/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>2700253
just do it and knock down to 30 when you start to "burn out"

>>2700270
But is this real or wtf is it?

Burning out just sounds like pussing out. It sounds like drawing a lot for a few weeks then saying "boohoo this is too hard" so then newbies just kinda stop drawing as much.

Is this a real physical/psychological phenomenon or is it simply a matter of discipline?

>>2700253
best way to form a habit is to use about 2/3 of the will power you have for something at a time (this works with jogging at least). This means that you're unlikely to resent the act, which will allow it to become a habit. Once it does, the amount of time you spend on it will naturally rise

>>2700275
I think it's something real. Like having artist block. I think burnout happens when too much mental energy and stress build up, the brain used up all its craeativity and focus and its like a mental shutdown, a defense mechanism to let the brain know its time to take a step back and regroup. I think having too high expectations and feeling failure for not meeting them can be part of it.

>Is this a real physical/psychological phenomenon or is it simply a matter of discipline?

Both.
Discipline is the solution to the physical/psychological problem.

It's just a simple truth that hard work is mentally (or physically depending on the work) taxing. Diving into a demanding schedule is liable to make you go 'fuck it' as you exhaust yourself. People are naturally averse to unpleasant activities, so if you put yourself on a demanding routine and make art unpleasant, you won't want to do it.

Studies on willpower by Baumeister basically suggested that all humans have limited willpower and that any mentally taxing activity reduces it until you "recharge" it (glucose/sleep). If you believe this - it seems a staple of psychology but lately some people have questioned the findings - then it provides a very simple explanation for burn out. You're burning willpower faster than you're replenishing it. Exertion of willpower can be reduced by things like a strong routine and good habits that essentially reduce the number of difficulty decisions and mental exertions you need to make.

So gradually building up to 6 hours is going to be less taxing on your willpower and discipline than diving from 30 minutes into 6 hours. Burnout is more likely still when you start sacrificing your health (like if you start sacrificing sleep to get more practice in or you're putting yourself under high stress conditions). Yes, though, ultimately people who 'burn out' do so because they lack the discipline to persevere, but the lack of discipline can be explained if you consider willpower to be a finite resource.

>>2700253
Burn out is real but there are ways to avoid it.
When I was just starting to get serious into art I decided to spend more than 8 hours a day doing hardcore studies.
I did this straight from drawing maybe an hour so every few days.
I lasted about 5 days and it completely destroyed my motivation for drawing.
Basically it's near impossible to force such extreme habits in such a short amount of time unless you have herculean willpower.

What you should do instead is gradually increase the amount of time you draw for.

>Draw for as long as you're comfortable even if that's only 30 minutes for one day.
>The next day draw a bit more than that, once again go at what speed you're comfortable at. Even only adding 5 minutes extra will add up in the long run.
>Continue this process until you're drawing as much as you'd like to be drawing for.

And remember not to force yourself to draw too much if you're really not feeling it. But also don't get too lazy.
Try to keep yourself right on the edge of your comfort zone.

>>2700253
Start slow, do 1 hour a day and when you can manage that upgrade to 2 hours a day and so on.

>>2700299

Shit brah guess I have no choice. Will follow thru with this and see what I can pull off.

But I'm left wondering, when you say "motivation" to draw can't that just be ignored? Let's say I have no motivation to draw and got burned out. Why can't I just force myself to sit and draw?

It may be unpleasant but I assume over time it must get better.

>>2700253
dunno if it's burnout, but if you grind any boring ass task long enough, your brain will shut down like, naaaaahhhhh.
if you are capable of creating a fun filled fiesta of fine art every fucking day, while maintaining your rate of improvement, i don't see how you'd burn out. if you manage to do this, tell me your routine.

>>2700253

1. Have a project
2. Have a deadline

It's bullshit to tell yourself to draw X hours per day. You'd better say to "I'll illustrate this scene from Chapter 10 of book XYZ or character ABC with the use of gouache and ink in a week. I'll have preliminary sketches done in 2 days, ink for 2 days and color for the rest".

IF you are a total n00b, you extend the time frame to, say, 2 weeks and say: "I'll have final sketches made by the end of first week, and I'll cram such and such studies here and here".

Have a PLAN. Have a GOAL. Move from one goal to another. From one complete painting to another. If it's shit - ok, it's shit but it's what you have done and completed. Now you can pick even very similar project and redo it, but also with a TIMEFRAME and clear WORKFLOW.

Fuck mindless grinding. It will get you nowhere and only ruin your life by making you always unhappy outcast.

