Thank you for the nice words! I try not to beat myself up about things too much; I don't really want to have it bubble up into the surface and leak into my art. What really got me is just me going through and sorting my art and doing some self-reflection. I hope that self-reflection can be helpful when I get too focused on it.

Been thinking about a notion I have seen posted here a few times. "I want more than what i got". A small story time. Or rather something that I have been told "what you say is a lie and you do not believe in it as no one would agree to it."

Now one of my slogans has been, "if there is even one person that smiles seeing my doodles, then me sharing it has not been in vain". I have been challenged for that statement more than i can count. "You cannot tell me and claim that you are genuinely happy, when you get a singular like!"

... but i do. Nowadays i do. There was a time, when I wanted also 100, 1000, 10 000 and what-not-likes-and-followers, but years back I met a person, who was suicidal. She told she keeps a written diary to distract herself from dark thoughts. In there she pretends to be someone else, on a journey and she writes this story as a character. And one of those dark days she had by accident run across one of my doodles. Lets be said it was a doodle with 0 notes, shares, likes, anything.

There was many coincidences - me making the doodle, me posting the doodle in time, me posting the doodle to that place (not posted it anywhere else) and her finding it at right time.

She wrote to me how my doodle came just in time to prevent her hurting self on that day as the doodle was like 100% correct illustration to her story. I do not want to share too many details of what was the story, or what was the doodle or the character for obvious reasons.

Another time my 'obnoxious and irrelevant' doodle reached someone (a civilian) , who had just landed on front lines of a war and it was their favorite character.

Those stories to me are more important than whatever 1000s of notes I got for some other work in same platform. I had created something that at least in given moment offered something to someone else. I do not even know if those people are alive today. I hope they are.

Those are also stories why i tell myself to do what I (me, myself and I) love and then share it in hope that those works reach the right people in right time. I post my silly doodles in hope that they make someone smile - that one right person smile. It does not matter if they tell me that (it be great if they do), I just hope there is someone. who smirks thinking, "oh that's awesome!" and presses 'save as'.

It was not easy road for me to get there, but to be able to impact even one person and make them smile is an honor. Not statistic.

I also see people sometimes post in threads like these, or elsewhere in socials how their friends and family liking their work is 'irrelevant'. I think it is actually good to see best friend drop off their chair laughing, seeing my stupid drawing... why are my friends worse than random people online. I'd smack them cross their head NOT liking my doodles!

Here is a perspective that I have on this if I may.

I take pride in being an artist. Not in a way that is in a over-cocky or sinful in the eyes of some, but rather knowing that I have worked to actually get the skills to be proud of being one and continuing to hone those skills. There's a level of ego that has to be dropped however and realize that my feelings can not get in the way of the work itself for the most part. The only line that line ever gets crossed when it comes to the work is if it's content involves something deeply personal from my experiences as a human being, but as for the other art that I make as far as I am concerned I cannot control the reactions of how other people see my art on the ethos.

The way I look at it, people are either going to like or hate the art for one reason or another. If they like the work, great! If they do not, then I can't control how they feel about why they do not like it. The job behind the art is to see how people click to it and that is ultimately the reason why we make things. That's regardless of whether or not is something of Fan-Art, Original Work, Doodles, Refined or Completed pieces.

If someone offers critique on a piece that is a work in progress, that is another story going into the technical side of things. That is ultimately where the respect matters most in this field. You want to help one another learn, but you also want to do so in a way that helps them grow and whether or not they take the feedback is on them. I've built my mentality around that, but that goes into a whole other ball game.

In your case, I would say that your work is doing what it should be doing, but in a way it's also helped someone keep going which is a humbling experience that is rewarding in of itself. And that should matter more than the people who dare indifferent to the work you make regardless of who they are.

Dropping in a meme I found today with some good advice.

I could try it, as I'm doing it right now. It seems approachable at best—some extended topics to kill time. I have no problem talking to artists online. I used to after hearing some horror stories of some artist being fucked over on the spot. So far, not much has happened to me. Just keep networking with the right guys.

