it. When im not able to achieve what i want, by myself. Can i just buy it ? Answer is yes.. Unlike other artists i do have a normal job..It’s a sucky job but i do have it..Therefor, is it a waste of money to see thing way i want..or spent years of “attempting” to make it? Is that time i spent by trying to improve, same worthy as money i make during that time? I leave that question opened..
On end of this thing. Im bit sad that probably very few people going to read this. Because as less i feel of an artist, more i want to be of a person. But then again.. I dont think im that interessting for people. You know, that’s also a thing.. i feel like some people are nice as long as they feel “they can get something out of me..” I admit i acted like that few times.. and i feel very guilty. But there are also people i call friends but im probably not giving them as much of a credit they deserve.
Anyways, that’s some summary of my current feelings. What will come of it? I dont know yet..
BTW yes art trade will happen and i will still finish what i have started, whatever will my final decision be.
mytumblr: http://imbleedingdragon.tumblr.com
FA+

If you can say that you do indeed still enjoy drawing, then keep going. Doesn't matter if you doodle for fun or if you try to get better, keep doodling!
For your case, since you say that you do want to get better, I'd say that a thing you could try is watching art tutorial videos. Even if you end up not really understanding everything, assuming the video is in English, you can still see how the artist uses certain technique and what they do with them. Those technique can help a lot and a lot of great artists get better by using those techniques. They often say that the more you use those technique, the less you'll rely on them, but it's a good way to built a good foundation for drawing execution.
I'd also suggest trying to draw more varied things. Scanning your gallery, it looks like you tend to draw nude Tauren and Pandaren ladies. Which is nice and you drew them very well, but it would help if you stretch your artistic muscle more. If you see a photo on the internet with an interesting composition/pose/angle, save it in a reference folder and take some time to draw a picture based on the picture, using it as reference. Draw from more source and inspirations. Even if you stick to World of Warcraft, I'm sure there's are way more characters and monsters and structures you could draw from it. But I'd suggest drawing from other things also. Draw a sci-fi ship! Draw a Eldritch God! Draw a cute creature! Draw backgrounds! Often time, art feeling stagnant is because the content the artist draws also ended up being stagnant. So drawing more varied things can help, even with the quality of the drawings. And if you draw less Tauren, it'll be more fun once you do draw them again, since you moved away from them for a bit.
Hope something I said ends up helping and that you figure out what's best for you! =3
Reason why im drawing Pandaren and Tauren is because i just love them and i want to reach a perfection in drawing them. As for using photos for refferences, i sometimes do that, doesnt always work sadly..
But, thanks really for a support and comment. This is something that means alot to me. That someone actualy..care. Thanks.
Right now, you're juggling between wanting to draw Pandarens and Taurens, which you enjoy drawing, and wanting to be as good as artists you see. You enjoy the part where you can draw sexy WOW characters and that makes you happy, but it's easy to be distracted from that enjoyment because you feel like you should do more with your art. Wanting your art to be better is a normal thing for an artist. And if you feel like it barely changed, that can be worst for your morale. In my case, I always feel like I'm suppose to be better at drawing than I am because I started to only seriously draw after I left High School. A lot of great artists drew all their lives and are way better at art than I am at the same age as I am. So I definitely have this feeling of being behind and feeling like I'll never catch up. Even if I draw every day to get better, the better artists that drew all their lives are doing the same and staying ahead and I'll never catch up.
I don't know if it'll work for you, but in my case, I got mostly over that once I figured out why I draw. I would hear a lot of artists saying that they wanted to be concept artists, and I noticed each time that I didn't like that idea, that I didn't want to draw as good as a concept artist. That seemed like something I could never reach, not because I didn't have the ability (I don't know if I have it or not), but because I pretty much didn't want to learn it like that. I realized that I prefer appealing art style over well rendered drawings, and that ultimately, I'd want to use my art to animate for indie video games, and that I prefer drawing cute things. So around that time, I changed my focus of what I wanted to improve on, and at the very least, I stopped looking at big art and feeling like what I did was as inadequate as I once felt.
I don't know what your ultimate goal with art is, but I'll assume for now that you still want to, at least, get to a point where you can draw your characters and render a drawing as close as the look of an in-game screenshot for WOW, minus the polygons. So here some things I think you could do, depending on your disposable income.
You say you use a version of Photoshop, but I don't know what you use physically to draw. Like what pen you use, on the computer if you use a tablet or a mouse. and if it's a tablet, if you got your hand on a tablet monitor or if it's a cheaper one. You could start to think about saving money to upgrade your equipment. You are used to drawing on paper, but I would think that you could look into going full digital. Getting used to a cheap tablet might be tough, but if you can save for a bit longer, there are cheaper tablet monitors out there. It's pretty common knowledge that a Cintiq is above $1000 USD, but what I'm planning on trying to buy once I try for a tablet monitor is a Yiynova at around $600. And I've heard of even cheaper tablet monitors then that. Although Yiynova sounds better with price and quality so far.
And I'm sure Photoshop has some features you might not really know about that could help some of your drawing process. And not all tutorials are videos. For art program and drawing technique, I see a good handful around sites like Tumblr. There could be some good tips over there. I have not really used Photoshop, so I don't really know it. Most artists prefer SAI. And Clip Studio Paint started getting really popular with artists in the last year, which is what I use. But I think a lot of the features they have are in Photoshop too. But Photoshop is mainly a photo manipulation software. You can use it to draw, but there are programs that are more designed for drawing.
Looking at your art, I think the main thing someone might point out about your coloring/shading, is that it looks like you're using black to shade. This is actually something a lot of artists would say not to do. It's better to use a darker shade of the color you're shading over. I personally would also suggest that you look into the Multiply layers. If you set the shading layer to "multiply" instead or "normal". You can pick a color to shade a character with and the color will blend itself with any color that is in lower layers, the layer with the coloring in that case. Potentially very helpful for character's with patterns! You might also need to "clip" the shading layer to make sure it doesn't bleed into the background. I don't remember, but I usually clip my shading layers to the color layer to be sure. I might have explained it in an unclear way, since it's tough to really explain with only text. But if you want to try and have some questions about it, let me know.
The actual character anatomy and design in your pictures are really nice though. I wouldn't know if I could tell you where to improve on, really. Whatever it is, it would mostly be subtle tweaks.
I rambled, but again: Hope I said something helpful, heheh.
But, thanks for sharing your opinion here. That means alot to me. Im glad when people at least notice and share a comment. It's great feeling of support.
I don't think you should quit just yet.
And i will think about it...Thanks for leaving a comment here thou.