Stop Whining, Start Working

[wiseartman]

Ya, sticky this, I'm sure it will make newcomers feel very welcome.

Hi there! New guy alert. As a new guy I don't feel intimidated by this at all. Questions are part of the challenge to get you to do the work and to see if you can progress efficiently and effectively.

Not a day goes by that I don't ask questions to myself while I do my work. In the end I feel better afterwards.

Looking forward to meeting a lot of you fellow artists. I'll most likely be lurking for a while till I get a hang of conceptart.org.

Happy trails folks.

Wow! There are a lot of emoticons.

[triggerpigking]

About 5 years ago I got the idea in my head to build a bass guitar. I played bass at the time but had no idea how to go about making one. I got on a number of Luthier forums and asked the the "dumb" noob questions until I was blue in the face. I had people bitching at me to just buy some wood and get after it (absolutely ridiculous advice in that particular situation). I ignored that type of "advice", continued asking questions, bought all the books I could find, and scoured the internet for addition information. In a years time I was hand making bass guitars of my own design from raw lumber and selling them for up to $5000 each. If your starting with zero knowledge you have to ask those questions to find out what does and does not matter. The days of pure trial and error ended with the introduction of the internet. We have this massive knowledge base at our finger tips and to ignore it and repeat the same mistakes others have already made is simply stupid. Ask all the questions you want just make sure you apply what you learn.

I can see where your coming from but I don't think the thread is targeted at complete newbies to art and more targeted to the kind of people who will spend most of the time they would and should be drawing asking for help on the internet.
As noah said most of these are valid questions but theyve been answered loads of times before and could easily be found with a quick search
which would save a lot more time than just opening an account to ask a question and never returning again. That and some questions are opinion related is it better to draw with a pencil or pen, what kind of paint should I use theres no right answer for them kind of questions and the only way you would find out is to experiment with them.

[WhisperPntr]

This post is good, very good, but I think we need to take a step back and differentiate something. That not every complaint is whining and at times people do feel like bonafide failures and instead bury themselves in work.

I was and still am one of them.

Burying yourself in your work is one of the worst things you can do as it is escaping from the fact you still, deep down, feel like a big failure at the core. This requires counseling. I thought for years I was whining until recently I had an emotional breakdown and thought "perhaps this is NOT normal".

You owe it to yourself to take criticism but not kill your self esteem just to improve as an artist. The two cannot go hand in hand or else your life will be in shambles.

[erinhenkemeyer]

very cool and to th point

[LightandDark]

@OP : Well said.

@Whisper: A Person need to be able to step back and separate himself from his creation to receive critique, the art may contain the artists imprint, maybe even a fragment of his soul but it is not the artist himself and as such he is not the one being reviewed.
I did take a review personally once when I just started in class and was very defensive which I later regretted felt ashamed at, but I never lost confidence in my talent and past that point I learned not to take critique negatively, a constructive critique means a person is trying to help me which is a good thing even if I don't need her/his help or I disagree with his/her assessment.
If there is a final lesson I learned from going to animation school is that you have to develop some confidence, stick to your guns respectfully when you have to(teachers can be wrong too), and realize (respectfully) that even if Vilpuu himself ,in a phenomenal act of generosity, came and gave you a critique, he is just a Hue'maan and it is up to you to decide to yourself if what he says is right for you.(and regardless don't forget to thank people for taking the time to try to help you)

TL;DR: Self-Esteem problems should never arise from a critique, if they do then it means the person already had very little confidence as an artist and the reality is that if they were actually focused on doing art they wouldn't be so focused on all that negative brooding.

(and yeah to sleep now)

[Holydivered7]

Well, I appreciate the intention behind this thread. Way too many people spend ALL -not some- ALL of their mental energy and time on the net, just looking at tutorials that they NEVER follow, and looking at art and artists to get 'Inspired' by, but then never even pick up a pencil, for weeks at a time! ( Yeah YOU, you know who you are, LOL!)
I agree that in most cases all the questions mentioned above are simply time wasting excuses not to buckle down and do the hard work that simply CAN NOT be skipped by using any 'secret tips'.
With all that being said, some of us are not begginer artists. I have drawn traditionally for my own pleasure all my life, and now in my 30's I have discovered the digital tools that allow me to work faster and without spending all my paycheck in expensive art materials (Photoshop & Wacom tablet).
Even though I'm not a begginer in art, I'm a total noob when it comes to digital painting.
No matter how much artistic ability you might have, if you're simply lost in the software, you just wont get any decent results.
You see, when someone like myself asks questions about how to use the software, or what resolutions are more appropriate for eventual printed sizes, I'm not trying to cut corners in my art, I ask because digital media is something entirely new to me, and I thought a community such as CA, would be the best place to get pointers and help on these subjects.
Now you see, that for some of us, getting dismissed with a cold: "Don't make excuses, just go draw!", might sometimes be just plain offensive.
Just my two cents.

