Extended Exasperation Enrages Eternally?

[Ben2theEdge]

Is it possible that no matter how hard I may try, I'm just not meant to do this?

I don't think there's anything that qualifies or disqualifies a person from making art. If you want to, then you should. But desire excellence.

That I'm just not artistically talented in this way?

Talent is not only overrated, but mis-diagnosed. Technical skills may be intuitive for some but most of us have to train hard for them. The real talent is in having good ideas - if you have a good idea you can always receive training to bring it to reality, but no amount of study or training will teach you how to have original thoughts. If you have a vision in your head, that is enough talent to get by.

Also, where do you get your inspiration to make what you make? Music? Games? Do you just vomit it out effortlessly?

This is different for everyone I think. Inspiration is simply the things you find interesting and want to share with others, even if it's at a subconscious level. If you're passionate about anything, then you're inspired. As far as vomiting it out effortlessly... I wish! I feel that I have to fall in love with every project, even the ones I don't think I'm going to like... otherwise the amount of sweat and tears that it takes to create is simply not worth it.

 

And how long have you been at this pixel art hoobie joobie? Am I too young to really do well at this?

I've been fiddling around with digital art since I was a little kid but I didn't get serious about it until I was about your age. Now I'm almost 25 and I still feel like I'm too young to do well at it. You have to walk a thin line. One the one hand you see a brilliant piece of art and say, "of course it's better than mine; they've had more training than me." BUT at the same time tell yourself, "they're mere humans, if they can do it then so can I!" Then you begin to analyze - instead of looking at the Mona Lisa and saying "it's flawless! I'll never be able to do that!" you say "why did he do it this way? what was he thinking? what mistakes did he make? What would I do differently?" Blind admiration stunts the growth of many a young artist. The worst thing you can do as an artist is look at someone else's art and say "it's perfect!" If you do, you won't analyze it. If you don't analyze it, you won't learn from it.

But, I think your problem is more that you feel your technical skills have not yet developed enough to support your vision. But that is a good place to be. Your technical skills WILL improve with practice and study, just like a musician or an athlete. It is a far worse thing to have the technical skills, but nothing to draw.

Also, STOP deleting your work. Save it. You can hide it away somewhere and not look at it, but you must keep it. That way, when you feel discouraged about your work you can dig it up and look at your progress. If you destroy your history you will always feel like you've just started and that you are not improving at all. Also, you can't analyze your mistakes and learn from them if you are trying to hide the evidence that you ever actually made any mistakes!

And you need to learn not to be ashamed of your art. Acknowledge that it is imperfect, yes. Acknowledge that you are still learning, as we all do. But do not be ashamed. You created something, you expressed yourself. You took a little piece of who you are and put it in a tangible form for the world to see. Don't try to hide that or bury it. Share it!

[Squiggly_P]

I'm not really the best Pixel artist from a technique point of view since I just recently started pixeling, but like a lot of other people I started out with traditional drawing experience.  I was interested in it as a kid, but like a lot of kids I got frustrated by my lack of "talent" in my teens and stopped for a long time.  I doodled off and on, but it wasn't good and because I wasn't really studying anything - just doodling crap - I didn't progress very far.  I got back into drawing in my mid 20's and have been starting to get into digital painting and pixel art recently.  I'm 30 right now, and while that's probably older than a lot of people on these boards, that in no way makes me better at art - I'm sure most of these guys could draw and pixel circles around me - so I don't think age has much to do with it at all, aside from maybe having more life experiences to draw from for inspiration.

The great thing about art in general is that everything you learn in one medium will inform every other medium you work with.  If you paint a lot of drapery studies then go to sculpt that sort of thing, your sculpt will look better for it, and vice versa.  Don't just pixel.  Draw, paint, do whatever you find interesting.

Another thing I learned is that you'll learn more by studying things rather than just drawing them.  I mean, sure, you can take a pine cone and draw it a few times, trying to be accurate and trying to make it look just like that pine cone, but you'll learn a lot more about pinecones and how they work if you take a pinecone and rip it apart, really study it, draw the pieces, make notes about the texture, the colors, the sound it makes when you snap it, the smell of it...  hell, the way it tastes.  Take notes and use a sketchbook to really look at things beyond just the surface - beyond just looking at something and drawing it.  The next time you draw a pinecone you'll take all that stuff and try to communicate it, and you'll have a better idea of how to communicate it.

But it's easier to learn what's right if you know what's wrong.  Screwing up and realizing it is pretty much the best way to learn everything.  Hell, it's the only way to learn anything.  You don't just pop out of the womb with a perfect grasp of your naitive language.  You have to say one word incorrectly a million times and be corrected a million times by your parents before you've learned that first word.  Everyone can learn how to draw and be a great artist in the same way that everyone can learn the language their parents speak.  But, you'll notice that a lot of people don't actually get that great a grasp of their naitive language.  They can speak it and communicate basic ideas, but not many people learn the more complex words and propper grammar.  Art is the same way.  Anyone can just pick up a pencil and make a picture.  The quality of the results relies entirely on how much time they've spent really studying it.

