r/ArtRanting

Frankly, I've always hated my artstyle.

In this post, I am solely talking about digital art, not traditional!

I can't express it well, but it feels too me and I don't like that, I don't like how I draw at all. Since I started doing digital art, I always wanted an anime artstyle, but later I was okay with a semi anime-ish artstyle as well, but no matter how much I try it just doesn't seem to happen. Even my first drawing was made by watching a tutorial on how to draw anime, but it turned out, well bad, not that I care anymore because it's been around 6 years since then.

I also dropped digital art after 2023 for years and did only traditional because my tablet broke and I didn't feel inspired or motivated and hated how I drew, not completely but there was something ugly in the way I drew.

I've always seen so many artists everywhere, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube and always wished I could draw like them. I hate how people can make beautiful artwork in a few hours while my average art piece takes 12-24 hours. All that, for a mediocre piece of artwork? I often even took screenshots of other people's work just hoping i could somewhat replicate how beautifully they draw, all to no avail.

It just doesn't make sense. It feels like they can move their fingers differently than I can, how is that even possible? Whenever I try to draw, it's like my fingers just can't do it :/ they always produce something ugly, not worth looking at. I just can't explain it, do the others have special fingers or something?? How do their lines look different from mine, I try my best to draw like them but my fingers seem to revert to the old style I despise so much. I just wish I could draw like other people and feel happy about my art instead of thinking it's bland, boring and frankly ugly.

And somehow everyone else can draw proper proportions with smaller heads than bodies and my art just always turns out with bigger heads even if I try to avoid it. And my colouring is incredibly bland, it's like the colours just refuse to pop unlike when other people draw. I try my best but my colouring still looks so plain :/

I hate being a copycat and always trying to copy other people, I always try to replicate how other people draw but it's just ridiculous, it just ends up looking like it always does or my hands just don't work. It's like they have special tools at their service that I don't?? I don't get how people colour so perfectly and mine just looks so artificial.

Anyways, thanks for reading about my grievances =:D I just needed to get this off my chest because till this moment, I had never voiced these negative feelings and I'm hoping this will help me shed them somewhat :)

I've been posting my webcomic, "Kukuru," for the past 3 years. By September 20th, I'll have been posting on TikTok, the platform where I started, for the last 4 years. In that time, I have yet to make it over 8,5k followers on that platform, and for others (Instagram, Webtoon), I've yet to reach 300 and 600 followers there either. I've been struggling for a while now to get traction for my comic, yet I know that the content of the webcomic itself is relevant to the audience I'm marketing to.

When I first started, I felt a rush with how much my work was speaking to others. I would get several comments daily regarding the impact my work was having on their daily lives, so much so that I had begun to post updates almost daily. This period also marked rapid growth for the account, and some of my first posts would reach viewership into the tens of thousands. Eventually, viewership cooled down, but I figured that was just the initial cool-down. I was still experiencing steady growth, so I sought to expand to other platforms, especially since TikTok was still primarily a video-sharing app. After those did well, I went back to focusing on TikTok, as that was the primary source of new viewers to my comic.

Then a few months later, in late 2022, one of my posts did exceptionally well, so well that TikTok suspended the post for violating its community guidelines. For context, while "Kukuru" is a work known for its crude language, by that point, most of the swear words were censored, and any violence depicted was cartoony in nature, but those swear words and situations were likely the reason that particular strip was flagged in the system. Regardless, after a bit of back and forth, my video was re-released to the public, but my viewership was never the same afterwards. Following the video's removal, my viewership and likes never reached past the number of followers I had, and my subscribers (at that point having reached 5-7k) stagnated. Meaning that my main source of gaining viewers was butchered.

I also have myself to blame. I would take several short and long breaks, and often posted erratically on all platforms. I can attribute this to my studies, which I needed to improve, and I was forced to change my uploads from daily to weekly, and pause for major exams. My lack of progress has also burned me out from uploading frequently, and alongside my Webtoon series being taken down from the platform with no warning, and the struggle of coming up with something extremely funny over the last few years, forced me to take a 6-month sabbatical, with infrequent updates here and there.

However, I have since returned to uploading on TikTok and have made a fascinating discovery. I still have retained a small but loyal fan base, who continue to engage with my work. My most recent upload has an 11% views-to-likes ratio, which is a great ratio to obtain.

