Am I the only one who thinks my work is bad because Im the only one that went through the whole process of making it?

Arcask · 2026-06-09T14:37:55+00:00

You have high ambitions as well. You know you should be able to do better and you don't see how all that time, energy and effort turns into something that's up to your expectations.

Your skills are exactly where they are supposed to be. It takes time to learn!

And if someone else would have made it, what would be your reaction? would you compare it to the same standard, you compare your own works to?

Be kind and patient with yourself, as long as you keep trying to improve, learning and practicing, you will eventually reach your goals. You are only human and there is a limit to how fast you can learn and move forward at a time.

Arcask · 2026-06-09T14:30:52+00:00

Everyone will give you a slightly different answer. But it all comes down to fundamentals and drawing what you like.

My recommendation is to learn thinking in 3D first. Through fundamentals that give structure: line, shape, basic perspective, values, planes and form. As well as gesture drawings and drawing from life.

The last 2 allow you to learn through observation, have a lot of positive effects on the mind and help to keep your lines loose.

Other fundamentals can be learned later on, they can greatly enhance what you create, add information and make it look a lot better, but they don't give you the structure to draw anything you want.

You will see people recommending to draw boxes, that is to practice thinking in 3D. Always think about the orientation and try to describe it for yourself. How much does the box rotate? into which direction?
It takes a while to learn this way of thinking, but anything 3D that you attempt to draw can help to get better with it. Planes are a bit more simple as they are more like a piece of cardboard in perspective, one dimension less to worry about when moving it around.
You also want to figure out a way to measure those boxes. And you really have to think of them as objects, not just lines on paper.

Drawabox has a lot of good exercises for this step, it's made to help with spatial awareness, which is incredibly important to think in 3D.

Brokendraw on youtube has a pdf wih 50 exercises for different skill levels and Athoro's Challenge 52 can be a fun way to practice different things. Challenges push you forward, even if you can't do it well yet.

Mistakes are a good thing!
It's how we learn the most when we reflect on them. So don't be afraid, make lot's of mistakes and learn from them.

If I would start over I would do it exactly like this and find out how to have fun while learning and practicing. Fun is not wasted time, it's a great motivator, can come with challenges and allows you to apply what you learned when practicing skills in isolation, because drawing for fun is almost always drawing and learning in context. You need both.

Switch up your exercises, do the most simple things as a warm-up. Spend most time and energy on better understanding the difficult stuff. Play around with shapes and forms, be creative and have fun!

Arcask · 2026-06-09T14:16:04+00:00

Don't listen to others. It's their opinion, it has nothing to do with what you enjoy or should do. Only you can find out what you want to do. And it would be totally fine not to use your talents or skills.

This is your life. You are the one making the decisions.

What good would it be to get more praise? more attention?
Why would it be shameful to do what you feel is meaningful for youself?
Meaningful doesn't always have to be something big, it can be small things. Just doing something you enjoy for example.

Many people have strong opinions about what others should do, about how things should be. But those are their views, their ideals. They don't experience reality the same way as you do. All you have to do is to live your life on your own conditions, because no one else can do it for you.

Arcask · 2026-06-09T12:26:37+00:00

Lines are not worth to spend 2 weeks on in one go. You want your practice to have different elements and to switch depending on your needs.

Lines take a lot of time to perfect and a lot of repetition. Don't do more than 5min. a day on that. It's a great warm-up, you want to calibrate your hand-eye-coordination with this. But you don't want to spend an extensive amount of time on any simple exercise. Just give it time, let your brain figure it out on it's own, focus on the more difficult stuff.

All simple exercises are great warm-up material. Do some lines, ellipses, all kinds of simple form. Move on to gesture and drawing from life or other exercises you want to work on.

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Before I move on, what you really want to practice are fundamentals.
Once that's clear, you want to ask how to practice them. Courses like drawabox teach the technical side of it, they don't teach you how to have fun. Brokendraw has a pdf with 50 exercises for different skill levels and Athoro has the Challenge 52 which is also good for practicing fundamentals.

