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Thanks You's & Resources:


Thank you!
~Thank you, Nuna, for your help and insight on why I should step out of my comfort zone! I see now that that's why I can't draw anything I find inspiring!!

~Thank you, Kai_Chi, I now realize starting over can sometimes be better and that I have to keep PRACTICE in mind rather than perfection!!

~Thank you, Lady Button, for the awesome reference! And the 'draw a random word a day' is a great way to try new things in a less serious and less pressured way!!

~Thank you, Vanna1994, for helping with an important motivational aspect! Looking at other, better artist's work I like makes me try harder to improve. Though when it puts me down thinking I'll never get better, you're right bout looking at your past works to see your improvement already!

Resources!
~Dynamic Pose Tutorial
Posted by Lady Button [p.1]

Okay, I think that's all the space I'll be needing.
Any help would be awesome ;-;

Ah thank you so much, Nuna!! I never really thought of things that way!

And about it being a learning experience is definately true, it's such a basic idea that maybe a lot of artists forget about. Well at least I did D:
But you have just inspired me to try drawing something I had in a dream ^-^ I never tried it before as I said, because I was afraid it wouldn't turn out. It's simple but hopefully it will be a step 3nodding
Thank you so much again!!

woosh.... ok
: 3 I understand where your coming from. And I have a suggestion, and I hope it can help you

I suggest maybe going back to the basics. By this I mean try pushing your self on the more simple things instead of focusing to push the more complex. Your looking to improve your art style, your looking to try new art styles, and to develop your creativity... but your feeling stomped because your drawings aren't coming out as you want them to. I think your drawings aren't comming out as well as you'd like them to, because your trying to acheieve a certain level of perfection in your pieces? So why not try looking at your art work as practice instead of something that needs to be final. Try working on one subject at a time instead of incorporating "everything" into the same drawing... Stop taking commissions, take a break, and work on drawings that you'd like to draw. If you have a little fantasy in your head or something you like drawing... draw that instead. And don't think of it as something you have to make perfect... think of it as more practice. Who cares if it dosen't come out nice, or beautiful, its just practice right? Just draw a little, and when you see things aren't going the way you want it to, don't stop working on the drawing... but more change what your working on... if the face isen't coming out nice, then sweitch to the hair, and try a few tutorials, or try to make the hair look the best you can, and again if it dosen't work... its no biggy, its just practice, and keep reminding yourself of this.

From what I read, you seem really swamped with many expectations you have for yourself, and I think its good to have expectations, but when you have so many you stop your self from going forward, which is no good.

If you lack creativity... try reproducing a few images instead of drawing from the top of your mind. Sometimes your mind just needs a break from it all... and the best way to go back with out loosing is reproducing art work that exist already. Keep it to yourself, its not for display or anyone else, its just to practice with. Often when you reproduce images you pick up on a few things the artist did to make there drawing so wounderfull... which later on you can incorporate into your own drawings.
You have troubles getting more volumes in your forms, try looking at really well rendered pencil sketchs of faces and stuff... see were the artist put his shading and were he put his high lights... its in observations like this, were you'll notice and find things you can do to make your drawing even better. If you want you can even put your image in grey scale, and compaire your drawing to the other artist... and try and find the differences between your volumes and theres... see if theres anything you can do to make your drawing better : 3

If you want more fluid posings. Take the time to find images with fluid mouvements in them. A good starting point would be animation sketchs or gymnastic posings... even greek statues would be a nice reference because they have movement in there posings... another thing you could try is filming yourself doing different movements on cam. And then playing back your video frame by frame with quick time. Once you've got a few posings set up, try practice

With references it works the same way pose yourself in front of a cam... and use yourself as the model. You'll get the posing and position you want first try instead of loosing hours trying to find the poses online : )

now.... skin tones.... are a tricky thing... especially if your looking to add different colours in them... because mastering colours is hard from the start. So if your having a hard time with this... relax cause its only normal : 3. I suggest tackeling this subject slowly. Before you star,t know that your body has many vains and different pigments through out the skin that gives you different variants in colours everywhere. Start by trying to add cold colours into your shadows (purples, blues and greens) and keeping your skin with more warm colours like yellows, oranges, pinks and browns. Practice this a few times on practice sheets... as you start to become more familier with your colours you can then try exploring your colours more... maybe try adding some greens into your warmer tones to creat a small contrast and so on. Its important to play with the level of intensity (opacity) of these colours as well... you want something suttle, but not so suttle you don't even see it... but not so much that you can't focus on anything else cause its litteraly "in your face" this might take you a few tries before you get the hang of it as well : 3

I have similar issues. I draw my hands based on my own. Someone once told me I didn't define the wrist bones enough when portraying the transition from arm to hand. But my own wrist bones are barely distinguishable from my arm. My wrist

If you haven't already, you should check out Warren Louw and deviant art and take a peek at his Strike a Pose tutorial doodad. I love it and it's very much helped me :D
Also, here's a little something you could do; Draw every day, a picture a day for a year. It's what I'm doing! Find a random word generator and get a word a day. It's working pretty well for me, even if there's some seriously frustrating words and I have NO clue what to draw for them. I've gotten like 5 of those suckers, but I push myself to draw and continue to draw, even if it doesn't turn out how I want it to C:

I started a landscape piece. Different from people as what I'm used to, and I think it will help with colored lighting as I'm using a yellow tone.
It's not as strict of a method as I use for people so it's really fun and relaxing.