Glenn Vilppu has stressed heavily there are no rules. No rules of any kind. Just tools. Tools to use when they're most effective. It's starting to make sense now, because all the time spent worrying about rules you could have been laying down the foundation for a sketch or drawing or whatever it may be. Just a tip for anyone who is obsessed over the 'rules of art' because I used to be heavily as well.

I want to counter this a little bit. I have a habit of OVER preparing and waiting too long to start doing. If you are working on getting tools for something, make sure you know you have to start DOING that thing. Otherwise you will sit in the mud and spin your tires.

Actually one other thing.

If you can find a way to get through even the worst of days while still doing whatever the hell it is you want to be doing otherwise, say skateboarding or drawing, just find every bubble of time you have, and just, practice lines, or kicking your tail up. If you only have 30 seconds to draw on reciept paper at work, scribble. Don't go in prepared and expect to blast through something. If you are at a slow part of life, don't expect to be running immediately. You might just be tired and need to walk for a while.

you know what? I'll gladly take the support.

I think the reason why I kinda became quite inactive in newgrounds and kinda stopped poasting my art on art portal here is because I felt like my recent art weren't good enough for this platform, and I mean it as in "is my art getting worse?" kind of thing, if I'm not mistaken, I think the fact that scouting system is a thing in an art portal sure contributes to my inactivity of poasting art on here LIKE ALOT,

like the reason why I still poast my art (which is mostly doodles, but still lol) on tumblr is because your art doesn't have to be SUPER DUPER PERFECT to be poasted on here right? after all, there's no scouting system here, people will like it regardless and you know what? I think that's good,

I just wanna have fun drawing, not worry about being an perfectionist about my art having to be perfect in every way, shapes and forms.

I wanna go back to being more active on newgrounds, and I'm slowly trying to get better at not giving a fuck, but still,

I wonder if there's anyone else here who has the same issue as I do and/or if anyone have any advice. :v

I’d say not to let the scouting system intimidate you. There’s so much art posted to it every day that I don’t think it really gives you that much of a boost in attention, compared to using the forums and becoming well known here like you once did.

Were you perhaps unscouted? Another friend of mine also had that happen, and I think the enforcement on quality is getting tighter.

well, I just checked and as far as I know, I am currently not a member of the art portal, although if I remember correctly, I think I do remember someone scouting me so perhaps I was unscouted? idfk I don't really remember anymore :v

You can ask one of the mods to confirm if you'd like to.

Laughs and cries in getting scouted and unscouted the second I post my art.

Honestly at this point, I am starting to barely give a shit about what about people think about my art at this point, Yeah I'll take those 4 stars thank you, Good sir, Unlike you, I don't have fans with me so I am like a non existent dust, And you draw good so

Anyways, Let me tell you the time I was so happy That I got scouted, Basically I made a very perfect sketch of tulin from TOTK and I loved it personally, And uploaded it only to wake up the next day with me getting scouted, The happiness on my face, And all, I decided to get even better at my art while also have fun, Later on the same day, I decided to draw, A hinox patrick stump, Cause of fallout boy and legend of zelda. And basically I got unscouted

The despair I have been through, With no one to hold my back, At this point, But you know, You look at it again, At this point you just said fuck it, I don't care anymore, I just don't care about how much people like my post and so on, As long as that user is a genuine user who is interested in my art, Even better, Someone from the community of my art.

I really don't care about social media likes nor how much stars my post on newgrounds get, I gave up on appealing to people at this point, I barely care, I'll just consider every art of mine a masterpiece in that case till a new one comes out, And I consider that a masterpiece, I am done. There are people out there getting paid in commissions while they don't draw much well, The more you think about it, You really shouldn't care at this point, I just no longer care. A part of me lost that feel of encouragement tbf, I am just drawing things that I wanted to save up when I get better, But the rule of life of "You have to do it first before you get better" and all of that

To be fair you have better chances of getting scouted and I don't see that for some reason, Your a great artist compared to me, I am kind of a shitty one, Like, My drawings belong more on deviantart compared to here, I think you deserve getting scouted, Compared to me, I think I will get good at my art when I freaking die haha.

