this video is here so you can take a pieceof your art and figure out what level it is and what you can do as an artist to get tothe next art level. for this episode i asked you to send in recentart you made so i could rank it, talk about it, and give everyone else examples of arton each level. i got so much art--- level 0art that doesn’t exist at all. you were scared your drawing wouldn’t beperfect so you never made it. it’s nothing. it’s level zero.
level 1level one is an interesting place to be, because you will often see full illustrations herethat have characters and a background (basiabear02) - something that gets more rare on level twoand three but shows up again as the artist gets to a high level. if you’re on level one, you usually spenda lot of time on your art, even if it’s a simple character. that’s normal. as you get more drawing experience and getcloser to leveling up, you will get faster too.
the two areas that need most improvement atlevel one are basic line and coloring quality, and shape. at level one, the lines on your drawing aren’tas confident as a level two artist. they might look a bit shaky or scratchy. you can see this on thegamergod and silverberry’s art. or, if the lines are more purposeful and wellplaced, level one art is held back by anatomy joshua’s pony here is a great example ofthat. you can see the technique to shade and drawis easily level two, but the character itself has some significant anatomy problems, mostnoticeably on the too thick neck and overly
long body. a level one coloring technique has scribbledin fills for traditional art, like dennydo1’s piece, or in digital art, white gaps (anonymous20) or pixellated edges (tony tony chopper & adrienne). filling those areas in and cleaning your edgeson digital art is an easy fix. for traditional art, think about how the strokelooks. if you scribble in the fill, the pencil linesgo everywhere. but if you use your pencil and only move itin the same direction back and forth, the coloring job looks more uniform.
the difference between level one and two isthat the coloring job at level two looks cleaner. although the biggest factor for digital artat level one isn’t coloring, usually. it’s line quality. a level two artist can have solid fill coloringjobs like dylan and bri, their lines are just more smooth. if you are drawing digitally, one of the thingsthat may help is learning a different program to draw your art in. firealpaca and krita are what people watchingscribble kibble recommend the most for drawing still images.
and they’re completely free! the other big difference between level oneand two is shape, or proportions. at level one, your eyes might not be in theright spot, or parts of the body might be different sizes than they should be. level two art is just that little bit betterat drawing something in a way that looks right. the most important thing you can do to levelup from level one is keep drawing. do not worry about your art being perfect. keep drawing for fun, draw things you like,and you will automatically get the experience you need to reach level two.
level 2if you’re in this area, your art shows some improvement over where you started at level1. lines and colors are cleaner, but if there’sshading, it’s imprecise. anatomy and shape problems persist. xiaochio’s inking job is much cleaner andprecise than a level 1 art piece, but it’s still slightly fuzzed and smudged comparedto level 3. more importantly, the balance of the character’sshape is off in terms of the upper body to lower body ratio, particularly how far downthe arms reach. even if it’s a dwarf character, we get thefeeling she is going to topple over.
the head of tiki’s anime human is fine,but it would be much larger relative to her body, especially since she is leaning towardus. characters that are well proportioned at leveltwo will still look somewhat boxy, simple, or undefined relative to level three. astroblaze and carbon coffee’s heroinesare more solid proportion-wise, but their sleeves don’t fit the form of the arm thatwould be there underneath. clothes are usually to blame for the boxyfeeling. at level two you’re taking more time tomake sure overall the character looks right, and not thinking about how different typesof fabric would flow over your arms.
for digital artists, level two is the experimentalcoloring and shading phase. you’ll try different coloring styles likeepicsherooc and xpshowhost did - and you’ll notice it doesn’t fit very well with therest of the drawing. you’ll try some shading, but you won’treally be sure about where to put it or how to do it, so what happens is instead of emphasizingthe subject of your drawing, it ends up looking like dark or light areas wherever. burning-sol, ashylyn s, flame alicorn, lpssketch art are a few of many, many cases of that. you can improve shading by thinking aboutwhere the light source is and how it would
cast light and shadow over your character,not as a 2d flat picture, but the 3d mass of the character. sure it’s flat on the paper, but reallygood drawings know how to add shadows to make it feel deeper than paper. lighting is not a very easy thing to do. i recommend drawing some still life. you know, the thing where you put an appleon a table and draw it on paper, paying attention to where it’s light and where it’s dark. speaking of shadow, pencil sketches at leveltwo will be light and not have very much contrast.
for comparison, here is a level 5 sketch. clear dark and light areas. if your sketch looks like timmsey’s, silverdraw’s, or kitten cakes, don’t be afraid to push that pencil down hard to make yoursketch darker where the shadows are strongest. artisttubbs and arctic spirit have a goodsense for contrast. on level 2, infinityrise asks:i was wondering if my skill level would be good enough to apply to an art college thisyear? yes. now, if you want to apply to a prestigiousart school, you need to get to level four.
