[Mari]

I'm just posting this to rant, I guess.
I've been lurking for a long time, sometimes posted something, but nothing actually mattered much.

But to me, this bit matters. ^^;

I started coloring a sketch of mine today - it's slightly anime-ish, it's a request I got from someone who is like a brother to me - and it went okay in the beginning. But where it came to defining... no luck.

Digital painting is difficult, I know, and I've been trying to take stabs at putting backgrounds in my pictures. I have awesome ideas for pictures, I have several programs at my disposal (Open Canvas 3, Painter 6, Photoshop 7), and I know how I want the stuff to look.
I've even read tutorials on it, when I usually prefer doing stuff on my own, or trying to, anyway.

I was happily coloring away at my background and then moved to the characters, and then it hit me. It SUCKED. The picture seriously SUCKS, background-wise. How come I can have a good shot at realism, but cannot finish it? Like I said earlier, when it comes to defining, making the lines sharper and all the edges better, putting in details... I somehow can't do that.

So right now, I think I suck. Well compared to everyone here I DO suck, but still, even for my standards, I suck.
How am I ever going to be able to paint realistic if I can't even paint details?

I'm very good at sketching details... my sketches always seem to look cooler. Am I doomed to be sketching messy sketches forever, never throwing in ANY color? ;_;

Does anyone else have this and how are they dealing with the enormous frustration, I wonder...

*sniff* It'sh ebil, I tell you.

[ultrahsu]

Everyday is frustrating, no matter how good you are, there's always better. A trip to the tate will most likely frustrate anyone. The trick is to have fun doing it, and appreciate the growth from painting to painting. Sometimes you hit a brick wall and it takes a while to get over it, but keep trying. I can still look back at first year art school drawings. Some of them are hard to look at, but I can still see what I was working on and slowly it gets better. So I guess my advice to you is to always remember to enjoy the process, stay focused. Don't just sit down and do stuff without knowing what you're working on, proportions, color, brush strokes... so many things. Life drawing, life drawing, life drawing. You only get better by keeping on it. But focusing on your piece. Perhaps try a more monochromatic piece. And paint from dark to light. A lot of drawers have difficult with painting cuz they paint like they draw... you should try to work towards the light values and build up your layers so they look natural... Of course this is just how I work. Good luck, post an image somewhere if you'd like more feedback... I'm strangely in a helpful mood today, must be this cd i'm listening to... heh.

purE
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purE

[AndyT]

I almost agree. "Focusing on one image" doesn't sound like a good idea though.
Better make many loose sketches and try different approaches.

Can you show the image maybe?
I'm just guessing but most of the time it is not because of the details when an image doesn't work.
Hard to say anything without actually seeing the image.
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http://www.conceptworld.org

[Mikko K]

Being frustrated is a big part of doing this stuff to me. I'm constantly envious about good art I see and that feeling drives me to try harder. That's the way it should be, that's how you learn. If you're satisfied with average results and don't want to practise you're in the wrong business. So I see your frustration as a good start, you know you suck so you gotta practise. To me it seems that the more you learn the less you "know" since there's such a large world of art out there and you can never learn it all.

Go to a life-drawing class if you can. Look at nature and other artists work, analyze them and think why something looks good or bad to you. Don't worry too much, just keep drawing.


edit :

[Mari]

Thanks for all the useful advice, guys!

I'm really happy with all these replies - I think I'm going to take up life drawing for a bit... Just sitting behind my comp, tablet, and painting what I see around me sounds like a very good practice, as well as color and value studies.

Thanks everyone, I really feel much better now!

I'm afraid I don't have anything interesting to show you all yet, though, so that will have to wait, I suppose. I don't feel good about putting up pieces of which I know they're wrong and what exactly is wrong with them. It's no use being corrected on mistakes I already know.