Kilillan's Sketchbook

[Kilillan]

I'm curious about why you want to get better at art? 

If you can be honest with yourself (and specific), that's your fastest route to improvement. What is it specifically you want to create? Wanting to get better as a goal won't be as effective as having a destination in mind to work towards. If you can point to something and say "I want to do that", it gives you a road map of sorts. The online school you're doing is good feedback for the projects they're assigning, but what about your own projects?

You like your non-art job and have no intention of becoming a professional artist. So, you're in a unique position to pursue the art you want to make without the pressure of conforming to industry needs or standards. Get better at what you want to do, and you'll improve quicker because you wont be swinging at any random art task that comes your way - you'll be swinging at the tasks that get you fired up to make art in the first place.

Hope that makes sense. I get sticking to that art program as a point of pride, but doing that along side a full time job doesn't leave much room for personal development. Tons of people go through years of art school and come out with mediocre portfolios because they just stuck out the program but didn't have any real invested interest in the work they were making in school.

Thank you for your thoughtful response.
I think the main issue for me is  lack of direction... I'm honestly not (or wasn't, my goal is getting clearer now) what I wanted to create. My art-dream would be to create a pixel point-and-click adventure type game. However, I didn't think I knew the basics of art enough to get good at pixel art, so I tried learning from the basics. 
But I think you're absolutely correct. I am burning out on doing art for a program which doesn't help my career, nor is it the kind of art I really want to make. I need to put more time/effort into where I am passionate.

Also thank you for the draw-over, it really makes it clear where the perspective was off.



Jephyr: Yeah, that particular critique was a bit disappointing. I went back and read the assignment instructions, and there was actually nothing saying I needed to color it... the guy that critiqued it thought it needed color so he failed me. Ah well.