One Thousandth time's the charm

[Arqm]

Hello Crimson Daggers forum! Call me Arqm. I'm 19 years old and this is probably the thousandth something attempt of me "picking up" art again in the past four to five years. I started drawing when I was in High school, and at the time it was simply a coping mechanism for dealing with stress and the bullying I received while attending. After a while I ended up enjoying drawing and I wanted to pursue a career in it.(Was hoping to do Character Design and 2D animation.) So, I started to take it a bit more seriously and began my efforts to improve. I bought and studied a ton of art books (figure drawing, anatomy, etc.), took art classes, got critiques from other artists on my work, and I practiced almost everyday. My confidence was very high in the beginning, but it started to waver when I slowly realized no matter how much I did and how much time I put in it, my art never seemed to improve or get better. It always seemed fixed. And even if I did make some progress it was only by a little bit each time. I ended up trying to apply to an art school with what I had and their rejection only confirmed that I wasn't good enough. 

After that, I dropped it for a while, at least as far as doing it seriously. It seemed useless to continue it when I was getting nowhere. The quarantine and pandemic, however, has given me a lot of time on my hands and made me realize that I lack any sort of skill to call my own. Art was the only thing I could sort of call my own despite how shit my work was. That's why I've come here today to start over and try to see if this time around I can do it somewhat competently with the help of others.  Looking foward to drawing with you all.

[wld.89]

Welcome Arqm ! I know how it feels to be stuck in the plateau and not see your art improve ! but with proper training and instruction i'm sure you can become amazing, Give yourself challenges, Go to your own limits, and keep practicing no matter what ! I'm looking forward to see your work, make a sketchbook and post as often as possible to get commited !

[Arqm]

Welcome Arqm ! I know how it feels to be stuck in the plateau and not see your art improve ! but with proper training and instruction i'm sure you can become amazing, Give yourself challenges, Go to your own limits, and keep practicing no matter what ! I'm looking forward to see your work, make a sketchbook and post as often as possible to get commited !

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll try to have a little more hope this time even if art doesn't become my main career path. I'll be sure to start a sketchbook thread soon but I wanted to know if there's a road map of sorts for beginners to follow when starting with drawing? I know a few things I had to do in the past when I used to draw like anatomy, perspective, drawing basic shapes, shading etcetera, but I didn't know when I had to practice them and at what point do I stop. Is there a particular order to learn these things? Are there resources you'd recommend for beginners? Are there any resources on this forum that can aid beginners? What do you mean by setting challenges for yourself?

[Zorrentos]

Welcome to the forum Arqm. I hope this is the start of a beautiful journey for you!

As for what to study and in what order, the answer is quite simple:

You should begin by studying the subject that interest you! There is no set rule on what to begin with.

If you want to do characters, then start by studying from some good books and videos on that subject, then move on to studying things like folds and clothing, then maybe design. After that, you can begin a process of project-based learning that forces you to branch out and study other subjects to fill in your knowledge-gaps.

Start a sketchbook and begin posting asap! :)

[Artloader]

Welcome to Crimson Daggers Arqm!

There's not really a rigid roadmap on here but resources that get recommended a lot are:

- drawabox.com for drawing in perspective
- How To Draw by Scott Robertson also for drawing in perspective
- Proko's anatomy courses on YouTube
- Any courses by Dorien Iten

I will also share my approach which will not suit everyone but it might give you some ideas:

My approach to learning has been a cyclical one, I might focus on drawing simple forms in perspective for a month, then move onto building my understanding of value and lighting and then move on to colour and then cycle back to drawing in perspective.

My attitude is that it is better to have a deep knowledge of a few fundamentals rather than have a shallow knowledge of loads of elaborate techniques.

Another thing I've found useful is to identify a master artist who's work I admire and study from them - if they don't offer tutorials then I just do master studies of their work and try to learn as much as I can from that process. It is useful to have an art hero who's work I admire as it gives me a bit of direction on what to study.

That's just me though and by no means am I saying that it is for everyone so please take whatever you find helpful and ignore the rest - we are all on our own journey and there are many routes to mastery :).

Good luck dude!

[darktiste]

Progress as alot to do with the ''right mindset'' and understanding how to build on top of what you have done so far.What generally happen if i can give my own experience as an example is that we start with alot of motivation but that alone isn't enough to succeed there is people who have master discipline they no longer are driven by moment of motivation.They have generated enough momentum to get there ball rolling and don't necessarly require outside motivation(but it still help to kick your ass sometime to compare yourself with your competition)(just be careful with self bashing)your in the right place because here you can actually see how fast other are progressing and don't get me wrong it can be frustrating when we don't see the same happening progress happening for us.But you get no where when you drop the ball you only create room to resent yourself.We are human some get alot out of there study will other don't but my belief is that the more you can be present will drawing(present in the idea that you are focus on the task and nothing else)the better will be your result that if you actually know how to translate the art theory into applicable exercise and than you actually apply it to your own personal work right away after that.

Here 3 post i wrote i think would be a great addition to fix your mindset and get you on the right track

How to learn to draw and the importance of practical dialogue over mindless pratice
http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-4107.html


How to increase optimal workflow(the theory)
http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-5494.html

Positive thinking
http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-6483.html

So good luck and open up a sketchbook thread when your ready to start and please please don't feel overwhelm by the incredible support you might get here.