This Game of Business

Ok, so…as an artist, I not only want to keep improving, but I want to help others improve, too.  I remember how clueless I was over certain things when I was first starting to take art seriously way back in the day.  That was before I ever had a computer (we were very poor T__T ) and I had to figure out most of the basics myself. I try to spend a little bit of my time when I log on to DeviantART browsing randomly around and leaving comments and critiques for people which is always appreciated, of course.  Only sometimes, more often that you’d think, it suddenly leads to someone sending you a message that usually starts as “Thanks for the critique, could you give me some more?  I really want to improve!” and ends up with them wanting you to basically tell them how to change every little thing to make it into SUPER-AMAZING-ART-WORTHY-OF-THE-GODS! 

I know, right?!

It’s either that or they suddenly want you to drop everything you’re doing and make them a tutorial.  Everybody and their brother makes tutorials nowadays, there are a million duplicate tutorials on DeviantArt alone, go search for one if you want one so badly!

Year after year it seems like people just keep getting lazier.  They want shortcuts to everything or they want somebody else to do their work for them. 
I’ve even had people get indignant because they want to know what the “secret” to becoming a great artist and they feel like I am “holding out on them”.  Ok, fine, you want the big secret?  Well, here it is - there is no secret!  Get off your butt and draw!  Every day!  Every. damn. day.  If you don’t put aside a few hours every day to draw you are NEVER going to become good. Definitely not good enough to become a professional.  I have even gotten some messages from people saying “I’m an art student but I’m not improving very much, help!”  Hey, guess what - being an “Art Student” isn’t going to magically make you any better, either.  Adam Hughes is a high school drop-out, for Christ’s sake!  If you ONLY do what’s required of you in your art classes then no, you are not going to get much better.  You STILL need to draw for a couple hours OUTSIDE OF YOUR SCHOOL ART PROJECTS every day.  If you won’t devote that much time to art, how do you ever expect to become a professional artist? 

Seriously, take all that time and energy you spend on trying to figure out a shortcut to getting better and just go make some art already.