r/ArtRanting

(The creator of the art is @melalato on TikTok)

This artist made a more realistic approach to DDLC fanart and everyone hates it, and it’s for a very odd reason. A lot of people think that the girls “look like men with wigs on” which is a very odd thing to say. To me these look like regular teenage girls, and the way people are talking about them kind of irks me. At least the artist doesn’t seem to bothered by it, I just think it’s weird that’s why people don’t like it.

Beyond sick of sharing my art and people make constant references to me eventually drawing NSFW for money. Making jokes about all paths leading to rome just because I draw cute anime girls. Is that all you have to say about my art?? Is that all you think about me and my skills??

Oh but when I draw male characters NOBODY makes jokes like these. So annoying, why do people need to be so creepy and weird??

Over the past 8-9 months or so, I have been getting back into my art journey in a big way. Ever since last November I have been consistently posting 1 new fully rendered art piece to my Tumblr blog, trying new techniques and pushing myself in new ways each time. The success of this has been mostly positive, but despite seeing modest improvements I've never really been satisfied with the pace I'm going. As I try to push myself more, I'm becoming less and less satisfied with my current way of doing things.

On average, it takes me anywhere from 1-2 weeks of on and off work to complete a new project from start to finish. Outside of a few minor tricks that have saved me time, that range has largely stayed the exact same since I started. Stuff like rendering, shading, and even making the linework takes a really long time for me, and those setbacks cause me to be unable to make as many ideas into reality as I would like, much less practice the techniques that would accompany them. The fact that I have to consciously say in my head "which art piece should I do this month?" stings so bad when I want to be doing so much more.

I understand setbacks in art progress are inevitable with how hectic life can get at points, but at the very least I want to make the time I dedicate to art feel well spent. I hate the idea of art becoming a chore because it's also a huge time investment...

I’ve been on instagram and tik tok for over a year now and I can’t grow a following, I have 53 followers on instagram, like 9 followers on Tik tok and I post daily short comics. Ive been doing this type content for over a month now I used to post bits and pieces of my other comics before I started doing daily comics, and I was hoping I would get like 10 followers, I got 3 but nobody interacts. I really enjoy making them but the silence is kinda bumming me out, like it’s just not in the cards for me to do this or its pointless and stupid for me to carry on. I used to make graphic novels but the effort didn’t translate to squat, I got some nice comments which kept me going, and some horrible ones that made me want to flat out quit. I feel great when I finish them, but then feel like worthless crap when it doesn’t get any attention, Im turning 30 this month and my brain is drowning me on a daily, I hear It’s supposed to take time but I don’t think I can spend anymore time on this if I failed all my goals, so how long did it take for you guys? is it too early to throw in the towel?

ive been struggling so deeply with deciding on what fundamentals should have my most immediate attention so i don’t waste any time that could be used to effectively study 😵‍💫 ive been doing shape and form which has been. difficult. But i dont think that the “master this one as well as you can and move on“ method is very sustainable in the long term. im trying so hard to study but i can’t decide what to actually study so i never end up doing anything 🫩

For context. I've been drawing for around 9 years, it started as a fun hobby I actually enjoyed, and I only started taking it seriously in my mid teens(I'm an adult now) by studying the fundamentals, anatomy and all that stuff.

My love for art started with anime(unsurprising), even though I don't watch it as much anymore, I never stopped drawing. I only ever really drew floating heads in my 9 years of experience because learning body anatomy and clothes was incredibly overwhelming for me.

As I grew older, I started to push myself. I'm unemployed and didn't finish school, so I basically study day and night so I can make my mother proud someday. Where my problem lies a lot is the humble art tutorials. Basically, how my brain works is, I watch one tutorial, study it, actually get the hang of it, and then I'm happy. Oh? What's that? Another tutorial pops up on my feed that completely contradicts the old one I studied? Don't mind if I do. Welp, I hate it, I'm not good with this new tutorial, let's go back to the old way- Oh, oops, now that my brain tried to try the new one, I struggle hard to do the old one now and what happens? Burnout.

My brain just gets so confused. There's so many "Do's" and "Dont's," and I really wish there wasn't. Next up is the humble artstyles. I don't have an artstyle. I've been struggling to find one for 9 years, and I'm still struggling. I hate everything I put on paper. Even if I do draw a piece I like, I can't recreate that style. I don't know what type of eyes, nose and lips I like, I don't know what type of render style I like. Semi-realism? Cell shading? Textured? Soft? Simple? Messy? Comic? I don't know. I see a lot of professional artists say "study artists you like and you'll get there" I like all of them and I like none at all. I get happy seeing them, but I don't get happy drawing them. I always study what I think would get me commissions in the end and I hate it so much.

