Hi Snaily! How have you been? Im here for a pretty serious ask.
My boyfriend has been drawing for a while, I honestly think he's doing real good. But recently he's been feeling down about his art, he doesn't know why he should bother improving his art if his style is *basic* to some people, and it hurts a lot for him. He knows he should be drawing for fun and not force improvement to stress him out, but there's only so much I can do as his loving partner who doesn't draw at all.
So... what was it like for you, Snaily? When you started drawing many years back, how did you not feel like shit looking at how it could be better but you don't know how? What advice can you give to a beginner artist?
(You can answer this privately if you want btw, and ask me for his art if you need to see them. Much love <3)
hi peng!! always nice to hear from u! I'm gonna reply to this publicly because to be honest i can't resist to give this kind of advice to any and all beginner artists (but i am putting it under a readmore because as you know i love to ramble and this will get LOOONNNGGG and will Truly be The Ramblings of a Mad Man (gender neutral))
firstly, since I hear that he feels hurt by the idea that people out there might find his style "basic". That's a rookie mistake (that literally everyone makes when they start getting Serious about Art). The mistake being Caring Profoundly About an Outside Audience that's Ever Watching and Judging.
Which I literally cannot blame him or anyone for it, ESPECIALLY in this modern social media landscape where newer artists feel like they gotta get GOOD at the VIRAL RAT RACE so you gotta get that sweet, sweet validation in the form of likes, reblogs, retweets etc etc.
So that's my first tip I suppose: don't fall for the entrapment of being obsessed with getting any and all sorts of SWEET VALIDATION during your art process. This is hard to condition yourself to! I myself fall prone to it! It's actually kind of natural. Even if the validation you seek isn't online, surely you're expecting it from your peers or teachers or family members or whoever gets to look at your sketchbook (or you know, your medium of choice).
You want people to notice your art and all the effort you put into it. It's okay! DO welcome those who do!! But never NEVERRRRRR NEVERRRRRR commit the mistake of placing the value of your art on how much praise it gets from others. That's a one trip road on having an Absolute Bad Time. THE ONLY PERSON you should be looking to make happy with your art is YOURSELF first and foremost!!! Always!!! This is the Golden Rule!!!
So people (imagined or otherwise) think his style is """Basic""". Okay! That's literally not a crime anyone can arrest you for!! So what if you're LITERALLY starting and your art looks """basic"""!!!!!!! WHAT IS THE CRIME HERE!!!! CAN'T MY MAN JUST CREATE IN PEACE!!!! LET HIM COOK!!!!!
If he's starting out, i think it's pretty expected of him to just have a "basic" style you know? He shouldn't be ashamed of it! The best chef in the entire world right now didn't start making The Most Delicious Food To Ever Grace Anyone's Plate on DAY 1. They probably started with a goshdang sandwich. Many of them maybe. Until they could make the Perfect Sandwich even in their Sleep and only until then they felt ready enough to explore Further Possibilities In The Kitchen.
(Is this metaphor working? I sure hope it is!)
Anyway.
"How did you not feel like shit looking at how it could be better but you don't know how?"
Well that's a fun question because to this day I get extremely frustrated whenever I realize my Art Level isn't up to my standards. But THAT'S OKAY- even in my case!
If you're Serious About Art (as in, you LOVE making art) you'll constantly feel like you're having to catch up to artists that are doing MILES better than you. Which happens to everyone. Truly it's only the curse of having A Good Taste In Art (so you automatically Set Standards For Yourself based on what you personally consider Great Art).
So again, something to not be ashamed of. But also something to Learn To Live with. I get it!! I truly do!! You see some guy online who apparently is only 14 and they're already making compositions with complex perspectives and an amazing sense of color theory and you'll want to bite off your hands!!!! But you can't let that stop you!!
You're just gonna have to learn to Fail, Constantly. Failing Gracefully! Sucking At Art Again and Again!
You might think this conflicts with the Golden Rule (i mean, if you're not happy with your own art- then what's the point yeah?)
But it's all about Love babey. Loving the process of failing constantly, because deep down you REALIZE you're learning how not to suck little by little.
