Overthinking extraordinare :) I have found the key is learning to be in your body. Daily Qigong is a good place to start. Our body holds so many secrets and information if we can learn to listen to it.
Hello, Frej. You can't imagine how much I could relate to everything you said in this video. I found your channel through your earlier tutorials, as that's what the RU-vid algorithm, unfortunately, loves. But, like you, I've been struggling with my art lately. Ironically, the more I learned and the better my skills became, the more soulless my art felt. I, too, am a seeker of meaning and beauty in this world. I hope you will continue making these wonderful videos, like this one, where you share (and overshare) your authentic self. I am also an artist and writer who loves fantasy, and I love Tolkien's work too. I have struggled for years to find the kind of content I want to share on my channel, beyond speed paintings and tutorials. Maybe it's okay to share my struggles instead of playing the pretense game?
I think the two best pieces of advice I've ever heard for making any kind of art are: 1. Julio Cortazar's philosophy towards writing, in which you have to ask yourself if you'd still write (or make any art) if no one but yourself and your close circle were to experience the thing you're making. Because how you answer that question will quickly show if you love the process, the result, or the success of the result. And if you find out that you don't actually enjoy the process, it's fine to stop. You don't *need* to make art if it actually doesn't bring you joy or curiosity. 2. In any art. No, in *any discipline* , in the beginning, you WILL SUCK. You will make dogshit. You will perform like ass. You will be the worst person that ever interacted with the medium... For about a year, even less, maybe. And, sadly, that is a completely necessary step; and an unavoidable step for that matter. So just fucking go and do it. Look at One, he couldn't draw for shit, and still he went out and put his story out there, and just look at him now.
you make me real curious what your plans are. I wonder what kind of job youre working too. For almost 7 years ive been working on a graphic novel and I'm an intensive care nurser. What captures me about your videos is that they are not a product, but rather an insight into what is truly interesting to us: The unfiltered human struggle and prevail! God be with you bro!!
I recently went to school for animation. I had no passion or interest in animation, I wanted to be an illustrator, however the force feed of learning animation at the very least helped me improve, but I got so insanely burnt out by the time I finished school I thought I would never have a future in art. It took just over a year of barely drawing at all for me to finally pursue what I wanted, which was illustration and design in the form of tattooing, and at first I was terrified because I didn't know where to start to make the art that I wanted, but I knew what I wanted and had the idea in my head. I've finally gotten to a point where I wanna draw not only to improve but to achieve the art style I've always wanted. I definitely also got stuck for a while trying to make art that was appealing, but I didn't like my art at all, I wanted to draw horror and dark fantasy, but I drew cutesy semi-realistic anime artwork because its more palatable and honestly, it was easier to draw too. It's impressive to see how quickly you improved, especially since I've been drawing since I was very young and didn't actually start learning these concepts until the last 3 years as well, but I hope you can find that passion and drive again of what you wanted to do.
I think it's so interesting, that you learned art through making your own stories. I think thats so impressive! I'm pretty much an overpreparer, so when i want to start a comic i suddenly think about what i can not do yet... perspective, interesting compositions, drawing a face consistently... and after thinking about all of these, that i need to "prepare" befor beginning, i can't start anymore. Now i regret that i didn't just start a comic and learn along the way like you did. That seems like such a fun time you had! My friend who professionally draws manga said it too: Just start doing what you want to do and get better along the way. Project to project there will be improvement :) (Also i liked that you pointed out the nose shading part. There's so much potentiol for artists on any level to get "stuck" with something!!)
I can't stop thinking about your video since i watched it. It's so chill and laid back and just how i want people to talk about their art - with lots of images!! Beautiful, really!
Authenticity in your yt videos are what made me subscribe. That is literally the only reason! Something you can't see, but people definately notice this. Never lose it mate! God bless you
I love people whose work is shit trying to tell others what to do, such a lack of self awareness. You're doing great, keep it up it's always darkest before the dawn.
Being a professional artist has probably caused me to plateau more than anything else ever could. I can go back to my highschool and college art and see the improvements sometimes gradually, or in leaps and bounds, and then as soon as I started getting paid to do art a lot of my skills fell off a cliff- because I am no longer doing art that actually expands my skill, but relies on the diminising it, and I no longer have the time outside of work hours to make up the difference.
What do you want to say with your art and your stories? What do you want to tell people? What do you want them to relate to, to experience, to understand? Find this and I think your art will become so much more meaningful. Well done on your journey so far. 😊
this video is so authentic and really a breath of fresh air. as someone whos currently struggling with a lot of the same things you are it was really nice to see it reflected here and know that its a common experience, thank you for that
this kind of inspired me. I have been doing art for that purpose too, make a living, see what others like but it gets depressing not being able to fulfill what others want or what I want. I like making stories too but I can't organize myself to start actually making them. I love when I have a story in my head and make art of that but when I'm trying to get better technically and fail, it actually sucks.
