My name is Monica and I'm 23. I went to college and fell off the internet, but in that four years it seems like the online art communities that I enjoyed went into decline. I'm hoping to find a new community that I can be a part of.
From age 11 to until I graduated high school (18 years old) I basically lived and breathed art and the internet. I knew about crimson daggers and lurked through a lot of the first live streams. I got decently good at drawing for my age, but the price was that all other aspects of my life, health, and interpersonal relationships atrophied into nothingness. When college rolled around I went the OTHER way and became a real life social butterfly ("lmao computers???? idk how those work") at the expense of my artistic productivity. I felt a bit like Jekyll and Hyde. Now, I'm hoping to find some balance.
I'm holding down a full-time job overseas (ESL teacher: not glamorous, basically broke), but I'm not getting any younger and if I really want to go freelance with illustration + graphic design, the best time to start building a portfolio is now, right? I've thought long and hard about what I want to do with my life and art is the answer I keep coming back to.
My interests are definitely in illustration and graphic design, but I know that a solid drawing foundation is very important. I want to get a sketchbook up and running that has all kinds of life studies. I've got a (physical) sketchbook filled with doodles, but I haven't drawn from observation in about a year.
What I really need is some comrades: in real life I'm basically going at this artist life alone, and after losing my other online communities it's kinda lonely.
Hello everyone i am edd . Almost two years ago I found art and i fell in love with the process of creating (or at least trying haha) to create . Since then I started to pursue it despite everyone some of my loved ones telling me that I should keep pursuing engineering and in the future creating my own business around that. I tried to ignore them, but some of there words hurt me back then (but just because i let it). I kept going and after a while those opinions stopped.
So, at this moment I am stil studying computer science, still have one year left. At this moment i am trying do as much as I think I can.
I have been in the ups and downs , the joy and the frustrations all of you know of the artist's journey. So, hopefully I will meet amazing people here that are trying to get good aswell or just enjoy creating.
Cheers for everyone out there (who is reading this and who is not ) pursuing the path of an artist, because it is not an easy task to do. Although, it is totally worth :)
Cheers!
P.D. I will try to upload every single thing that i do on the skechbook section. Happy creating !
I'm 21 and currently live in the UK. Used to study Biology at a University in London but I decided to withdraw 2 years in, as I didn't enjoy the subject anymore and had a strong desire to pursue art instead.
Like most of you here, I'm currently trying to put in the time and effort to become a better artist and hopefully in a few years, become a professional Concept Artist/Illustrator - whether it's Environment or Character Design, I'll have to find out which I prefer later along the road.
I'm not a total beginner but I think I'm still quite a novice at drawing and digital painting, so I'm currently trying to do various different studies every day to improve in the majority of fundamentals as fast as I can.
Decided to join this forum so I can have somewhere to upload and document my progress over the course of a few years, until I get my first freelance job. But also to receive much-needed critique and harsh feedback so I can improve - so honestly please don't hold back in telling me my studies are shit and what I need to improve on.
I'm mostly a hobbyist artist but the past year i began to take commissions rather seriously and want to improve from there. I mostly do 3D environment stuff for some indie visual novel teams and draw some anime styled characters for myself... I've heard of crimson daggers before through dave rapoza level up interview by fusroda but only joined now, after coming across bobby chiu's interview of dave rapoza...
My biggest issue atm is that I always try to learn fundamentals of 2d art but a couple of months after, I burn out, focus on my day time job instead, make excuses, play video games, do 3d instead because its my comfort zone, write stories, do other stuff, watch youtube, comes across an art video, then gain interest in art fundamentals again. the cycle repeats.
the past year, i found out I have a heart disease. Suddenly i have this fear that the unfinished characters, stories, and worlds i have created will haunt me even after death... Its weird but its a legitimate fear...
Additionally, my commissions were going steady and most of my clients encouraged me to capitalize on my 3d skills and learn how to paint over my works so I can offer a more diverse set of styles for them to use.
tldr. since a lot has happened to me last year, for 2018, I want to take it seriously
I've come to this place to improve my skills and routine. You all seem very nice so I'm guessing this is the right place to go to •ᴗ•
Im 29, live in Austria and work as a Software-Tester as my fulltime job. I've been painting for a few years now because it gave and gives me some sense of progress in life. I started out painting landscapes digitally and am currently finishing up on an online figure drawing course. I'm very open to criticism and honest feedback. Here's my insta (https://www.instagram.com/reikhard_paints/)
My name is Mauro, I'm 21 and I'm an artist from Argentina.