It's also an exercise in letting Spite guide you. So what if you're bad!!!!!! What if you've somehow committed the crime of being A Bad Artist!!!!!! The cops will never catch me fucker!!!!! SEE HOW I DESECRATE THE HOLY ACT OF "CREATING GOOD ART" AHAHAHAHA!!!! LITERALLY NOBODY CAN STOP ME!!!!! <- the attitude to Have. Yes you gotta be prepared to be Unhinged and to have active Disdain towards 4th Plane Entities that are probably judging your art quality. (Unless my experiences aren't universal and nobody else feels a salacious self-satisfaction whenever they draw something that looks like an affront to The Universe, knowing they can just Try Again).
Anyway those are the benefits of sprinkling a little Spite alongside all the Love for the process of Making Art.
At the start you might feel like you're only making bad art. So! Own it! unironically my life philosophy is that everyone should make more BAD ART!!! ARTISTS OF THE WORLD UNITE TO MAKE MORE BAD ART, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS!
that's for the mental approach at least.
So, what about the technical side? How do you actually take all those feelings of inadequacy and wrangle them into something productive that will help YOU get better at the art you want to make?
with the warning that i am a self taught artist so i might not the the perfect person to ask, but truly the most IMPORTANT skill you want to hone is OBSERVATION and COPYING WHAT YOU OBSERVE.
Basically you're gonna study the artists you like! You're gonna stare REAL HARD at the details in the art they make! And THEN. You're gonna try to copy THAT! Hell, you might even want to TRACE what they do at first** (**THIS ADVICE IS FOR PRACTICING. DO NOT TRACE AND THEN POST ONLINE FOR OTHERS TO GO "hey man wtf this is just you tracing X Artist" DO NOT!!! DO THAT!!!) just so you get a feel for what they have in their art that You Don't and learning how to slowly replicate that.
That's how I learned the ropes at least. Literally printing manga panels and then tracing over them during my Peak Weeb Years. Ah little snaily, how time flies. Another thing i liked to do was watch speedpaints of artists i liked but at like -2x speed. So it was a slowpaint and i could STEAL THEIR SECRETS <- another valuable art skill
Anyway, that's what I think it's the most important (to observe!)
...but also you might want to either take art classes OR watch a buuuuunch of tutorials on youtube for The Basics (basic anatomy! shading! values! color theory! perspective! gesture drawing!!!)
You feel like shit about your art? Fine! Then realize your life is your own and you have the absolute power to change that directly!! GO ON YOUTUBE AND LEARN THOSE BASICS!!!!!! don't be like me and struggle this much with perspective after years of making art!!!! (Though in all fairness, even those good at it struggle with it lol)
So! I am all out of advice for a newer artist.
TL,DR: YOU WILL SUCK A LOT AT FIRST BUT THE MORE YOU PRACTICE AND LEARN ABOUT YOUR FAILURES, THE MORE YOU'LL LOVE TO SEE YOUR IMPROVEMENT AND EVENTUALLY YOU'LL BE ABLE TO DO THE ART YOU WANT TO MAKE.
Peng if you could forward this to your bf i would be very grateful. Good luck to you two!!! Thank you for reaching out!! And remember!! Never give up!!!!!
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Yo berry are you alright? Youve been gone for like 7 months now. I dont mind if youre interest for deltarune has faded, Im just concerned if something happened to you.
Hi!! I'm sorry for disappearing like that! I'm alive! I'm really sorry for not saying anything about hiatus or anything. I'm doing okay though, and I hope you're all doing okay too, it's been way too long! I really appreciate you reaching out and checking on me <3
The hyper-fixation on Deltarune just completely halted and since Deltarune was the only reason I felt like drawing, the desire to draw stopped completely too. Deltarune saved me from a 8+ year drawing hiatus (THANK YOU TOBY FOX FOR REIGNITING ME <3) but feeling the hyper-fixation fade away got me pretty depressed. I'm sure like most of you, drawing (or having any kind of passion in you really) just feels so uplifting and I feel alive and even powerful when I'm in the mood to draw (and actually complete something I started), so feeling it fade away again felt as awful as it did all those years ago when I stopped drawing the first time. I'm doing better now in that regard but it was a rough couple months.
