Thoughts on Improvement (from HotaruArc, Aug 2013)
copy and pasted from here
On Style:Stop thinking about style. Style is something you will develop gradually after you've spent years emulating other styles, talking with other artists, observing the world, and pinpointing what looks best to you. Everyone has influences. It's impossible not to be influenced in the art world. You'll knowingly or unknowingly take what you like best from artists you respect and mash it together with your own aesthetic. Your style will emerge from that. I think the best way to let that happen is just to expose yourself to as much work as possible. Think about why you like it and what you'd change about it, then try it out. Try not to get mad if someone compares your work to others. Instead, ask about it and where they see similarities. You can learn a lot about yourself that way. On Foundation Skills:The reason I say to stop thinking about style is because I've seen tons of artists using "style" as an excuse for poor drawing ability. If you're doing that, stop doing that. You will fall into the deepest artistic rut possible if you do that.Avoid tutorials on deviantart, tumblr, etc. More often than not they are written and drawn by artists that don't fully grasp what they're talking about. You want to learn your foundation skills like perspective and anatomy from an artist that has already mastered it. The title "professional" should mean nothing to you. There are an unsettling number of professionals that don't understand basic drawing skills. If the internet gives you access to the old masters, you don't need to waste your time trying to learn from some sixteen year old on the deviantart. Really. REALLY. You can always brush up on your basics. Never get cocky about your understanding of basics. On Draftsmanship:You're probably not drawing loosely enough. Try to loosen up. Don't do the chicken scratch thing where you go back and forth over a single line. Make your lines in a single, quick stroke and try not to over think it. Try drawing in contour and try drawing in pen. Try drawing your gestures in under five minutes, then three minutes, then one. If you don't draw gestures, start drawing gestures.Most people are heavy-handed and don't realize it. If you're in the habit of making the darkest possible line with your pencil when you draw anything, you're heavy handed. Try to exercise more control and avoid laying into the paper as much. If you're having trouble with that, try an H pencil instead of HB or B.If you're light-handed that's more easily solved. Just bear down a little harder. If you have to choose, it's better to be light-handed because it's easier to darken a stroke then erase one that's too dark.Erase as little as possible. On Color:If your palette choices are too washed out, try making saturated colors work in your favor.If your colors are too saturated, try to tone it down some. It's difficult to make that sort of switch, but colors are just another tool and there IS a combination that works well in your piece. Chances are once you've hit both ends of the spectrum, you will find a good balance between vibrant and dull colors.Never use black in your palette.Never use white in your palette.Try breaking both of those rules, but ONLY after you understand them. On Animation:This one's tricky, because animation is kind of a completely different thing from drawing. You have animators that can't draw as often as you have draftsmen that can't animate.Learn all 12 basic principles, and practice them until you can execute them in harmony with each other without thinking about it. Then try breaking those rules.Eastern animators break a lot of rules, and that's one of the reasons why their animation looks different than Western animation, but that's pretty brilliant if you ask me.If you can't animate in keyframes, figure that out. Most animators can't animate consistently straight ahead.Abandon flash for a program that's actually meant for traditional animation. Flash was not designed with traditional animation in mind, and it's buggy as programs come.If you insist on using Flash, use CS4 or below. Every version above that is awful.If you're drawing stick figures, stop drawing stick figures. Don't excuse poor drawing ability just because your movement is solid. Your animation will look better if the drawings are better. That should be obvious.Learn about film techniques. It's gonna play a large role in your work. Learn about acting. It's gonna play an enormous role in your work.If you're lazy about drawing, animation is not for you. Hand drawn animation will always look better than symbol or puppet animation. If you're relying too much on symbols, your drawing ability will suffer. These are all my opinions. Take them however you want and don't stop drawing.