I'm just scared of ending up in the same scenario again. Where I try desperately to make this comic work, burn out from failure, then go back into hiatus. What can I do differently to avoid this trap?

I understand that everyone is looking for a side gig these days but I feel like every other art post I see is about money in some way.
“Is my art good enough for commissions”
“How do I price my art”
“Nobody is buying my coms??”

But 90% of the artists I see doing this are young and have barely spread their wings in the art world before asking “would you buy this?”
The most crazy ones to me are
“Started drawing a month ago, when can I start commissions?”

Some of these people are so young too! I understand the hustle but what happened to doing art just because you like doing it?

As the title says, perfectionism is ruining my relationship with art, specifically digital art.

For as long as I can remember, since I started digital art, I've always been a perfectionist, not a single line out of place, not a single pixel more even if it's absolutely impossible to notice even with a decent zoom in. I often look at the art of people who make messy lineart, colour outside the lines a little, use ambiguous shapes etc. to comfort myself and tell myself that, 'see, they can make their art look amazing with imperfections, why do you have to be perfect?' but it never really works.

Whenever I do see someone whose artwork is literally *perfect*, lineart perfectly done, smooth, rendering absolutely perfect, I again feel the need to be absolutely perfect. Whenever I try to draw something, I can't handle imperfection and go back to my old ways of erasing and redoing small lines over and over and I also can't erase anything much because I need my speedpaint to be perfect too without a single mistake.

I genuinely just want to draw messy but beautiful art but end up making clean but somewhat bland or ugly art :/

I've been drawing for many years, but lately I've been feeling kind of stuck. Everything I draw feels a bit meaningless.

I've been mostly just sketching in pencil and I love my pencils, but I suck at colour and can't choose a medium. I want to learn to colour and render though, I love to see nice, colourful art.

Digital is fast and practical since I can just scan my good sketches and colour them, but I struggle to pick the right colours and make them harmonious. And with my technique I can't replicate the looks of other digital artists

Watercolour is pretty but limited due to its transparency.

Acrylic is so wasteful and sticky and I never get it to look right except that one time that I can for some reason not recreate. Also it's the god of microplastics.

Gouache is the best so far, it's not wasteful, it's nice and opaque and biodegradable, but I can only find it in small tubes and I can never get the sketch to look right on good paper.

And I also want to learn 3D modeling, but that's even more technical and unintuitive than digital drawing and moving way too far away from my humble beginnings.

I don't know which way to go right now

I don't know if "Art Block" is the correct flair, but it feels the closest to what I'm dealing with.

So, it's not art block in the sense that I'm struggling drawing in general. Though that is an issue, it's not this particular one.

I am close to finding a style I like working in. I know some things I wanna change, but there are things I can't decide on, and it's driving me nuts. To give some background on it, I am currently rendering in a sort of watercolor vibe. But I add a sepia filter over it with the gradient filter and add a mole skin paper texture over it with a similar sepia color as well as a watercolor texture. But I don't know if I love it... I don't hate it, but I don't love it. I've thought about going back to doing the bold colors with easy cell shading, but I also really don't wanna keep going back and forth because I want clients to see what they should expect... I'm just at a loss. I feel like everything I try just feels like... I don't LOVE it.

I have tried different brushes for lineart to see if I like ore textured lines, softer lines, sharper lines. I've tried just shading normally and not creating the watercolor edges, I just... I don't know... I legit think if could be effecting my mental to wanting to draw. Cause it almost feels like I know that when I do, I'm going to have this same struggle...

Speaking for myself, I’ve been studying drawing on my own for over seven years. I never took a formal course, relying instead on YouTube research. Looking back, I feel like I spent too much time going in circles with certain topics; I focused so heavily on proportion and form-based dimensionality that I neglected backgrounds, color composition, and style. As a result, my art is just "so-so"—it often looks lifeless or boring. I see simpler artwork—where proportion and dimensionality are far less emphasized—that somehow feels more alive than mine. What frustrates me most is the job market aspect: I haven't reached a level of proficiency that allows me to earn a decent income doing what I love. I still have to work myself to the bone studying and building a network within the illustration industry, and that feels incredibly discouraging. Was I actually kind of stupid? Or maybe just mediocre all this time?

