#but lucky me I'm surrounded by really good artists who are willing to give advice

[skyward-floored]

tysm Smiles 🥺 I'm sure this'll be helpful!!!

*crawling into your inbox* Smiles do you have any drawing tips? Everything I’ve drawn recently I’ve just not liked at all and I’m strugglin ;-;

-Sky Floor

Yes! I can try to help!

First things first, there’s a YouTuber named Excaliblader who gives AMAZING art tips. He focuses a lot on anatomy but he also talks about sketches, art motivation, and art styles. His tips are super simple and so easy to understand but also incredibly helpful. He’s an nsfw artist so the examples he uses are a little suggestive but they’re not explicit, but he knows what he’s doing and he’s helped me a lot with anatomy.

As for tips from me, experiment! And when I say experiment I mean push yourself to the edge. Draw things you KNOW will suck. Draw with your left hand, play with different face shapes, experiment with crayons, anything to try something new that you can expect to look bad, if that makes sense. The reason why a lot of my art has different brushes and things is because if I do the same thing over and over again I start to hate it. I need something new to do with drawings. And when you find something that you ENJOY doing (like a certain style, a new brush, etc.) you’ll get so motivated to do stuff with it! This may also help you unlock new skills with art because you’re pushing yourself outside your usual domain and discovering new things. Let’s say your characters have the same face, so you decide to experiment with different facial features. You can start small with downward turned eyes, round eyes, or triangle shaped eyes, just anything to make the eyes distinct. Or you can start with noses. Small button noses, long straight noses, bumpy noses, wide noses, all of that. Soon you’ll be able to draw all kinds of features confidently if you keep at it. But that’s just an example. Also drawing old people, people with extreme features, or just copying an art style can help. You’ll never improve if you do the same thing over and over again. You’ll be good at that one thing! And you may improve with some things in there, but if you want to do more, you’ll just have to do it.

Something I always say is to look at all kinds of tutorials on how people draw and experiment with those. Some draw their faces with a T shape, others add a lot of guidelines. See which one works for you. There’s no right way to draw; if it’s quick and efficient for YOU then it works!

And another thing, art isn’t easy. When you’re drawing, it’s hard to tell how much progress you’re making because from your perspective, you can’t see the road you travel on. If you’re feeling unmotivated and feeling bad about your art, turn around and look at the progress you made. Redraw old art and see how much you improved. Comparison is the thief of joy if you compare yourself to others, but if you compare yourself to your past self, it’ll make a world of difference. You’ll be able to see how far you’ve come. You’ll be able to see the things you were able to achieve and improve upon by actively redrawing something old and comparing it. That’s something that helps me a LOT when I’m feeling bad about my art. I cant tell you how motivating it is!

One more thing that really helps is tracing! Now, tracing someone’s art work and then posting it and claiming it as your own is bad. Obviously. But tracing actually helps your brain know WHERE things are supposed to go. Your hand is able to figure it out as you do it! Tracing real life photos help a LOT with anatomy, and if the artists allows it, tracing good art to help you learn is good! Again, don’t post it as your own. But it’s a great way to learn! It’s best if you trace a photo, and then use that trace as a reference photo, cuz you’re learning how to use a reference in two different ways!

Idk how to help with your issue specifically (I’m at work so I can’t sit down and draw something alas) but these things help me when I’m struggling! And even then I barely know what I’m doing XD