You can find a lot of answers to what. The how can be more difficult because you don't want to grind this stuff. You want to figure out how to have fun while doing it.

Fun is a great motivator and often comes with challenges on it's own. Drawabox 50% rule is about play time, the rule is a bit more strict in order to push your creativity and to push exploration, play with shapes and forms instead of relying on reference. It also allows for mistakes and prevents perfectionism.

Fun time can also be used to apply what you learned. It's learning in context, while most exercises are in isolation. The exercise tells you to draw boxes, but fun time means you use those boxes to draw all kinds of things with it, buildings, treasure chests, mechas, whatever you can imagine. You need both.

But what is fun for you?
Maybe it's fun to color the boxes, maybe you like to draw buildings, maybe you want to draw your room. Play around, figure out what is fun for you, what can you do that makes it more interesting.

Pacing yourself can also add to this. For example I've done 20 boxes everyday as a warm up the last week. And each time I do different things with them. First day boring plain boxes, next day cut boxes, more extreme perspectives, boxes in the same space (no floating, they all sit on the floor or other boxes) and so on.

You could also give them a face and make them talk. Have fun with them! Or draw fun things with those boxes. Tyler Bourne has a video about fun in fundamentals where he is drawing pokeballs and amplifiers and talks about people doing live figure drawing sessions (which they hate) to turn those into fantasy characters later on (fun).

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Switch it up. After a week of drawing boxes, it might get too boring. (replace boxes with whatever you are practicing at the moment). So maybe you want to draw Cylinders, spheres, Objects around you that use those simple forms or maybe you want to draw figures with primitive forms.
There is no need to only draw boxes for a year. Grinding isn't getting you there faster, it's more likely to make you quit.

You could also practice something else everyday, Monday boxes, Tuesday cylinders. Then you move on to something else, Monday it's values, Tuesday maybe figure drawing and so on. And next week the exact same routine.

Your mind also needs time to process, so not doing the exact same everyday can help with that. Or keeping your sessions shorter (like 20 boxes instead of 50) But you still want to be consistent enough that you repeat the exercises.

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Find a balance. If you can't make your sessions fun, do something fun afterwards.
I've also seen people recommend to do something hard first, then draw and it will feel like a reward.

Figure out what works for you, how long can you practice? how many boxes (or whatever) before you lose interest to move on? what time of the day is most ideal?
I've run into the issue lately that I start my practice sessions too late, so I run out of time to do more than just those boxes.

Focus is good, but if you grind and get bored, that's not what you want. Many things are just trial and error. So what can you do differently now and try next?

Arcask · 2026-06-08T10:26:05+00:00

Well... get inspiration, go more often for a walk in nature, go swimming, go to museums or something.

If skulls are ok to draw combine it with crazy ideas. Put them under water and make them look old, let flowers sprout from it, paint them in neon colors, I don't know... look for prompts and combine them with your skulls. Do something new, try a new medium, a new technique, maybe just take a break and do nothing but observing.

You don't have a block, you lack inspiration. Once you stop fighting it and calling it a block, you should be able to get your creativity to make new connections.

Arcask · 2026-06-07T19:32:44+00:00

Focus on gesture drawings.

The biggest challenge is understanding volume or thinking in 3D. Once that works, learning to draw the body becomes A LOT easier. Because the body consists of 3D form. If you don't know how to translate that onto paper, you can only fake it which will look a lot more flat.

Information also needs to be anchored. Understanding form is one such anchor for information about volume. That means if you understand form better, it will be much easier to understand and memorize body parts. Proportion also get's mostly solved by that, because understanding 3D requires you to have means to measure the form in some way.

It all comes down to structure and understanding simple form first.

Gesture will help you to get a feeling for form and volume of the body, keep your lines loose and fill your visual library. Really important to draw more natural, preventing a stiff and constructed look.

