"Criticism is bad, I don't see how it helps".

Every god damn time, the inability to accept any form of criticism, decide for one's self what is actually objectively good criticism and what's objectively shitty criticism. And when it's acceptable to break rules/bend them.

The best part of amateur spaces is the willingness to try almost anything/experimenting usually. "usually".

Also I must agree with you, I see 12 and 14 year olds with some mad skills with almost everything and super good ad overall composition and I'm so jelly cause the internet was so new and by the time I was 18 tablets were still like brand new rich kid toys :"D.

But seeing so much raw talent and development everywhere is still cool even with a tinge of minor jealous, because I know if I had been just a hair before my time, I'd be there too :"D. Micheal would be proud tbh.

god i hope that none of the people who think criticism is a war crime ever try to break into professional illustration. or even take commissions and get feedback from their customers looool.

but yeah seriously people in spaces like this are WACK about critique. either they're edgelords who're like "you HAVE to listen to me!! artists must take critique!!!" after insulting something without actually being helpful, or they're flowerpower Let's All Get Along types who, bless their little hearts, just will not say the other eye looks weird. not all critique is valuable and people should realize that, even if it means just finding out how to objectively critique themselves.

the experimentation in amateur spaces is def great. i love being able to try just about anything and have other people express some sorta feeling about it lol. it lets you know which novel ideas are worth fleshing out and which ones aren't done by anybody on the regular for a reason. you'll actually probably get your most honest feedback from it.

it's so bizarre how the internet and its prevalence in the lives of the next generation have impacted the koalatea of online art. i'm not even 25 yet and i stg kids these days have more resources then i did when i was their age. i'm also super likely to get jealous when i see some kid like 7 years my junior drawing better then me lmao, but i'm also so happy for them. if they keep at it, they could do some amazing things. it's a humbling experience.

Pretty much me! It keeps me grounded and keeps me aware of my surroundings, but at least it helps me learn and keeps me self motivated too. Like if these munchkins are figuring it out I can find the youtubes and shit they're using and figure it out too, even if I'm slower and more crotchety about it :"D. It's really inspiring most of the time even if it's bittersweet.

I used to hate the "bad anime" many artists start with. I think it's a problem of needing to learn and practice fundamentals before moving on to drastically stylized stuff. Now my beef is that, but with modern cartoon styles, ie Steven Universe. My god, that's a boring art style, and they're working up to achieve that look? It's a wasted opportunity.
My favorite part is probably the lack of judgement amateurs have for each other. Not always, but I feel that firsthand a lot of the time and man it feels good to not be deemed "cringey."

i can sorta empathize with the anime bros and broettes tbh. most artists drew as children, and when you're a child you don't think "i have to do structured master studies and figure drawings", most often you think "i'm gonna draw the 101 dalmatians because Cute Puppy." that kinda shit can be really hard to shake when you've spent the past 17 years doing it. but ofc when you're a grownass adult who wants to become dedicated to the craft ya gotta tighten the reigns on yourself and focus.
god yeah i'm not asking for a lot but can we please have some cartoons that don't go all bean mouth on us? please god??

cringe culture is totes cringe bro. i'm extremely sick of it because it hinders people from growth; if you're just gonna make fun of me for trying, why try at all? you can't escape making ugly art when you start out, so people need a space wherein they can make the same mistakes literally every artist has made. amateurs who haven't become jaded husks are the only people among us going to heaven.

if an artist is better then me i break his legs. i am in prison as we speak but it's worth it.

i. legit do not understand why foxes are so popular among furpeople. what's the appeal? it's not a very striking animal and most people don't even know how it behaves, so i figure it'd be hard to apply its behavioral traits to your Me Character. opossums just developed a new, #aesthetic stereotype, by the by, and though i appreciate it too, it's just that. a stereotype. Break Free, Gurls.

unfortunately yeah, critique that's fair and also accurate is hard to find in spaces like this. for one thing, half the people here aren't artists, just commissioners, so they already don't know how drawing works. then several more have only a very basic understanding of art, and more still are very good but keep all their knowledge to themselves like some kinda brainy packrats. makes a guy wanna fuck around and join conceptart.com or an artstation. oh shit wait i do have an artstation why dont i use it oh god oh fuck

i loooove those types of artists. i've always wished i could be like them, but my wallet appreciates me doing what i do now much more. if you'd like some recommendations for experimental types, i've got a million of them. and give me some names too if you'd like, i always want mooooore.