Yeah again it requires dedication so go on now.

Just came back and read this post, and it’s really enlightening.

Wow. That’s humbling, to say the least. I remember saying the same thing at one point about my music, that my goal in life is to improve at least one person’s life with my work. At this point I feel like my work reaching someone who’s really struggling and lifting them up is about as unlikely as it reaching thousands of people, but I really never know what people are going through. Maybe just by virtue of having known a lot of people with mental health issues and other serious life problems, I have managed to do something for them with my work. Unfortunately, in the few specific cases I can recall off the top of my head where things were really dire, I doubt that they were ever as appreciative as the examples you gave. But that’s another story.

I believe that’s a symptom of impostor syndrome or even depression - the belief that one’s own work isn’t really valid and people are only commenting on it positively because they either like you as a person or are just being polite because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. It’s the art version of the same depressive thought I’ve heard again and again from people about how “my friends don’t actually like me, they’re just keeping me around out of pity.” Essentially, a lie the person tells themselves because they can’t comprehend why someone else would like them when they don’t live up to their own impossible standards.

Yall are allowed to hate me for this, but I was never good at writing research papers. Since ChatGPT came out, I've actually had a lot easier time connecting thoughts together to write things like video scripts.

With the recent Unity3D circus balloon, it super reminded me of way back when WatchDogs came out, and it was legit false advertising, and was NEVER updated to look like the prelaunch footage. CyberPunk2077, same deal, with fanmods to bugfix. Skyrim FFS. None of this shit is new, but makiung all the ideas in my brain untangle is really hard.

ChatGPT is really good for this.

First, thank you @Thetageist for making this thread, it's really reassuring to not feel alone with alot of this.

I think I struggle alot when it comes to a lot of online communication/social media. Like close friends? That's easy, I've known them forever. But I wouldn't start a convo like that with a stranger, so I tend to type things out as clear as I can which makes it feel pretty fake/robotic. I'd like to make friends with other artists but I always worry I'm bothering someone, or at some point someone says/does something out of pocket that ends up reaffirming me being passive about it. Social Media's worse because I just don't like the idea of having to post essentially just my stream of consciousness all the time, but you kinda have to at a certain degree to maintain... "engagement" I guess? So almost all of my social media is dead outside of infrequent art posts.

And my art is kinda all over the place atm, which I'm sorta fine with for now. I do wanna say that doing redraws of years old work can be uplifting to see your progress, because you can't really lie to yourself then. If you feel like "Oh it was a fluke" or "All my art is bad" seeing that visual comparison can help out because it shows your perception and understanding of art and how it grew.

Also here's some stuff that I found again after reading some of the other posts. Sorry if it's cheesy but I hope this helps. And a probably butchered quote:

"The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The second best time is right now."

This one's a bit too big to post, so:

AtokNiiro

The graphic about artistic ability and perception is really helpful to me, I saved it!

And for making friends with other people, this thread might give some ideas for how to start putting yourself out there!

Nobody is gonna punish you for trying to improve.

Agreed, and no one’s going to punish you for making mistakes along the way. Some might try, but no one person is the ultimate authority on art. You’re going to get a lot of conflicting feedback in your lifetime. Don’t sweat it if someone doesn’t think you’re worth anything just because you don’t adhere to their particular vision.

This goes for anything by the way. I think one of the hardest things for anyone, me especially, to get past and not fear is true faith in themselves.

Personally, I've always been jealous of people who can just barf creativity. Often they had situations growing up I wish I had had, and I can easily get stuck in that jealousy for a long time. EVEN IF that person gives advice and encourages me. Maybe not personally, but even so I am still thinking of tyler the creator.

At the same rate, Tyler kinda grew up the same as me, just in CA rather than MI. In a lot of ways, I recognize he's from a place that encourages his creativity, where I don't, but equally, I don't have a lot of the circumstances he does. So for each path to have gone where they did makes sense, and I can' really be angry about it either.

