This video is here so you can take a piece of your art and figure out what level it is
and what you can do as an artist to get to the next art level.
For this episode I asked you to send in recent art you made so I could rank it, talk about
it, and give everyone else examples of art on each level.
I got so much art---
Level 0 Art that doesn’t exist at all.
You were scared your drawing wouldn’t be perfect so you never made it.
It’s nothing.
It’s level zero.
Level 1 Level one is an interesting place to be, because
you will often see full illustrations here that have characters and a background (basiabear02)
- something that gets more rare on level two and three but shows up again as the artist
gets to a high level.
If you’re on level one, you usually spend a lot of time on your art, even if it’s
a simple character.
That’s normal.
As you get more drawing experience and get closer to leveling up, you will get faster
too.
The two areas that need most improvement at level one are basic line and coloring quality,
and shape.
At level one, the lines on your drawing aren’t as confident as a level two artist.
They might look a bit shaky or scratchy.
You can see this on THEGAMERGOD and Silver Berry’s art.
Or, if the lines are more purposeful and well placed, level one art is held back by anatomy
and shape.
Joshua’s pony here is a great example of that.
You can see the technique to shade and draw is easily level two, but the character itself
has some significant anatomy problems, most noticeably on the too thick neck and overly
long body.
A level one coloring technique has scribbled in fills for traditional art, like Dennydo1’s
piece, or in digital art, white gaps (anonymous 20) or pixellated edges (Tony Tony Chopper
& Adrienne).
Filling those areas in and cleaning your edges on digital art is an easy fix.
For traditional art, think about how the stroke looks.
If you scribble in the fill, the pencil lines go everywhere.
But if you use your pencil and only move it in the same direction back and forth, the
coloring job looks more uniform.
The difference between level one and two is that the coloring job at level two looks cleaner.
Although the biggest factor for digital art at level one isn’t coloring, usually.
It’s line quality.
A level two artist can have solid fill coloring jobs like Dylan and Bri, their lines are just
more smooth.
If you are drawing digitally, one of the things that may help is learning a different program
to draw your art in.
FireAlpaca and Krita are what people watching Scribble Kibble recommend the most for drawing
still images.
And they’re completely free!
The other big difference between level one and two is shape, or proportions.
At level one, your eyes might not be in the right spot, or parts of the body might be
different sizes than they should be.
Level two art is just that little bit better at drawing something in a way that looks right.
The most important thing you can do to level up 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 2 If you’re in this area, your art shows some
improvement over where you started at Level 1.
Lines and colors are cleaner, but if there’s shading, it’s imprecise.
Anatomy and shape problems persist.
XiaoChio’s inking job is much cleaner and precise than a Level 1 art piece, but it’s
still slightly fuzzed and smudged compared to level 3.
More importantly, the balance of the character’s shape is off in terms of the upper body to
lower body ratio, particularly how far down the arms reach.
Even if it’s a dwarf character, we get the feeling 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 toward us.
Characters that are well proportioned at level two will still look somewhat boxy, simple,
or undefined relative to level three.
Astroblaze and Carbon Coffee’s heroines are more solid proportion-wise, but their
sleeves don’t fit the form of the arm that would be there underneath.
Clothes are usually to blame for the boxy feeling.
At level two you’re taking more time to make sure overall the character looks right,
and not thinking about how different types of fabric would flow over your arms.
For digital artists, level two is the experimental coloring and shading phase.
You’ll try different coloring styles like EPICSHEROOC and XPShowHost did - and you’ll
notice it doesn’t fit very well with the rest of the drawing.
You’ll try some shading, but you won’t really be sure about where to put it or how
to do it, so what happens is instead of emphasizing the subject of your drawing, it ends up looking
like dark or light areas wherever.
Burning-Sol, Ashylyn S, Flame Alicorn, LPS Sketch Art are a few of many, many cases of
that.
You can improve shading by thinking about where 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 really good 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 apple on 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 level two 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, Silver Draw’s, or Kitten Cakes, don’t be afraid
to push that pencil down hard to make your sketch darker where the shadows are strongest.
ArtistTUBBS and Arctic Spirit have a good sense for contrast.
On Level 2, Infinityrise asks: I was wondering if my skill level would be
good enough to apply to an art college this year?
Yes.
Now, if you want to apply to a prestigious art school, you need to get to level four.
At least.
But!
A local college or community college will have less harsh portfolio guidelines.
If you are determined you want a career in art, I suggest trying to find summer college
classes you can go to, or art activities related to the art field you want to be in.
Anything.
Draw a lot and read online about building a portfolio.
CynderGirl77 sent this drawing and asked if she would be qualified to animate.
Anyone watching this is qualified to animate.
Start sooner than later, because the skills it takes to do animations are different from
making a single illustration.
Level 3 Level up!
Level three is the brink, where a piece of art is almost solid, but there are one or
two areas that need improvement.
If you’re at this level, figure out your weak spot and practice.
A level three artist rarely has issues with line.
Unlike the previous levels, their strokes look bold and confident because the artist
is more comfortable with the anatomy and shape of what they are doing.
They might make a light sketch of the character’s shape before doing final lines, which helps
with confidence.
Even if there are no visible outlines, the edges of features are smooth and purposeful,
like KetchupKat.
As for shape, while the subject at level three is, 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 still instinctively 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 need to 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 paying attention to composition.
Composition is how all of the pieces of your drawing look together on the page.