good critique is hard to find on places like this becus either you're getting it from people who know dickshit about drawing or from people who don't know how to elaborate on why something you made looks wrong.
conceptart.org is a forum where aspiring industry artists and professional industry artists (most of which wanna get into concept art for games n movies) go to share their work and critique each other. not for the faint of heart. artstation is where a lot of the same crowds go to amass their portfolios, exchange crit, and find jobs. both sites have an emphasis on improvement but both are also made to cater to a specific crowd
GIMME EM ALL i just love new artists

OMG I'm weighing in on this RIGHT NOW

The most obnoxious thing: "It's just my style/I need to change my style/What style should I draw?"
I understand developing an art style over years of drawing. But you never, EVER start with the art style, and it's what drives me absolutely badonkers in amateur art spaces. Before anatomy, gesture, composition, color, value studies, perspective, ANYTHING, the first thing that everyone wants to do is have an art style. And it doesn't work like that! You can easily develop an art style by studying artists you like, drawing a lot, "adopting you art parents," so to speak. Looking at various styles and studying from them so that you can develop your own, rather than saying "I like X artist, I'll just do what they do."

Especially because this comes before things as easy to practice as "drawing from observation." If you haven't spent time looking at a photo, video, or real life, and drawing from it, it's INCREDIBLY difficult to just mimic the lines of someone you admire. I was very, very guilty of this when I was starting out. All I wanted to do was draw like my favorite anime. My first portfolio review made me realize that I'd completely neglected the fundamentals in my pursuit of anime, and I had to start from the ground up! So it drives me nuts when I see amateur artists only ever care about the style they're going to draw in. It pigeonholes them into one specialty before they've even begun, and severely stunts their growth. It often keeps them from trying different styles, media, or studying at all because "no, that's not my style."

Also because oftentimes "It's just my style" is the beginner artist version of saying "I don't know how to draw that and I don't plan to learn."


Okay, that was a lot of whining. I LOVE amateur spaces where everyone is motivated to learn. When you're in that beginning stage, there's nothing like being surrounded in other people who are just starting out who are learning at your side. People exchange resources, books, tips that they've picked up from other artists, and in those early months of starting to draw, a motivated amateur can skyrocket in growth! If you've ever seen someone's "draw this again!" meme or even just "here's what I did a year ago vs now" and been absolutely floored by their progress, it really shows the hard work that's gone into getting there. I LOVE that stuff.

Tiny end note that after being in college for a few years, I love helping people who are earlier in their artistic journeys. It's super rewarding, and I take great satisfaction in watching them grow. ;^; Amateur artists are good peoples....so long as they are always open to learning more! We all never stop growing as long as we're still working at it, after all!

GO OFF BIRDGUY

aw shit, the dreaded Muh Stiyul lmaooooo. tbh i think the problem is that a lotta people start drawing abstract things or pre-existing cartoons when they're children and then they have to get used to retraining their brains to think in terms of art fundamentals when they reach the age of reason and come to the realization that "oh shit i wanna make money offa this". but yeah too much obsession with style! style is just the way you learned to draw! if you really wanna stand out from a crowd, just learn what things actually look like and then twist them around in different ways! there we did it we saved art.

the one rule i've noticed in art that applies to everything is that the more you know about the genuine article, the better your final piece is. regardless of style, too. like there's actual horse anatomy in both, say, Spirit: Horseguy of the Cinnamon, and Your Tiny Equine 2010. if you understand the context of why something looks the way it does, things tend to go smoother. but you can't learn all of that from trying to mimic the work of someone who already knew that context - it's divorced from the context now, and you will not get it back without studying the subject for yourself. you can potentially draw in any style if you know what's what.

"Also because oftentimes "It's just my style" is the beginner artist version of saying "I don't know how to draw that and I don't plan to learn.""
PRECISELY. i think it's reasonable to be forgiving to people who deadass don't know better yet, but the one thing that makes an artist bad isn't an inability to draw well. it's an unwillingness to try and learn.

being on the outside looking in on other people's artistic growth is so riveting. it never fails to motivate me. it's been a long time since i've been in an art community that actively encourages disciplined improvement - as in just a buncha nerds get together and sling like figure drawings at each other lol - but it was always fun when i did it in the past. camaraderie in art is a beautiful thing.

i've always wanted to help out baby artists but unfortunately i'm about as good at teaching and staying organized as i am at being a seagull: Not Good At All. but damn if i don't appreciate others helping a dude out. i learned so much that formed my art toolset today from other people donating their time to make resources for beginner artists. the world needs more of that patience and generosity.

