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IonfluxDA

Sci-Fi and Fantasy Digital Art
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Top 10 (bad) reasons not to draw

You probably all know the many excuses for not drawing as much as you should be (or would like to). These are mainly from my own experience. I have collected them to remind myself, but also maybe this could be helpful to artists starting out on their journey or struggling with motivation, so I thought I'd share this. :)

tl;dr the solution to most art related problems is actually to draw more. :D

1) I'm not good enough/afraid that the result will be bad

You feel that you are not good enough to get what you have in your head on the canvas. Actually the only way to get to the point of where you are more comfortable with your results is to draw a lot, so get drawing! There are no shortcuts. :)
Remember that you are doing this for yourself because you want to improve. Don't care about the result before you have been drawing for a while and are properly warmed up. If the result really isn't up to your own standards, remember that you will have to do lots of bad drawings to get better. After a while you will look back at your work from years ago and recognize the improvement and why it was necessary to make these drawings to arrive at where you are now.

2) I need to do the dishes/vacuum the floor

You discover that there are very important things to get done, just when what you actually wanted to do or should be doing is drawing. This is just procrastination. Chores that you actually don't really want to do and aren't that interesting to begin with do suddenly seem more appealing than things that may be more challenging, but also will be more rewarding. It may be a good idea to get up and do something you have to do once in a while, but keep it in a healthy relation to what you actually intend to do to progress as an artist.

3) I need to play this video game/watch Netflix/view images on DeviantArt/Artstation/Instagram for inspiration

Sometimes you have to get inspiration, it's true. But make sure the relation of getting inspiration versus actually acting upon that inspiration stays healthy. i.e. 10:1 or something like that. Don't forget to translate your inspiration into art. Also it may be the case that looking at other people's work distracts you from what your original goal was, or makes you feel bad about where you are as an artist. Be careful not to go too far in that direction, if looking at your "inspiration" makes you feel bad, you should probably avoid it for a while and focus on your own work.

4) I don't know how to draw what I want to draw

In that case, you still need to draw. :) Maybe it is too daunting to start drawing what you have in mind. Then do lots of studies of the subject you want to get better at drawing instead. It is a mistake to think that you should be able to draw anything from scratch. Yes, in your dreams, you may be able to visualize almost anything perfectly. But don't forget that art is a craft as well. Your brain still needs to learn how to translate whatever you have envisioned in your mind onto the canvas, and this just takes lots of practice, doing the same thing over and over again. It also includes failing a lot. This is how you learned everything you know or are good at. It's how children learn and unlike adults, they don't have a problem with that. Go back to this approach and learn to not have an issue with trying things out and failing and keep doing them until you have mastered those skills. :)

5) I don't feel like drawing

Why have you started to draw in the first place? It's sometimes hard not to lose focus when you start to take art more seriously, get into studies and the part of it that seems more like work. But it still should be fun. If you feel like drawing isn't fun anymore, take a step back, look at what made you start drawing in the first place and draw what you love for some time.
If you have been drawing a lot (and I mean a lot) then maybe it is time to take a break. Even when you are longing to get better and make progress as fast as possible, you need to take breaks and relax occasionally and keep yourself from trying too hard.

6) I'm not making any progress

There is the possibility that you are just being lazy and haven't put in the effort to make any noticeable progress. Doing maybe a drawing every couple of days and then taking the time off to finish that video game you have been trying to play through won't result in much success on your artistic path of course. You need to put in the effort and get the mileage. It is what all the amazing artists you admire have done, no exceptions.
On the other hand, if you feel like you aren't making any progress even after practicing a lot, doing lots of studies or learning a new software, remember that our brains are not computers in which you just load up some software and poof, everything works perfectly. Your brain needs time to make the new connections for whatever it is you are learning. It is necessary to take a break sometimes and focus on something else. When you return to the other thing after some time, you will be surprised what huge step you have taken in the direction you are headed for!