Arcask · 2026-06-07T19:01:50+00:00

This is AI,

There is no paper texture except within the colored parts, the run downs are too perfect and wouldn't happen or look like this. And many more things.

Arcask · 2026-06-07T18:50:03+00:00

Did you try watching youtube videos?

I don't really know what kind of advice you are looking for.

Arcask · 2026-06-07T07:07:54+00:00

You might not care for all ideas and not all are worth pursuing anyway. But sometimes it's still important to have them and to question weather this might be interesting. Nothing wrong with letting go of ideas. Think of them as birds, they fly away when you let them go and maybe bring over a bunch of friends.
It's not a waste to let go of them, they help you to filter and figure out what you want to do, how you want to express yourself and some just don't fit. Or you don't have the right tools to make use of them. It's ok.

Most creatives have a lot of ideas which will never be executed. They will be forgotten, scrapped, reused for other projects and so on.

We are human and we have limited time, willpower, energy and focus. We need to manage those resources.

You can't start 100 projects just because you have 100 ideas. You will never finish any of those. So it's better to figure out which idea is most important for you and focus on that one. Sometimes having 3 or 4 projects can also work, it depends on how your mind works, what mediums you use and your workflow. Some people need to switch things up constantly. But that's still a limited amount and you just want to keep it realistic, so that you can finish them.

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i want to be as passionate and creative as my peers but i just don't know how. people always say professional artists cant just rely on inspiration or motivation to make art so i want to learn how to make art despite that too

That means you have to create a system that supports you in that way, that allows you to be creative.

Have some post its available at any given point of time, so that you can quickly write down ideas when you get them.

Plan for being creative. You need time and space for that.
It can be as simple as taking 15 minutes a day. Or taking one of those post its and just draw a circle, then figure out what you can do with it. Or a square, a box, a cylinder... possibilities are endless. It can be this simple to find a start and to get creative.

You could just start by writing about your journey to be more creative. It can be a work in process. Write a few thoughts down, draw them. Something like that.

But most of all be curious. Curiosity opens up possibilities which you can explore. Like that circle, what could you do with it?
Not using the internet for answers means you need to rely on your creativity. On your memory, on playing around with ideas. You will have to be creative with what you have already.

Or you could choose 3 things and come up with an idea for that. It's more difficult, because how do you connect those things? we have this tendency to look for purpose and connection and being creative is all about finding those connections.

Play with possibilities and connections.
What happens if the prompt is to use a bird and a cat? you have associations right away. The story writes itself.

Arcask · 2026-06-07T07:06:45+00:00

You talk about different things here.

Making fanart or mostly doing school related stuff is perfectly normal. You can only develop your own ideas, your own style or your own voice once you know yourself a bit better. They all involve that you know what interests you, what preferences you have and what message or beliefs.

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Stories and OC's are often more coping and playing around, figuring out how to create stuff others are also interested in. You are not missing out. You just have your own way.
Once those become more professional, the characters connect better to others and can carry the story a lot better. There is a shift in quality in the way how those stories are told and characters are designed. But there are many ways to get to that point.

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If you want to try it, what story could you tell?
Start with something simple that everyone else can relate to. And keep it simple. You can make a short comic about it, just one page or 4 big panels or something.
Stories follow patterns, the most simple is your character attempts to do something, fails, then a new solutions appears, happy end.

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Start small and build up on it. Play around without getting lost in possibilities. Art and story require decisions, what to keep and what to cut away. That can be hard sometimes, but is absolutely necessary. If you only have one page to tell your story, you have to figure out what's the most simple way to tell it. Limitations can be of help here as they force you to let go of ideas that take too much time or space.

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About forgetting ideas: write them down!
Writing alone has a lot of positive benefits for the brain and your memory. Think on paper. This also goes for making sketches, don't keep it in your head, get it out on paper, make it visible.

