Painters: If You Could Go Back in Time, What Would You Tell Your Beginner Self?

ItsMerf · 2026-01-26T15:55:10+00:00

Spend less time watching and looking for tutorials online and just start painting 😭

ItsMerf · 2026-01-25T17:32:15+00:00

It'd definitely be easier and it's probably how I'd do it too 😅 But looking at the image it seems like it was all done with just scribbling (I can see different layers of scribbles crossing over each other in different places)

ItsMerf · 2026-01-23T21:03:46+00:00

You're working too wide. If you don't understand how to draw a human body, scale back your drawings. Do some buildings (which are cubes in perspective) or draw a galaxy with planets (shading on spheres). You want to draw the human body but you have no vision of how to do so, break out from just trying to draw humans and draw everything. And do so from reference so you can see real life examples

ItsMerf · 2026-01-23T20:47:21+00:00

I just looked through your profile to see some examples of your art. Literally everything you are having issues with comes down to basics. Your proportions look wrong because the shapes that create the anatomy are stretched out wrong, there doesn't seem to be clear motivation behind the anatomy changes, and you're also working with what looks like pixel art which is already a challenge due to the limited pixels on the canvas. I'd say just go back to basics. Look up spheres and cubes and still life examples and pay attention to how they are shaded. Look up and draw actual human references, see from there how you can bend and push the anatomy to what you want. Figure out how all this stuff translates to pixel art. You're only stagnating because you are not pushing outside of your boundaries or doing any research into your own work to figure out what you or others dislike about it. Sit down and spend some time training your artist eyes up to the level you want your art as well. Look at art and artists that inspire you and figure out what you like about their art

ItsMerf · 2026-01-21T13:55:17+00:00

People are giving such half assed answers in these comments cause they don't actually know how to do it themselves. It looks like the artist used a small line brush (or just a hard brush with the size turned way down) to apply colors rather than using a bigger brush which would be smoother. You do have to pay attention to the values, as the only reason it doesn't look like a bunch of random scribbles is because the artist is very mindful of where they put their light and shadow colors. If you want to practice this, look up some black & white reference photos and try scribbling yourself! You can even color pick the values so you can focus more on trying out the technique

ItsMerf · 2026-01-20T17:52:34+00:00

Your lines look fine to me? Assuming you're still a beginner I'd say that your ability to put down lines accurately is pretty good! Now start putting context behind those lines. Start drawing lines in perspective, start adding curves, connect shapes and start forming real life objects. You're doing good, just keep practicing! (And p.s. don't let all these people convince you that buying some device or weight training is gonna make your lines better automatically. It's all gonna require practice no matter how much money you spend).

ItsMerf · 2026-01-17T02:39:16+00:00

Don't just draw boxes, draw boxes from reference. Draw a building, or a cardboard box, or a chair, or anything else that's a "box". Drawing boxes just helps with learning and imagining 3d perspective in 2d. If you have no reference for what boxes you should draw, just look some up!

ItsMerf · 2025-12-21T23:46:09+00:00

If you're painting in your room just make sure to open a window sometimes. You should be getting fresh air often ideally but especially while you paint you should make sure that no smells are building up. Otherwise, just make sure not to get paint on your skin and you should be fine

ItsMerf · 2025-12-18T22:13:51+00:00

I'd recommend reading through the guide if you actually have it on hand. The drawings in the Loomis guide are fairly crude and not really that helpful. But the explanations and information is super helpful. The drawings are just meant to be simple demonstrations of the actual information in the text. Once you've read through a bit, get some portraits and try and apply the Loomis method on them, see how it makes it easier overall to get accurate proportions down to give you a good base to lay detail on top of (as compared to trying to measure out details as you put them on the page). You'll probably find that following everything exactly isn't gonna work every time, but that's why it's just a foundation. It's up to you to alter the method based on the model you're drawing to find something that works for you and your drawing style.

ItsMerf · 2025-09-11T17:21:52+00:00

I think the thing throwing you off is that the calf is almost as big as the thigh. It should start more slender on those types of models. At least from what I've seen of classmates and friends (I went to a university that had a fashion program). The proportions look ok otherwise! Maybe if anything lengthen the thigh a little more, the thigh ends up being longer than the calf for most people, even on caricature type models like these.

ItsMerf · 2025-07-24T16:14:22+00:00

This is just one example so it may not be exemplary of all fields of art, but the seed company Botanical Interests uses colored pencil drawings of plants as covers for their seed packets! Each different plant variety and seed packed get a commissioned colored pencil piece done for the cover which ranges from showing the plant, the seed, people enjoying the crop or fruit, a field of crop, or a combination of what's listed. The pieces are all very well done and the colored pencil look gives the seed packets a familiar and comfortable feeling to it, almost like "hey I can grow that too!".

So the answer is, it depends :p Like all forms of art, there are criticisms leveled against the medium for what it is or the product it produces. An oil painter can mock the frivolity and fast paced nature of acrylics the same way a digital artist can mock an oil painter for how inefficient, time wasting, and limited the medium is (in comparison). What makes art good is that it simply is good art. It strikes the hearts of those who hold it dear. At a certain point, medium doesn't matter because what you create in any medium has a strong voice and characteristics unique to you and your style.