Just tonight is my last straw. I was sitting at my desk, after another digital art crisis, I've been trying to study bodies and I keep fucking up the foundation because I hate boxes, they make everything stiff so I use ovals and circles but the distance between the ribcage and pelvis always makes me lose my mind because how big should the gap be??, also the width and height of it all, anyways. I then switched over to headshots, everything I put on the head I hated. The artstyle, the size and look of the eyes, the nose, lips, hair, etc. Funny because it's what I always draw. I took a deep breath and grabbed my sketch book to sketch out some face features in different styles, on my third eye, I just gave up and came here to talk about it. I'm severely burnt out and I'm really scared I'll never find passion in art again. Everything's too cluttered in my brain, the information and stress. I can't recall the last time I really drew for myself and actually enjoyed it.

I would love some advice on how to spark my love for art again. I spent all these years to get where I am now, and I would hate for all of it to go to waste just because I'm an overthinker and want to give up.

Have a nice night everyone

What do you guy have to say when it comes to people, including artists and people with a mental condition like ADHD and/or autism like me, that are just to lazy or too eager to get something done quickly, even if they are fully capable of making and finishing art themselves but chooses a quicker route? What about executive dysfunction or what if some people and artists are too stubborn to finish art or make new art? I don’t see this ever discuss in talks about AI art

I want this skill. I genuinely could not explain how badly I want the ability to be able to ***draw...***heh...apparently not bad enough, since here I am whining rather than doing something actionable, but I don't really have anyone else to talk to about this, and these feelings have just been marinating in me.

I want to be able to draw... genuinely, it's not even about money for me; I've decoupled creative passions from a job that earns me a living. I've got scenes, characters, narratives in my head, and I would love to be just...be able to put them on the screen. I already write, but man, how I wish I could just draw too.

I also know that im going to suck; it's natural, it's accepted, intellectually I know.

I even really narrowed down my goal: no light, shadow, color, or anything...just pure form; I want to be able to draw a human in whatever pose I want.
Everyone mentions gesture drawing a lot and basic fundamental shapes
, so I even picked up Drawabox....it seemed good at the start, I got the 250 box challenge....got to box 170ish...and then just fizzled out.

i just....if i compare it to another skill, I learned coding; in coding I KNOW what went wrong, I go back and fix it.
art I just don't know; YouTube is full of tutorials, and thats also paralysis inducing on its own.

I don't want to give my brain creative freedom tbh...because then comparison will start and thats a negative spiral...I wish I just...knew what steps to follow, abd have some assurance that im on the right track.
A concrete way, a fucking tyrant at my shoulder that tells me 'don't think and do it', heh, wouldn't that be nice.

I think I might just quit art.

Posting this from an old account since I gave up on reddit many years ago.

I've been drawing my entire life, but only started doing it seriously around nine years ago. Drawing was a joy and I tried out many drawing many different things- animals, humans, characters, sceneries, that stuff.

Now you might think that drawing for nine years would make me really really good at art. Nope. I can't even draw as well as people drawing for two years. Truth of the matter is that I still don't know how to work with color theory, how to do anatomy, how to shade properly and all that stuff. Whenever I post my artwork, people assume I'm a beginner. They usually say I should start learning anatomy to do proper poses.

I have studied anatomy alright. Did drawing exercises, look at faces from different angles, played around with dolls to see how joints would move. I did figure studies. Used references, broke them down into simple shapes.

I still can't draw a face without making major mistakes. Every single art piece takes over 10 hours to finish. Mainly because I'm erasing every single mistake to replace it with another one over and over again until it starts to look okay. By the time I am done with the sketch, I don't even bother with lineart. I just color it in and then get frustrated over shading. By that time the art piece has taken so long that I can't be bothered to shade properly anymore, so I just slap a darker color on it, set it on multiply and call it a day. I flip my images to double check. They still look okay. But the problem is that there are still grave errors even after I'm finished and I just don't notice them after I'm done.

Daily I see young artists figuring out how to render after one try. RENDERING. The thing I tried so many times and STILL don't know how to do without my drawing looking like washed out greys!

I studied color theory! I know about values, and focal points, and primary colors, shading, mood settings, all that! Yet all my colors look grey and garbage!

When I post my art, nobody reacts. Literally nobody. No matter which platform, nobody as so much even gives a single like. I know that social media is a bad place to measure these things, but I just want somebody to react positively to my art..