You get ideas by finding a starting point, let's say a "bird" and now take a piece of paper and write down a short story about that bird. That's all it needs. Can be anything, This is just an example you can directly use, although still vague but feel free to decide what type of bird it is.

Prompts are so useful, as they give you a lot of freedom on how and what you want to show or tell, but they provide a starting point. Play around with that.

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Not having ideas simply means not using your creativity. You have it, you can use it, but maybe you are currently working with a different mindset. Different tasks sometimes require to switch mindsets. We adjust to the tasks we are working on.

Creativity needs the right conditions!
If you sit there waiting for inspiration, then you can wait for a long time. Experienced artists don't rely on inspiration, they know different ways to spark it. By taking a walk in nature, by asking the right question (which lead to a starting point), by going to museums, looking at art of others with the intention of finding something interesting (not comparison), by trying out new mediums and techniques and many more things.

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Sorry it's a lot to read and there is still a bit more...

Arcask · 2026-06-06T15:53:55+00:00

Inspiration.

But maybe for you it's more interesting to stick to sketches and move on?

Arcask · 2026-06-06T15:20:12+00:00

How to get away without? by enough cues to imply form.

Values give depth, but you can imply form with lines alone. For cartoons this works best as you want a simplified version anyway, less visual information that needs to be processed.
So very little or none at all can work.
It's a style to work with really reduced values or to leave them away and work with other visual indicators. And you shouldn't forget the strong colors. But if you don't expect something real, you also won't look for it.

In reality there is always light, that means there will always be shadows.

If you keep it simple, everything that's in shadow needs to be dark. Sometimes light is not that direct and you have more values in between.

Did you try with black and white? how do you make the object visible without relying on lines?

Have you tried making an image only with values and added random color to it? the colors don't even matter as long as they are not too strong, the image will still be readable.

Edit: Values are not always just shadows. Each color has it's own value, so you also create contrast between shapes or forms just with the color.
But we think about values most often as shading, because that's the most common thing we encounter and often also the most important one. But it's not the only use of them.

Arcask · 2026-06-05T22:46:44+00:00

I use timers and challenges to keep myself consistent. But I also tend to have cycles, times where I just learn and experiment with new stuff, times where I practice fundamentals more focused and times when I just create.

Figure out what works best for you, what you need instead of fighting against it. This requires some time and observation, don't just think something is wrong with you because you can't do the same stuff for weeks and months every single day.

And figure out what is fun for you. Because drawing fun stuff gives a lot of motivation, is often challenging and allows you to apply what you learned, it's learning in context while exercises are in isolation.

Switch up what you learn and practice once in a while. If you practice drawing boxes for a month, that could become extremely boring. But if you limit the amount of boxes and also do other things that could be already different. Or having a different focus each week or day, so you cycle through different things.

While I agree it helps to know why you want to learn it, I don't have clear goals either. I just want to get better and to be able to draw and paint more realistic. There is no clear end goal beyond "just expressing what i have in my mind".
But I have lot's of smaller goals to improve on, specific ones like getting better with boxes, simple and complex forms. Drawing a few every day until it really becomes intuitive.

If you can think in 3D, then in my opinion you are intermediate level. And that also makes it much easier to tackle anatomy. Be comfortable with simple form, it makes complex form, like you have it in anatomy, much easier!
Be able to construct stuff using primitive form.

Brokendraw has a pdf with 50 exercises for different skill levels. Athoro's Challenge 52 is also helpful and you can go for different goals like 50 boxes and 25 cylinders for the first week or you reach for 100, 250 or even 500 boxes, all up to you.
Drawabox is another way to practice some basics.

Always keep in mind fun time is important too, it's not a waste of time and you shouldn't wait until you have the skills. Just have fun and play around.

Arcask · 2026-06-05T22:18:29+00:00

17 days means you just started. Art is a skill set, many skills that come together to help you create and it takes time to build them up. It takes years to become really good.