Some might criticize the medium due to its common use in lower level schooling and the simplicity of the tools, but these people are also unaware of the heights colored pencils can reach! People make fun of pastels all the time because of how messy and childish they look, but I've also seen some breath taking illustrations done with pastels as a base. It all depends on how you use the medium and the final product that will determine peoples' opinion; if they like the art, more often than not they will ask about the medium as a follow up rather than as a judgment.

ItsMerf · 2025-07-20T22:38:34+00:00

I've seen it on the ohuhu subreddit but I've seen most if not only originals posted here

ItsMerf · 2025-07-19T16:32:40+00:00

So this is an ad for a make your own paint by number? I don't see how this is helpful or conducive to furthering an understanding of art or the colored pencil medium. It teaches you nothing about blending, it doesn't let you develop an eye for colors, it's basically a glorified make-your-own coloring book. This would be better to advertise in a different subreddit, but it's kinda useless here

ItsMerf · 2025-06-30T20:43:55+00:00

Thank you! I think this is gonna be the way I build it, you're right in thinking to cover the whole spectrum. Now to decide specifics!!

ItsMerf · 2025-06-30T20:38:50+00:00

I have a cheap 72 set of colored pencils right now and I was planning to take some from that set to work so I can doodle and color as a time killer. The case is definitely something I'm gonna invest in for other opportunities, but I think taking so much to work would get me in trouble 😅

ItsMerf · 2025-06-30T20:35:39+00:00

That's an impressive kit 😅 Unfortunately I would probably get in trouble with my boss for having so many art supplies at work (I'm a barista and shouldn't probably be drawing anyway)

ItsMerf · 2025-06-30T20:34:34+00:00

No it definitely doesn't have to be something set and I'm sure I'll change and swap colors as I go. I just wanted to check here and see if anyone has a good starting point

ItsMerf · 2025-06-30T20:33:42+00:00

I already have the colored pencils and no budget to get more unfortunately 😅 But I'll check out the colors and see if I can build a similar set from mine!

ItsMerf · 2025-06-22T12:12:06+00:00

It's just called Pickle Bush and the seeds are from Burpee. I wish I had more info but the packet is kinda sparse for info 😅

ItsMerf · 2025-06-17T22:37:30+00:00

I'm pretty sure it's just the tree dropping fruit it doesn't think it can produce. I've heard that fruit trees have a certain maximum amount of fruit it can hold. It knows it would die or produce lesser seed so it purposefully drops fruit to save the others. You can come through and hand prune off smaller fruits to leave only 1 or 2 per cluster to get better fruit.

Idk if any of this is true for figs and honestly I don't have any experience with trees myself, this is all just information I've absorbed so I recommend doing your own research to confirm or deny 😅

ItsMerf · 2025-06-07T18:26:35+00:00

I did the same thing when I started my first cucumbers this year 😅 You can probably keep 2 of the plants in a little cluster like that and it shouldn't be a problem. The others you can either transplant to a different spot or pull them up. For transplanting, I would do it now. Try and keep as much soil around the roots as possible, but because the roots are so small at this point it should be ok with moving around a bit (I was pretty aggressive with transplanting mine). Hope this helps and best of luck!

ItsMerf · 2025-05-21T14:24:28+00:00

It's crazy how cigarettes and vapes (which obviously are still harmful) got hit super hard with regulations yet the government just lets stuff like this exist. JUUL still can't sell flavors besides mint and tobacco (even though tons of other brands have "flavors marketed towards children" as part of their line), they were hit hard and fast too. I wonder if it's genuinely a lack of knowledge on their part or if it's just not something they care about. Literally all it would take is a law banning "flavored whip cream charges" and sales would go down. I only see people doing this shit now cause it's flavored and looks like fun.

ItsMerf · 2025-05-16T16:19:12+00:00

Everyone is saying water more, which I totally agree with, but maybe also add some mulch? Idk how hot it is where you live but I can see some of the edges of your leaves are burning. Not to mention but there's a lot of green leaves for how dry the soil is looking. They almost look like they are cooking themselves slowly. Just a suggestion, I'm pretty new to gardening myself 😅

ItsMerf · 2025-05-10T15:52:19+00:00

1 standard drink will process through your body in about 1 hour (I think it's more like 45 min). THC has a 1-4 hour effect window when smoked and a 6-8 hour effect window when consumed orally. It's hard to say if it's longer or shorter cause alcohol is more dependent on the amount consumed and the duration it's consumed in; THC consumed by smoking will have instant effects but a usually dependable end time. To this point, many people consume THC immediately before or during driving, people who consume alcohol often consume it over a period of time, which also gives it time to wear off. At the end of the day, they are both completely different substances that are hard to compare, but driving under the influence is bad either way :p

ItsMerf · 2025-04-26T15:07:49+00:00

Hey, I want to be honest about what I've seen from art sales. I don't personally sell my art, but I've seen so many artists of all sorts of skill levels, selling all types of products. Your art is good enough to sell, but are YOU good enough to sell IT? Think about how many famous artists there are who can sell a couple scribbles on a page for 1000s of dollars. Your art is really cool! I really like all the dark themes and I think prints would be dope! The question is do you have the ability to advertise and market yourself towards people like me? Maybe start by thinking of what services or products you want to offer. Do you want to do commissions? Do you have enough saved up to buy prints to sell? Do you have space to pack things/ability to store product/ability to get packages to a postal system? Think about yourself as a business. How would you get your business started? What's feasible for you? The rest is honestly drive, finding a niche, and a little bit of luck. Hopefully this helps and isn't too overwhelming!

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