Click here for part 1. Before I start: Don't listen to the people who tell you to change the style you love. You will find work and people who love your style as long as you do what you love, period.
There are two type of people: The people who can work on their own and people who need structure. If you can work on your own follow the advice below. If you need structure, you will need to go to an art school or take online art classes. There are tons of awesome professional artists who teach online classes. Here's some:
www.schoolism.com/school.php training.cgsociety.org/ www.conceptart.org/go/learn/www.gnomonschool.com/To improve your art, draw what you want to improve on. You want to learn how to draw feet? Copy photos of peoples feet 30-60 minutes every day until you got it down. If you need reference photos, deviant art has tons of them. search 'feet' or anything you want. Draw your own feet. Take photos. As a professional, I always use reference before I start an Illustration. I gather photos from google, pinterest, deviant art, I take photos of myself or friends and use them to help me see what I can't imagine. Try this:
www.pinterest.com/characterdes… Drawing from life will improve your illustrations 100%. When I started out, I refused to draw real people. I just wanted to draw in my style and I thought it was useless to me. I was sooo wrong. You can still draw in your style and learn from life at the same time. Its a tool. use it. Another way to improve is to gather a list of 5 artists you admire and copy their illustrations every day for a year if you need to. Copy 80% of your time and use 20% to draw from imagination. It's a slow process and it will take years to get better. there is no secret to it. Just plain hard work and dedication. You can't be a pro athlete in a few months. From my experience, It takes 2 years to get good at something and 3 to 4 years to start making a living. (Use it as a guide and break it with a faster time. I challenge you). But they have to be completely focused years. There's no excuse. When I started I had 2 kids, I worked a full time job and struggled with depression but I still made time for art everyday.
MAKE time for art. Give up a few hours of TV or games or going out every week. You NEED to make art a priority if you want to make a living from it. TV doesn't pay your bills, Games don't pay your bills, Your friends don't pay your bills. This choice will make or break you. I promise. It's definitely OK to take a day off every so often to have fun.
You will loose heart, you will want to give up, you will hate it sometimes but just keep working EVERY DAY and you will be one day closer to living your dream.
To sum up:1. Draw what you love.
2. Copy, copy, copy.
3. Draw everyday.
Don't forget: I'm giving you guys:
- A full size JPEG for my new batman poster
-2 Photoshop files
-plus all of my Photoshop Brushes for
FREE! The files are about 3 gigs total and too large for DA, so I posted them up on this website instead.
gumroad.com/l/BatmanEnjoy guys and let me know what you think by leaving comments. Please share with fellow artists.
Have a great day and work hard!