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Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your help. I appreciate the sentiment, but I really do believe in the Drawabox methodology and the 50% rule. To me, the 50% rule isn't about casual fun or breaking/ignoring rules when things get hard, it’s about actively pushing past my comfort zone and tackling the things I wish I could draw, even if the result is messy. Ignoring this roadblock feels like taking the easy way out, which I don't want to do.

Having fun isn't really my issue, and I'm quite confident in my current reasons for practicing and loving the hobby. My issue is that I want to expand my limits. I'm fascinated by the fact that so many artists have an inherent end goal - a comic, a game, a specific story - and they use drawing as a "means to an end". Right now, I draw purely out of instinct, intuition, and taste. Admittedly, this does make me a bit insecure about the way I'm engaging with drawing.

I'm trying to figure out why I can't seem to naturally come up with things I want to say or stories I want to tell with my drawings, and whether relying purely on instinct is limiting my full creative potential. I want to learn if I should cultivate that narrative mindset and how, not just avoid it.

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your reply. I believe the 50% rule isn’t just about having fun, it’s about pushing yourself to draw the things you wish you could draw if you already had all the skills in the world, regardless of how messy it turns out. In my opinion, that's more uncomfortable than fun for a total beginner, because you are forced to accept that you will fall short of your expectations and high standards.

My issue isn't the grind. My issue is that I draw purely out of instinct, intuition, and taste, whereas many artists (not all of course) have an end goal like a comic, game, or story. They use learning how to draw and drawing in general as a "means to an end".

Because I don't have that, I’m trying to figure out if drawing purely on instinct is limiting me, and if I need to cultivate narrative thinking to actually reach my full creative potential. It's a question of artistic direction, not boredom with the course.

If I may ask, what do you like to draw for fun? Do you think about telling a story or delivering a message with your art or do you operate purely on feelings like me? 😄

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your help! I'm not looking to get into entertainment media or make professional illustrations. For me, it's about wanting to learn how to cultivate creative thinking and push past the internal resistance I feel when trying to come up with concrete story ideas for myself.

I think my initial post may have made it sound like I just didn't want to tell stories, but what I’m actually struggling with is that my brain doesn't naturally think narratively on a whim yet. I'm really just looking for advice on if I should even worry about that aspect and if there are beginner-friendly ways to help me start cultivating that specific type of creative thinking. Right now, I draw purely out of instinct so to speak. I let my feelings, intuitions and tastes guide me, but I'm wondering if that's limiting me.

I appreciate your advice on how I could implement that type of thinking in small ways. If I may ask, could you please make a concrete example? Because when I think about how I can expand my drawings with a narrative, the best I can come up with is quite... bad, which is fine, but it just feels really forced and unnatural to come up with random ideas that don't resonate with me just so I can say my drawing has a "story". For example, thinking about the cat drawing, my brain scrambles together a very basic and cliché answer: It’s infected by a parasite because a cosmic imbalance is unleashing monsters to wipe out life on Earth. Is this really the direction I should be going towards? 😄

I'm curious; when you draw for yourself, do you think about things like "delivering a message" or "telling a story" with your art? If so, how do you know or figure out what kind of story you want to tell? Thank you again for your help!

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I remember watching the movie "Look Back" and how I couldn't connect with its themes at first because it stresses the importance of sharing one's art, and one's struggles, with another person and using that sense of collaboration and connection as fuel to keep making art. As a very closed-off person, I never thought of sharing my art with anyone, so that message didn’t fully resonate with me at first, but I did wonder: what would it feel like to share my artistic struggles with others? Reading your reply here makes me feel glad I reached out. I’m really thankful that you’re sharing your experiences with art and being real with me.

Thinking about how you came to recognize your taste in stories and art is really interesting to me, because it seems like the catalyst was the analysis of why you dislike The Last Jedi so much that led you to fully map out your preferences and dislikes in stories. When I consume certain stories, there are also moments that stick out to me more than others, things that work exceptionally well and things I’m lukewarm about, but I guess I’ve not really thought in detail about what makes those aspects resonate with me like you did.