And worst of all... I'm not improving. At all. My pieces from years ago look way better than what I draw now. Why? I don't know! I tried looking into potential causes of that, took breaks, approached it from another perspective... But it just does nothing. I look at my art gallery and I just can't like a single thing there. Everything looks bad, anatomically incorrect, unappealing, washed out. I used to be proud to finish art pieces, but now I can't stand looking at any of it. I feel ashamed and embarassed to be an artist for such a long time, yet not even reaching a fraction of what other artists achieve. I gobble up every single piece of advice and way to learn, but none of it actually ever affects my art. I feel like I failed this hobby and just should never show anything to anyone ever again.

So... Yeah. That's why I'm thinking of quitting art. I'm already hurting a lot from other things and I don't need the additional embarassment of being such a bad artist. I don't even know why I'm posting this here. I feel like I'm mourning a hobby I only hate.

Im an older hobbyist. Ever since i was a kid I've always wanted to draw comedy adventure comics, while i always scribble and draw at times, I never had enough skill to do so. This past few years, i made artist friends online through a fandom and eventually drew a lot of fanart comic strips until i finally found the artstyle i can express the things i want to put and be fairly consistent of it.

But the artist friend of mine is better, faster, more followed, etc. At first it didnt bother me, especially since our artstyles are quite different. Until, they drew my fave character in a way that, idk how to explain it.

That piece of art they made, moved my heart, my soul, in a way that i would never thought of myself (nor i can replicate it).

Then i started to be less excited in drawing. At first, i thought it was jealousy. While part of it must be (its normal right), I think the better way to put it is that, they made me feel something that my own art will never give me.

I kept doing mine but at this point im tired. Even tho i still have ideas and wips, i just.... can't be as excited anymore... what should I do?

Should i stop going to social media looking at even more arts that i can love more than my own (other artists too)? Should I try to change my artstyle?

What should I do to be able to love my own drawings more than other people's again?

Everywhere you go, majority of artists just draw the same thing: 3/4 or half body portraits of anime girls. Sprinkle a bit of posing and bright colours and you have thousands of likes and followers.

I feel like the people of today (both artists and non-artists) are only capable of appreciating the anime artstyle. It's so rare to see non-anime art now. Just go to any art related hashtag on any platform and you'll see.

I have been drawing for more than 2 years. I developed my own artstyle based on semi-realism, and I primarily draw backgrounds. Yet I have only amassed a total of 200 followers across all the social media platforms I've been on. There's simply no demand of non-anime art and people just don't appreciate anything else anymore.

Like seriously how does it work.

I remember never understanding how a drawing pen worked. I always favored the brush that everyone hated because it was too random.

But i am sorry, the drawing pen is random. It made lines 10% of the time for no reason whatsoever but everybody else had no problem with it.

Seriously how do you make it work ?

So this is sort of a weird phenomenon. Last year I decided I wanted to do art again, I loved art as a kid and bought my first sketchbook at twelve. However my mental health got really bad throughout my teenage years and even into my adulthood. I’m 23 now, and I have seen improvement in my skills over the past year or so. But I am just not consistent because I get frustrated. I am so confused on what I’m supposed to be drawing? What can I draw? What shouldn’t I be drawing? What fundamentals do I understand at this point if I understand them at all? Like I want to improve but I feel like I’m floating in a void where I don’t know which direction is up. I want to get better, but I want to have fun to, and I feel like I need to choose between the two. It’s been weeks since I’ve picked up a pencil or stylus. I just wish I could be like I was as a kid. I would draw Pokemon or Skylanders all the time and have a blast coming up with my own little stories. I just want that part of my life back.

i find myself getting pretty frustrated when a drawing i do isnt good, like one time i got so upset i legitimately cried over it even though i just started, idrk how to handle those emotions and really let myself be bad in the beginning lmao

Basically I've been trying to make a comic for around 2 years almost continuously, but no matter what I do, I can't get past a few pages, and they always look really bad so I scrap them. Or I think that it looks good, and then a few weeks/ months later I realize how bad it was and scrap it. I'm not exaggerating, my art is really that bad, despite the fact that I've done everything I can, I draw every day, I've watched every tutorial, learnt anatomy 1000 times, and yet I can't even draw the characters that I've had for more than 8 years. I've gotten better, sure, but still it's not even passable. I don't have the excuse of being a beginner, especially when there's children out there that draw amazingly.

I know that the best thing to do is to quit, but I just can't do it, this is the only thing that I actually want to do for myself, and I guess my "dream", and if I fail at the one thing I want to do then what does that say about me?

I am a 20F, not that it really matters but I’ve been doing art since I was around 3-4. Art has been one of the greatest things to happen to me until I got access to the internet and was able to post my art and stuff, maybe around 13 years of age or so. Ever since then, I am constantly feeling bad about my art. I feel like no matter how much I try it won’t ever be good enough but I don’t usually make art for me, I make art for others as that makes me happiest. Giving up art isn’t an option and I don’t want it to be, but it’s been really upsetting me lately. Art feels like a chore when I’m actually able to do it but most other times I try to draw and nothing good comes out. Art fight is here and I wanna participate, I did one attack so far but it’s hard to keep going.