Thank you for keeping in the unscripted part. You said what I've been struggling with for the past year so perfectly and I hope that both of us find that spark of imagination again. You're not alone bro :)
The problem is that you never finished the AOT ending. Your soul is not in line with your art because you have forgotten why you started on this journey 😅
those flowers at 33:22 are gorgeous 😭 also i love your leyendecker(?)-esque ones. the gorgeous pastoral flower fields and timeless clothing and delicate hair. i hope you find your way again and truly draw from imagination! i majored in graphic design due to overlap with hobbies and graduated; took some illustration courses. in terms of technical skill, i was good especially with references, but i had zero imagination. none whatsoever. and i had zero interest in my hobbies in the last years of school. it's back now that i don't work in that field. imagination is a gift. draw what you love.
That was a rough landing, hope you're in a clearer headspace these days. I like the focus on authenticity, and I totally get coming from that place of "am/was a total loser", that's pretty real from my experience as well. I started going to therapy recently, and it's been really liberating having someone I can be 100% real with for about an hour every two weeks. In general I feel much more comfortable being my weird, awkward self. Turns out, you can waste a lot of energy trying to fit in, or trying to appease people constantly. There's still a balance though, can't be playing videogames at the funeral y'know? I said all that to say that I hope you have people in your life that you can be authentic with. Not just socially or emotionally, but also artistically. Someone you can go up to and say, "I know it's important, but I fucking *hate* color theory sometimes" and laugh or cry about it. I think having people like that around is what keeps us sane, especially artists because we're constantly bombarded by people that don't value what we do at all. Keep your chin up, and thanks for sharing something real.
do you have any suggestions for other artists I could watch who paint like you? I really like how you can capture things in just a few brushstrokes and minimal layers. 🙂
@@saberserker410 well i can recommend two of my favorite artists, Yuming Li who you can find on twitter or insta, and Zhang Jing who doesnt really have a social media afaik but is the author of the manwha Aisha and Aishas secret.
write short stories, screw complications, doesnt matter if its silly or too serious or whatever, find a way around that so its brief, and fun. and make paintings based on this little story, but a story needs a theme, not a word, or few words, but a specific question, can be very specific, "are some people purely evil?" and maybe its an obvious answer but LOGIC, isnt the point, art is purposed towards expression, you got the technical stuff down but where's your heart in this? and everyone is super specific and wide in what they've seen, thought and done, so dont make it something stereotypical, or what not, make it something that rings true to your core, to your life, so you've gotta appreciate the bad and the good of your life for the value that it brings towards expression, communicating ideas, cause that's art man. you got this. you said writing a story is complicated, but if the point is what it expresses, why do the details matter, just make that thing short, brief, honest, to you, have fun by putting together ideas that you like and that are true to you.
Haha that's the irony of Art. Its get you, not the other way around. One day, is every day and paradoxically always one day ahead of you. Keep up the amazing work. Thinking too hard def hurts my head.
i relate so much to this, especially the paradoxical situation where i feel like my art has also stagnated or plateaued due to actively trying to get better. I started off as an animator rather than a still frame artist and i could definitely say that my love or passion has lessened or warped. I was incredibly happy making animations of original anime openings or something like that, but the desire to get better paradoxically has made me worse. i absolutely loathe doing most art practices and they actively drain my energy, but when i was a kid and first starting out, messing around and making cool animations was so fun, even if they were kinda bad.
This was a great video full of insight, and your progress in three years is incredible and inspirational. I don't want to be too presumptive here but when you talked about your difficulties towards the end of the video I think I might know what you need to do next to progress as an artist. When you talked about drawing from references as compared to drawing using your imagination, I thought that something important seemed to be missing from consideration: Working directly from life. Don't get me wrong, photographic references are an extremely valuable resource and an effective tool for us as artists, but there are so many nuances to working from life that aren't captured in photography; so many things to learn that you just don't get when you're only working from photos or imagination. This *might* be the thing you're missing in your creative journey if I'm reading between the lines correctly. Nature is an artist's greatest teacher, and drawing and painting directly from life is endlessly fascinating and enriching in a way that you don't really get when making studies of photographic references. You're an incredible artist and I humbly suggest you will find the inspiration you're looking for if you go boldly and curiously into nature and explore just as you would if you were made a child again. All the best with it.
Very real, in fact, I'm on the precipice of doing another "I can download references until the end of the month, and then I cannot go online for anything other than important things for a year" things to get back into drawing again. I have terabytes worth of stuff and I only look at it once, back then, the media I was inspired by was precious, it's easy to gorge on it and waste time living through new pictures from others, than your (well my , in my case) own. Really , I should go offline after this comment, and you know. I will. For those that are not ready, go get the following browser addons at least: Unhook for youtube, and turn on EVERYTHING so that only the video panel itself remains, hide everything else, especailly comments and recommendations. block site and ublacklist, and block twitter, reddit, facebook, both from going there, and excluding it from google search results (yep...that hardcore) And do not unblock them no matter what, if you really need to get info from reddit, you're not allowed to do it from your own devices, you have to ask a friend or if you don't have friends, go to an internet cafe. No doing any of those sites at home, in fact try to talk to people about solving problems like "why does my wacom not work right" instead of going to reddit. You can still do work and everything, like online banking whatever but...really try to not use leisure internet at home, especially on big networks. Okay, time to skeedaddle.
