After 1 years of drawings and practicing i need some criticism

(Sorry for my bad english in advance im french) Hi like the title said ive been practicing and drawing since junuary 2021 (new résolution) 4 or 2 hours a day and now after 1year without sharing my drawing to anyone i want some criticism on my practice session, animal drawing and imagination drawing i did last week

https://imgur.com/a/nRrJlvf 30s

https://imgur.com/a/uSpuT3t

https://imgur.com/a/3ptt9Hn 2min

https://imgur.com/a/Bz9FJxf 5min

https://imgur.com/a/3XmGA7q 5min

Practice face

2min skull face

5min face

Imagination (I hate these drawing)

https://imgur.com/a/g0eV9kE

https://imgur.com/a/JwpDxIc

Animal

https://imgur.com/a/k2EtWfE

And my first practice page (2021)

https://imgur.com/a/mHeOjiy

Hey! You have grown a lot in your drawing during the practice.

You have a very good sense of the volume of the figure. I like your work especially the stylization, but on some sketches the head looks a bit bigger than the real thing (maybe it's not so bad for stylization).

Drawing cartoon faces takes a lot of practice and gets better every time!

Good luck, you are doing well!

Thank you for your reply and for the head yeah this is why i hate deep in my bones all of my imagination drawings because the head is always big like the asperge lady and the Polar bear guy.

Its hard for me to connect the head with the rest of the body idk if i should draw the head first or the body and then the head, i think my three biggest problems is shadow, head size and hair.

And i have another problems is that idk what to practice anymore and what i should focus on, in 1 year and 8 month (sorry i forgot to put 8 month in the title) i never miss a day of practicing even if i have school or tired i always do my 2h or 3h but now im practicing without motivation. Now im practicing on what ? Idk...

Now im like a printer recopying what i have in front of me without learning anything and i dont want to take a break because im scared of losing my skill and my goal is to be the best in everything i do and surpass others people and be like kim jung gi and thats the problems this is the stupidest goal art in history this is why i post this for others people who draw to destroy me and my ego 😯 (in a good way)

I saw that there is a lot of people who saw my post and my drawing, dont be affraid if you want to say something even if my drawing is trash SAY IT! Tell me why my drawing is trash im here for this

Hey Newbie974, I'm Sivreayyl, and I'm a total beginner in art. I've always been interested in art, and I've done tracings and copies of my favorite pieces since I was like 13 (I'm 22 now) but it was only about 2 months ago that I really started trying to improve my skills. Like you, I am very much inspired by a particular artist (wlop, in my case). It's very easy to get caught up in your favorite artist's drawings, and then look back at your own drawings and think "wow, I'm so bad". When I find myself doing this, I usually try to put things into perspective for myself, so let's use your example of the great cartoon artist Kim Jung Gi.

First off, this guy was clearly super motivated. A brief glance into his history tells us that he started art school when he was 19, but I'm absolutely positive he was drawing long before that. He is 47 now, which means he has been seriously practicing art for a minimum of 28 years. Let that sink in for a second. Twenty eight years. That's 336 months, and, interestingly enough, almost exactly 10000 days. When you look at my 24 day practice streak at 30 mins a day, or even your (very impressive) 500+ day practice streak at 2 hours a day, it all pales in comparison with the sheer amount of work and effort that the masters have put in.

If I could give you one piece of advice, (and this honestly has a lot more to do with life than it has to do with art) it would be to cut the negativity out of your life. People who are extraordinarily skilled in specific fields often tend to be very self critical, and art is no exception. This self criticism is a huge part of what drives people to be better, as they're always striving to avoid their drawings looking like 'trash'. But I believe the environment they are in is also a huge factor in determining whether or not people realize their dreams, and become that great artist they want to be. If the people around you are all saying "you should give up art, you'll never be anything, art is stupid and you are stupid too" then you will almost inevitably lose motivation and quit doing art.

You may have noticed that a lot of great artists have been to art school, and I think that the main thing an art school provides is an environment that fosters skill. That won't do any good if you lack the motivation to develop yourself, but if you do have that motivation (and it sounds like you do) then putting yourself in an environment to develop your skills will almost certainly lead to vast improvement in your skillset over time. Think of it this way: Time + Motivation + Environment = Skill. You mentioned that the biggest things you need to work on are your shadows, head size, and hair, but I would say the biggest thing you need to work on is your environment. You can go to an art school and basically get that environment in a can (and I really do think that you'd get a lot out of taking some art classes) or you can try to generate that environment yourself, which is what a lot of us are trying to do, since most of us don't have access to art school :(.