While gamergirlrebel’s coloring technique is only level two, the piece of art as a whole
is very interesting to look at, whereas if you flip to Dragons Ponies, there is a lot
of unused, bland, empty blue distracting you from the characters.
Nothing some vigorous cropping can’t fix.
Vigorous cropping.
Ebonyinkstone’s composition is very confusing.
Besides the sheer number of jarring colors and lighting, it’s hard to tell if the focus
of the piece is the mask, or the characters behind it.
Moving the faces to natural focal points like here 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 observing a planet, or this, loneliness in space.
A lot of composition is about the mood you want to make and what you want your art to
focus on.
If you’re ready to move on beyond drawing a single character with no background, go
read up on composition.
Kiltketeer and Fredson are probably level four artists who submitted a quick drawing.
A level four would be the same drawing, just with more polish.
They could sell sketches and concept art in this level three style.
Dragons Ponies wrote that they’re curious about how to make their art better because
they’re having a hard time improving.
My note on that is it’s rare to improve suddenly.
It usually takes a year, and you won’t notice the improvement until you look back at old
art.
It may not feel like you’re improving, but you are.
Slothman asks about what to do when you get so concerned about your art looking good that
you quit, or don’t make anything at all.
That is the number one struggle almost every artist has.
We stare at what we’ve made and think about how bad and terrible it is, and how it didn’t
go as planned.
If you want to be happy as an artist you’ve got to conquer that overly-critical habit.
It hurts your productivity.
Stamping out the little whiny devil in your head is different depending on what kind of
person you are.
Try setting a deadline.
Personally my desire to improve is stronger than my fear of failure, so I keep drawing
out of sheer willpower.
And I’ve got people like you who believe in 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 about drawing 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 better than 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 be a certain way or at a certain level is all
in your head.
{Sometimes I'll really want to draw something and I'll imagine it in my head, but as soon
as I open my software and get my tablet and pen ready I start getting thoughts through
my head of "What if it doesn't come out as I want?" or "What if this is just a waste
of time?" and the most I'll end up doing is a sketch before giving up on it and not wanting
to go through with it.
I have an artist friend who is always telling me to just try and continue with the drawing
but I can never pluck up the motivation or courage to do so and it's beginning to make
me genuinely depressed when I even hold my tablet pen now.
What would you suggest for me to be more confident with my drawing again?}
Level 4 The 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 nature of the right one, but the drawing passes anyway
because it has level four everything else.
Composition of a level four piece of art is solid; rarely will there be any useless space,
or confusion about where you are supposed to look.
Some pieces will be especially well composed, like this comic page by Amber-Draws that leads
your eye through the page in an interesting way.
Another difference between level three and four is color choice, aka color harmony or
color theory.
Up until this point you may make pieces of art that have colors that look gross or unpleasant
together.
At level four, that goes away.
A drawing does not have to be complex to be level 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 time not 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 something at level four better?
And in some instances, you can’t - not without starting fresh.
I mean, how do you improve this drawing by Frost Kitten?
Changing it defeats the simplicity of what it is.
You could say, oh, add shading, but adding shading wouldn’t make this a better drawing.
Drawing this again as a hyper realistic cat with 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 this art piece.
If you draw something like this and are unhappy, ask yourself this:
Are you dissatisfied because your art looks like this and not this?
If so, quit drawing cartoons and start practicing traditional or digital painterly style, because
a cartoon is never going to look like the Mona Lisa.
Were you trying to capture an emotion with your art?
What was it?
What would you do differently to get closer to it?
At level four, if you want to further improve your skill you have two options: formal or
informal training.
There’s no two ways about it, if you get to 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 been working professionally for more than ten years.
And that brings us to
Level 5
A level five piece of art has distinction of 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 colors in this piece, and compositionally the directional
rush lines direct your eye to the most important part, the cat’s face.
A couple pieces at level five could use slight anatomy adjustments, like sha-ga’s feathers
and left leg, ReedFoxStudios in the glasses and eyes, MrChiken in the lay of the body
in the water - this angle is if she were standing up 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 execution of the woman’s face.
A level six piece would have much more defined light and shadow contrast that would give
it lifelike depth.
A front positioned nose should be symmetrical.
Something that elevates a five above a four is texture.
A piece that would otherwise be a bit plain if it were only flat colors has something
special to it that gives it texture, like HowlingWithMoon’s dappled painting.
Same here for Kartase.
Here’s one of the exceptions, HulluMel.
This is an incredibly strong character design thanks to its unique features.
The cat is fluffy, but you can feel the weight to 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 team of anime animators, you would weep in a corner
after spending five months to create five seconds.
I’ve got a tutorial for character design for animations on my agenda for the future.
Synchro Centaur’s character is perfect for animating.
Simplify your characters and cut the shading completely if you want to give animation a
go for the first time.
Anything I have to say about a level five piece is just a tiny thing, if anything at
all.
I considered collapsing level five and six together, but I decided to pull a few exemplary
illustrations out of five.
Level 6 Six is the level where I can’t help you.
If, for some reason, you want improvement on a piece of art of this caliber, seek out
a similarly skilled artist who works in the same type of art, an art critic, or a professor.
I could say a bit at length about why each of these is level six, but put simply you
can see the intent behind every stroke and color is that of an artist who knows what
they are doing, whether by training or by instinct.
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 one or 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’s on so you can find something on a site you
use.
You’ll make the person’s day.
Especially for small artists who don’t get a 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!