at least. but! a local college or community college willhave less harsh portfolio guidelines. if you are determined you want a career inart, i suggest trying to find summer college classes you can go to, or art activities relatedto the art field you want to be in. anything. draw a lot and read online about buildinga portfolio. cyndergirl77 sent this drawing and asked ifshe would be qualified to animate. anyone watching this is qualified to animate.
start sooner than later, because the skillsit takes to do animations are different from making a single illustration. level 3level up! level three is the brink, where a piece ofart is almost solid, but there are one or two areas that need improvement. if you’re at this level, figure out yourweak spot and practice. a level three artist rarely has issues withline. unlike the previous levels, their strokeslook bold and confident because the artist is more comfortable with the anatomy and shapeof what they are doing.
they might make a light sketch of the character’sshape before doing final lines, which helps with confidence. even if there are no visible outlines, theedges of features are smooth and purposeful, like ketchupkat. as for shape, while the subject at level threeis, for the most part, proportionally sensible, the pose it is in might be awkward and unnatural,like heilix’s cat. or maybe everything else checks out fine,but there’s an imbalance in the character’s symmetry. (maerafey)
in cases where you look at your art and stillinstinctively feel something about the shape of it is off, like blackrose, captain_whisker,snickerdoodledandy, and striiking, the best thing to do is study from real life. even if you’re making cartoons, you needto know the rules to break them. when drawing fantasy creatures and settings,reference items related to what you are drawing. a lizard for a dragon, for instance. also a quick trick is to flip your art. then you’ll know if it’s off or not. level three is where you should start payingattention to composition.
composition is how all of the pieces of yourdrawing look together on the page. while gamergirlrebel’s coloring techniqueis only level two, the piece of art as a whole is very interesting to look at, whereas ifyou flip to dragons ponies, there is a lot of unused, bland, empty blue distracting youfrom the characters. nothing some vigorous cropping can’t fix. vigorous cropping. ebonyinkstone’s composition is very confusing. besides the sheer number of jarring colorsand lighting, it’s hard to tell if the focus of the piece is the mask, or the charactersbehind it.
moving the faces to natural focal points likehere and here would help. nitsua sensei’s composition is more focused,although it would be interesting to see something like this, which draws the focus towards observinga planet, or this, loneliness in space. a lot of composition is about the mood youwant to make and what you want your art to focus on. if you’re ready to move on beyond drawinga single character with no background, go read up on composition. kiltketeer and fredson are probably levelfour artists who submitted a quick drawing. a level four would be the same drawing, justwith more polish.
they could sell sketches and concept art inthis level three style. dragons ponies wrote that they’re curiousabout how to make their art better because they’re having a hard time improving. my note on that is it’s rare to improvesuddenly. it usually takes a year, and you won’t noticethe improvement until you look back at old art. it may not feel like you’re improving, butyou are. slothman asks about what to do when you getso concerned about your art looking good that you quit, or don’t make anything at all.
that is the number one struggle almost everyartist has. we stare at what we’ve made and think abouthow bad and terrible it is, and how it didn’t go as planned. if you want to be happy as an artist you’vegot to conquer that overly-critical habit. it hurts your productivity. stamping out the little whiny devil in yourhead is different depending on what kind of person you are. try setting a deadline. personally my desire to improve is strongerthan my fear of failure, so i keep drawing
out of sheer willpower. and i’ve got people like you who believein me, so i want to live up to your expectations! if you’ve got a calmer, more peaceful personality- try taking a step back from drawing and do a different form of art. you’d be surprised what you’ll learn aboutdrawing while making a really bad clay sculpture, stuffed animal, oil painting, wood carving,papercraft, pencil sketch, you get the idea. nobody knows your art and its flaws betterthan you do, so it’s easy to be overly self-critical. relax. there’s no pressure for you to draw.
any pressure you feel that you need to bea certain way or at a certain level is all in your head. {sometimes i'll really want to draw somethingand i'll imagine it in my head, but as soon as i open my software and get my tablet andpen ready i start getting thoughts through my head of "what if it doesn't come out asi want?" or "what if this is just a waste of time?" and the most i'll end up doing isa sketch before giving up on it and not wanting to go through with it. i have an artist friend who is always tellingme to just try and continue with the drawing but i can never pluck up the motivation orcourage to do so and it's beginning to make
me genuinely depressed when i even hold mytablet pen now. what would you suggest for me to be more confidentwith my drawing again?} level 4the criteria for level four is, “would people buy art drawn with this level of skill?†at level four, if there are anatomy problems,they are rather small and unnoticeable. you can’t sell bad anatomy. it’s really quite that simple. the are some exceptions, like dieknuddlerin,the back leg on the raccoon wouldn’t lay like that considering the proper tucked natureof the right one, but the drawing passes anyway
because it has level four everything else. composition of a level four piece of art issolid; rarely will there be any useless space, or confusion about where you are supposedto look. some pieces will be especially well composed,like this comic page by amber-draws that leads your eye through the page in an interestingway. another difference between level three andfour is color choice, aka color harmony or color theory. up until this point you may make pieces ofart that have colors that look gross or unpleasant together.
