2. You're not an asshole. I used to have like one DNW, way back when. Now I have a bunch (including, after 2016, "no floods," because it's so out of left field I would not expect J. Random Exchange Participant to telepathically know I have trauma around being flooded), because I keep seeing things in exchanges and I also learn better ways to communicate my DNWs. A reasonable author will be thankful for clear DNWs, and the longer you do exchanges, the more thoughts you will have on how to make your DNWs clear. It's a learning process!
3. You have lovely figures and a good grasp of proportion and anatomy. I'm not familiar with Cloonan's work, but I bet when she was starting out the inking was not 100% beautiful. Art is weird in that often you're making progress in incremental ways that you don't even notice until suddenly all at once it looks like a breakthrough. When I started drawing figures and life drawing, my stuff was really wobbly and scribbly and misproportioned. I had an art lesson yesterday and the comic artist said I had solid anatomy--those literal years of work had paid off, even though I can't point at any specific line in the sand where things suddenly got better. It was probably a gradual process. Do you have work from five years ago, ten years ago? Take it out and look at it. There will probably be parts that make you wince--that's growth; that's a sign you are a better artist, that you have learned things that you didn't know five, ten years ago. A couple years back, I got a notebook of sketches that I had done back in high school. All the proportions and everything were wrong! I remembered drawing those pictures back in high school and they seemed fine then. I can see the mistakes now. So hang in there. I would miss your art; I really enjoyed your Jeanne d'Arc series.
(I have additional thoughts on how to adjust a regimen of drawing everyday if you want to hear them, but only if you want to hear them.)
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Date: 2019-01-08 12:31 am (UTC)3. You have lovely figures and a good grasp of proportion and anatomy. I'm not familiar with Cloonan's work, but I bet when she was starting out the inking was not 100% beautiful. Art is weird in that often you're making progress in incremental ways that you don't even notice until suddenly all at once it looks like a breakthrough. When I started drawing figures and life drawing, my stuff was really wobbly and scribbly and misproportioned. I had an art lesson yesterday and the comic artist said I had solid anatomy--those literal years of work had paid off, even though I can't point at any specific line in the sand where things suddenly got better. It was probably a gradual process. Do you have work from five years ago, ten years ago? Take it out and look at it. There will probably be parts that make you wince--that's growth; that's a sign you are a better artist, that you have learned things that you didn't know five, ten years ago. A couple years back, I got a notebook of sketches that I had done back in high school. All the proportions and everything were wrong! I remembered drawing those pictures back in high school and they seemed fine then. I can see the mistakes now. So hang in there. I would miss your art; I really enjoyed your Jeanne d'Arc series.
(I have additional thoughts on how to adjust a regimen of drawing everyday if you want to hear them, but only if you want to hear them.)