My failures at art.

[pathoslogos]

I have never been apart of an art forum community because of my own disappointment of my skill level of work. After being taken advantage of at for profit art school that left me 40k in debt with a lackluster portfolio and I have been desperate to get good fast at any cost.  Lately I have found myself recently hitting a plateau that I am struggling with and I realized that I am missing out the many benefits of being part of an community of art that may suffer the same frustrations as I do. I hope that interacting with others and participating in challenges will cause me to face my fears head on. 

[Punk-A-Cat]

Hi there.
Gonna be blunt, don't call yourself a failure, to start with it will colour how other people see you, and it's really not helping your own self esteem. Nobody is a failure, we are all on a learning path, doesn't matter where on the path you are, your position makes you an artist, but never a failure, the only way you can possibly fail is to give up.

I really like your colour studies - are they oils? There is a good use of light and colour in them. The painterly style is really nice too.

If you are looking to fast track your learning, maybe you need to decide what it is you want to do with art - where do you want to work? Then focus your efforts on getting to that place specifically, just so you can narrow down the things you are trying to master to start with.

[pathoslogos]

Na i don't mean it in serious way as a reflection of my self esteem. It is more of an acknowledgment of where I am at and where I need to be. I love failure, nothing masterful ever came out of success. Thanks for the positive feed back on the color studies. They are actually all done in Photoshop. Color was so difficult for me, studying the masters without the use of the color picker has helped me out alot.

My goal is to have a refined painterly style that is similar to Craig Mullins so I can start making my own graphic novels. I have all of the stories I want to tell in mind. I just need the artistic ability to make them come to life.

[Punk-A-Cat]

Hah, you want to do what I want to do :D (graphic novels) Though I'm much more drawn to ink and watercolours, I started out writing, creating worlds, then gaming (tabletop, pathfinder mostly because that was what everyone had going) and getting seriously frustrated that I couldn't draw my characters and monsters, especially when I started running games and wanted visual references that didn't exist for my made up creatures. I also want to illustrate kids books.

Graphic novels in the style of Mullins would be really awesome :D

[Olooriel]

Agree with cat, the colour studies are nice!

In the linework though, you "chicken-scratch" a lot, try visualising where you want to put the line, then drawing it in a single sweeping stroke. I also recommend practising that with traditional, especially in ink. Cleaner lines would instantly make those gestures look much more fluid!

I also can't help but agree with cat about the "failure" thing, even if it is in jest - it's still the first word you see every time you post in your sketchbook. Failure is a strong negative word, mistakes do not equal failure. Things like that do rub off on your subconscious, and this is probably not the message you want to send yourself if you already say that you were too disappointed in your own work to share it in a forum until now.

Anyway, welcome to the Daggers, which rest assured, despite looking a little blood-spattered, is quite a friendly corner of the web to hang out in! :)

[Brian Hermelijn]

Welcome aboard to daggers mate, in combination with what has already been said, check out this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH1yyw7ib-c - Art and Intention by Stephen Silver

Keep the drive going, and look forward to see how you will progress ! :D

[pathoslogos]

Maybe you guys are right. I will take that into consideration and try to be more confident in my art. That video you sent me Hermidraws was quite helpful. I grew up with Stephen Silver's cartoons, it is great to hear about about art confidence from a industry professional.   

Oloorel thanks for the art tip. Scratchiness has always been a problem. I have never drawn in pen before I will definitely have to start. Those are timed figure drawings and I tend to worry about finishing the whole thing as opposed to getting a clean form down. 

[DavidSzilagyi]

Keep kicking ass!

Also, I think that one backlit girl was either Jeremy Mann or Jeremy Lipking, right? Either way, I LOVED painting her and studying her. Kickass, keep on trucking, you got this shit :D

[Bookend]

Great studies! Where'd you go ? Keep moving man!