7) I don't know what to draw/don't feel inspired

Ideas don't come from thin air. They have to be nurtured and refined. Sometimes you need to fire shots into the dark. Visual exploration is a perfectly fine way of arriving at ideas. So take your pen and start doodling. You'd be amazed what you come up with after you really focus on developing ideas for a few hours. More often than not, what you arrive by will be much better than anything you could have come up with from scratch.
Sometimes you actually do need some inspiration from external sources. You won't get many good ideas by staring at your screen or looking at heaps of your own drawings. You need to go outside, experience life and yes, look at what other people are coming up with. Watching movies and playing games sometimes help getting a better perspective on what direction you want to take your art to. Also traveling and visiting other countries and experiencing other cultures will do wonders! Apart from having a good time, you will also be amazed to see first hand for yourself what other artists are inspired by.

8) I don't know where to start

If you have fear of a blank page (like a lot of artists seem to have), just draw anything. Sometimes lines, shapes and boxes will do. Or you could draw something within your comfort zone and then move on to whatever you wanted to draw once you have warmed up. It is also a good idea when working digitally to not start with a new image from scratch, but continuing on an image which already has some drawngs on it, just like the case would be when working with a sketchbook.

9) This image is taking forever to finish/doesn't turn out the way you envisioned it

So you have this epic work in your mind that has everything you ever wanted to do in it and will take weeks of dedicated work to finish. Maybe you discover along the way that you actually don't have the skill yet to arrive at the intended result. Don't despair. Having a finished work will reward you with a sense of accomplishment. You will learn that finishing things is a good thing. After you have finished your piece, you will have a clearer understanding of what areas you need to improve in. And finally, if the task seems to daunting, just chip away at it, put one foot in front of the other, and ultimately you will finish the piece, just as long as you don't give up. This actually goes for a lot of problems in life that seem hard when you set out.

10) I don't get the recognition for my work I feel I should be getting

So you finished this very cool piece that took you days and was a pain to push through, and now it doesn't get as many likes on DA and Instagram as you hoped for. You start feeling depressed and wonder whether you should quit. Remind yourself that you are not doing this to impress others, but for yourself. Especially if you have just started out, you may also not yet be able to judge the quality of your work as accurately. Don't feel bad. Becoming an artist is a journey and the most important thing is to never give up, do what you love and enjoy the process. Recognition by others will then take care of itself with time.

What are your top reasons why you don't draw as much as you want to, and what are your strategies to overcome those? Tell me what you think! :)


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Art thoughts

4 min read
Hi everyone! Guess it's time for a journal update again. :)

As you can see I am still working on my character design skills, making slow but steady progress. Turns out it is much more work than I anticipated when I started doing this (as always), and you do have to do an incredible amount of studies that seem boring at first. But it is certainly very rewarding and I think a must have skill for an artist who wants to build their own IP! And yes, after some time of doing them you can even enjoy doing one minute gesture drawings. ;)

I am also very flattered by the attention some of my older spaceship art is getting these days. I would be happy if you let me know where you found it? And while this is not my current focus, I am already planning to so some new tech stuff soon. :)

Other than that, I finally started doing some fanart besides my original characters. It's fun to just draw away and not having to think about designing the character first. Plus, it's a good exercise to drawing to spec.

In other news, I finally made the leap and signed up for the Gnomon Workshop a couple of weeks ago, which I dare say is incredible value for money. There's nothing wrong with free YouTube tutorials, but sometimes I feel they focus a bit too much on entertainment and motivational aspects, as opposed to really teaching professional industry knowledge.

I started with the Visual Storytelling tutorial by the master Ian McCaig (who did a lot of key work on well known IPs like Star Wars). One of the key messages of this tutorial is the importance of having a story in mind when developing characters and worlds. This made me think about my own art journey again and how I originally arrived at making art, some ten years ago. I used to write a lot around that time, before I ever got serious about drawing. Originally I did this because I wanted to illustrate my world Xegity, which I started as a background for a pen & paper roleplaying game.

Now after all these years and focusing on getting better at drawing exclusively, I think that I may have neglected the storytelling aspect of creating an IP. I guess I will blow the dust from the old material I have written and see where I can connect my art again to what was my original intention when developing my world. Of course I cannot do everything at the same time, so doing art has to stay my main focus. But as the tutorial shows, it is even possible to develop a story visually. :)

I also considered joining Schoolism, but they recently increased prices and their subscription model is still somewhat weird. You subscribe to one course, which you can switch at any time - so why not just subscribe to everything, like with Gnomon? Anyway, it's still not too expensive and I may subscribe when I have finished the more interesting Gnomon tutorials (of which there are a lot). What are your favorite free or non-free art education resources?