Idk what flair to choose hope this one fits

Anyway. I began drawing when I was younger, almost 10 years ago. I used to draw daily, follow tutorials, and I became obssesed with getting better at drawing, it used to bring me so much joy. But after going through some nasty stuff, I've stopped for a while and had a hard time getting back into it. I've started having an almost love hate relationship with drawing and became a lot more perfectionistic.

The more time passed, the more frustrated I got while drawing because I felt as if I should be improving faster. I felt embarrassed that I was drawing for so long yet still knew so little, and that made me be a lot less patient with myself. I know it's stupid and this is just leading me to practicing less thus improving less, but it's how I subconsciously think and its hard to unlearn. As a result, I also mostly sketch because anything more detailed feels daunting. I'm afraid of rendering because I'm afraid of a sketch I like turning ugly and feeling as if I "worked for nothing". I used to post on Instagram back in the day and I think I still draw with the idea of posting/showing it to people in mind.

But it's hard to draw without thinking of an audience. I draw for myself first and foremost, but I think its silly to say none of us desire to show off our work. Still, I know I've got my ego too wrapped up in this. I conflate the quality of my work too much with my own value and i think a part of me is too busy looking for approval from others to enjoy the process anymore.

This is all not helped by the fact that I recently got my first job, which is making managing my time a lot harder. When I do get to draw, I don't usually tend to do it for long, and I hate sitting down to draw and feeling as if I forgot how to. By the time I get the hang of it, I need to stop to do something else. Alternatively, I end up still being in that ugly, figuring stuff out phase and then I get frustrated that I struggled so much only to make some middling art.

Ultimately, I want to stop being so stupidly hard on myself and just do what I enjoy. How does one get over the fear of failure? How does one get over the fear of their efforts being undermined just because the end result isn't impressive?

I do not like calling my drawings art.

I do not like when artists look at me with pity.

I hate watching people trying to tell me to "keep going!" or some corny stuff like that.

I just want the truth.

Am i gonna be enough to people? Are my drawings always shitty?

I struggle to draw nd just seeing the slightest things just bother me. I think there wouldnt be much difference if i ever get replaced, its SO easy for better artist to talk about this "oh youl get better" when its just so horrible.

I just do not feel like i deserve space to be called artist.

And i hate that excuse of a reasoning of "dw they could NEVER replicate your style it ur masterpuece" BLAH BLAH BLAH the worrld would be better if i never discovered drawing.

I'm in my late 20s, never been in a relationship, I am short and bald and my social skills are absolutely terrible. I barely have any friends at all, I am what you'd call an "incel" (minus the misogyny).

I thought I could invest my energy into something more productive other than engaging with incel forums that fueled my self-hatred.

And while that worked for a few years or so, my social situation is still the same if not worse. People judge me for my obvious dearth of social skills and now it's almost impossible to find friends let alone dates regardless of commonalities.

Because I've spent all my time drawing instead of interacting with humans, I didn't actually improve my situation but I've managed to distract myself. And now it's just not working anymore.

Idk how im supposed to get my art to be seen at this stage, tried posting consistanty, adding tags, interacting with other artists. going on multiple places at once.

Yet in spite of all that i get something like 10 views per post. And i dont think its a matter of lack of intrest, cause my first post or two on each platform was met with a couple likes but then following posts are just crickets.

Plus i dont think its skill cause i see people doing the same thing or people who seem to be at a lower skill level getting a consistant like or two. Hell the fact their showing up in spite of not having any of the crap i put in to try push stuff serves to annoy me further.

Idk man, i dont have the skill of the big names but i dont wanna start posting gooner stuff like the other successful guys.

I dont want a big following i just wanna feel like my putting the things i take pride in out into the world is amounting to something

Well this is going to be my little venting paragraph, but I went to an interview today and I didn't get the job, all because I didnt know color theory enough (i knew color theory)and because I lived in horizon city (it was a 40 minute drive to the frame shop). They told that I would be better off working at a hobby lobby since its in the east side. Im starting to feel like el paso doesnt have enough creative jobs and how do I even recover from that? I know people would say "welcome to the real world" or "move on" , but as a person that is sensitive has anyone went through this? Or am I not taking art in General seriously.

