Hi my name is Ardian,

actually I really don't know what to write here, what a great start.
I'm 21 and just some random dude in germany that tries to become a concept artist and illustartor. Right now I may suck at art, but I really want to get good at it (kinda obvious when I wrote that I want to become a concept artist). I hope I can learn a lot of new things here from other people and stuff like that.

Like I said I don't really know what to write here, I'm kinda bad at introductions, but I hope we can all have a good time together.

Greetings! Salutations! Hi... I'm Steve, 25 years old and living in south east England. I am not great at introductions or writing anything biographical so I will keep this short. As you may gather I am quite a nervous guy. The type of person who'll sit quietly in a room full of people, and only really speak once I've got a feeling of the atmosphere and what the conversation is. Which very often means I'll actually end up saying nothing at all. :s

I am still at a very basic level when it comes to artistic ability. A lot of my process owes more to happy accidents than any real honed skill. When alls said and done there is usually something kinda lifeless and quite unfinished about the final result. To that end I have taken this year to be the start of my attempt to fix that by learning and honing myself.

Still trying to figure out how best to get myself into a schedule as well as build a list of things to learn. At the moment I am currently working through the lessons on the drawabox.com, and just started going through Figure Drawing for All It's Worth by Andrew Loomis. All while fighting an uphill battle of thinking I am not good enough to even attempt to draw anything, especially with all this laundry that needs folding! Any resources you think will help, advice, or anything you would recommend. I'd be most grateful!

I just have got to say it is really inspiring to see how people here have progressed from learner to learned over time!

As far as long term goals of what I'd like to do with art, I'd someday love to draw my own comics someday. I recently read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, and even though I've always had a love for comics that book made me appreciate the medium to new degrees.

Anyway I have rambled into a much longer intro than I really meant to do. Bottom line I am really hoping to get to know people and overall feel less alone in not being where I want to be, while I attempt to get there.

Thanks for reading! :D

Hello Daggers!
I used to lurk around and follow the streams forever ago, but never having the balls to join and get serious. Not anymore! I think i need to get honest feedback and dare to show my failures so I can motivate myself to keep doing it. Working from the shadows isn't doing me any good.

My name is Henning, im from Norway and i have been working small freelance jobs for a while doing illustrations for private clients and small companies. But im not happy with where im at, my speed, my overall quality and skills. Thus the need for a community that can kick my ass a little (or alot). I had to step back from regular studies for a couple of years due to illness. This has caused my progress to completely stagnate and set me back quite a lot skillwise. But! Im am getting better at the moment and have had a lot of time to think and get motivated. 

Thanks for reading and I wish all of you good luck in your own journey. :)

-Henning

Hellooooooo guysss , I'm so exciting to be here !!!! I decided to take a step forward through my art jorney . I don't have a style , I know almost knowing about art , but I am here to learn and I have the two most important ingredients  to sucess : passion and discipline !!!!

Good day to everyone and remember , get the job done guysss !

This seems like what I've been looking for!

I'm an enviroment artist in the games industry by day but early morning and evenings I try to do some private art. I've been posting stuff on Instagram and my blog, and just got started with Twitter as they seem to have a pretty sweet image posting feature. 

I'm hoping to meet other artists here and be part of the community. I've already had some luck in this regard on Instagram and I'm hoping that this can be a horizon-broadening experience. If you have any feedback on finished stuff then please let me know :)

I'll be looking for partners to draw and studdy with soon, so if you feel that you want to talk to me about that kind of stuff please reach out. 

Outside of drawing I like boxing, swordplay, heavy metal (both the music and the magazine) and pen and paper roleplaying games (like D&D, but mostly in Swedish). Also browsing instagram untill I am filled with shame and a cold sweath breaks out. I've been looking a lot at tattoo artists as of late, Scumboy666 and Teide are my current faves. 

See you around and hopefully I'll talk to you later

Kind regards
/Matteo

Hello!

I'm 33 and I currently reside in the southeastern US.  More specifically, I live in rural Georgia near the Alabama line, but I sometimes make it out to the metro Atlanta area on weekends. 

I was at first intimidated by all of the beautiful, professional work being submitted here, but I decided I wanted to join anyway, especially after noticing I wasn't the only one scared to join at first.  I know it's bad to compare yourself to others, but my own work is currently very much more amateur.

Basically, I've never had any kind of formal art education.  What little I do know was gleaned from practice on and off over the years, books, or watching the Youtube channels of some artists I follow that do tutorials and instructional videos.  I took one introductory level college art course in drawing, completely unrelated to my degree, but that was a very stressful time for me, that class often got pushed to the back-burner in favor of work related to my major, and I mostly ended up embarrassing myself.  My parents didn't know what to do with a child interested in art, my father often heavily pressured me towards STEM fields because they "made more money" even though those areas weren't really my strong points, and after attempting a degree in biology, I switched to English because people seemed to like some of my writing and I did enjoy literature, so that's what I graduated with.  I didn't adapt very well to cubicle life in an office, it quite literally drove me crazy, so I quit and I've had a bunch of odd jobs ever since including a bookstore position, a staff position at a living facility for DFCS and DJJ kids in government custody due to family problems or criminal records, and various warehouse positions.