I'm currently studying Computer Engineering but somehow along the way I ended up with a hobby relating to a deep fascination with 2D animation, storyboarding and Concept Design.
I have been checking out the forum and I love the sense of community and feedback this place has and am excited to start being a part of it!
About me:
I'm completely self taught and started learning about 3 years ago.
Right now I'm mostly focusing on Gesture Drawing and Anatomy to improve.
My artistic level (I think) would be that I know how to copy very well and also use reference to base my art off of something. I'd love to be able to draw more from my imagination though and not have to rely so heavily from reference but I don't know exactly what the next step should be. Up until now I always felt like I have been moving forward but now it feels like I'm slowly going into a rut of some kind. If anybody has any feedback or advice on what to work on, I'd love to hear what you think. Any studies or drawing exercises would be incredibly helpful as well!
So… Hi everyone! *God I’m so bad at this things >///< (I feel this is so cliché tho ¬7¬)* I was here in CD few years ago… it was the first place I found where ppl seemed to take seriously their art improvement. And so I hopped in, but at that time I wasn’t really comfortable with my drawing skills... I mean don’t get me wrong, I still don’t feel like my drawings are more than just a bunch of crap, but now at least I think I have a little bit of an idea of what I’m doing (not really, most of the times I’m just improvising and winging it) Since I noticed that I could actually do something instead of just scribbling and hoping for the best, I thought it was about time to find a place to show my stuff and exchange serious critiques with ppl that were also kind of serious about getting better… And after a lot of time trying to find a place, it slapped me in the face Crimson Daggers ofc… So I tried to came back to my old account… there was not much a of a success there cause I forgot my password and my username so RIP OTL… so I made a new one! And this time I’ll try to be a part of this group and not being a crying baby like last time ¬3¬
As for myself, welp I’m self taught… I didn’t go to Art School nor taking any art classes. Everything that I know it was just “thanks to” my (shitty) own research, asking ppl, and trying and failing, trying and failing and failing and failing… And I still have no idea of what I’m doing, so yeah
When it comes to art, I don’t have a “style” or anything like that, so I just tend to go as realistic as I can with my drawings and hope for the best. That being said, I’m not really worried about that or stylizing things…
I don’t have like “art goals” in the sense that I feel like I want to be able to make so many things at the same time… and I know that’s kinda bad… cause I don’t have like an idea of what I’m supposed to work towards… but idk… I fell like the closest thing would be like illustration/painting (but realistic illustration) and like narrative (in the sense of comic and that stuff)
My current level is pretty low, but I feel like at least I have that sense of 3d form, at least in my head. Rn I’m trying to work with digital painting, specially values… yeap I’m still working in greyscale…
I’m looking for real critiques here… what I mean is that I want honest critiques. If you feel like you have something to say but you might hurt me, please do… I much rather have a critique that helps me (even if it’s not what I want to hear) than a sugar coated critique that doesn’t really point out what I should work on. Also I should mention that I don’t like taking without giving something in return so… if you want me to check your stuff please ask me (But just know I’ll do it anyway :Y I’m a creep :v) I’ll try to be as helpful s I can with my comments, but if I sound a little bit like a bitch, please keep in mind that that’s not my intention… I just want to help!
Yee, sorry for the lengthy intro.. not my thing… I’ll go and open a sketchbook and leave sum comments… Baiiiii! *hides in the shadows*
My name is Sam, I'm 22 and I thought it would be a good idea to start utilising crimson daggers for self improvement. As much as i'd like to say I'm new here, it is not so! I joined here about 3 maybe 4 years ago now and was active for a while, participating in some of the contests and joining in with the community, also watching Dave Rapoza's videos and Dan Warren's videos and trying to soak up as much information as possible. I guess as time went on, life just seemed to drift me away from Crimson Daggers. I really wanted to be a concept artist & Illustrator when I joined crimson daggers, all those years ago and I still do now.
I was studying lots back then, probably in the most harmful way possible to myself by not really taking things seriously and not applying my studies, coupling this with going to University which had I known what I do now about Art education for concept art and illustration in Universities in the UK, I would not have gone and would have gotten my act together way back then and studied from home. But shit ... what're you going to do, I knew jack about what I really needed to do to Improve. So I graduated University and got my degree, finding myself once again back at home and feeling a little lost as to where I was, Who I was and what I was going to do.
