Is anyone frustrated because of the quality of their work?

Lucaus

I am getting really frustrated and unmotivated because of the quality of what I make.

Everything i make is bad, i have never made anything that i think looks good or satisfied with. And i mean absolutely nothing, no 3d art, 2d art, no written work, absolutely nothing.

I still work and practice every day. I read, learn, study, practice and test ideas but still nothing i make is good. Now don't get me wrong, i am improving but with my pace i think i might make something good and happy within 5 or more years. That's 5 years of everyday frustration and unhappiness.

Now i know a lot of people think that you should enjoy the process and not care about the end result and improvement will come with time.

My problem with that is that i can't enjoy the process knowing that all the effort and time put in will result in something ugly. I don't make art to make things ugly. I don't want to be spending hundreds of hours on projects for years making ugly things in the hope that one day i will make something that will look good. 

It's difficult for me to enjoy making art and try to express my ideas when the expression will be unintelligible in the end.

Sometimes i wish i was ignorant about how terrible my art is.

But alas, i keep practicing and be unhappy.

oglu

Every Artist has to deal with that. Thats how you learn and get better. Slowly.

Could you show us something you did. And tell us how much time you invested. Maybe you have wrong expectations how long you have to work on an asset. 

Its key to have a good understanding where your skill level is and choose the right goals. Use good references. 

Alex_J

oglu said:

Maybe you have wrong expectations how long you have to work on an asset. 

That's what I'd expect. You (OP) typed several coherent paragraphs so you can't be an idiot. I'm sure there isn't a problem the community can't solve if you use it.

Also, work I think is hilariously bad that I'm too embarassed to even show on an artist forum like this has earned me thousands of dollars. So, yeah. The selfs opinion of its own work isn't super important.


edit : looked at your portfolio. The armor is particularly nice. The other stuff maybe can draw some criticisms but the armor is just straight badass.

sharsein

Maybe you're too focused on the wrong areas for improvement? Your sculpting seems pretty good, but pieces like the mushroom knight would look better if there was some inner glow from subsurface scattering in the skin. So maybe you need to focus less on sculpting and hone in on making skin that looks fleshy and alive on an old/pre-existing character.

Also Istebrak's channel is for 2D work, but it's helpful to see how she pushes things like silhouette, composition, material and lighting in her paintovers: https://www.youtube.com/c/Istebrak/playlists

Lucaus

oglu said:

Every Artist has to deal with that. Thats how you learn and get better. Slowly.

Could you show us something you did. And tell us how much time you invested. Maybe you have wrong expectations how long you have to work on an asset. 

Its key to have a good understanding where your skill level is and choose the right goals. Use good references. 

https://www.artstation.com/bobya

the joan of arc was my first character, it took me exactly 52 days.
i made the mushroom knight as an experiment to see what I can make under a week, I made that in 5 days.

Lucaus

Alex Javor said:

oglu said:

Maybe you have wrong expectations how long you have to work on an asset. 

That's what I'd expect. You (OP) typed several coherent paragraphs so you can't be an idiot. I'm sure there isn't a problem the community can't solve if you use it.

Also, work I think is hilariously bad that I'm too embarassed to even show on an artist forum like this has earned me thousands of dollars. So, yeah. The selfs opinion of its own work isn't super important.


edit : looked at your portfolio. The armor is particularly nice. The other stuff maybe can draw some criticisms but the armor is just straight badass.

I know I can get help with the technical stuff, my frustration comes from the more artistic stuff like design, sculpting, and drawing. all that mostly just needs practice.

i also sold some terrible art, what's odd is that its the worst art I ever made and its the only art I made money from.

 

Lucaus

sharsein said:

Maybe you're too focused on the wrong areas for improvement? Your sculpting seems pretty good, but pieces like the mushroom knight would look better if there was some inner glow from subsurface scattering in the skin. So maybe you need to focus less on sculpting and hone in on making skin that looks fleshy and alive on an old/pre-existing character.

Also Istebrak's channel is for 2D work, but it's helpful to see how she pushes things like silhouette, composition, material and lighting in her paintovers: https://www.youtube.com/c/Istebrak/playlists

that's possible. I do try to learn as much as I can but I guess my issues is that I don't want to learn to texture skin before I can sculpt a good head and body, and I don't what to learn composition and lighting before I can model a scene with good looking assets. so I feel like I'm slow as a snail and not progressing much.

slosh

So, I think you need to take a step back.  When I look at your characters, I see you have a decent grasp of how to make stuff but you are missing artistic fundamentals.  It feels like you have jumped over anatomy and proportion a bit and went straight to trying to do finished pieces.  Try something on a smaller scale...maybe just a head or a bust.  Focus on the anatomy and the proportion a lot more this time.  Really try to nail that.  I would highly recommend taking a course by either Scott Eaton or Stan Prokopenko.  @carvuliero is also a good one here on the forums for anatomy.  That should give you some real progress and gains IMO.  

Lucaus

slosh said:

So, I think you need to take a step back.  When I look at your characters, I see you have a decent grasp of how to make stuff but you are missing artistic fundamentals.  It feels like you have jumped over anatomy and proportion a bit and went straight to trying to do finished pieces.  Try something on a smaller scale...maybe just a head or a bust.  Focus on the anatomy and the proportion a lot more this time.  Really try to nail that.  I would highly recommend taking a course by either Scott Eaton or Stan Prokopenko.  @carvuliero is also a good one here on the forums for anatomy.  That should give you some real progress and gains IMO.  

I agree. I am taking Scotts class right now.
and I do try to practice as much as I can.

lefix

One thing I found helpful was to simply make smaller projects. A lot of times i kind of just got impatient to finish a project and kind of rushed the rest, even though i possess the skill to do it better. A full character is a big project. Why not focus on just making a bust, a sword, a gun,  a backpack, and make that asset showcase your best abilities.

Another thing I struggled with (and still do) is the "OK Plateau". But ever since I understand what it is, I make an active effort to push past that point.