So keep working at it, cause the more time you put into it now, the better you'll be down the road.  Take it from someone that waited till they were in their 20's to start really learning.

[Scribblette]

Dang. This thread both disappointed and inspired me.

One very useful piece of knowledge I can share with you is to stop studying pixel art.

Why didn't anyone tell me?? Nooo!!

Though I've started to figure it out. There's been too much "Why did they do this? How could they have known it'd work with this dot here and that dot there, how did they know what impact it'd have on the overall image in advance?"

I spent most of the last few years studying pixel art. I've thrown in bits of studying photos, objects in RL and as time has passed have spent weeks at a time focusing on just learning to sketch things better... which would probably account for what progress I have made in pixel art as well. Mostly I learnt by making mistakes. I have no background in art.

Actually the more I've tried non-pixel art stuff recently, the more my pixel art has improved, I guess. @_@ It's just frustrating to realize I focused on the wrong aspect of things for so long.

Also, to realize that sketching won't translate to texturing & coloring skills. I have to spend years learning to PAINT before I can spend years learning to pixel paint pretty? *sob*

[Shrike]

Howdy. I'm 15 years old and I've been observing, and sometimes participating in, the pixel art community for about two years. As is true with most of the people that pixel art, I was introduced to it by video games I love. I really enjoy the interesting discussions that take place on this forum. It's good to find some good forums that aren't filled with Sonic edits.

Anyways, I realize you all probably get a lot of threads from people new to pixel art asking how to become adept at creating pixel art. They usually receive a warm welcome, are told just to practice, and read some tutorials. I read those and took that advice. I've read basically every scrap of text available on the web and in my library on pixel art techniques. I've studied professional and amateur pixel art alike for hours on end, trying desperately to imitate the techniques and style for the sake of pixelling something decent and learning something. I've practiced so, so, so much. Thus far, in about two years, (on and off), I have created nothing but utter shit. I know it's not supposed to be easy, but wow.

I rarely share my work in pure shame as to the low quality. I think I've shown one work on here, but that's about it. I usually end up spending some hours on a project, decided it sucks and that I hate it, and deleting it. Sob story over, I have some questions for you all.

Is it possible that no matter how hard I may try, I'm just not meant to do this? That I'm just not artistically talented in this way? Also, where do you get your inspiration to make what you make? Music? Games? Do you just vomit it out effortlessly?
And how long have you been at this pixel art hoobie joobie? Am I too young to really do well at this?

Hey.
I'm just going to digest some information here and spit it back out, but might as well anyways.

Definitely stop studying...  Studying imho comes after you feel somewhat happy with how your work looks.  In my history I blundered around making HORRID art, but I thought it was great, and started posting it everywhere on the Internet.  Boy, did that one hurt.  I got fixed right up.  Bringing me to point #2:  If you cannot improve yourself by hard practice, self-critique and study, give it to someone else, post it on here.  Rarely the artist is the best judge of his/her work for several reasons:
He/she has been staring at the screen/paper for several hours and can't see anymore,
Since it's you that's drawing it, you won't see obvious faults,
Since you're an artist, maybe, just maybe, you think it's perfect and unimprovable.  Imo that's NEVER true, you can probably always go up another level.  According to your own standards at least, as there is not such thing as good or bad art.  It's only a form of expression.  Whether people like it as much as you do is not really the point of art.

But, it sounds like you want to improve!  So here's the moral of all that annoying text:
1. Practice your butt off.
2. Post it for others to see, and we will help you!   
3. Don't try to imitate someone else's style.  Don't worry about your own even.  Ignore style, that will come.  Right now just draw.
4. Feel comfortable on pencil and paper before you do this.  (personal opinion, not necessarily true or that important, but it might speed up the learning process.)
5. Ages do not matter.  I'm 13.  I started at, what, 9?  I blundered around until I got help.  Trust me, it was horrible:
  Just ugly.
  Pillowshaded, total disregard to anatomy, bad color choice, not much contrast, ugly, and outlined without AA.
  Let's not talk about this one.

But I started drawing on pencil and paper, and still do, from 5.  It's my thing.  I think I'm good at it.  If you think the above are better than you can do, then it's because I'd had 3-4 years of practice, maybe one year of training.  Now I take personal art classes with a professional, and we work on actual art-work, making framed pieces.  Now my pixel art looks like this:

  (after buying/reading the Animators Survival Kit)
  Old and not finished....   
  working on this one now.
So, you see?  I was horrible at pixels.  Now I'm good.  The difference is practice, posting it for critique here, (btw without pixelation I would NOT be where I am now.)  art instruction, and self-critique.  And maybe some talent, though I'm not sure. 

Hope I could help,
Shrike

[Saffron]

Hey everyone. It's been quite a long while since I posted this thread, and I'm very sorry for such a late reply, but my last computer had some issues and I had to get a new one.
I really, really appreciate everyone taking the time to reply to me, and I've thoroughly read through all of them and I think I've learned some things. It's been enlightening and interesting. I'm definitely looking forward to continuing to pixel and I thank all of you for the help.
This is the only site that I know of where a person who has about three posts can ask a question and get so many honest, helpful, thorough, and well-thought out answers.
Thanks again.