From then up until now it's been a rocky road filled with basically feeling shitty and not knowing how to improve and doing different things, not finishing them. Finding a new path and then finding that the path fizzles into darkness and then finding another path and losing that one too. It's been really hard to stay motivated while that was happening, I felt like I had lost my knowledge of how to study, or what to study or basically how to learn things and improve myself.
I have been lucky enough to gain a few freelance gigs in this time gap, I worked with Lazerhawk on an album cover at one stage. Then after learning Zbrush and loving utilising that for a while I got a job working with editor Jeff Betancourt who edited films such as "The Poltergeist" "Crouching Tiger: Hidden Dragon" and more. I feel like these were amazing opportunities to have, although on the other hand I am still not satisfied in the slightest with where I am.
Then cut to now, I feel like I have found my spark again! I got back into watching some of Dave Rapoza and Dan Warren's livestreams again on Twitch. This time really listening closely to what they have to say on learning, this time with a maturer 22 year old brain as apposed to naive 16 - 17 year old Sam. Things really started to make sense now, and I realised that I have been really overthinking and over complicating things for the past few years, what they were saying seemed to resonate with me so much more. So since now I have a day job which I have to work, I've been making a schedule for myself to study from in the evenings after work and on the weekends pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday. Not to mention finishing at 2:00pm on Fridays so I get those too.
I work as a product designer for a gothic giftware company, so its not so bad being paid to design and paint still, but really in all honesty. I hate the place, a year in working there and I can tell its just crap, especially with the office politics that go on. Anyway I won't dwell on that. The point is, thanks to Dave and Dan's wisdom I feel now I am somewhat on the right path, I feel like I have found what it is to learn again and feel what its like to have information going into my brain. Which is really a nice feeling to have, I know its not going to be like this all the time as its a bloody long road to go down, but I feel at 22 years old I am finally ready to put in the work.
My ultimate goal will be to work as a Concept Artist in the Game or films industry and be able to some day work on
some of the types of Game and film that I like. Be it in a studio if that gets my foot in the door or freelance. To be able to reach the levels of some of my favourite artists and feel that I have improved is also a big goal. AS long as i am learning and applying my studies and seeing an improvement from now on I'll be very happy!
This is also why I've come back to crimson daggers. I feel like I need to get more critiques on my work and have it torn apart so I can work on my weaknesses.
Sorry for the long message people, I have wanted to get this all off my chest for a long time.
Thanks very much all ! Nice to meet everyone. Also a big thankyou to Dave Rapoza and Dan Warren for all their honest wisdom and no bullshit approach to learning this. Thankyou.
Howdy! I'm new here (As in I literally just fell in love with this site today-) and I don't particularly know what I'm going to do on here y e t, but I know I'll be participating a lot :''')
Hmm... I suppose I should introduce myself a lil bit, eh?
Well, I enjoy drawing-//slapped
aHEM.
I also enjoy writing, reading, gaming, nature and uh... The internet, I guess lmao.
My humor is extremely dark, condescending and most of the time centers around absurd amounts of stupidity, not to mention it literally kills all moods.
On a side note, my writing makes the people who read it smile, as it tends to be generally happy and fluffy~ (Of course, I have my days where I title it something happy, but in reality I just kill everyone as soon as the reader gets attached to them lol.)
hm.
I have a very unrealistic drawing style, my proportions and anatomy need quite a bit of work, as well as my dynamic poses and exaggeration of parts, and my backgrounds are okay at best.
I tend to be hard on my creations, especially when I have high expectations that are immediately crushed.
My goals for the future? To hopefully learn more about color theory, anatomy and proportions, and maybe beginning to sell it then.
My goals now, are to find an art style :'')))
Welp, I think there is enough about me to satisfy even the most information starving person in the world (hopefully-)
and thus, I conclude whatever mess I made this time.
Hi I’m new to the site and have been looking for an art community online. I have been trying to teach myself art and learn from mistakes however never been part of a community to get feedback. I’m not sure why, fear maybe. Anyways.
My goal as an artist is to understand the human form and put it in environmental and situations. Would love to learn photoshop (I have the tools but become easily flustered with it) any advice?
Thanks everyone I look forward to being a part of this community!
