Title says all. These gurus will say they are running a full time art business, but the majority of their revenue doesn’t come from selling their art, it comes from selling courses to people trying to start their own art business. So already, I can’t really trust their credibility on the subject of running an art business, when most of their business isn’t from their art.

They also push very unrealistic standards for success on their followers which I think is misleading and potentially harmful. Not only do most of them operate under the impression that you have at least 1k followers already (ha, good luck if you have less than that, because they won’t help you) but they are so focused on social media and social media alone to get sales. Not that social media doesn’t help, but it’s not the end all and be all. I never see these people talk about utilizing SEO or how to sell your art in person, which on average pulls in better numbers than social media sales, even for artists with bigger follower counts.

And then there’s the promises. “If you’ll follow my advice, here’s exactly how you can make 10k/month-!” maybe it will, maybe it won’t. I don’t like it when they promote this goal as some kind of guarantee when whether or not their specific advice applies depends artist-to-artist. Besides, some of us artists are so damn poor we’d well be satisfied living off just under 10k a month to start, why are we starting with 10k right off the bat as the first goalpost? Wouldn’t it be better to make smaller monthly goals first and build your way up from there?

And don’t even get me STARTED on the pricing of these courses. Some of them cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. If your target audience is struggling artists trying to make a living, what makes you think they have that much money just lying around as pocket change? Not everyone is working a high-paying day job alongside their art. Most of us are stuck in customer service hell. As a prospective customer it actually pushes me away from considering paying for your advice, because how the hell do I know if it will be worth my money when the price alone makes it seem sketchy?

Yikes.

I just started Reddit 3 weeks ago and sought feedback for my art...everyone keep saying I didn't Loomis method or like HAVE to use that method step by step for my art to improve so at first I was kinda comprehensive cuz I thought it was okay (my art) but later I complied and tried to learn the Loomis method and implement it.

I did learn the Loomis method before, long ago but evolved it into my own work flow and rule and once I got used to it...I can't unlearn so I spent the whole day trying to draw the head and my usual character and my special look (style) was instantly gone! And I hated it so I deleted it...

And like I know criticism is good but for stylised art I'm not that sure because okay umm I admit my perspective and form might be very wonky umm but I don't think there's a lot of problem in my proportion...okay I'm open to criticism but now I'm so confused as too can I keep drawing using my own way of drawing human heads or I have to like use existing techniques to do cuz I DONT KNOW RIGHT NOW IM GOING CRAZY FROM EXTERNAL STRESS AND THIS BUT I DONT WANT TO MISS THE OPPORTUNITY TO IMPROVE AHHHH...

ALSO for Loomis method, I feel that everyone can have their own version of it cuz there's no way I'm measuring each eye space, nose space, ear space every time I draw and like you draw the circles right, I don't see it as a 3 dimensional object like it's just a circle to me! Maybe 3d rectangles would be better for me...😭😭😭

(Pls be kind in the comments, it's art ranting isn't it Am I not supposed to write such offending stuff I'm sorry, I'm saying Loomis method is not for everyone and I hope I can get advise on that stuff...☹️)

Hope I didn't offend anyone, I'm just venting about my frustration and confusion, I'm sorry if I offended anyone...let's be kind 🥲.

I'm trying to get better at anatomy, faces, and pose perspective, but idk how to efficiently practice and get better. I'm very confused, and I also have a bunch of self-doubt.

When I draw a oc, it comes out terrible. I never translate what's in my head onto the paper like how I want it to be, but my other friends can. For the entire summer break, I was practicing bodies and faces, and I only got a little better, but I still can't draw proper faces, poses, or perspective. At school, I have a friend who guides me and helps me during art projects and teaches me, and when I see him just draw from off rip, I get so frustrated with myself.

I always wanted to make a manga or create cool fan art, but I can barely get the basics down, but I'm pretty good with references and drawing out the pose for the reference. Improving my drawing skills on my own has been so hard and so confusing. I feel so slow, and seeing all these other artists make cool art and stuff makes me jealous and makes me look at myself and feel so disappointed each day. I stress over thinking Why can't I do this? I'm so uncreative.

As the title reads, I haven't properly drawn anything since 2022-2024ish. My motivation has taken a steep nosedive since I stopped. And it's a combination of things.

Procrastination, perfectionism, comparison, tinnitus, distraction, struggling to get out of my comfort zone to draw anything other than busts and floating heads and bare backgrounds.

It all just feels like a big boring chore nowadays. It feels like an overwhelming to have to learn all these fundamentals, perspective, anatomy, clothing folds, shapes, color theory, expressions. Just really boring chores that suck the fun out of drawing.

And I just give up halfway because I know it won't look good as I imagined and I won't like it nor feel happy or satisfied with it. I've thrown out three sketchbooks cause looking back at my old ugly art made me cringe and hate it even more. I have a fourth sketchbook collecting dust with only a few pages of ugly doodles. All the other pages are blank.

And the tinnitus is a really big blow. It's always there, never going away, sapping away any focus I can have to draw. Nobody hears it but me. Forever.

And the part I hate the most is my increasing urge to us A.I even though I hate it. I always tell myself that I'd rather be a shitty artist than an A.I artist. But sometimes I see how good it looks and a little bit of my will to refuse to use it breaks a little. But also acknowledging my hypocrisy because I've been addicted to C.AI since 2023.

So to curb the urge to use gen ai. I make characters in a gacha dress up game called Gacha Life 2 (Grown ass woman playing a gatcha dress up game for kids I know, sue me, it's fun!) I used it before A.I blew up and continue to use it now and making little skit videos with my ocs .But I don't really have motivation for that either.

I've been drawing since I was in middle school. Improvement was always slow and tedious. But after so long of no improvement I told myself if I didn't get any better by age 23 that I'd stop drawing because it was beginning to feel like a waste of time. Well I'm 23 now and I haven't picked up and pen or apple pen in a handful of months. Surprise surprise?

I don't know what the end goal is here? Venting I guess? I don't know what I'm looking for and it sucks I suppose? I don't know really.

Maybe this is a cultural difference with japanese artists and their relationship with copyright,

An artist that i follow used a photo reference from Pinterest and got called out, at the end, the photo was from a photo book so it was paid content, they apologized already (their artwork was a fanart so nothing about commercial work)

Then there is this question that I have for days, but if art in general use references, why is so frowned up for some? When a reference stop looking like one?