Just... what could be the thing that I do? Out of the literal endless list of my hobbies, what the hell do I even do?

I'm sure yall feel similar.

Hey everyone! I'm going to throw my 2 cents in! (Long post ahead!)

It doesn't matter that your drawings doesn't come out the way you imagined it in your head or how you'd hoped in some other way. You still made something with your own hands, your own thoughts, and your own efforts. Art is purely human expression at it's fundamental core, and nowhere does it specify that it requires perfection. Did you express yourself even the littlest bit? Did you have fun? Did you make yourself smile even once? Good! That means you made art, and that's awesome!

Do you think it looks bad, and no matter what you can't see it any other way? That's ok too! With every mistake we make, we learn. If it sucks for you right now, that just means it won't suck later! Being "bad" at something is literally the beginning steps at being good at something! If you keep working and practicing, you WILL see improvement, and you'll be feeling proud of yourself and your progress in no time! Besides, making something messily is always better than not making anything at all!

If you're feeling bad about where you are in your own skillset because you saw someone else drawing better than you, that's ok. I've been there too! You're allowed to feel bummed out! You're only human! Although it IS true that comparing your art to someone else's doesn't help, it still happens! We all do it! However, what's helped me flip the script in times like that is pointing out to myself what exactly it is that I admire about their pieces, and reflect on how I could work/practice/etc to reach that level for myself too, and where/when exactly to apply it. Comparison can be turned into motivation when you think about it in a different way, like inspiration instead!

Taking breaks from drawing is ok too! Sometimes, that's all you need! If you stop drawing for a while especially after feeling sad or burnt out, you'll be surprised a how refreshed you can feel now that you're not "forcing" yourself to draw productively all the time. Coming back to a WIP you got frustrated with after a break, for example, can let you look at the piece with fresh eyes and see what needs tweaking and where.

Sometimes something just sucks. I've been there too! Scrap it and start again, there's no shame in that. Don't look at it as a frustrating failure. Look at it as an example of "Well, now I know how NOT to do it" and begin again. You learned something even through things not working out well the first time through!

Art and creating art is always a process. Sometimes it's fun and flows well, sometimes it's more frustrating and more of a struggle. Either way, as artists, we can go to bed knowing that we're out here creating something. And we're out here still doing it time and time again!

And I think that's pretty cool.

Posting this here as well.

Is it worth it to learn to draw quickly?

For a while, I’ve been in art servers competing for attention against people who can bang out a finished piece in one day. I try to push myself to draw faster to get away from the perfectionist mentality I built up, but when I give myself a short deadline, the execution just looks sloppy. I rarely have enough free time in one sitting to finish an entire piece.

What am I doing wrong? Will I ever get people invested in my work if I don’t post frequently? How do I fix this, in general?

Been wondering the same thing.

Kinda just thinking out loud but, marketing yourself as a artist/creative/etc seems to require frequent engagement on social media. I’ve seen some stuff before about: “Scheduling out your posts for specific times/days” or “Artists are their own (insert 10-20 extra jobs on top of making art) when it comes to pushing their stuff forward”. Being consistent and frequent probably helps getting people invested in your work cause it’d up your chances of being seen and remembered.

As for drawing quickly I think it’s just something that happens over time. As you get more comfortable the hope would be you simplify parts of your own process. I think there’s also a difference in drawing quickly vs drawing efficiently. I would start out figuring how long it takes for myself to finish a piece as a baseline (focusing on the actual hours drawing). I’ve been meaning to practice this but iirc there was a drawing challenge along the lines of ‘draw something in 1hr/10min/1min’ which could also be helpful in figuring out how to simplify parts of your own drawing process.

Making a schedule could be helpful too, figure out how much time you can set aside for Art/Socials/Art Study, even if it’s just an hour each, stop yourself (unless you’re comfortable to continue going) and move onto to the next. And also be sure to take breaks, I’ve felt guilty taking breaks for a while because “Well, I could be using this time to draw” but would often feel burnt out which wouldn’t let me finish anything sooner.