A couple of things that I think are really useful to have in your environment are:

High skill people. These are the people who inspire you to better. Study their work, look at what they're doing, maybe even reach out to them and talk to them. People who are really into something are almost always friendly towards others who share their passions, no matter their skill level.

Low skill people. These aren't people to put down and make fun of, but people you can relate to, who are going through the same struggles that you are. If you keep an eye on them, you'll notice that some improve faster than others. Ask them how they did it, and try to emulate what they did.

High value criticism. You can get a long way by looking at your own mistakes and trying to fix them, but at the end of the day, getting advice from others is a super great way to find ways to improve your work. Of course, not all of the advice you get will be good advice, so it's important to take it with a grain of salt, but if you get a high volume of advice, you can sift through it and find those few golden nuggets that are going to propel you forward.

These are all things you'll find in an art school, but you can also find them for yourself. You can join an art club in your area, you can join online communities, (such as this one) and you can reach out to people that you find interesting / inspiring. Find a place where you feel like you belong, and find some people you like being around, even if it's only a virtual place and virtual people.

Alright, I think that's enough on life concepts, let's move on to art.

I think it's great that you're practicing so much. Keep that up. I do have a few pieces of advice on how you practice. I don't know your exact practice routine, so you may already be doing some of these, but here's how I like to break up my practice time (I do digital art, so some of this may be a little different for traditional).

10% of time spent on art I try to spend studying concepts (you don't need a pencil for this). This can mean reading art advice / tips, watching youtube videos, asking questions, etc. I see you have at least one art book (it looks like it's oriented towards gesture?) so studying that would definitely apply. I like to watch Mark Brunet videos on digital art, but probably Proko videos would be more relavent to traditional.

10% of time spent on art I try to spend in my community (I think of it as giving back). Give some advice, take some advice, and have a good time with some people you enjoy. I know this sight says it, but thinking about how others can improve is often a good way to find ways to improve yourself. You don't have to be a great artist to give advice, and as long as it's positive and encouraging, you probably won't ruin anybody's career, even if your advice isn't great. I'm on art station, pixiv, deviantart, line of action. I'm sure there are french based sites as well, if language is a problem. You can also go to real life meetups / get-togethers.

40% of time spent on art I study the basics. You can decide for yourself what you think the 'basics' are, but a lot of schools teach color, form, line, shape, space, texture, and value, so that's what I practice. I usually focus on one of these each day of the week. For this portion of my practice, I do not think of what I'm doing as art, but practice that I am doing in order to get better at art. This helps me avoid judging whatever I'm working on as 'good' or 'trash'. It's simply practice to get better.

Color I usually practice by looking at reference pictures and blocking in the colors I see. Then I think about how I can make the colors more interesting, or how to make them work better together. Another exercise I like to do is draw a picture using only two colors (not just drawing the outline, but conveying the information with color shapes, such as yellow blobs for areas that are lit, and blue blobs for areas that are in shadow).

Form is mainly what I use this sight for, doing quick gesture drawings of animals or people or hands or wahtever, trying to catch a general action or idea. I also use a random image generator to give me ideas on what to try to catch the essence of. I often try to exagerate what I see in order to convey things more clearly and make it more readable.

For line practice, I often switch off my tablet and go to traditional, drawing straight lines, C curves, S curves, hatching, etc. I put dots on the paper at various distances from eachother and try to draw lines between them. Then I go back and draw some relaxed curves, trying to hit the points with my curve, while maintaining smoothness and confidence.

For my shape practice, I start off drawing various triangles, squares, circles, elipses, etc, then I move on to more irregular shapes. I like to do cross sections of things like engines, rifles, machines, etc. You can usually find references for these online. A lot of times I finish up with the two color exercise, focusing on the color shapes this time as appose to the colors themselves.

For my space practice, I start off with basic shapes in perspective (mostly boxes, cylinders, cones, pyramids, etc.) Then I start deforming them, squishing them, stretching them, skewing them, etc, while trying to keep them looking believable. I then move on to more complex shapes such as buildings, people, trees, etc (I use lots of references). I often try to break the more complex shapes down into the simpler shapes, or enclose complex shapes with simpler shapes, and then draw the details in afterwards (I see you did this with some of your skulls).