Afterword: procrastination is a bitch, but when you have DEADLINE and clear schedule and you see you don't meet it, you'll have to adapt and put more hours nautrally. Thing is that when you'll see that you have problems with making proper sketch/lineart, you'll know in the future to spend more time on that. If rendering is fast for you, you'll know how to adapt your workflow to a tight timeframe to meet the deadline.

Don't be stupid OP. Don't end up like losers who do 10-12h/day and don't have a life, a job, recognition or anything really but 10 000 Loomis heads done.

>>2700480
Problem is I don't know how to draw or paint at all. I don't really have "goals" other than to just follow exercises.

This could be 100 gestures, or 5 life drawings of my car, or 200 boxes drawn from imagination. But I'm pretty far away from project work because I'm not even capable of executing something like that.

Hence the hours broken down into exercises daily(1hr gesture, 2hrs life drawing, 2hrs boxes/shapes)

>>2700497

This is shit. Really. Think first what you want to do even if you have no skill for that/barely any skill. It must be something FUN for you, something that will give you a sense of accomplishment. Do drawing 200 boxes give you satisfaction?

You need idea first and then work towards realizing it. It's cool that you do life drawing, it's cool that you do gestures, it's awesome that you do those construction/fundamental exercises - but ultimately, what do they serve?

You don't know - so nothing at this point. You do it all in void - which is quite shitty.

Set you goal. Seriously. "I want to make cyber-monster like Tsutomu Nihei does that reaches with his metal claws towards the viewer" while grandiose and of debatable taste, is a valid goal.

Then you break it: "I need to know first how to draw its bald head with cyberspace ports in his head and metal plate on half of his face and the gaping hole where his nose was - oh and mouth full of sharp metal teeth".

THEN you break it further: "Ok, so I get references for heads menancing old, bald men, some cyberelements etc., now how to put it together, hmm...let me google for perspective...oh, ok, ok, so my head is a sphere with cut sides and I need to have it intersect with cylinder that will represent cyberspace plug...ok, I got it, now what more intersections I need..."

See? You NEED to work towards something. What's good of drawing 200 boxes for you? But if you'd draw them knowing that next day you'll intersect them in perspective and have a rough model of your boxy robot character - oooh, that's the other thing, yeah?

You need to learn as you do your projects. Successful programmers also do that.

And remember - TIMEFRAME. "Ok, I'll be done with underlying structure of cyber-monster head in 1-2 weeks and then I'll MOVE ON".

>>2700582
good post

>>2700582
>>2700497

Also have this one. And you know, your goal doesn't have to be complicated "I want to know how to draw horses because I love them and also want to draw fantasy" is a valid goal, as well as "I want to make a portrait of my mum". Things is - to have this goal and work towards it. Something as vague as "having better line quality" or "draw like X" isn't a valid motivation. It might be stepping stone, but there's nothing for yourself there. You have to have clear goal to reach and this goal always should be complete drawing/painting that is an idea that comes from yourself.

>>2700582
>>2700585
Not him, but this was really useful, thanks anon!

No. I used to be working my ass off of me and dedicating the only hour of spare time for excercising.

Burnout is a concept and not real, don't get lazy.

>>2700582
>>2700585

Yes thank you this is very helpful. So my goal would be illustration & cartoons, but since I don't have my own style yet I'm left trying to find one(it will take years) or drawing in other styles.

So would a good goal be to draw X poses every day from my preferred style? For example let's say drawing an Adventure Time comic 6 panels long, one comic per week or something like that.

Is this the type of goal you're talking about?

Never sacrifice sleep for extra hours, I did it and consequences are dire, my own progress stopped for several months. That's the price for 1.5 hours shaved off sleep.

>>2700661
>>2700661

>>2700661
>>2700661

This is still very vague.

>(...)since I don't have my own style yet I'm left trying to find one(it will take years) or drawing in other styles.

Just don't worry about style, it's something that will come out of you eventually. Think about realizing the concept.

>drawing Adventure Time comic every week

What does it mean? Do you have story to tell? Do you have want to draw funny things for people to laugh at? 6 panels long, ok, but would it be "monster of a week" type? You say Adventure Time, so it's characters of two buddies, one human hero and the other some supernatural, a bit clumsy helper?

http://skadicomic.com/comic/ballad-of-skadi-pt-1-2/

IF you think it would be FUN, then think about it more: what are characters, what kind of setting do you need, what will be in first story? How many pages it will have?

Break it down. When you'll have it more or less written down, take references/inspirations, sift through those and try designing characters. Do like 10 different character designs and pick from those. Then do some character designs for other characters/things your characters will meet.