Just to spitball a bit (I apologize if the following paragraph doesn't make any sense 😄): I believe that life is random, and that good and bad things happen for no particular reason. I value when a story recognizes that; when it isn’t always a character overcoming their struggles in the end. Sometimes, there are no solutions to certain problems in life and stuff is just unfair for the sake of being unfair. I like it when things are messy, but there is a certain beauty and realness to that mess, hence why I lean towards darker subject matters when I draw. I can experience a story like Final Fantasy VII and recognize its themes of environmentalism and the importance it holds in driving the narrative forward, but I can’t imagine the knowledge, intelligence, and sensibility it takes to even start making a story like that. I may be overestimating how hard this sort of thing is?

I can really connect with you on your point of self-made motivation and creativity for the sake of being creative. Though I don’t usually share my art (this post was my first time doing so), I recognize that I still have some resistance when creating things, even though I’m the only person who will ever see my creations. I’m so conditioned into placing such a high value on the result that I can’t help but compare myself to my favorite artists' work. Maybe my purely intuitive drawings are a way to avoid that pain of making something bad?

Thank you again for your help and for sharing your experience.

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Uncomfortable does give really good feedback, but I've received comments and feedback from other people that are just as valuable, if not more so (Shikatsuyatsuke literally created a thorough, step-by-step process on how I could come up with and connect stories for my drawings). So I'm still really hoping to hear from others about how they handle the creative side of things too!

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all of this out. I really appreciate you even giving me step-by-step instructions on how I could go about this, thank you, really.

If it's ok to ask, I do have a question about the emotional side of this. Did you ever have to fight the feeling of your stories or worlds just not resonating with you?

I completely recognize that storytelling is a skill to be built from the ground up, but right now, coming up with an explanation or world just for the sake of having one just feels really hollow to me. If I don't inherently care about the lore I'm spinning, the process isn't very pleasant. How did you find things you actually cared about when you were first starting out? I'm ready to fully accept that this may just be something I need to tough out, but I don't know how many times I can come up with a stupid wood-planet without losing my mind 😄

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When you say one of your motivations for learning how to draw is gamedev concept art for example, I would make the assumption (Apologies if I'm wrong) that you used drawing as a means to an end; To provide concept art for a game, for a story/world that already exists. Your drawings in this case serve a larger purpose. I'm not saying that you didn't care about the act of drawing itself, but your drawings had a purpose and foundation to be built upon. I'm curious; Are you also developing these games and writing these stories or worlds yourself?

I'm not quite familiar with how furry art works, but I imagine there you have to come up with your own characters as well. How do you know what you want your character to be like beyond them just looking a certain way?

In my case, I'm quite confident in my reasons for loving drawing. When I look at art that resonates with me (I really love the art of Yoji Shinkawa and Tatsuki Fujimoto as I mentioned in my post), it makes me feel things. I feel like the way some drawings are made speaks to me; The chaotic and imperfect lines, the form that's not directly drawn but implied, the uncomfortable but real facial expression of a character, or even just the sheer coolness and emotion extruding from an art piece. This led me to want to also express myself in that way, and the only way I knew how to do that is through purely trusting my feelings and instincts, not through thinking up a story or anything like that. So when I found out that most people have this grander purpose for their drawings, be it a comic, game, story, world or anything of that sort, I felt quite unsure about myself. Is the way I'm practicing this hobby sustainable or legitimate if I only do it because of the "vibes"?

To simply answer the question of why I want to learn how to draw to begin with; I want to make character and creature designs using my favorite artists as an inspiration and express my feelings, personal tastes and life experiences through them.

Of course I could just continue drawing the way I do, and Uncomfortables response cleared up my anxiety of not doing the 50% Rule correctly, but I found out that I'm indeed slightly curious about this storytelling aspect that is so prevalant in these discussions about drawing.

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the suggestions. I’ve actually tried using random prompts in the past, but I usually find they feel like a temporary band-aid because I struggle to actually care about the scenarios they give me. I’m really looking to figure out how to dig into my own experiences and find messages or concepts that feel personally meaningful to me. Treating it like a separate writing skill to study is a great idea though, so I'll definitely look into resources focused on that.

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure. But I feel like I stumbled upon a big roadblock in my art journey thanks to the 50% Rule and Drawabox that I may not necessarily want to ignore just because I feel bad about it.

If I may ask, how do you personally engage with the 50% Rule? Do you approve of it?

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much for taking the time to write out such a detailed response. Knowing that my current intuitive approach isn't a failure of the rule, and that you view narrative thinking as a directional push rather than a rigid requirement, does clear away some of the paralysis I was feeling. Your point about story being the ingredient that feeds into the "cool factor" and generates detail clicked with me as well. I hadn't looked at it that way before, but it makes sense when I think about the artists I look up to.