At the very least I'm getting accustomed to using a drawing tablet and I've been practicing digital painting and things like that, so it's a slow and steady climb back into the light I want to be living in!
I have a little personal goal to practice what I've been learning so that when I post art again I'll look back on my old posts and just sob happy tears over signs of improvement and growth
Thank you again for reaching out and I'm sorry again for not saying something sooner <3
Hey, I was that Moira anon from like a few months back. I'm genuinely upset hearing the recent news. 4 years of no content for OW1, poor balancing, and a massive hype train for the fucking PvE to be scrapped entirely??? The replayable missions, skill trees, and long-term progression are all canned in favor of one-off missions like the Archives and is now tied to the battlepass.
The one thing I was looking forward to, the one thing that justified the "2" in Overwatch 2, the one thing that I hoped would make me enjoy the game after not playing it since the OW1 beta without touching the toxic competitive PvP playerbase, gone. Thanks Blizzard.
Sorry if this is how you found out egg baby, oh and good luck with your financial situation dawg, you're gonna need it πͺ
Yeah its really really disappointing! I was really looking forward to a solid story campaign that was separate from the normal pvp modes. But from the looks of it, that's not what we are getting. I'm at least glad that they are being transparent about it but it is still incredibly disappointing to have waited so long for nothing.
If someone dislikes Kralsei I dont mind honestly, but if their reasoning is that Ralsei looks like/is Asriel then that just rubs me off the wrong way, especially as a Ralsei enthusiast.
They're boss monsters. Caprines. Of course Ralsei and Asriel look similar, hell, even Asriel looks similar to Toriel and Asgore. Even if they do look familiar, they're still different people.
The name anagram is a strange one, not to mention Kris = Risk and Susie = Issue. I have no idea if these mean anything canon or if these are the intended anagrams, but its just a huge coincidence, I dont think it means anything yet.
Ralsei could resemble Asriel in some way I'm not going to deny that, DR is a sister universe to UT and both share elements, but I don't think he's Asriel. Kris considers Asriel their brother, not Ralsei.
There's also the fact that Ralsei is a Darkner, it's literally impossible for him to be Asriel if he's a Lightner.
Lastly, We Haven't Fucking Met Asriel In Canon Yet. We don't know what he's like, it's all just grapevine whispers from the neighbors. We don't know what he looks like now, or even if he's the same kid we know from UT!
I wish people stopped calling Kralsei weird for potentially being incest. They can dislike the ship for other reasons, but I don't like being attacked for such nonsense.
I could only nod aggressively as i read this, pretty much in agreement with you here.
(Kinda unrelated but my one hope for Asriel's appearance in DR is that he looks like that discarded sprite of the god of hyperdeath with cute emo goth hair lol)
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I don't think Capsei was made in retaliation for Kralsei, because afaik the meme monarch just really likes the music trio, and they don't outright hate Kralsei, just "I don't see myself liking this ship," which is valid. (I might be wrong cause I stopped following them months ago and they could have said something else lol.)
Other than that, I think Capsei is really cute imo. It shows meme monarch's passion for the music trio, and it's the only other Ralsei x Darkner ship that I know of. The first being Ralsei x Clover, which is equally as cute. :3
ralsei x clover??? the world has expanded for me with all these ralsei ships i didn't know about!
in any case i don't mind what others are doing in the playground as long as they're having fun and being themselves :]
hello egg baby do you have any other plushies aside from Lancer and Ralsei?
my Ralsei arrived last night so he and the Dart Monkey are friends now
I have lots of miscellaneous little plushies accumulated from growing up with a divorced dad that works at an arcade with lots of claw machines. (And some fnaf plushies also from claw machines. They're put away right now though.)
But!!! Recently, I rediscovered this silly little handmade Napstablook plushie I got at a con AGES ago. Way before official Undertale merch was a thing. I have no idea who made it, nor how many were made/how many other people have it. But it fills me with so much joy and I'm so glad I found it again.
Look at them... They look like they're smiling and frowning all at once. Absolute perfection if you ask me.
