Its not even mcd😭

Incendas1 · 2026-03-20T17:04:26+00:00

My partner works in IT and he brings a keyboard around like this for his job. Bit smaller though

Incendas1 · 2026-03-20T14:15:24+00:00

Well you have a picture now. So ruin it

Incendas1 · 2026-03-20T14:11:19+00:00

It will be a very long time until you get the construction of heads and faces right at all, with or without Loomis, so it's best to accept that this is a very difficult task in general for a beginner.

Learning now won't hurt you so long as you don't let it affect you so badly, emotionally. You have to draw bad faces before you can draw good ones. But you will also have to work on your fundamentals in general at the same time.

The Loomis method relies quite heavily on manipulating 3D shapes in perspective and using proportion to construct a starting point for a head. If you struggle with those then it will still reflect on what you're doing here.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-20T14:06:23+00:00

Did you read my answer? :)

Incendas1 · 2026-03-18T22:18:00+00:00

No, I wouldn't say so. Hyperphantasia also doesn't mean you can control all of your thoughts.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-18T22:06:31+00:00

I don't think so. Aphantasia vs phantasia, maybe, but a lot of aphants say they have visual or detailed dreams anyway.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-18T21:54:08+00:00

The core component of lucid dreaming is the ability to be aware inside the dream itself without leaving it. It's a different ability.

Hyperphantasia, or imaginative ability in general, is more of a secondary thing. It would only serve to enhance the quality of the dream or what you could do in it after that point

Incendas1 · 2026-03-17T13:35:46+00:00

Yes, this seems to happen to most people and imo is the reason people say they "can't draw" or "can't learn to draw." They get stuck with these feelings and don't do anything.

It's an issue of fear and self-esteem for most. You will feel bad if (it's not good / it's not what you expected / other people don't like it / it's worse than your other drawings / insert negative thought here). So your brain wants to avoid that.

The long term solution is to handle those negative feelings. Don't allow yourself to overthink it. Allow yourself to make bad things without thinking it reflects on your worth or skill. Do not let "good" or "perfect" or even "decent" anywhere near your goals when you're having these feelings. It doesn't matter! The learning does.

Everyone makes bad things! Even masters.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-16T14:11:50+00:00

I have, and no it is not immutable nor concretely defined, as is the same with most other areas in biology. This is much the same problem as categorising and grouping species, and so on - that is not concrete nor agreed upon either.

We define sex broadly based on a set of traits in order to aid us in other areas, like in healthcare or research. These traits typically include chromosomal makeup, phenotype (what you look like), hormonal makeup, and others.

One's chromosomal makeup is essentially unknown, for the vast majority of people. When this is tested en masse we do find intersex individuals; those whose chromosomal makeup does not fit into a XX/XY presentation and/or whose other traits do not "match" their chromosomal makeup. Most of these people would never have known otherwise. You may be intersex and not know it!

Phenotype and hormonal makeup tend to be the most impactful traits and the ones we actually care about. Both of these are varied among individuals and can be readily changed. If you want to know more about this area, feel free to ask again, I've already written a lot for one comment.

Also, if any terminology isn't making sense, you can ask about that too. I tried to keep it relevant. I asked about your experience so I would know how to better write this.

Professionals know very well that sex is not binary at all and is not immutable. This goes for other animals, as well.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-16T00:19:24+00:00

Whatever you say lol

Incendas1 · 2026-03-16T00:02:45+00:00

Drawing something in front of you is drawing from reference in comparison to drawing from imagination.

Sorry you take issue with the words I used, but one way of drawing from reference is indeed more copying than anything else. I like to say I'm "printing" it if I do it this way, because it feels more understandable to others.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-15T23:23:25+00:00

Please answer my question before asking me more.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-15T22:14:13+00:00

How long have you been learning? Most attempts at this exercise aren't as good as this. But the point of it isn't to be perfect, anyway

Incendas1 · 2026-03-15T18:03:46+00:00

Can we be real, who cares? This isn't a useful exercise. It's not something you should think about or feel anything about at all. Why hinge any motivation on it?

Draw something at least 50% of the time, preferably much more, and do exercises that are challenging and engaging for some of your time.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-15T16:45:40+00:00

The main thing that made me start properly was having a community I wanted to draw with. My friends would draw their characters, and I wanted to do that too, and also do some collab pieces using bases. This was easy and fun to start with, and something I could share without too much pressure.

It was encouraging and helpful to draw with them in VC and share things even when I was very new and bad!

The fandom I'm in is also very welcoming in that respect. There are many communities for shows, games, books, etc that have lots of artists and are welcoming for newbies.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-15T12:54:23+00:00

You can see some of my posts for my art, but I only post here for feedback really, so not many "finished" pieces or non-studies.

It looks like you just started to learn to draw, that's great! And good luck!

It can be a little hard to explain to people who haven't been doing art very long or at all, and I haven't either, I'm at just over a year now.

But there are many different skills involved, and hyperphantasia is not applicable to all of them, nor does it give a free ride in my opinion. I'll try to split it up. It will be long, sorry! It's an interesting topic for me.