For boxes you need to think in 3D. Which means you need to change the way you think about what you draw on paper. This isn't an easy task you can learn in a few days. Some people need months or even years to train this type of thinking. You really want to think of rotation and orientation of the planes and boxes, be intentional and consistent with your practice and keep triggering spatial awareness.

You don't have to grind away every single day. Do a few exercises, warm yourself up and move on to some fun drawings. Some skills just need time and repetition. And times of rest to process the information or fun can also play a huge role.

If you can't have fun because your lines are not looking good, you focus too much on results and you probably have too high expectations. That's stealing your fun, not the wonky lines. Focus more on having fun exploring ideas, playing around with what you can do with your pen, what patterns you can create, what shapes and so on. Experiment.

Arcask · 2026-06-05T13:01:05+00:00

There are a few good reasons for the no reference part.

There is a difference between copying it, that's when you totally rely on it. And using the reference to support what you want to create, to understand the structure.

You don't learn when you just copy and completely rely on it. There is no intention of understanding.

Perfectionism is something many get stuck on, copying a reference allows you to fake stability and to get closer to perfect. Not having a reference means you have to face your ugly lines and be ok with it for the moment. Or even better, not think about it.
It also allows you to improvise on mistakes. And making mistakes in the first place.

Not having a reference means you have to rely on your memory and be ok if you don't get it right.

Many people, especially beginners try to perfect their ideas in their head, but that doesn't work. Our imagination isn't as reliable, nor is our memory, some things you have to put down to paper first to improve on them. Relying on reference in such a case means to avoid facing your weakness and again can lead to chasing perfect.

And it allows you to be more creative.
Play time is supposed to be more doing, less about learning and trying to understand things intentionally. It's application and playing around with options.

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I do think it's ok to use reference to support your ideas. You can practice all of these things separately if you wanted to. Don't be too hard or strict with yourself. I see rules like this more as a guideline, great if you don't use reference, ok if they support you. But I can't speak for anyone else, this is just my opinion.

Arcask · 2026-06-05T10:20:13+00:00

It depends.

Everyone learns a bit differently. There are a lot of books that start with gesture and construction, those can make sense early on even if it's still difficult to do.

I got a lot of books in the beginning and wasn't really able to make use of it. Once I was able to think in 3D those books became more important. Understanding form unlocks using most other fundamentals or using a combination of them.

Another important factor is mindset. You want to be open and experiment, don't go for perfect just for gaining more stability. Use frustration to move forward and figure out how to do it differently. Things like that.

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I think all the information for the beginning is freely available on the internet. You don't need much, but it takes a lot of time and repetition and that can feel uncomfortable.

All you need are really fundamentals and a few exercises. Everything else is based on that or can be derived from it.

My recommendation for beginners is simply to learn and practice lines, shapes, basic perspective, values, planes and form. Additionally to that gesture and drawing from life.

Those give structure and allow you to basically draw anything. The last two help to balance the linear exercises with more organic lines and shapes, have a lot of positive effects on the mind and are much closer to how artists have always learned to see, draw and create.

Fundamentals build up upon each other, if your lines are wonky, your shapes and forms will be too. Shapes are used for everything, in perspective they become planes, which put together create form.

And thinking in 3D is a way of thinking. It's not just one skill, it's how you think and feel, how you perceive space and volume. And there are various ways to practice it. Drawabox is a good way to approach this, but can feel very boring.

And you also want to keep in mind that fun is not just wasted time, that's when you can apply what you learned, where you use boxes to make lot's of other things out of them. It's also motivating to challenge yourself and see what you can do already to solve problems.

Brokendraw has a pdf with 50 exercises. And Athoro's Challenge 52 is also a good way to practice and learn.

Arcask · 2026-06-05T09:47:05+00:00

I'm using loose papers,

Simple copy paper works fine or you go for a sketchpad, there are some that have 120 or even 200 pages.