Honestly? I did what you said there for a while back in sixth grade when I first started. I literally only did foxes. My fursona was a fox. (I only kept one of those old train wrecks) over time my style became coherent enough to actually branch out into the stuff you see today. Though I was stuck for a while, I was actually willing learn. Eventually. I think a few young artists may be along those lines, sticking to something simple to at least the how to work a pencil.

Every artist does indeed have their own signature style, like a fingerprint. But I find most styles, once evolved enough, are adaptable to anything.

i can hardly blame someone in 6th grade for only drawing one kinda animal lmao. all my animals looked like dogs til i was like 15

a style imo should be based on your visual preferences but still have a solid understanding of How Shit Looks underneath, which means you can draw potentially anything if asked

Foxes were like gods to me, I don't know why. Younger me was weird.

Yea, exactly. Im still kind of in the canine phase, especially when it comes to muzzles, but im slowly finding how to make lines work

Oh man, after working in the fandom for like 9-10 years and it's honestly made me a bit bitter when it comes to digging up my opinions I usually try to keep to myself but what the hell I guess.

I absolutely agree with the dog face syndrome thing. Not even just dog face, but drawing the EXACT same dog over and over again with just a swapped color palette. No anatomical differences from breed or natural structural variance that happens even with the same breed. Just, the same character with a different arranged rainbow or swapping between an emo eye cover or something. Body type is always the same. Eyes are the same. Nothing is different almost down to the poses. I get dynamic angles are poses implying dramatic motion are hard, heck, I'm still drowning beneath them, but it's like no one here cares to even try.
The same going for expression. Furries can only grasp bedroom eyes and sometimes I don't get how they don't go insane drawing the same thing but slightly different a million times.
Meanwhile here I am after a decade of doing hundreds of comms and it's made me turn into straight up Squidward. I definitely get asked less for that stuff thankfully, but I feel it's definitely stifled my progression on my art and I should have grasped these other concepts years ago.

And for the positive, I guess it's the fact that doing the very thing that has also drove me to hardly upload anymore also has made me work harder than ever. Even though I hate model boob dog people, I ate least like my art and it's forced me to improve on at least those subjects. I've met some amazing clients and work with great artists who have become some of my best friends.
I'm confident in my annoying model boob dog people? (I still don't like drawing them, BUT, if it's a really interesting design or a character with depth since I'm a nerd to that stuff, I can actually have a lot of fun with them.)

CRACKS KNUCKLES

same face is a plague that infests amateur art spaces because everyone goes too easy on ppl who do it LMAO no i'm joking, but seriously i get what you mean. i think it happens becus ppl think "style" means "the exact way in which i draw everything to the point it all looks identical, anatomical differences and quirks be damned". and then when you add that to everyone standing the same 3/4 angle looking to the left you've got A Mess.

furries don't seem to give as much of a shit about emotive faces... or body language...... or anything..... as much as making their characters look cool in the right lighting, which is like okay Nice but cmon guys. its pretentious to say, i'll admit, but there's not a lot of artistic merit to most furry art, and it's not becus a lot of the designs are kinda boring and samey

if i didn't have to do furry commissions for money i wonder how much more i would've evolved in the past few years. actively working to make every piece a learning experience helps, but yeeeaaahhh.

appreciating your own art is something few learn to do in a timely manner, so well done! someday i will eat your heart and absorb these powers of yours

Absolutely agreed. I get trends and I've seen the fandom kinda evolve with them in waves, but it usually just flops back to where it was after a couple of months or something. Like when everyone suddenly replicated Miles-df to a T, some I couldn't even tell it wasn't them. I see the appeal but I can never grasp someone wanting to say "my style is just this persons style - and nothing else."

But then again, all art is influenced by everything around them. I think mine is definitely some Disney animu hybrid that has not really changed over forever besides becoming slowly less terrible anatomically lol. I do say I like my art, but don't get me wrong! I got a fuck ton to work on, especially anatomy, proportions, interesting angles and as of late most importantly is humans. I see my errors, even if it takes me a couple of days to be like "ah fuck that looks dumb here". Also, I think I still have lingering right-facing characters though it's not as bad as it was a couple of years ago... I'd like to think. >>

Yeah, you'd think a fandom focused on creatures who almost exclusively communicate through both minor and major body language would be good at these things but that seems to not be the case at all. Rather, it's about bedroom eyes with a mild smirk and making sure ass/vag/dick and boobs are simultaneously visible and telling your artists "make it bigger" 20 times to the point the piece is crippled and you don't wanna upload it anymore lol.