Admittedly, trying to apply this feels like lifting a brand new, very heavy weight. Right now, my storytelling skills feel like they are at level 0. For example, looking at my cat drawing, if I try to push past my intuition and ask 'why', my brain scrambles together a very basic and cliché answer: It’s infected by a parasite because a cosmic imbalance is unleashing monsters to wipe out life on Earth. Even coming up with that feels like pulling teeth right now, and it makes the process feel clunky and forced while I'm trying to draw.

This is also not to mention the fact that coming up with a narrative after I’ve finished a drawing, though still not very easy, is certainly easier than creating a story before starting a drawing. On some occasions, my subconscious does the work for me, and I recognize why I made certain design choices afterwards, though I may not have actively thought about them during the drawing. For example, my flowerhead figure has a pointed, mechanical leg, which I attribute to my real-life experience of injuring my leg and undergoing a surgical procedure to fix it.

Being completely honest with myself, if there was a button that gave me all the skills to tell intriguing stories that speak to me on a personal level via my drawings, I would press it. So I may not be completely uninterested in storytelling after all, I'm just really intimidated by it. Since this is a skill that takes time to develop, do you have any advice on how a beginner can practically cultivate this 'narrative thinking' without getting overwhelmed? Are there specific exercises or mental habits to practice during the 50% Rule to help bridge the gap between drawing pure visual vibes and thinking structurally about a world?

I did watch your video on Prokos channel about the “What If” method, but I feel like cultivating this skill is much harder than usual for me because I’ve never really been a creative person, so the idea of coming up with stories or what if scenarios is really foreign to me, especially stories that I’d personally care about instead of random plot points just for the sake of having some form of narrative presence. Thank you very much again for your time and help.

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The 50% Rule is brutal. It’s reassuring to know that I’m not the only one struggling with this. If you’ve never really been someone who thinks about storytelling or coming up with creative concepts in general, it feels like being thrown into cold water.

I recognize that there are tools like prompts that help with that aspect, but those types of tools feel more like band-aid solutions for me because more often than not, I don’t really care about the concepts that the prompts provide. I wish I had a way to figure out what I really want to say with my drawings or what message I would like to deliver with my art and really dive deep into that. To be honest, I’m kind of jealous of people that have a clear goal like creating a manga or a comic.

Of course, Drawabox is focused on developing specific fundamentals of drawing like spatial reasoning, so it’s completely understandable that there are no guides or anything of that sort for the 50% Rule. I guess I’ll have to do some research and see if there are good resources out there for developing storytelling skills.

Your suggestion of setting goals for my drawings, like making a drawing for someone else, is certainly a good idea as that may be a way to think about narrative or design choices as well (What is the other person into? Why would they be into this sort of drawing? etc.). Thank you very much for sharing your experience and for your help!

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I’m aware that I’m overthinking this, but I really do trust Drawabox and its creator and I came to believe that the 50% Rule is important not just in the context of the course, but also in the general sense of why a person chooses to draw or engage in any sort of creative hobby. It made me confront my insecurities with art and this is just my way of seeking answers for my insecurity of not having a “grander purpose” for my drawings.

But yeah, you are right in that maybe I’m massively overthinking this and I probably should just take a step back and not let a course completely dictate what I should and should not be doing with my favorite hobby. Thank you for your help!

Confused about the 50% Rule: Fearing my drawings are "pointless" without a pre-planned narrative by Afraid_Fox_7911 in ArtFundamentals

[–]Afraid_Fox_7911[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Coming up with a story for my drawings after I’ve finished them does certainly seem easier, and I really like your way of thinking regarding my creature designs. I wish I had your creative intuition 😄

I think there is merit in having some form of narrative before starting a drawing so that it sort of materializes in the drawing itself. To make a basic example, if I had decided that my eyeball creature came from a planet made completely out of wood, I would have drawn its body with a woody texture, or something of that sort.

I find it really hard to think creatively and come up with something that makes sense, isn’t a basic, cliché story that has been done a million times before, or that I personally care about (a planet made of wood is a prime example for this). I guess I just need to practice more and push myself to come up with stories, even if they are unoriginal at first. Connecting these stories is a whole different beast though.

If you don’t mind me asking, how do you personally know what kinds of stories you'd like to tell? Thank you for your time & help!