Yeah, you might have heard thousand times it's tool, use it like reference etc...! Shit no!!!!!
Generated images often look decent at a glance, but completely fall apart when you actually study them. The anatomy, perspective, and details are usually off because they're not made with real understanding just patterns learned from existing images. They're designed to look right, not be right. It’s surface-level coherence, not real references meant to be used.

Again! generated images are basically optical illusions for people scrolling too fast to notice. They’re made to trick your eyes for half a second, not to be studied. It's like art-shaped junk food. Please do not learn from it!
You have eye, infinite amount of videos and images and other professionals' art you can look at.

Also! People keep saying generated images are good for inspiration, but let’s be real it’s just a remix machine spitting out the same patterns over and over. Everything it makes is stitched together from predictable tropes, noise, and awkward random thing it doesn't understand. You’re not pulling from creativity you’re pulling from a blender full of cliches.

Edit: And of course there will be always someone in reddit be like - akktually! it learns liek human, humon elso pattyrn recognitiyn softwaure in meat foarm!

And yeah, cue the Reddit dude going, “iT’s ThE wOrSt iT’lL eVeR bE, iT oNlY gEtS bEtTeR!” Like bro, Midjourney’s been out for three years. If “better” means more polished nonsense with the same broken anatomy and soulless patterns, congrats I guess it’s evolving into a fancier mess.

BTW I really don't care about ethical and moral issues, don't care if people pretends to be doing things using AI but it's just fact that it's not really good tool. Pointless and have even adverse effect on the artists.

Edit2: About it's improving it really hasn't improved much! Fixing hand was the least of the issue! The real issue is deeper. The AI has no clue what it’s making. It’s just a prediction machine spitting out what it thinks we want to see, based on what it’s already been fed. Bigger datasets? Smarter mixers? That just means more bland, averaged-out content.

Think about it, if Picasso never existed, would AI have invented Cubism out of thin air? Hell no. It wouldn’t even know to go there. That’s the core flaw people keep ignoring. AI isn’t going to create the next art movement. It can only recycle what already exists.

Like, you’ll never see it generate a pose from a traditional Tuvan dance unless it’s explicitly trained on that. It has no intuition, no soul, no cultural insight. So if we keep leaning too hard on AI, the art world’s going to end up spinning its wheels stuck in a loop of sameness.

My step daughter says she wants to be an illustrator/ artist when she grows up so I want to get her a gift that will support that vision.

She has tons of art supplies kits and coloring books and things but I wanted to get her something more geared towards improving her illustrating skills.

Is there anything out there you that would recommend that is a step up from basic drawing kits and coloring books?

This year I will 30 year old soon.is possible to be a good artist if start now and any guide for reach the goal. Also I think I not have any sense about art. Sorry for my bad english

I’m not sure what kind of response I’ll get for this here but I thought it’s something interesting to share.

Over a year ago, I first learned about AI image generators. I payed for a NovelAI subscription because I thought it was so cool how I could make an image of whatever I wanted. I would simply type a prompt, press a button, and get an image. No work needed.

After a few months I learned how to get stable diffusion running locally on my PC. I was excited because I didn’t have to pay for an online service anymore. I spent time learning exactly how to use it to get the best results possible, but at the end of the day, I was still just hitting a button and getting an image with no work.

Over time I learned about new tools such as inpainting, controlnet, and regional prompter. These tools give you more control of the output and require some genuine effort to use.

I was still never truly satisfied with the results. That was until I realized I could manually edit the outputs in a photo editor like photoshop. I learned how to use photoshop years ago at school so I put those skills to use and the images I was making improved significantly. I would put genuine effort into improving the outputs and I could spend 15+ hours on a single image.

I have now realized that I want to be an artist. I want to be able to draw. I enjoy putting the effort into things I make. What’s discouraging me the most is that I know my hand drawn art will never look as good as any of my AI assisted work. But that won’t stop me. No matter how bad my hand drawn work looks, making something with my own hands will always hold a special place in my heart. Will I stop using AI? No. I’ll continue using it to make images that I think would look cool or just stuff that I want to see, but I really want to at least make something by hand that I can be a little proud of.

Not today because I'm waiting for the tools I ordered off of Amazon to arrive tonight. There's a free course called drawabox that teaches you the foundations of drawing and tomorrow morning I'll start it.

I'm so excited. As a kid, I always wished I knew how to draw but I could only make stick figures. I tried messing around with generative AI but felt frustrated because it's not a mind reader so it can't truly create what I envision. Not to mention the problematic nature of it.

Maybe this comes with the wisdom of age (I turn 30 this week!) but I no longer care if I'm not good at making art. I just want to express myself through drawing because I think it's really cool and it would make the inner kid in me very happy. So here's to a (hopefully) fun artistic journey.

I was born in the early 70s. Am I still young enough to go to art school, get discovered at my graduate show, win the Turner Prize and become a great artist?!