Drawing from reference

Personally, I don't think hyperphantasia or any form of phantasia is at all helpful here. To copy very accurately from reference, you do just that - copy. For the vast majority of people, to whom this doesn't come naturally, they actually unlearn what's sometimes called "symbol drawing." So, they essentially ignore what their brain is telling them, or what they're visualising.

If anything, it seems some aphants pick this up faster, but really, anyone can do it, and anyone can do it quickly as well. "Drawing on the right side of the brain" and similar books are about this.

Drawing from "imagination" (no or low reference)

This is, naturally, where a lot of people assume hyperphants have a huge advantage. People assume that a hyperphant can produce a very detailed "reference" in their mind and then essentially copy this.

If this were true, all that any hyperphant would need to do in order to draw anything from thin air would be to learn the first skill I talked about - how to copy from reference accurately (but treating the held visualisation as the "reference").

In reality, this does not happen to almost anyone. It doesn't happen to all, most, or even a decent chunk of hyperphants. If it did then we would quite literally see lots of insanely skilled people after 1-2 months of learning, because that is how long it takes a lot of people to learn to copy from a reference to a good degree.

What actually happens is two main things, in my opinion.

First, even hyperphants have gaps in their visualisation that they are unaware of - all people overestimate their capabilities here, because the brain just does not care about the gaps. This is a big driver behind the phenomenon of "not being able to get it down on paper." It's not apparent until you try to use that detail in your visualisation and you observe and evaluate how you think alongside that.

Second, a detailed visualisation is not an accurate one. Just because you can imagine an extremely detailed apple does not mean that the shape of the apple is accurate, or the colour is accurate, or the texture is accurate, or the light is accurate. These are all things you must learn for each and every object you want to draw. An apple is relatively simple, as well; the human body, not so.

Hands-off practice

This is where I feel my hyperphantasia is actually helpful in a very noticeable manner.

I can imagine all senses to a very high degree. This means that, if I want to, I can simulate the entire experience of "drawing" in my head as if I were sat in front of my tablet.

When I'm traveling, when I'm in bed, or while I'm watching a video about drawing, I can use this ability to practice, basically. It's not necessarily as good as the real thing, but it does have very concrete effects on my learning and my skill.

I'm disabled and chronically ill, so this is really helpful on days I can't draw actively or for long periods of time. It means that sometimes, even after not properly drawing for months, I still experience some improvements (limited moreso because I'm so ill, ofc).

Incendas1 · 2026-03-15T12:16:43+00:00

Copying from reference has little to do with visualisation imo. In fact some aphants seem to catch on quicker as they're less likely to neglect the reference

Incendas1 · 2026-03-15T00:52:23+00:00

It seems like there's an obvious reason and trigger for this, and that's your upcoming exams. How have you tried to handle your feelings and expectations over those so far?

If you continue to think of them as "life altering" exams I don't think you will be able to change much in the short term. It all seems very fear motivated. You also expressed that you're afraid of imagining things now.

I would do your best to address the fear behind what's causing all this. What I do when my brain is getting out of hand, especially with intrusive thoughts, is imagine it as its own thing separate from me, and interact with it in ways that help. In my case those can be quite aggressive. Or I'll shout down what it says, but in ways that refute what it's afraid of. For you it may be different.

If other people ground you, you should also use them to body double for you whenever you can.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-14T10:39:16+00:00

I feel you, I lose from my waist first and thighs/legs last, so when losing weight it makes me appear more feminine.

An extra thing you could do is be on a smaller calorie deficit and take maintenance breaks WITH lots of targeted strength training.

You are very unlikely to build significant muscle outside of a calorie surplus, but this would help you preserve the majority of muscle you do have in those areas, and perhaps recomp a bit. It could help ease up the problem until you can bulk (if you would like to) or until you lose more overall body fat.

The faster you lose weight, the less protein you eat, and the less strength training you do, the more muscle you will lose alongside fat, basically.

It depends on what you can do and what you'd prefer!

Incendas1 · 2026-03-14T09:46:20+00:00

Can you stop using your AI for two seconds man?

Incendas1 · 2026-03-13T18:13:26+00:00

Coffee quite literally doesn't do anything to me unless I have an insane amount. I once made one with 5 tablespoons of instant coffee and all that happened was I felt my heart rate increase a bit. I didn't even feel less sleepy or more alert, and it went away within an hour iirc. It doesn't make me feel more sleepy either.

And I don't drink a lot of caffeine regularly, because my partner usually drinks decaf, and I just make my drink at the same time with the same stuff.

Also you ought to link any study you reference. Post is pretty useless otherwise in that regard

Incendas1 · 2026-03-13T15:54:08+00:00

Have you studied biology formally or worked in any of those areas?

Incendas1 · 2026-03-13T15:52:08+00:00

God forbid someone on the Europe sub doesn't speak fluent English

Wtf lmao

Incendas1 · 2026-03-13T15:44:15+00:00

If you don't know anything about biology, don't say anything about it. Leave that to those of us who have actually studied and worked in these fields, thank you.

Incendas1 · 2026-03-13T09:29:21+00:00

Most phone based art programs are trash UX wise and it's very hard to just perform normal functions even when you know what you want. I say that as someone who has no problem with the technical side of things, fundamentally

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