A sort of evaluation of my own art skill

Since my own attention span being kind of low and how I usually get comms to draw TF pieces which require me to draw multiple fullbodies, so I train myself to be on 'faster' side of drawing stuff. As in, I try to make my personal art finish within 1-3 hours. And along the way I pick up a trick and tip that could help me draw faster or coloring faster to use with commission art, especially the transformation pieces. And with how my character detail is kinda a lot, xD it also helps because most client character or other people character detail is a lot lower or equally detailed as mine. (More detail or less detail on character is not an indication of the quality of it.)

So that usually mean a good thing right, I make art faster and more 'efficient' with my skill develop from drawing character with complex detail in short time and almost weekly or daily. I mean it good BUT! It has two problems. One is directly related to it and one that is just me as the problem xD.

1. It's never really look 'finish' for me at least. But it might because I'm not too used to this level of roughness from my own art too. Like when I look at other people art it look clearly 'finish'. But i never really feel like that for me. Also kinda insane that my 'sketchy doodle' for my own fun quality is almost the same quality as when I draw work for client. Which depending on how do you phase it. It's either good or bad lmao. I mean it's not that insane since I use my personal art as a training base.
2. Workaholic thingy.

I've been taught as a child that people worth are tied to numbers. Money, Work, Grade. And I've been raised as such. But it's very normal for an Asian kid to be taught that way… especially if you're eldest son or daughter in the family. When you grow up with “If you don't work hard = your life is meaningless” is… trouble some when you can do thing really really fast and you being fast = yo're not putting enough effort into it. Which is not true because that is how I train myself to be fast so i'm fast. I'm not fast because i'm lazily shitting out art. But thing is brain is not that easily 'remember' it.

So… how quick I can draw bite me in the ass later xD because if I'm this fast mean I should be able to make more and produce more per day right compare to other people who use more time. But… no not really… I can't do that. For example, work day usually last around 8 hours or more but at max I only work around 4-6 hours a day. So I feel bad that i 'work less' than the other and if I just work 4-6 hours why I can't do more? Why I can finish this within 4 hours and why I can't just make another one right? What do you mean I can't? You can! But you're just lazy < legit how my brain work a lot of time.

Soooo I'm trying to tackle a way to address both concern and also my wish for my own art. With the new art style, It's become more clear of what I want to do with my art while also not getting myself 'Missing-in-action' to put it politely. But actually, tackle is not really a good choice of word, right? I think this is mainly motivated by my drive to be better or self-improvement and my love for art. And I think I don't want to find more way for me to make faster art because I think that contribute to my harmful behavior more than actually make it better or less harmful lmao.

SO! I really want to spend more time in my art. My new main art style that I want to improve and develop more https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61399185/

My wish in my own art

• More detailed hair, muscle shading or just better anatomy in general. The key word is spending more time with it while not just overwhelm myself entirely.
• More pose!
• BG… last time I try to learn BG by trying to use reference image. Despite only draw 2 of them it's actually already help me understand that the fundamental of drawing BG is not the same as character. Like for character you it's from small → big. But for BG you actually paint the entire messy thing first, so it's Big → small

Stuff that could make me enjoy more

1. Facial expression! I love drawing face :>
2. Character interaction
3. Cool lighting :>

Stuff that hinder me or work against what I want

1. Attention span and interests < Has low attention span and a lot of idea that want to draw and explore
2. Desire to finish it quickly
3. If it too complex then I will be easily overwhelm and stressed out or bored. So no photorealistic thing
4. I actually can't learn by a 'normal' mean. Like if you show me step-by-step tutorial, if you show me a book text or anything like that It doesn't help. Because I don't really know how to apply it or if I did then next time I forgot about it. I'm the type of who learn by actually figuring out on my own (and all the fun messy thing that come with it >_>) I usually learn from other people art in a way that I 'look' at it and I try to 'extract' what I need.

For example, latex art. When I'm first trying to learn how to do it. I didn't go straight to using actual photo of latex, but I look at multiple artists work.

Artist 1 use 4 different 'colors' for latex shading Artist 2 use 2 different colors Artist 3 use 5 different colors and then Artist 4 use 3 colors

All of them have similar in common is the range of around 3 colors for latex shading and then most if not all have gray color in it. So I try that first, then I move on to use actual photo reference of latex photo shoot and do the same thing. Breaking down into identifiable pattern and I mix and match it or edit it to fit with that I think look good or fit with my style.

I think the best way for me to move forward with this should be like a character focus illustration? Focus on the character or interaction itself while keeping BG as additional stuff that add extra to the image and lighting to enhance the image rather than it being a focus on the image. I do want shading to be more detail but not too detail. I'm not sure if it something i could do with how I learn thing because it's not just very specific thing that I could just 'extract' from looking at it. But either way I want to try. Maybe not every art I made has to be full CG but at least there should be one in a while? I don't know. I will figured something out and maybe a good way to do that is to find what kind of style i want to go for or like. See what they all have in common and try to come up with something!