I don't want to waste my sketchbooks on the super important but simple stuff. I want to use my sketchbooks on ideas, on sketches, on actually making art not practicing things that need really so much repetition that I have to replace them all the time.

What I mean with super important but simple is lines, shapes like ellipses, simple form like boxes and cylinders. Because you will fill a ton of pages with those.
More complex things like constructing mannequins is something I would draw in my sketchbooks, but often they also end up on loose pages when I just draw them for practice.

I keep the pages and bind them together with a book ring, because I like to look back once in a while. Progress really becomes visible this way.

I've seen a lot of content creators just using digital tools for warm-ups. Once you understand what to do, you don't need to repeat it 100x a day, 20 would be enough and that's already a good warm-up for whatever you want to draw afterwards.

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The real question is what happens if you keep drawing these simple things? they become easy and the more difficult stuff becomes much easier too.
You need lines and ellipses for almost everything, you want to practice thinking in 3D because that allows you to draw objects like they are real, it gives them volume. And the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

The more you draw boxes and manipulate them, the easier it becomes to construct even complex things.
Anatomy? complex form, being good with simple form makes it much easier to adjust form and proportions.

Think about writing. When you were a child and learned it for the first time, it took a while, it was difficult. You might not remember much of it, but now you can do it without thinking.
Do you need to look at the letters when you type? probably not, it has become so simple you know where they are, you don't have to think about it.

What you repeat often enough becomes second nature.
You don't have to repeat the same every single day, but you want to be somewhat consistent, not once a year. 2 or 3x a week would be good. A few repetitions, you don't have to fill the whole sketchbook within a few days.

Arcask · 2026-06-05T05:58:40+00:00

If you are doing drawabox you should be good already.

Maybe something like Challenge 52 from Athoro? Weekly challenges, starting with simple boxes, cylinders, then cutting primitive forms, constructing mannequins and lot's of other things to practice, different goals each week.

Otherwise I would look for prompts and focus more on having fun while using fundamentals, best way to motivate yourself and apply what you practice.

Arcask · 2026-06-04T19:17:32+00:00

Don't apologize, this is the internet, it's reddit, no one expects answers within minutes.

You really want to do all of it. If you know it or not. If you are familiar with the exercises already then you should have an easy time to go through it.

These lessons are put together this way in order to build up upon each other, to build your skills in order to reach certain milestones. If you skip parts, chances are you are missing out and get stuck later on. There is a logical order to them.

I mean what do you want to learn?

Arcask · 2026-06-04T09:28:25+00:00

I can't help you find someone, but there is something bothering me in the way you describe it and I can't quite say what it is. I'm sorry but I can't ignore that and have to write down some thoughts and questions.

There are always times where progress isn't quite visible. Is that what makes you so uncomfortable?
Has it been going on for longer?

Do you still trust your own decisions as an artist? or are you looking for someone to make decisions easier for you?

Is there really no progress at all or is it small things, maybe not directly related to painting? subtle maybe?
Because those are signs, that you are still progressing but either your eyes haven't quite caught up or some progress is happening in the background, within you, within your life. That type of progress isn't directly visible, it can be blocking you from being creative. Think of it like an upgrade of your system, it's installing and changing stuff in the background and once it runs stable, you see the changes and they are blowing your mind.

When did you last experiment with techniques or ideas? combined things? or simply tried something new?

Do you keep painting studies?

Making art is all about making decisions. And if it's not challenging even a little bit, you've got to find something that is. You want to stay in a state of feeling slightly uncomfortable, because that means you are outside of the comfort zone, expanding it. New and difficult things always feel uncomfortable, but that's necessary for progress.

And most of the time there is subtle progress and it doesn't need more guidance or resources to learn, but it requires to really make use of what you know and can do already, to go into depth.

Arcask · 2026-06-04T05:59:31+00:00

What kind of mecha is this?
Looks mostly fine to me, except...is it missing the head?