I once again go back to traditional for texture. I do a bit of hatching, cross hatching, curved cross hatching, stipling, scribbling, etc. Once again, I use reference images and try to represent the textures I see with the textures I can draw.

for value once again with traditional I try to create strips going from very light to very dark, with an even transition. Then I try to create edges between different values, varying from hard edges to smoothe edges. Then I go back and draw some basic shapes, but this time I don't draw the lines to show the edges, and instead represent them entirely with shading. Then I move on to more complex shapes (once again using references).

The remaining 40% of my practice time I spend drawing whatever I feel like drawing. I usually try to draw from imagination, but sometimes I don't have anything in particular I want to draw, (or sometimes I even don't want to draw at all) so I go back to my random image generator to give me ideas. This is where I actually try to create something that's worth looking at. I use lots of different styles, from black and white, to color, to realistic, to various stylizations, to just putting random shapes and colors down. This is the part where you just enjoy yourself and let loose.

Also, I try to take short breaks every 20 mins or so (especially during my really long practice sessions on the weekends) to rest my eyes, stretch out, and clear my mind.

As far as specific critiques on your art itself, I really don't have too much to say. It looks great. You should stop putting yourself down so much, and give yourself some credit. Sure, you've still got a long way to go before you meet your goals, but you've come a long way too, so as long as you keep it up and put in more effort than anyone else, you'll be better than everyone else before you know it. Part of learning is the struggle to learn. If you're not worried about whether or not you're learning right, then you're not learning right. That worry, that search for how to improve, that's part of the process of learning. How people learn best is different for every person, but the general rule is that if you want to improve and you look for ways to improve and you take specific and intentional actions to improve, then you will improve. So you're on the right track, keep looking, keep struggling, and keep asking questions. Le seul qui échoue completement, c'est lui qui n'essaye jamais. (sorry my french is extremely rusty.)

Hope this helps, you're doing awesome!

Stay creative,

--Sivreayyl

Hello again!

I fully agree with Sivreayyl's answer. You really underestimate yourself, but do not neglect the rest, because it helps to clear your head from constant drawing. You should not force yourself and take drawing for granted, yes, practice is very important, but it is just as important as rest, otherwise you can enter the burnout stage.

Draw intuitively, then the process itself will bring more pleasure! I understand your desire to become better, but it is very rare to see results so quickly.

I have been drawing for 10 years and there were many mistakes in my development, but I grew up in drawing on these mistakes and I feel that I still have room to develop.

You really have grown in your drawings, the main thing is not to lose motivation to work further!

As for sketches, I personally prefer to start with the head, as this gives a designation of the volume of the drawing, and then I start drawing the main lines of movement.

Believe in yourself, you are doing a great job!

Hey!
your figure drawings are very good, the only thing I'd say is that really utilize the fluidity that a line of motion can give you. I see that you sometimes will make it one or two lines, but this can sometimes give your drawings a slightly stockier feel. Your heads are a little big for the bodies, but the faces themselves are really really good. Animals look good as well! Your imagination drawings are good, but the heads are too big and it's screwing with the proportions, other than that the shading and stuff looks fine. Overall the progress in a year is really good!!

Thank you Isa24,Nayomi for your reply especially Sivreayyl who toke his time to write this very detailled post for me.

For Sivreayyl i did not say in my post but im 19 and i was drawing since i was 16 but only landscapes or urban drawings with no human in on digital and then i discover kim jung gi in 2020 and now you know the rest. I think i wanted to be a bit to much like him, but my dream stop here because where i live (Reunion Island a french department located in nowhere) we only have 2 art school who only take the best and the rich and i end up being in a school to become a landscapers architect 💀

For my drawing routine i do 30min of warming up where i draw square in perspective and others things, 1hours of practicing with reference and 1h practicing imagination because kim jung gi said its important to draw with image we have in our head or things like that i dont remember, and if ihave enough motivation i do another hours.

I watch video on art too like you said proko but i also watch Reiq and sure the great and the beautiful KIM JUNG GI (ok i stop) but i learn how to draw human body with the artsist REIQ as you can see my technique and my style is highly influenced by him, but you said a thing is that we dont need pencil to studies and the problems is that i never do that when im practicing i jump on my paper like a tiger on his prey and when i do that i practice more my hands that my mind, now im gonna take my time looking at the picture and do more study and like noyami said maybe some rest too like just practicing 1hours or 30min a day. Merci beaucoup à vous et bonne journée.