Thanks again for the faves and watches and don't forget to follow me on social media for the most recent stuff. :)

Keep it up!
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Haven't posted in a while, but as you can see, I am still alive and have not abandoned art either. I have picked up the pen again and will start posting some new stuff in the coming months. I have spent all this time finishing my studies, traveling around the world (yes, it was awesome! Lots of impressions that I hope will ultimately contribute to me becoming a better artist as well), starting to work full time - which did not leave me a lot of time for art, unfortunately.

But all the while I have been doing lots of studies to improve. Actually I have collected quite a pile of sketches by now, mostly analog, some digital. I just felt like I was missing out on the fundamentals and also it feels great to draw on real paper. :) I might post some of those here as well.

 Now I feel ready to do some finished digital stuff again! And there certainly will be new spaceships. :)

 Thanks for all the likes and follows. Your support always has and still means a lot to me and keeps me motivated to try to reach the next level.
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So, after quite a while, I decided there was something I want to write a journal entry about.

As you may have noticed, I am on and off dA, sometimes creating no new artwork for quite long periods of time. Not necessarily so because I enjoy taking long breaks from creating art. It's more like I need to split my life between art and everything else that seems a wise thing to do, such as (finally) completing my studies, which are unfortunately not directly related to art. Then sometimes the context switching seems like a hard thing to do. I feel like I get out of the flow and if I manage to convince myself to start drawing, it feels like I have lost the connection to art and nothing turns out good enough.

Nevertheless, I have decided for myself that art is a part of my life and I want to become a better artist, even if at times this may seem impossible. :)

I feel that everytime I take a break from art and then finally return to it and take up the pencil or Wacom pen again, there are at the very least some new insights for me. Some things in life are not about being finished and arriving at some set goal. Rather, they are about constantly putting in the time and effort, getting better at it, improving skills and the ability to realize what you have conceived in your head and being happy with it. Gaining new insights along the way and - especially - enjoying the process! In many ways, after all, this is what life is all about.

Art seems to be just one of those things. Maybe when I started out I had my inspiration from other, much better artists than myself. I kept looking up to those artists and telling myself, one day I will be as good as them and then churn out pieces like that and that will be it. And I probably wasn't very patient to begin with. I didn't even realize how much work would lie between my skills at that time and those of the artists I was admiring.

Of course, in all these years, even those artists have moved on. They attained new levels of skill and expression still that seem incomprehensible to me. In some cases I shifted my focus towards other artists, techniques or subjects. I realized, that for me, art is about changing - about developing not only skills but also changing as a person. Art is in many ways a reflection of the life of the artist. If there is something missing in the art, there may be still missing something in life.

That being said, laziness is not a good excuse for not creating art. All the time spent on social networks or browsing dA (though certainly a good thing ;)) could be invested in drawing and improving as an artist. My resolution is to try and adhere to the good advice given by many professionals that one should create art every day. Also I realized that there is still so much that I have not done in all these years that I am drawing. So many studies to do, subjects to paint, techniques to explore. It is probably enough to last more than a lifetime!

So, if you ever feel stuck - like I often do - the best thing to do probably is to relax, then take up that pencil and start sketching already. :)

Last but not least, thanks to everyone that has favourited my art, commented or set a watch! I usually do not have the time to thank everyone individually, but I do try to visit your dA gallieries some time and check out your artwork.
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Happy new year!

1 min read
And what a year it has been! While I maybe did not find as much time for art as I hoped I would, surely lots of other good stuff happened. :)

Still, I completed some smaller art projects and did quite a bit of sketching. I do feel I have gained some new insights into the process of creating art and streamlined my workflow a bit. Certainly some things to build upon this year!

My goals for the near future as far as art is concerned are to do more sketching and studies and finally get some 3D work finished - and also hopefully make some progress on my game project. :)

Thanks everyone for the favs and comments on my work. I wish you all the best for 2013!
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