I keep coming back to art though.  It's one of the few things I've pursued out of my own interest and one of the few things I can really lose myself in.  I'm getting a later start than most people, being in my 30s now, but I have no kids, I'm not married, and I don't have much of a social life due to being more introverted and having social anxiety problems.  I want to do something more meaningful with my life, and I hope to at least pursue art in earnest for myself, with the added bonus of at least getting supplemental income eventually, or even shifting careers if I'm ever able to achieve at least a semi-professional level of skill and the business know-how to promote my work.  I know the odds are stacked a little more against me than others at this point, but I have to try.  Worst case scenario, I figure I will at least improve in my ability to express myself artistically in my spare time, which is worth the effort in an of itself.

I did finally buy one of the Andrew Loomis books on figure drawing since all of his books seem to be highly recommended by most artists and I'll be working through that.  I've also debated trying out Noah Bradley's Art Camp when I have the cash.  I will be posting some of my stuff to the sketchbook section as soon as I'm able.  Attached for now is the full, uncropped version of my avatar pic that I did on scratchboard.  I'm open to suggestions as far as exercises to help in areas I'm lacking in (or even help in identifying what more specific areas I should work on first to see some improvement), links to videos or online courses that might be beneficial, or instructional books.  I'm currently focusing on traditional art first, though I'll likely dabble in digital later as well.  I do currently have access to a Wacom Intuos tablet and Corel Painter Essentials (got the bundle for Christmas).

To those of you who followed me this far, thanks for listening to me ramble.  Hopefully I'll be able to give a little something back to the community as well.  I'm more than happy to help or share in whatever ways I can, though as I said before, looks like a vast majority of people here are far more advanced than I am.

-Renee (a.k.a. Alopex)

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Hey guys! 

I'm Gregor from the UK. I'm 32 and I've been working for a games company for 3 years now. I feel that my gestures and characters in general are still not as good as they should be. My goal is to use 2017 to teach myself how to draw characters in a semi realistic style (like Jim Murray for example) so I can use them for my paintings. 
Any advice is appreciated!

My name is Graziele, im 22, i live in Brazil and im sorry in advance for my broken english. 
Someone just sent me the link of this place and i was really nervous to join out, but well, after reading some threads i think i got some courage to finally start.

So, i am currently self studying to try joining the concept art carreer for animation and games (its actually my dream since kid, i also do a bit of illustration). I did game design and graphic design (forced to choose something in the new town, since my parents were dissapointed with me, not that i don't like, but i don't see myself doing something like it) colleges but didnt finish due financial problems, and since i always lived in small towns (actually, i'm always moving to new towns and none have any of it) i was never able to join art schools or anything like that (excluding game design college, i needed to move, but again, money problems, needed to come back home). I'm also writting a fantasy rpg-based book to let my mind active, also thats my main project for the future with  my boyfriend, but since its just the two of us we going slow (we want to do a comic/game about it, but for now we focusing on study the hardest we can, he also doing game design college).

I though that i could join here and have some help with tutorials, critics and anything else related to it. I like my current artstyle, but i think i lack alot on my painting skills, so im trying to learn what i can to reach the style i desire, i also think i need to improve more on details for concepts. 

I also have some fear about the carreer, since Brazil is not so opened to it, so i'm a bit lost in where to start, but i hope you guys can help me out with it   .

Hi my name is Geo and i am invalid(easy way) i have twilight epilepsy it's not close relate to art but to my personality.
Maybe because i have goverment pension,  i can't recieve good money out of my art, maybe because of this illness that made me so immune to cooperative work, i try as hard as i can to make it work learn from masters of great passion and balance in their hearts. But it all ends by my stubborness and willing to end all pieces that i made in chaos (unfinished). 

This some kind of force that are preventing me for getting good reliable job to enjoy myself and achive my long-running goal of becoming director like miyazaki,kojima,nolan,cameron,scott,jodorowsky,tarkovsky ot atleast of becoming art director...Right now i have living all alone by myself, i have separated with my sister, and long before it happends our grand-and-real parents have passed away, from that point i've started to precieve my art is to be my only goal in life (Also act but i haven't try myself in movies before) so that's it brutal honesty i don't to be hypocrit and also i do not wait misery for this introduction i hope you guys check my sketchbook out, thank you! 

P.S. sorry for big ego photo.