So, to start, I wanna say that I’ve been a successful and highly talented artist for a long time, and I’ve never really had issues with getting work or positive feedback. But honestly, my art just doesn’t feel like me anymore, and it hasn’t for years. I think back to who I was around 2019–2021, and I genuinely loved drawing back then, even though my art was honestly kinda shitty compared to where I am now. 😭 I don’t really know what changed, or if maybe I changed, but something definitely feels different.
I’m confident in my art and in the way I draw, and I’m constantly improving. I know I’m good at what I do, but it feels like there’s no soul behind my work anymore? I don’t really know how else to describe it. Like, I can look at something I made and know that it’s good, but I don’t always feel connected to it.
And maybe I shouldn’t even be upset about it, or maybe it’s stupid for me to think about it this much, but I just don’t feel the same amount of love for creating anymore. The weirdest part is that I seem to find that love again when I’m experiencing a strong negative emotion and draw while I’m feeling it. That’s when my work actually feels like mine again, and I don’t really know what that says about me or why it’s like that.

I think I should start by saying my internal landscape has been getting really engulfed into the world of art recently. (For the past year probably). I'm in awe of the magic that is creation, and doing creative things. I spend a lot of my time these days, the past year, watching videos with interviews of artists, watching people talk about their art practice and all that. Sometimes looking at art. This is my main source of satisfaction, not doing the art itself. Living in the world where I am amazing and blow people away and I am famous or whatever, and the art is effortless and pure dopamine. Daydreams.

I really feel like this is the thing I want to do forever. It's a special thing, to dedicate yourself to art. I think I deep down want to be great, and or special.

My primary interest at the moment is photography. I shoot in the nearby town, and take a look around for something interesting.. sometimes.

I think it is important to say that since about the ages of 8 or 9, (hopefully sobering up recently in my late teens) all I would want to do in my free time was browse the internet. Sometimes I would be happy and genuinely interested, a lot of the time I am numbing myself out. This is pretty much happening for several hours a day every day, after school, and especially on weekends. I think in hindsight I had a great lack of social engagement growing up until now due to my lifestyle; I haven't really had a close friend since maybe I was 7, and the extent I was absorbed into the addictive nature of the internet I think had a very negative effect on me.

Yesterday, I decided to see how far I had come, spurred on by a post from an Instagram doomscroll, and I feel this massive drop in my stomach, it's a complete horror. I'm looking through my camera and literally it's mostly empty. And if there's anything there, it's mostly half attempt at a proper composition. Rarely is there something good.

It's a sobering moment to realise I spend all this time, like entire days having fantasises, mental masturbations, just farming good feelings, thinking I'm making progress, but it's not real, browsing the internet of people talking about art, it's straight up depressing, I feel like I just spend entire months not connected to reality of a practice, and I'm desperate if anyone else has a similar feeling. I spend an infinitesimal amount of time making in proportion to jerking myself off (metaphorically). (and if I do make, I fantasise about the act while doing it). I just spend so much time thinking about it, I assumed I would automatically have a body of work??? And shows of improvement???

I'm really at a loss, I need reassurance that I'm not alone with this. I can't even show someone a polished, finished thing, my direction in life is scrambled, I can't even bring myself to do the thing which is supposed to be easy, and not real work. I fear that I don't have what it takes to be "great" at art and make something truly special, at least whatever that means in my romantic warped mind.

I really hope someone else has the same retardation that I have, or can provide some reassurance, because anything I find is not as detailed in expressing the extent of their poor temperament

I turn 48 in a few days, and I don't know what I'm doing with my art anymore. I don't know if I can even have an art career at this point, given different health barriers and the advent of the Instant Maker Machines that only require a few words to make something.

I wanted a career in art. I got an associate's degree in graphic design, but it would not have happened if it wasn't free at a local community college.

In my younger years, my original bachelor's worked for a while, but it is nowhere near an arts degree. I'm so far away from my original intent back then, but I wouldn't want to be back there.

Money is tight, hut I have zero confidence in my art making money. I know it would make at least a little, but....is it worth it?