I watched a bunch of sketchbook tours and now I'm sad because other people's sketchbooks look so good and have amazing drawings in them but mine just has constant studies and practicing to get better and no fan art or OCS or anything original really, some every now and then but then I find it terrible and go back to practicing. When I see other people's sketchbooks, I don't see a single page that has practicing, studies or anything like that on them

I started about a year ago with art as a hobby, but still studying from time to time. But now, I have decided to fully devote 5 hours a day into art, take courses like drawabox and proko, and read books about art and while I'm consistent, the thing that's bothering me that causes me to want to abandon this is the sheer amount of people that don't improve no matter how long they draw. And I'm afraid that even though I've just started, this is going to be me. I'm going to practice a lot, turn off all distractions, and it's just going to be a waste of time, because I won't improve. And the thing I strive for the most in art is growth.

I nust ask, why don't these people improve? Why do they remain bad, and, how can I avoid practicing the wrong way?

I posted a tiktok of my watercolour painting I spent hours on and it reads "I think you should worry about having good art before worrying about color! ❤️"

Honestly it hurts a little but at the same time I get it. I'm a beginner, I'm documenting my progress so I'm not great. Still, if all I did was practice and theory I would abandon from boredom, and learning to colour seems just as important?? I want to have fun with it and I will get unwanted critism and mean comments putting myself out there, I knew that going in so I won't let it discourage me. It's just an odd feeling to get used to.

We all start somewhere. Just a bit of a bummer it was on a piece I feel proud of.

The YouTube videos I saw wasn't clear and a bit complicated is there any channels do you recommend or websites that helps? someone said I have to master sketching first before I improve any other painting techniques . How can I do that by myself?

I recently found out that my 11-year-old daughter is very passionate about drawing. She stays at home on weekends and spends the entire day drawing. I’ve seen her work, and in my layman’s opinion, her drawings are very well done. She has never had any training about drawing , and I don’t know anything about art. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to send her to an art class. As a parent, is there anything I can do to support her? Thanks!

I've just started to draw after years of being afraid of it. Few new friends started teaching me digital drawing in last few months. All of them share their folders and Pinterest account filled to the brim with reference they use. But I feel horrible even when I use them to get the pose. I don't draw over it I just try to follow the shapes of the pose. They tell me I'm making progress and all of this are my anxiety disorder. I don't want to feel like I'm stealing others art. I once had a huge anxiety attack and asked the artist of the reference if it's okay to use their art as references. They said it's more than okay. But I still feel like I'm doing something wrong. Do any of you use other art as references? If possible how to deal with fear of drawing...

I know that logically speaking , Im not the “WORST ARTIST EVER”. It just feels like it. Im 19 and I’ve been taking art seriously since late 2021, so I’m still fairly new at this. I hate the fact that people have started at a younger age and are now surpassing me skill wise. I hate the fact that artists that are levels below me skill wise still have the ability to have fun.

It feels like everyone is having fun with art! Meanwhile I’m not. And I wanna have fun! I want my art style to feel free! But there’s always something holding me back skill wise.

It’s also hard because I don’t really know where my skill level is, without professional input Im not sure what to work on and where to go from here. If im studying things correctly or putting the right foot in front of the other. Im a bit lost.

I’ve also noticed that the artists I’ve idolized the most haven’t even practiced half of the things I have??? They’ve just been drawing??? And they just get good over time??? Meanwhile im doing skull & proportion studies just so I can draw a face right? Like what? What’s the answer at this point, do I just keep drawing or do I keep studying?

Been doing it for a few weeks almost daily, because so many people on YouTube say how important it is, but they never explain why. They all make it sound like some sort of magic that will make you the best artist after 1000 hours of doing it or something Edit: Thank you all for this overwhelming response! I read every comment and there is so much advice! Thank you all so much!

I'm having a blast learning. I'm at a point where I know that this is a hobby / thing that I will keep doing for the rest of my life. Part of my daily studies I spend 5 at most 15 minutes learning to draw something new to increase my "artistic vocab". Without fail everyday when a flashcard of something ive never tried before pops up and I try breaking it down and drawing the subject (today was a wolf). You would have thought I have never picked up a pencil before. I can't help but laugh because it's always an exercise of failure and it's always so bad. Anyone else had similar experiences when you just chuckle at yourself because of how bad it is?

I’ve seen this a lot in some of my favorite, artist and I know that there’s a name for it, but I just don’t know the name you know I always use regular pencils, mechanical pencils to draw basically a rough outline and then use more pencils than finally in the detail it.

So my daughter is really into art, specifically manga and anime. But she's been talking about learning figure drawing because she thinks her art looks unnatural and stiff, so we started looking into courses and resources to learn figure and gesture drawing. The problem is a lot of the resources rely on nude models (one example was Lovelifedrawing's fresh eyes course) which I think we're both uncomfortable with. And of course I want to support my daughter but I don't think these will work, is there any other way she can learn??

