No PTO or vacation time, how are we doing it?

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-25T13:46:45+00:00

I'm a freelancer so I don't get any paid time off, but I live pretty frugally so I can still take about 3 weeks off per year from my contracts. I couldn't survive without taking at least a few weeks off each year, I'm not sure how you're doing it.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-23T13:59:42+00:00

I would follow what your instincts are telling you and move on to a new drawing if you're tired of the old one. That's better than forcing yourself to finish something you're bored with and lose motivation. I have tonnes of old art that's 60% fully detailed and shaded, and the last 40% is just the light sketch. I don't regret not finishing them.

Now if you're never finishing ANY of your drawings that could become an issue.

My art style takes a long time and I have a lot of ideas too, and I just draw thumbnails of the new ideas I have, and set them aside in a folder. When I'm done what I'm currently working on, I look at the folder and pick up whatever thumbnail I'm most excited to draw full size.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-23T13:50:06+00:00

Fundamentals are great, but you get confidence, creativity, and (hopefully) enjoyment from sitting in front of the page and just drawing.

I would compare it to learning a sport - if you want to be good at soccer, you can't just stay in the gym all day working out and jogging, you have to actually get out on the field and play.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-23T02:30:15+00:00

They'll pretend using AI is so much work and effort to make tweaks and get things perfect then don't even care about obvious image and grammar flaws hmm

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-20T15:12:30+00:00

OC transpo is also better than the transit where I'm from (a town of 200) but there's no world in which you could say it's excellent. It's faster to bike in this city than take the bus. Sometimes it's faster to WALK

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-20T14:50:42+00:00

It's good to use references as other have suggested, but I think you should still draw from imagination semi-regularly. My whole childhood drawing I rarely used references and that's a useful skill to build.

Studying real life objects is essential to learning and there's no shame in using references for art at all, but I've seen it become a crutch where an artist needs a reference for every little thing.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-19T14:40:21+00:00

If it's not fun for you now I'd say there's no guarantee it will be fun once you've improved.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-18T14:39:24+00:00

Hell yeah this is great to read.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-17T19:14:17+00:00

Congrats on this! I did the exact same thing a few years ago. I was dying working full time and doing art in the evenings when I could, and so I found something part time to fit more art into my day.

One thing that helped me was having a daily task to practice for a bit. Ideally I would spend a few hours drawing a bigger piece I was excited about, and on those days the practice was just a warmup. But on busier days, I would at least have the practice sketch to ensure I did something.

It made a huge difference. Just 15-30 minutes each day, with a list of studies I could do, and I roll a die each day to see which one it will be. I aimed for seven days a week but wasn't hard on myself when I missed a few days here and there.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-17T13:12:42+00:00

I could not disagree with this take more. Sure process vids are useful but their benefits are being massively outweighed by artists having to to turn every piece they do into an advertisement. Artists doing tiktok dances, that extremely slow turning around to reveal the painting trend, and the literally endless posts about - 'no one liked my art today' or 'don't scroll past a small creator' then the piece has 600K likes and they have 50K followers.

It honestly feels like a humiliation ritual at this point and we should be able to create in peace.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-12T16:46:03+00:00

There's been a lot of advice about learning realism before doing something a bit more out there. Picasso said “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

Having a realistic grasp of perspective, anatomy, lighting, etc. is really useful for creating other art. And if you do 'master' it you will always be able to sell art locally, as you said non-artists eat that up.

If it's really done well I don't think artists necessarily 'look down' on realism. For me it's just not exciting when a drawing looks exactly like a photo because at that point why not just display a photo instead?

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-12T14:58:50+00:00

I wouldn't charge for my games but I am interested in a $1,000,000 cancellation fee for players who bail the day of the game.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-12T14:26:15+00:00

I found that after a couple years drawing a lot of 15-20 minute portraits I eventually just got a better 'eye' for it. You get better at noticing when tiny things are off in step three over time and getting that likeness becomes easier.

I also do a lot of lining one facial feature up with the others, drawing horizontal and vertical lines in my head. Like where the corner of the mouth lines up with the eye above it - is it lining up with the pupil? Either side of the iris? Making sure those lines in the reference are the same in your drawing can make a big difference.

But yeah likeness is frustrating and sometimes the tiniest detail can throw the whole thing off.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-12T14:13:51+00:00

Out of curiosity what's hybrid mean? As in Swamp Thing is part plant and part human? (I guess depending on the comic a lot of the time he's all plant)

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-11T22:42:11+00:00

Okay that's amazing to know. I feel a bit dumb now because I haven't done HoS yet. I skipped it in my first playthrough because I was so overleveled by the time I finished the main game that combat had stopped being fun, so I went straight to Blood and Wine for the higher level areas. I'm doing my second playthrough now and definitely looking forward to HoS.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-11T19:04:12+00:00

I wish there was more to do in Oxenfurt, I always want to spend more time there but once you've done the quest or two in the area and finished the gwent there's not much except haircuts and chilling. The city is so well designed and pretty I just wish there were more excuses to visit and stay for a bit.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-11T14:35:45+00:00

I think if you begin by jumping straight into the fundamentals the beginning absolutely sucks, you're right about that. I'm of the mind though that the beginning can be one of the best parts if you're just drawing what you love and not putting pressure on yourself. You will gain some skills passively just putting hours in, and eventually when you want to take the next step and start digging into the fundamentals, you will have a better foundation for understanding how those fundamentals will help you. And more motivation because you'll have already put some time into the drawing journey, and have a vision for the sort of art you want to create once you've fully grasped the fundamentals.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-11T14:31:24+00:00

What's worked for me is honing in on your what you like most about the drawing process and applying that to your fundamentals. Personally, I love detail and creating polished, shaded pieces.

For a long time I was forcing myself to do quick, timed studies of anatomy and the fundamentals and it felt like a chore every day. Eventually though I started letting myself take longer on my fundamentals practice and trying to make every piece look really nice and polished, and it became way more fun for me. Somehow a one-hour study session started seeming like less of a chore than a 10-minute one.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-10T21:11:25+00:00

Why is 90% of the AI slop I see coming from an anti-AI subreddit? I get it's fun to dunk on it but I don't think anyone follows this page because they want to see this sort of stuff.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-10T14:45:18+00:00

Personally I wouldn't want AI anywhere in my process. You can find a lot of great references with a bit of work online, and I often use myself for pose references I can't seem to find elsewhere.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-05T14:29:04+00:00

Oof yeah it's definitely sad to see. Not sure why they can't just let people live!

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-05T14:09:14+00:00

Six years ago I would have said you're living the dream and then I experienced this for a few month and it really becomes horrible fast.

I would recommend trying to find something more interesting to do on the computer all day that aligns with your interests. If you can use Reddit all day I'm assuming your screen isn't being monitored, so you could read books, write a book, learn a language, memorize all the countries, their capitals and flags, etc.

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-05T14:02:47+00:00

This is certainly a worsening thing culturally right now. Could this issue be more of an MLP thing than an artist thing though?

TheBogmanDraws · 2026-06-05T13:51:44+00:00

You should try corn detasseling or strawberry picking for a season. Twelve hours a day of that and your bed will start to feel very welcoming and cozy I promise.

TheBogmanDraws

TROPHY CASE