at level four, that goes away. a drawing does not have to be complex to belevel four. simple drawings at level four are very clean,constructed, and pleasant to look at, like fox called blue, saucesource, and ghostyjunky. letters from level four! kitty nuki:i just painted this yesterday and i'm really happy with the result, but at the same timenot really, and i can't understand why or what can i do to make it better. liking and disliking at the same time.
i think we all know that feeling. so yes, the question is how do you make somethingat level four better? and in some instances, you can’t - not withoutstarting fresh. i mean, how do you improve this drawing byfrost kitten? changing it defeats the simplicity of whatit is. you could say, oh, add shading, but addingshading wouldn’t make this a better drawing. drawing this again as a hyper realistic catwith a bow would require more skill, but the drawing would also no longer be a cartoon. kitty nuki’s art is the same thing.
there is nothing technically wrong about thisart piece. if you draw something like this and are unhappy,ask yourself this: are you dissatisfied because your art lookslike this and not this? if so, quit drawing cartoons and start practicingtraditional or digital painterly style, because a cartoon is never going to look like themona lisa. were you trying to capture an emotion withyour art? what was it? what would you do differently to get closerto it? at level four, if you want to further improveyour skill you have two options: formal or
informal training. there’s no two ways about it, if you getto four as a self-taught artist, you need to get some edumucation to proceed. read a book. do life drawings. look for classes by artists who have beenworking professionally for more than ten years. and that brings us to level 5 a level five piece of art has distinctionof being absurdly well executed in almost
every way, and on top of that, it’s interesting. in many cases, it’s not just a drawing,it’s a piece of art. suburbanwinemons is my favorite example. i can’t stop looking at it. katauroramist has a wonderful command of colorsin this piece, and compositionally the directional rush lines direct your eye to the most importantpart, the cat’s face. a couple pieces at level five could use slightanatomy adjustments, like sha-ga’s feathers and left leg, reedfoxstudios in the glassesand eyes, mrchiken in the lay of the body in the water - this angle is if she were standingup in the water - but geeze, look at how beautiful
these are. awkward-hermit is so close to level six. the element holding it back is the executionof the woman’s face. a level six piece would have much more definedlight and shadow contrast that would give it lifelike depth. a front positioned nose should be symmetrical. something that elevates a five above a fouris texture. a piece that would otherwise be a bit plainif it were only flat colors has something special to it that gives it texture, likehowlingwithmoon’s dappled painting.
same here for kartase. here’s one of the exceptions, hullumel. this is an incredibly strong character designthanks to its unique features. the cat is fluffy, but you can feel the weightto it in the stocky legs and body. cattymadi on level five asks:is my art good enough to animate? dear cattymadi, your art is too good to animate. if you tried to animate this without a teamof anime animators, you would weep in a corner after spending five months to create fiveseconds. i’ve got a tutorial for character designfor animations on my agenda for the future.
synchro centaur’s character is perfect foranimating. simplify your characters and cut the shadingcompletely if you want to give animation a go for the first time. anything i have to say about a level fivepiece is just a tiny thing, if anything at all. i considered collapsing level five and sixtogether, but i decided to pull a few exemplary illustrations out of five. level 6six is the level where i can’t help you. if, for some reason, you want improvementon a piece of art of this caliber, seek out
a similarly skilled artist who works in thesame type of art, an art critic, or a professor. i could say a bit at length about why eachof these is level six, but put simply you can see the intent behind every stroke andcolor is that of an artist who knows what they are doing, whether by training or byinstinct. wow. i’m dead. this episode took two weeks to make. there are about 1,200 pieces of art in here. you can make this episode better.
open the credits document below, pick oneor two names, click their art, and leave a comment of some kind. not everybody who sent art posted it online,so not everything is in there, but a lot of it is. you can tell by the link what site it’son so you can find something on a site you use. you’ll make the person’s day. especially for small artists who don’t geta lot of comments. go now!
be free! oh my gosh, i’m never doing this again. *groan* no new episode next week! i get a break! i’m giving myself a break! see you on september 23!
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