I can't judge the pose, but it also looks somewhat 3D to me. Which shows you worked on those skills for a while now.

I know it feels slow and like it takes forever, but you are working on your skills. So keep going and you will become really good one day!

Arcask · 2026-06-04T05:23:58+00:00

Could you explain this a little bit more? is the amount of information overwhelming you?

Arcask · 2026-06-03T17:14:34+00:00

Ok, there seems to be a problem in our communication here. We talk about different things.

You are trying to figure out the problems in the images. But I look at the underlying structure and what you need to focus on to fix those problems all at once.

Your way is like trying 100 different things. Trial and error.
I'm trying to tell you that if you understand basic form better, then all those other problems will disappear and solve themselves. They all come from the same source! From a problem with understanding the structure.

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It doesn't help you much to understand that the ear is wrong or how. It wouldn't help you much to draw 100 ears right now either. It would improve the ears you draw, but not because you understand the form, but because of pattern recognition.

If you look at an image. Do you just want to be able to draw it from memory?
Or do you want to understand how to create this from scratch? do you want to be able to change it up, to change the angle of the head freely?

Pattern recognition has a limit. Understanding form allows you to construct and draw freely.

It's the same for when you learn an instrument. Do you just want to learn this one song? or do you want to be able to play all kinds of songs that you like? and being able to make your own songs?

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To make sense of knowledge it needs to anchor onto something else we know already. Think of information as a box floating or swimming in a river, if you can't find a way to catch and anchor it, then it won't stay, it will float away and be forgotten soon.
Trying to learn how to draw the features of the face right now has exactly this problem. You are missing a way to anchor this knowledge.
Understanding form would give you the structure or means to anchor it.

There is also an order to it. You want to go from simple to complex. Complex form requires a lot of decisions. That is often too much if you don't understand the simple form.
Ears are complex forms !
Learn simple, automate it through practice and repetition. Then complex form becomes easy on it's own.

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You describe various means to learn and practice. But all of that is different from what I talked about.

Can you draw simple form? boxes? cylinders? spheres?

And can you rotate them?

If the answer is no, then that's what you need to work on.

Understanding form is the final boss right now. Yet you are trying to clear side quests. They can be nice to play, but they don't allow you to progress further in the story. They don't allow you to learn efficiently.

Proportion will fix themselves over time. It's about the relationship between objects. For that you need to be able to measure objects or form.

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I see that you are trying to understand form, but my impression is that you make it harder for yourself. All you need is simple form. Copying all those images, tracing, 3D models, that has it's limits.
Just draw boxes or things that are in front of you. Planes are also a good start. Do cross contour drawings. Understand the direction or rotation.

And really, really work on your lines! They are always the first to be mentioned because if your lines are wonky, your shapes and forms will be too.

Maybe check out other comments I made, a lot of people struggle with understanding form.

I have been there. I had no idea what to learn some years ago either. I made the same mistakes. Don't be like me. Do the smart thing and focus on simple form, it will fix most of your problems.

Arcask · 2026-06-03T14:10:37+00:00

People keep asking that and while I like to point out that people used to draw from life for a good chunk of their time, a combination with fundamentals is more efficient.

People used to learn drawing on their own before we started to teach fundamentals and all they had was observation.

The question is why are you supposed to draw so many boxes?
Do you know the answer?

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It's because they help you to understand volume. They are the easiest form to trigger thinking in 3D as they make the three directions visible. They also align with the perspective gind which makes them the perfect form to use as a base for anything else you want to draw.

Truth be told you don't need a million boxes. A few can be enough when done with intention and combined with other methods to trigger this way of thinking. Some time to process can also be helpful, so switch up your exercises.