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Hello, my name is Danielle and I am 30, I live in Wantagh, New York, in the USA. I am a fine artist/illustrator who works in all kinds of media, but primarily I use acrylic paint, collage, pen and ink, colored pencils, watercolor, and marker. I work digitally too, but not as keen on it...nor the best at focusing for long periods of time on a screen when the temptation to check email or play around on Facebook lingers over me. I also enjoy the feel of the organic process of making a mess/managing natural errors and surprise mistakes (...sometimes I will combine aspects of traditional and digital painting together to create something new, fix a composition problem, things like that... ) I am not anti-digital, it just doesn't make me comfortable. I actually want to improve on that, and develop a better habit of not being distracted while sketching on the computer- (another problem is using a computer for long periods of time makes me sometimes develop very bad headaches!) I find Photoshop a beautiful medium if you know what you are doing and your heart is in it.

My favorite topics are bizarre fantasy, surrealism and horror, along with psychedelic/abstract, and stylized portraits of people and animals. Some of my big influences are Gris Grimly, Gerald Scarfe, Ralph Steadman, Camille Pisarro, Max Ernst, Magritte, and Sam Keith.   I would describe my work most of the time being more 'stylized' than hyper-realistic, and although that genre of art is honestly not my big cup of tea, I still want to push myself to be more into realism, not only because of it's focus in the industry, but also because I know a solid realism skill will help strengthen my more loose and whimsical work regardless. ...My art education did often the best they could, but due to a combination of having a large amount of flawed, or very old very senile instructors- (I'm not kidding, one of them gave out only 3 assignments in a whole YEAR and she argued once to my face if I was really 'present' in class...her first introductory speech to us was a 2 hour rant about how dogs are her spirit animal, and all the evils of tofu. No I really shit you not!!) As well also...lazy foolish youthful rebellion on my own part, (which I mostly now regret). I don't think I gained all that much out of it as I ought to have pushed for. So that's why I am here, for 2017 to begin the process of repairing my art. I have been stuck in various 9 to 5s and all in all I don't feel right.

My ability to draw/paint has been around since I was a toddler. I went to study for 2 years in an Art major at State University of Albany and then got my Bachelors of Fine Art in Illustration at the Fashion Institute of Technology...But I lack confidence a lot of the time and really am unsure of myself and my work, and don't quite know along the spectrum of Quality where my work stands. I like to think my work stands deeply in need of improvement, but it's not 'bad' either. My problem I think is a lack of constant focus and very easy physical fatigue, in all aspects of my life. I at times suffer mild depression/art blocks, as well as not having a very big personal living space to use at hand, nor a very supportive/art enthusiastic family environment back home to nurture my development...every time i ask for feedback, it's either clueless "I DUNNO DONT ASK ME! :D" or unhelpful but well-meaning"YOU'RE BETTER THAN PICASSO"s or most frequently, from my dad, my original artistic influence in first place: "Noone should pay money for this work/You are a good artist but make terrible artwork, you are a waste..." I don't mean to vent my personal BS down here, but yeah, it's difficult to feel confident in myself or motivated to practice without my art school community to support me like it used to. I come upon other artistic professional's work online, and as inspiring as looking at others' work is, the more it makes me also feel dejected and hopeless and never capable of being THAT guy or finding my art niche in life as a career...My intent is to end that mindset and force feeding me some well-earned tough love and push my body and mind to suck it up and produce more streams of work. My anatomy, light and perspective all can stand to be developed stronger, and while I have endless streams of original character and story world ideas, I have drawn them very rarely because I often give up too easily.

My big main intents being here/with my art is this: 1. To cultivate new good friends with talent to teach me more. 2. To bring out my personal stories/visions into reality...I have a lot of stories/desire to build small concepts to big engrossing ones maybe into comics, graphic novels, or just painting series inside me, and I want to not have them just caged and disappear into nothing inside me when I am gone. I want to inspire or move people, or at least amuse and entertain them with my ideas if I can. 3. To help my sister's own personal creative wonderful stories and ideas achieve reality too. 4. I want to bring income into my life with my creative skills. I wish I knew a less vague definition than that but I don't. Dunno yet how or what specifically I want to do, I just wanna figure out what makes me satisfied and helps pays the bills by this point. I don't really believe in 'life destiny', that ultimately if you stick with only only doing 1 and only one kind of thing all your life, you're not living it well enough. I want to explore all kinds of fields of art, and meet all kinds of people. I wanna play and experiment with different mediums, genres, and styles. I wanna broaden my imagination and skill set in all sorts of directions while figuring out what my personal signature' is, if I have one. 4. And finally, I wanna improve my productivity and mood, I think communicating with others just period and other artists looking to improve from so many backgrounds may really make me feel less alone and challenged in a positive healthy way to make other people see my work/help other people out too.

Sorry for all the words, I hope that wasn't too painful.