I also have autism and I’m a bit of perfectionist but not by choice. I know things don’t need to be perfect and there are no standards to art but I feel like I can’t control it at all. I just want to do art and be happy with it again. It’s been maybe two years now like this and it’s tiring. It feels like I can’t grow at all and I’m being held back by an invisible force. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated ❤️

I think no one buys art anymore (since AI art popularized). Never seen someone want art through my commissions anymore. My art friends got noncreative jobs. It's now feel like a free cute thing you can use your not important time on.

Hello. I'm Nathan, a.k.a. SpongeOtakuPH. I'm from the Philippines.

I've been doing art commissions since Feb 2023 to increase my personal allowance. My usual sites I branch out are DeviantArt, Pixiv, ArtStation, Cara, Instagram, & Twitter.

This year, 2026, I had two commissions completed. One of the two clients from the US ordered me two commissions based from The Loud House at DeviantArt. The first one is fully paid and then completed, while the last one, he is yet to pay me and I haven't even started making the artwork due to lack of payment. He's been offline for months after the first commission is completed.

I've tried advertising my commission prices by lowering the prices when the global inflation caused problems to the creatives.

I'm a BS Architecture graduate last July 2025. After graduation, I couldn't find the closest job until Feb 2026, when I worked for apprenticeship, which, in the Philippines, it takes two years before I take the Licensure Examination for Architects (LEA). Unfortunately, when Trump triggered a war, it the other innocent countries suffered a shockwave of inflation. Creative jobs were hit so badly, the small firm I used to work in, laid me off due to cost-cutting. I had two commissions while off-duty during my first four months of my jobs. My dreams is becoming an architect and visual artist. Sadly, it sucks to be one at the time of inflation, unless I shift to high-paying jobs like a doctor or statistician. My dad suggested me late to take BS Statistics instead of BS Architecture because the stats course is among the top 10 highest paying jobs in my home country.

I had advertised my commissions on my usual sites. When I tried those new sites like Ko-fi, nobody responded to me for months, even after my last day of my former job. I'm planning to make a V-Gen account to expand my commission business.

Nobody commissioned me. When I looked at the site for newly-commissioned artworks, I saw newly-uploaded cringy fetish fanart like body inflation and diaper fanarts having more likes and commissions more than my clean, safe, innocent fanart of anime and cartoons.

Even if I practiced a lot and joined art challenges, nobody commissioned me.

I need some advice. I'm broke. Everybody relied on AI. And now I'm lost.

Drawing recently, feels like a chore. I picked up drawing so I could draw my OCs one day(nobody today is gonna read a book about them so it's better to draw them). All that to say is, I don't know what to do, this problem isn't as simple as "draw boxes" or study references, I need to know if I'm gonna improve or if I'm improving. What's the point if I'm not?

I've seen others drawings, other beginners, I lowered my standards for achievement. But seeing other "beginners" only make me madder since their level of art is still significantly above me! It's like I'm uniquely bad at art or something, I know it's not the case but still.

I HATE how people perceive others struggling, "maybe art isn't for you" and "you're just lazy". What happened to the "ART IS FOR EVERYONE" agenda? HUH?! It still isn't it? I don't want to get others skill or talent, I just want their journey. They got good somehow! They had some form of direction, just give it to me!!!!

Don't get me started on tutorials, sheesh, I can't stand them. Presumptuous and ignorant, not everyone understands what you're saying and what you're doing. If you say the circle doesn't have to perfect then don't draw it PERFECT, make it FLAWED, that'll do you some numbers. I could actually follow along if that's the case.

Back on the skill level thing, is there a skill level below beginner in art? I'm not trying to put myself down, I'm dead serious, if there was help for people like me there this post wouldn't exist.

To end this little rant off, I just want something to do, out of all my passions being Game Development, Writing, and Art, this one is somehow the one I'm struggling the most with. It feels humiliating, just watching, reading, and listening just to still not get it. I just want to know if there's improvement out for me, I don't want to give up but I don't see better options for me. I've been staring at a blank page for a while now, it's 3:00am for me. I've started and stopped in past but this attempt is special, I can't stop. I feel like I have to keep going, just one more page, just something. Perhaps, I've placed too much personal weight on drawing, I feel depressed when I think about it. I feel angry when I watch anime or see "good" art. I'm a perfectionist at heart so I know I'll never be satisfied, but if I can see a noticeable improvement, I can at least not dread the medium in it's entirely.