Only after that think about panelling, go into rough storyboard, work perspective into those camera angles (by this point you'd probably learn a lot) and then after all that try finishing your first page without inking or laying down colors.

Remember, goal might be weekly putting your webcomic on some forgotten website/blog/tumblr, but before doing that you also need to do work: and set yourself timeframe for that.

Say: story and characters 3 days (writting down), inspirations & references 1-2 days, 2 days as buffer/for miscellanous stuff/start of other thing like rough character sketching.

>>2700707
>>2700661

This is end of first week. Whole 2nd week will be character design for first of your main character. 3rd week will be for 2nd character. 4th week will be your characters interacting with each others/environment/other characters appearing in story.

Now first month nearly passed and you still haven't made first page of your comic. But you have clear goals, story, world, characters that will appear in it, 2 main character designs and probably some sketches of others.

In your second month you can start trying to pump out the first page of your comic. In third you'll try getting down to 1 page per week.

Is something like that unreasonable? Will it be satisfactionary? Will you learn during it? Yes, a ton. Probably a bit more than you can chew, but your story might be imperfect, your character designs not so good etc., but as you go you will get better and polish what you have while moving on and actually accomplishing something.

See every other webcomic, above Skadi, but also:

http://gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1
http://www.paranatural.net/comic/chapter-1-page-1

Just look at first pages of those comics. Rough, not really good. But it gets better. Just jump to last pages. It's a process that actually took those guys years and they are pretty much in their comfort zone right now, but you don't have to be: so what if in few months/in a year you'll abandon your comic? That's ok, you'll move to other goals, like "painting a classical, traditional oil painting of my characters standing in my backyard in semi-realistic fashion".

>>2700710
>>2700707

Oh and btw - those timeframes you set yourself at the beginning are DEADLINES.

You can go ahead of it. Say you suddenly will notice that you spend not those 30 minutes but you are actually so captivated in designing your character that you spend 3h for 4 days straight and are done with the design you have now. And you'll start noticing that you also design your other characters faster, around that time, that you need only 4 days on them.

That's fine. Then you'll adjust your schedule, impose tighter boundaries and limits on yourself so you will get those 2 days more on things that are problematic for you, like, say, panelling.

Remember also - be realistic. See that Paranatural comic? It doesn't really have colors at the beginning, there are 3 characters, practically no environment, background is some gradient you can make in paint/Powerpoint in 5 seconds. But it will do.

>>2700719

One more posts from me, rumbling:

Study especially "Paranatural" comic and see the progress of a guy.

He starts with 5 panels and 3 characters, everything is without color (except that gradient for the sky).

Still, he challenges himself: different expressions of characters, first panel and last panels are drawn from opposite angles so there's "flipping" the perspective. Some simple street with shop is another perspective exercise.

2nd page is exaggerated gesture exercises and characters interacting with each other. Also a bit more panels. Still simple b&w with largely insignificant splash of color (that influences the scene though, adding to emotions etc.)

3rd page is more of what we seen previously, but instead of more panels he went for less and with 1 big complete and quite detailed landscape drawing. A difference.

4th page - more of the same, but actually putting characters in the environment, also sillhouettes in last panel, some experimentation.

5th page - introducing more backgrounds, continuing with panelling experimentations and exaggerated gestures.

6th page - showing proper motion through panels, also present background in every panel

7th page - further progressing with what was seen before, warping of the environment for the "character vision"

8th - fill up, simple page before something he prepared for longer time and that is

9th - colored page.

And then you'll see as the pages progresses more refinment, better lines etc. It's apparent guy learned drawing as he was making this webcomic. And it's ok, years later he puts very nice stuff.

>>2700253
>Is burnout real
Yes and no

Practicing for several hours per day is good, it will help your observation and mark making.

However; drawing to the point that you hate it will zap your enthusiasm, like a musician that practices scales till his fingers bleed.

Don't beat yourself up. Watching the Simpsons and noticing a line is equally important.

>>2700733

Btw, interesting to note - he was shitting new page of comic every 2 days or so at the beginning, apparently very passionate but not skillfull. Later on his pace lessened when he crammed more and more work/detail into each page to git better.

>>2700707
>>2700710
>>2700719
>>2700733

Good tips artbro thanks for all the feedback.

I do see how enjoying part of your practice is HUGE to avoiding burnout. Do studies, yes, but make time for actionable practice that gets me closer to my goal too. At last I see the light

This might literally be the most amicable and cordial thread I've ever seen on /ic/

>>2700253
I like your art Marge, it looks like the thing it's supposed to look like...