Hope this helps

Thought to mention, I think consistency matters way more than frequency. It's probably better to post something consistently every week (or every other there's no rule, do whatever you comfortably want to do) instead of focusing on trying to do something daily. Varies person to person ofc. A previous professor of mine during a big project said:

Best way to eat an elephant, is one bite at a time.

So just chip away at stuff at your own pace.

I have had this issue since Autumn of 21'. I don't draw stuff compleatly for fun anymore, it feels like I'm stuck, plus i got a portfolio due to next fall since i just graduated my visual art high school this june.

Its just me slowly and slowly giving up at this point.

God, that was me for music when I started at music school. It all felt like work.

Maybe what might work to make it fun again is to make some art that you know right off the bat isn’t supposed to be for your portfolio, and that won’t ever make you think, “This should be in my portfolio.” Use a different program/medium if you have to. That’s my GarageBand music - it’s not appealing on an academic level, so I know it’s not going to go into my professional portfolio, but it’s fun enough for the laymen of NG and the layman side of my own brain to enjoy it.

Following this up, I actually just got a ChatGPT account for a similar purpose. I recently posted to my NG blog about my game jam, and knew for a fact that my wording was overly flat, so I asked around. Writer friends weren’t online. GPT helped me make the words more compelling - sometimes it swung the other way and was too flowery, but I just changed those parts back when I wrote the final draft.

It’s going to be a good last resort for when I don’t have anyone to talk to about the writing problem I’m having, or even just when I want to keep what I’m writing confidential until it’s completely finished.

My advice to artists is to learn to sit with your ugly paintings, my advice to writers is learn to sit with your ugly writing. You are only good at drawing or writing your best subject because you sat through 100's if not 1000's of ugly drafts you created over the years. Ugliness is art, you will experiment and discover new ways to do things. Art isn't meant to be always beautiful, neither are words but there is something extremely freeing in not caring in which direction it will take you.

We aren't robots, within our ugly art lies our best ideas. Just keep working at it, you can always iron out the proportions later but first you need a layout, there is gold you can mine but only if you keep digging.

Now this above is one curious take.. when I tomorrow step on the bus, it is probably something I am meditating to.

To an extenion to this, I want to comment. I am a hacker, so art to me is very different. I like 32 bit machines, so like 1994 to about 2008. And the reason i like them is the capacity to do actual science and research with them. My problem as of recent with places online, however, is that many places want to do technology as fashion, not as a trade.

This reaches into many aspects. Code, hardware design, OS design, all over the place. Windows has code from ubuntu in it and is copying OSX's looks, theres a new phone or shitty thin laptop every week, the only thing that matters is battery life and internet speed to post a selfie, not the actual capability to use a computer, its honestly god damn disgusting. And the more that people try to destroy older tech, the more they are painting themselves into a corner with a computer that is built for looks, rather than actual functionality.

Sure, a pentium M is old, maybe a little slow, but firefox opens just as fast now as it did 15 years ago on my first laptop, I bet you could just.... write better code.... and oh wow its like its fucking modern. Its almost like the standards have rotted away and now you're just posing like a bird with its ass out in a tree.

Goooo fuck yaself if thats the case.

I can't stand places like Level1Techs or Linus Tech Tips forums. Reddit is even worse, and forget trying to use instagram or tik tok, those are just mental illnesses. I have found that receding for a while, calming down, and actually finding people who can appreciate what I do is working a lot better than trying to keep up in a race of views. I'd rather change the world than be an attention whore.

Anyone can take my example here and mirror it to almost anything I bet, this is a very common problem nowadays.

Yeah! Layout is why I draw a pose skeleton or with an outline first. I don’t need to be articulate or clean with those. But I think that I do need that advice about sitting with my ugly art… I try to make things look polished because that’s what I’m used to and I’m convinced that I can’t make sketches look good. Maybe it’s just that I don’t have enough control of my finger, or don’t know where to let loose. But I’ll think about that.