I wonder that too when it comes to not having to take them. Actually, I kinda have stopped taking them and I can confirm I have noticed it has suffocated my progress. On a plus, it's forced me to get better way faster at model looking characters, but now I can't.... angle... or pose... Basic stuff people probably think I would know if I'm this far with my other work.

I can confirm that when I commissioned you, the piece you gave me was a true breath of fresh air. The poses were dynamic, the character's eyes actually connected. There was expression and on onlooker could probably assume a small snippet of a story from it. Of course, the style was nothing like the other pieces I got.

So, pfft. I appreciate your art but if you wanna eat my heart go for it because I don't use it. :,>

Anatomy is everything. Learning to draw the human figure is also important. Poses make up a lot of art too, a lot of ych's are made by implementing the best pose then reselling it.

what did they say, i crave context

I don't know I was fucking high

Fair Enough

Least favorite? Mimicking another style to the point where it is borderline Tracing. Even when I was in college and loosely attached to the art college, it was annoying at how many pieces on display were poorly-done recreations of shonen anime, Disney Channel animals, or the so-called "CalArts Style". I don't hold it against artists to be inspired by a famous artstyle when they start out, but to see people producing bland, unoriginal works in the style of other artists and claim that as their own aesthetic makes me lose interest in following the artist's future work. I DO like seeing an established artist do their interpretations of famous styles, but it's usually through their own lens as artists/fans, and not an attempt to recreate the style.

This pet peeve is followed by what I think a few have already hit upon, the refusal by some to learn anatomy.

My most favorite? Originality. Now, that's a bit of a hard thing to ask about people just starting out, but I admire artists who experiment with styles, mixing influences, and trying to start out unique. I'm a bit biased because I adore outsider art and surrealism where anatomy is sometimes stretched/ignored, but I am more likely to follow an artist from their amatuer stages and show interest/support financially if it's possible if they bring something unique to the party. That makes it more likely that I can pick an artist out of the crowd, so to speak.

Now, fair is fair, I'm a photographer. I am not skilled at/educated at/have practiced drawing, and I respect anyone who puts in the effort to learn and get better. Also, even with my medium, I find myself heavily inspired by other photographers. Hopefully, I will be able to develop enough of a style of my own to become recognizable, and I wish everyone developing their style luck standing out and making a name for themselves!

on the one hand, mimicry is just a normal, almost inevitable part of the process. we get into art thru mimicry (most of the time(, we get our first taste of what makes different pieces work thru mimicry, and we eventually implement preferences we learned into our own styles. but it's boring and it's a fatass mood i share w/ u that at a certain point (and with certain posturing by the artists doing it, seriously why do so many ppl who lack an original style have such swollen heads) it crosses the line. picking up pieces of influence is normal, expected, and at anything encouraged, but you aint da vinci becus you redrew someone else's disney princess fanart ya know. i'd be too embarrassed to hang something like that on the walls of any of the learning establishments i've set foot in lmao

i sssorta understand the refusal to learn anatomy. it can be a blow to ur ego and tbh it's hard, sometimes tedious work studying from life. but it's up to the artist to learn how to make it fun and engaging in order to have passion about it, becus passion always makes you learn better and create higher quality stuff. we all gotta suck it up eventually. i outgrew the whole "i don't neeeed to study from liiife i draw cartoooons" thing when i was 12 tho, it's wild to me that ppl in their 30s have the same attitude and tbh it makes me view them as inherently more immature

absolutely agree on the originality thing. i will always choose an artist with flawed but deeply interesting work over someone who makes art that's hyperrealistic but takes no risks or presents no new concepts. the former deserves support becus as soon as their skill catches up with their imaginations, they'll be dazzling the world. the latter? ehhhhh hopefully they hollow out a niche for themselves, but that niche will never appeal to me

and yeah, everyone, regardless of their art form, can and should develop their own style. learn how to make it pretty, then nailed what pretty means to you. frankly i think a lotta the stuff me n my lads in the comments of my journals discuss can be applied to any art form if tweaked enough, and i love it