Thread by @ElbenherzArt

✨(Digital)Art Ressources - A Thread✨

As promised, here is a little thread with links that helped me improve as an artist!
This is meant for everyone who is overwhelmed with the process and doesn't know how to start with (digital) art or looks to revisit the fundamentals.

Learning art ist a complex and never ending process. Especially when you want to go the competitive route and earn money with it. A short, easy, or THE way doesn't exist. You have to put in the work yourself. There is no trick or tutorial that will tell you how. It's a mindset.

And a skill trained like any other. The more focused and aware hours you put into practice, the better you'll get. Failure is part of the process. Without it, there is no progress. Try to embrace it and learn from it. ✨

The links in this thread helped ME with my skill, but it doesn't mean they are going to help you, because everyone of us has different goals with their art. Also I'm only starting with my career and have much to learn myself. Just keep that mind. 😊
Alright, here we go -

drawabox.com
The lessons (it's free) cover drawing fundamentals such as perspective and thinking in a 3D space which is the foundation of any drawing skill. I recommend doing these exercises on paper with a pen.

anatomiaartistica.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/michae…

Figure drawing by Micheal Hampton helped me to learn how to simplify anatomy, seeing the gesture and helped me with figure drawing as whole.
Additional to that I recommed everything Proko has on his channel:

Work through the PDF and all of the videos if you can. You only learn by doing and applying the things you see in the videos. Just by watching, you gain no actual drawing skill.

vimeo.com/croquiscafe
A channel for virtual life drawing. Sounds strange, but the class structure is nice in case you can't make it to actual life drawing classes. 😊

ctrlpaint.com

Teaches all digital painting fundamentals, including absolute beginner who never touched a digital software. I recommend to work through them in a chronological order starting with 'Digital Painting 101'. ✨

If you have a couple bugs per month you can invest in education I really recommend to take some classes over at schoolism.com
They are teached by industry professionals and helped me along my way to strenghten my digital painting skills.

gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2010/02/color-…

James Gurney has a lot of valueable advice to color theory on his blog.
I also recommend both of his books 'Color and Light' and 'Imaginative Realism'. Keep in mind that the books are for people who already have some kind of color theory knowledge.

Some more books I recommend:
- Picture this: How pictures work (composition fundamentals)
-Ken Hultgren: The Art of Animal Drawing
-Andrew Loomis: Figure drawing for all it's worth
-Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers
-Framed Perspective Vol 1 + 2

- Historic Costumes in Pictures by Braun & Schneider
- Scott Robertson: How to Render & How to Draw
(both books are pretty advanced and difficult!)
- Art & Fear : Observations on the perils of art making
- Robert Henri: The Art Spirit

Podcasts I enjoy:

Draftsmen by Proko and Marshall on YouTube (absolutely gold)

A collection of podcast talking about Artist's mindset by Chris Oatley:

Want to get good at the business side?
Check out Drawn and Drafted and download their Art Business Bootcamp PDFs, for free, if you want:
drawnanddrafted.com

dearartdirector.tumblr.com

Dear Art Director is a pretty helpful tumblr blog run by industry Art Directors who give insight in the industry and answer a lot of related questions that everyone has who wants to make art a living.

Some additional advice: Copying and studying from masters and other artists will greatly improve your own understanding of art. There is nothing wrong with copying for the sake of learning. You need to do studies and understand what you are doing to make progress.

That's it for now. I might add a few more links the next couple days. This is just a very broad outline of possible sources and they are in no order. Just pin pointers. There are many more. I also didn't go into formal art education here, because it's an entire topic on his own.

No one needs formal art eduction nowadays. Most professionals are autodidacts and have no formal training. If you have any questions, or some additonal links, feel free to drop them here for everyone to discuss! :)

I made this thread in reaction to a comment of mine that went viral a couple days ago and a flodding inbox with people who looked for advice. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to individually help atm, so I hope this list will help you to figure out some things for you. ❤️

Hah, I forgot muddycolors.com/posts/

I blog about all things (fantasy) art related with a lot of valueable advice and information as well.

Jesus, not 'I blog', but 'A blog'. Sorry for the confusion. I don't blog there!

I'm not a native speaker and apologize for the five million typos. 🙏

The 10 Minutes to better painting series by Marco Bucci is abolutely phenomenal. He is pretty good in breaking down complex topics into easy and understandable ones.

This is another video I think is really useful. It goes into the topic of 'stealing and copying' which is something a lot of beginners don't really understand.

I don't agree with the 'work every single day' mentality tho. Your body needs rest and your mind will not work properly if you force yourself to work every waking hour of your existence. So rather instead of 'work every day' I'd say work focused and intelligent, and take breaks.

By the way, I have my own YouTube playlist about 'Art and Education' which I'm constantly updating with new videos I think are useful. ✨😊

youtube.com/playlist?list=…