I worry constantly about my art being used to train That Thing, or about it being stolen in general, but that makes me feel arrogant. Why do I think my art is good enough to get stolen?

I want to put all the good supplies I have to good use, but I feel like I just waste it on nothing. Even with encouragement and permission from loved ones - nearly all my life about art and writing - why do I still have all these negative voices inside of me? Why can't I overcome them? Why can't I clear them out so I can make real progress and not just sit around and feel sorry for myself?

I hate aging. It really sucks.

i had spent months on a cool tshirt design because school makes me take so long to finish personal projects, so when i was finally finished, i rushed to print it. i found what was in hindsight a pretty shady brand but i was pretty fixated on a shirt colour they offered that i overlooked a few instances of ai use. fast forward to when im excitedly ripping open my package when my eyes arre suddenly bombarded with the view of that horrid scracthy ai font, you know the one that currently took over the social media of small brands.

so im horrified, and upon further inspection, i kept finding awful traces of ai. his arm half disappeared, his eyes are now a black void, my very particular cell shading when i spent so long trying to perfect was now all muddy and "rendered" when i was spefically going for really hard edges and a limited colour palate, and the worst offence was the dozen or so lilies i had spent so long hand drawing were all now just ugly blobs of white. now i can go on because i ahd poured my heart and soul into every pixel of that design so i recignise all imperfections, but that would get quite boring.

anyways, the only thing going through my head right now 'my boy. they massacred my boy.' while despairing over the fact that they probably won't allow me to return a custom printed tshirt. so i show my family and they all seem to think it's not that bad but by god i don't want to wear that mangled ai abomination on my back because it feels like i'd be spitting in the face of all the hours i spent making my design. my beautiful, beautiful design π-π.

and when i contacted the brand asking for a possible refund and questioning how the hell my design got slopified, they ignored the message about the refund and just told me that they use an ai upscaler for blurry images, but goddamnit i did not spent all my computer's ram on a 600dpi canvas to be told that. i also sent them the design via google drive to try and minimise commpression, granted it made it go slightly pixalated but it wasn't that bad. and the front design was also ass, despite them not using ai for it and my sending a transparent png, it had weird unexplained grey areas.

just wanted to get this off my chest. currently looking at another company to print with, one without the colour i wanted (which didn't even match the picture mind you), and looking for a way to recycle that ai abomination.

if anyone has any tips on removing dtf printing from tshirts with at home remedies, feel free to share (~_~メ)

hi, so im talking about people who make it big on social media, like they create fanart of a certain fandom/character & gain so much interaction/engagement that they become famous within the certain fandom. I keep getting jealous of them because I would be from the same fandom & create art yet no one gives me the same attention as the other person. I feel like that person just got lucky or something, while I have to work for it. And it has happened many times before- where I join a fandom, start drawing fanart for it, then someone else takes the 'crown' (aka. every person part of the fandom knows them+ their art), sometimes it would be that they enter the fandom after me. I took a break from art because of that

How can I stop being jealous of that and continue making art despite having no engagement? Many times they would be talented but I cant help it, I get really jealous that they took the 'fame' from me. I cant take it anymore

i finally found the courage to face my worst enemy.. half bodies! It went as well as you’d expect. Its totally unpostable. im embarrassed to even mention its existence to somebody who isnt me. I feel like i cant look at my art program right now. I need a break but im too afraid to stop drawing and risk losing any progress! art makes me feel a bit trapped right now. Its been less than a year of doing it yet things have been really difficult. im really afraid of getting bullied for posting bad art.. its weird because i would never say the things i think about this piece about anyone elses art but when it comes to my own its like i can only see mistakes.

I’m around 18, for reference, I keep on seeing relatively professional looking/good looking art work from people around my age and it kinda just gives me a crisis and kills all drive for me, probably out of envy, I mean if I locked in like 5 years earlier I could be on their level, but I’m a slothful little chud so I have done nothing. Idk man I gotta lock in, I haven’t had the will to draw at all this month, something something reverse sunk cost fallacy

I don't know who the hell Nerdborne is but they went through my entire profile, commenting on a post where I had shown a new haircut of mine

And went onto multiple posts insulting my artwork for absolutely no reason

I think they also blocked me after so I can't report it either so...

What happened to people NOT insulting others for their artwork?