[dpaint]

Well, I appreciate the intention behind this thread. Way too many people spend ALL -not some- ALL of their mental energy and time on the net, just looking at tutorials that they NEVER follow, and looking at art and artists to get 'Inspired' by, but then never even pick up a pencil, for weeks at a time! ( Yeah YOU, you know who you are, LOL!)
I agree that in most cases all the questions mentioned above are simply time wasting excuses not to buckle down and do the hard work that simply CAN NOT be skipped by using any 'secret tips'.
With all that being said, some of us are not begginer artists. I have drawn traditionally for my own pleasure all my life, and now in my 30's I have discovered the digital tools that allow me to work faster and without spending all my paycheck in expensive art materials (Photoshop & Wacom tablet).
Even though I'm not a begginer in art, I'm a total noob when it comes to digital painting.
No matter how much artistic ability you might have, if you're simply lost in the software, you just wont get any decent results.
You see, when someone like myself asks questions about how to use the software, or what resolutions are more appropriate for eventual printed sizes, I'm not trying to cut corners in my art, I ask because digital media is something entirely new to me, and I thought a community such as CA, would be the best place to get pointers and help on these subjects.
Now you see, that for some of us, getting dismissed with a cold: "Don't make excuses, just go draw!", might sometimes be just plain offensive.
Just my two cents.

Except you don't need to start a thread here for those answers. A simple search in google yields 1000's of results. Which was the point of this thread, spend some time trying to find answers on your own and failing that, then ask.

[Holydivered7]

Except you don't need to start a thread here for those answers. A simple search in google yields 1000's of results. Which was the point of this thread, spend some time trying to find answers on your own and failing that, then ask.

Exactly my point! When you do a Google search on anything Photoshop related, you get thousands of useless pages with tutorials by photographers or other types of professionals that simply don't touch anything related to digital painting. I'm sorry, but isn't the whole point of this site/community to have a place where everyone who shares similar artistic interests can exchange ideas in the same place?
By your token, we all should NEVER visit this site and simply wander aimlessly for hours on the net, because all it takes is a "Simple Google search" to find all the answers!
I don't mean to be abrasive, but telling someone to go search about concept art somewhere ELSE than at "Conceptart.org" sounds contradictory and self defeating.
You simply have proven my point about how useless and egotistical certain types of responses can be.

[Black Spot]

There is a photoshop section to direct questions, but googling the site with photoshop might lead you to the answer you were looking for. A lot of people just can't be arsed to do the minimum and expect it laid out for them on a plate. Members here have been answering the same questions since the site began.

[dpaint]

Exactly my point! When you do a Google search on anything Photoshop related, you get thousands of useless pages with tutorials by photographers or other types of professionals that simply don't touch anything related to digital painting. I'm sorry, but isn't the whole point of this site/community to have a place where everyone who shares similar artistic interests can exchange ideas in the same place?
By your token, we all should NEVER visit this site and simply wander aimlessly for hours on the net, because all it takes is a "Simple Google search" to find all the answers!
I don't mean to be abrasive, but telling someone to go search about concept art somewhere ELSE than at "Conceptart.org" sounds contradictory and self defeating.
You simply have proven my point about how useless and egotistical certain types of responses can be.

No should spend your time actually drawing and RTFM to your program or is that too hard to understand too? You only get useless pages if you can't form a cogent query.Software is software if you can't apply your supposed traditional skills then you don't have any.

[Master-of-Art]

in CA i found A really hard worker artists , they draw thousands of pic just to get , and this is the key of success .....

[Little Auwnja]

Maybe "shut up and draw" works for some people but it doesn't work for me. It makes me more frustrated and lost. I really do like having support especially when I feel frustrated. Call it emo, pathetic, overly sensitive, lazy, or attention whoring if you want. I don't care. If you don't cry you don't get titty.

You only get useless pages if you can't form a cogent query.

No, they're right. I've made searches with the clearest keywords possible and gotten results that still boggle me to this day. (Furry porn while looking for a picture of an armor set from WoW) Search engines are not 100% reliable infact they are pretty bias on the results, especially if what you're looking for is not a popular subject or is very old. Or if what you're looking for just so happens to share a keyword with something else totally unrelated but more widely searched. (Getting pictures of Megan Fox or Fox News when I look for FOX like the animal, even putting 'animal' infront doesn't always narrow the search completely)

[Star Eater]

I don't care. If you don't cry you don't get titty.

When you're an adult or at least not a diaper wearing baby, you don't cry to get titty.

[OnceUponASketch]

Preach! Great post!

[Xcarbon]

i need that last line in an audible format someone with a heavy angry voice
so whenever i start asking myself stupid questions i can just play "SHUT UP STOP WHINING AND GET TO WORK"

[melviso]

How arrogant some can become.O well..There is definitely some ppl I am gonna stop watching on DA.

[Xopher]

Now, I should qualify these statements before people start chucking rocks: these are mostly valid questions, with equally valid answers. They’re worth discussing at times, and are things that you’ll eventually figure out. But by and large, you’ll figure them all out for yourself by working. Notice a pattern here? Don’t be afraid to ask questions and research things, but be sure you’re not doing it at the expense of actually learning things..

I hope the WHOLE post was read, because a lot is actually cleared up within it and that is why it is a sticky.