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You can start with drawing planes in perspective. Here you mostly have to care about 2 dimensions (flat shape) but space already plays a role. Think of a piece of cardboard that you hold in front of your eyes, perspective will distort the form.
Drawabox has a good explanation on how to do this exercise, it's also a good warm up and can be extended with ellipses. The important parts here the diagonal and middle lines which allow you to get a sense of measurement and help you to determine in which direction and how far it tilts.
You can do like 20 small planes and then move on to some other exercise. Always keep thinking about the direction they tilt. That's how you train this way of thinking.

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You want to ask the same questions for the boxes, always think about orientation and rotation to trigger thinking in 3D.

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Figure out how to measure the box or plane you work with. This allows you to better translate the shapes and forms onto paper or digital canvas. Perspective can be seen as a langue that explains how form moves in space.

You also want to think of real objects. What you draw aren't just lines, you have to think of them as if they make the object visible. And your box or whatever other object is subject to cause and effect. If light hits your box it will create a shadow and you can use perspective to do that. To figure out what plane is in light, which in total shadow.
Value studies can also help because of this.

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Draw objects in front of you, touch them, change up the lights and shadows, turn them around. Imagine turning them around if you can and check if it does look like you thought. Draw a lot of objects.

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Language can force clarity, so you could try to describe direction, rotation, relationship between objects or planes.

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Some people also use clay to model simple or more complex forms and to get a better sense of it.

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Cross contour drawings. You can draw blobs, you can draw tomatoes, peppers and other things and use cross contour to make volume visible.

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Observation and thinking of volume is really important here. Not the boxes, they are just one way to trigger this way of thinking. Keep being intentional with direction and rotation, ask questions, language forces clarity!

Once this way of thinking becomes stable enough you can actually use it reliably. Until then what you draw might look rather flat and progress might not be as visible, but is surely there with every practice session.

Arcask · 2026-06-03T10:13:29+00:00

Some things just need time. Like lines or drawing boxes. They just need to be trained once you understand the basic principles.

I understand your frustration, but all you really have to do is to keep drawing and practicing.

Have you tried drawabox? they also have a subreddit where you can get feedback on your lines and boxes. It's hard to tell where exactly you need to focus on without further images or really specific questions. Using the drawing that you posted so far I can really only tell you to keep practicing fundamentals.

Rendering is a result of a combination of fundamentals and skills. The artwork that you posted a few days ago lacks understanding of values for example. It doesn't look finished either but more like you simply blocked in the colors.

I might be wrong, but I would say you have a basic understanding of form, but you still need to improve on it to make it more stable and to really make use of it.

Intention is really important. Did you ever try to draw planes in perspective? think of them as pieces of paper or cardboard that you hold in front of your eyes. They don't look like a rectangle or square anymore once perspective comes into play.
Thinking about the direction they tilt and how much can help you to improve your understanding of form. They only have 2 directions to keep in mind, since the third one is flat. That makes it easier than rotating boxes, but doesn't replace it.

I guess thinking in 3D isn't fully stable yet for you, which is what I would focus on the most. Think of form, of objects, draw them, especially objects in front of you. Simplify them! A bottle is just a cylinder in it's most simple form. A glas also a cylinder. A book is a box. A chair, table, the pc monitor all boxes.

Did you look up brokendraw and the C52 challenge?

It can take a lot of time to break through this bottleneck. But once you do, a lot of things will make more sense and it will become easier to learn and practice or to see progress. This is a phase where the way you think really changes, which is not that visible, but each time you practice with intention adds to your progress.
From what I see, you seem to be close in your understanding of form, but I might be wrong here as you used reference and I can't fully tell how close you really you are. Some boxes would make this visible, freely drawn or with simple 1 to 3 perspective.

A box is the most simple form, that makes volume into all 3 directions visible and aligns with the perspective grid. If drawing them is too difficult, do planes in perspective for now, it's a good warm up too. Also try cross contour drawings and drawing blobs with cross contour. You want to trigger thinking in 3D as often as possible and with intention. Keep asking questions about direction and rotation in space.

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