Rin Elica

(I'll talk about art schools because I went to one and a few courses had a big impact on my art but I don't necessarily recommend it as the "magic must-do thing" to improve)

Art school helped me by :

This practice -> drawing from real life subjects (or photos) but quickly : I had a teacher who made us draw from a model in limited time (< 10 minutes). Thanks to that, I understood how I really liked to draw, which kind of lines and tools I instinctively was drawn to. I used to spend hours on linearts and hated that part, to me, it wasn't fun to polish, it felt unnatural and I always liked my sketches better. During the practice, I ended up using mainly colour pencils (often orange/brown because I like warm colours) and went from "focusing on the "lineart" of what I see" to "drawing by hatching-sculpting" and that was fun. I wanted to have a similar experience in digital art too, so I picked a brush looking like a pencil (the 6B one on Procreate) and started drawing with it. By doing a first lineart in orange which doesn't have to be perfect since there will be a black one over it, I found the most satisfying way to draw linearts I ever used.

Making me enjoy art analysis and giving me the habit to draw daily (daily art doesn't have to be a fully finished digital piece per day, it can be a random sketch on a piece of paper, as long as it helps fleshing out an art style)

What I did on side of school :

Learning about colour and shape theory, anatomy, art history : These are knowledges supposed (imo) to be learnt in art school but aside from European art history, it wasn't the case in mine. Colour theory is a thing I love, I spent time to really get it but it's worth it, I have a lot of fun playing with colours. Shape theory is something I learned more recently but it helps me greatly with composition when sketching.

Random inspirating things : Landscapes, crafts, games, books... Everything I like feeds my art style and can provide me inspiration.

Examples of works which inspirated me in my art growth :