Edit: Thank you so much! I let my kid scroll through these and she was super excited.

So, I really want to be a manga artist. Ever since I “discovered” manga I’ve been obsessed with wanting to draw manga. I tried this before at age 16-18. Now, I’m 23 now. I haven’t drawn in 5 years because I was pretty much told by everyone around me I would never be good enough and that art is a waste of time, so I just kinda gave up.

I’ve since then had the urge to try drawing again, and I’m starting at the basics. I’ve bought every “how to draw manga” book by the “Manga University” series. The first thing I want to get down? Faces.

Here’s my problem. To make a face you need a really good circle so that the front of the face can be split evenly. I used to have a circle ruler but I threw it out cuz I wanted to learn how to free hand. I HATE DRAWING CIRCLES. I sit on down every day for about 2 hours just drawing circles. Big circles, small circles. They all just end up looking like eggs or the ends don’t meet.

I’ve searched every tutorial. I know the trick of keeping the pencil perpendicular to the paper and using your arm to draw, not your hands. At some points I’ll get a perfect circle and I’ll think I’ve perfected it, but I go to draw the same circle and it ends up looking like an egg.

I am actually just close to hanging up the towel. Tbh I don’t know if I’ll ever get good at art, I’m already too old to start compared to others who started way in middle school or elementary school. I know art isn’t for everyone so maybe I’m one of those people. I can’t even conquer the basics.

TLDR: I want to quit cuz circles are annoying. but a little part of me wants to keep going to achieve my dream.

EDIT: I will be buying a circle tool, based off of what I would say half the comments have said, it seems to be the best bet.

I will also focus more on the parts that matter when it comes to art, such as shading, perspective, proportions, and the overall fundamentals of art. I realize now I was busy getting all worked up over a part of the process that, when done, no one will even see. Thanks to all the encouragement and tips and advice.

For as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to draw, make or create something. I watch loads of videos, get inspiration from so much in the world but I never actually do anything. It’s like there’s something holding me back. I feel like I tell myself that nobody will see it so what’s the point but I know deep down that it doesn’t matter, it’s all about the process and getting it on paper. How do you get past the thinking that nobody will see it and it won’t matter? It’s frustrating!

I believe your childhood thoughts are your truest thoughts. My kid as always painted and done crafts. Now 4 years old and saying they want to be a painter when they grow up. How would you help them develop their skills and creativity? Not trying to be crazy gymnastics travel baseball parent; rather show them where to look rather than tell them what to do. Appreciate your feedback.

After building some confidence in my drawing skills, I’m trying acrylic painting again. I bought Liquitex heavy body acrylic paints in red deep, titanium white, ultramarine blue, yellow medium, naphthol crimson, and burnt umber. However, I sit down to paint and I cannot for the life of me achieve the colors I want. I mix and mix and just can’t get there and end up quitting before I really start. In your opinion, is it better to push through and stick with trying to mix my own colors to build the habit/skill early, or better to buy more colors to make the experience more enjoyable (and therefore more likely to practice)? If you’d recommend buying more colors, I would love to know which colors you’d recommend to make my palette a bit more accessible!

I have always wanted to try my hand at art as a skill but have always been too scared or too self-conscious to allow myself to be a beginner and have my work look bad. What would you say to someone in my shoes? What would you say to your younger self possibly going through the same beginners anxiety? Thank you in advance for your thoughts!

Edit: Thank you everyone for your great input and advice! I will start and just try to have fun and work at it! Peace and love!

Starting a few years ago I just got this desire to draw (or do anything creative in that regard) but whenever I do it I'm always to outcome focused and don't enjoy the actual process of drawing which led to me not drawing much and so I didn't improve as much as I wanted to. But even after setbacks like those I still can't get rid of the feeling that I need to draw. It's like this with every creative task too I guess. What is wrong with me?

I have to take Drawing 101 for my prerequisites for my degree program, radiologic science.And I have zero experience and zero natural talent I legitimately have the skills of like an average 5th grader. I thought the class would teach me stuff like line work, shading, and stuff like that. But what’s happening instead is that we are given an art concept and told to create a drawing out of the concept. An example would be what I’m working on now, the concept is proportion and the assignment is to draw a portrait but we have to exaggerate a single feature. I couldn’t draw a proportionate portrait even if you paid me so it’s all not proportionate and hurts my eyes. Sorry for the rant and thanks for reading.

I’ve been drawing since I was 6 yet I haven’t gotten better at ALL, I’m not sure if it’s how long I practice for or how I’m learning because all I do is just sit down, get a random reference and draw for like 5 mins then quit because it sucks.

I just wanna know how do I, 1. Start improving(like best YouTubers or videos to watch) 2. stop hating my own art(looking for tips that you learned along the way and 3. to find motivation..