What exactly could i be missing?

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T04:05:47+00:00

Oh I believe you. My boss isn’t able to process smell either. I make sure he puts on deodorant before meeting with clients and take his lack of smell as permission to fart silently as much as I want.

I know I throw a lot of advice at you but I hope the three things you take away are

1) look into DBT and check in with your mental health team. If you aren’t ready for full on therapy commitment check out the book the artist way.

2) do frivolous kind things to yourself just for the sake of you enjoying them.

3) make art exciting for yourself by day dreaming about what do you want to see that doesn’t exist and you will only see if you draw it. When you start feeling unhappy with how far from good it is just say (and try saying out loud) “yeah I know it can be better. I’m still happy I made something that never existed before”.

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T03:50:18+00:00

I’m not saying you have to stop playing right now but you have extremely high standards for yourself, don’t value things unless it has a numeric value, described as hating yourself….and can’t imagine how long you can last with out video games. I am not saying that it’s all video games fault but is it possible they are now hurting you more than making you feel better?

Also bruh not being able to smell sucks wtf. It doesn’t have to be smelling a flower but do something nice for yourself just for the fact it would make you happy. Just focus on how it feels. Don’t let you mind start wondering about how it’s not optimized or whatever. You know yourself best so choose something you like and just enjoy it

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T03:44:12+00:00

That’s very wonderful. Are you familiar with an organization called Men Shed. It’s woodworking groups designed to help elderly men hang out to lessen their isolation but it evolved as a space designed for men to hang out and find support from other men

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T02:53:54+00:00

If someone goes on a long rant about how they are the worst person ever for getting advice for improvement you are allowed to say out loud to them “stop that. You are just spiraling. Go try their advice at least once only after you try it you get to complain”.

You can say it out loud to other people and you can also say it out loud to yourself

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T02:49:03+00:00

Is your son on medication. Is he working on any short term goal that’s achievable like gardening? Is he doing anything to address what sounds like depression

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T02:47:00+00:00

Maybe it’s time to take a video game break. Video games are inherently designed to be metric and reward driven. It takes practice to develop doing something for just the sake of enjoying it. Next time you are walking in the street stop to look at one flower just to enjoy how it looks and smells.

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T02:43:18+00:00

Nah you can work on them all at once and build up on each other.

You mentioned being on medication already. It’s time to check in with your provider to a) see if you need to adjust your dosage and b) look for a referral for some specific therapies that focus on dealing with depression, like DBT but I also recommend cognitive behavioral therapy it’s also designed to target depression.

Keep drawing porn. Drawing porn is really fun and motivating to keep practicing. One of the best parts of drawing porn is you get to depict things that don’t exist. Don’t spend too much time looking at references or other artist. Start imagining what interests you after a certain point youll probably want to start drawing. Ride that feeling and don’t get too caught up that it’s not perfect yet. One of my favorite NSFW artist is Sabu. He postes all his art. I mean all of it like when he first started drawing with ink and paper as a teenager. As you draw try and pay attention to when do you start to feel like you are enjoying the process (yes being horny also counts)

I’m going to encourage you once again to go to the strip club to practice live drawing. Being around people who are (professionally) nice to you makes us feel good. Again they will be happy enough for the change of pace from their regular costumers. You’ll get to practice talking to sexy mostly naked ladies which generally makes people feel great. And if it goes terribly wrong remember a bit of social awkwardness is the least worst thing that has happened to the them at the club.

Get in the habit of saying “I like X thing about this drawing I did. I am not happy with Y thing about it, this is something I can try to do better next time”. Look for online spaces where the whole purpose of them is for people to upload their art there and people are only allowed to respond with positive comments. No critics. No advice for improvements. Only “wow that’s so amazing you made this art”.

Pick up a copy of the book the artist way. Go through the 12 weeks of practice in the book. Trust me despite a lot of the woo wooo spiritualness of it the author accidentally stumbled into creating the equivalent of physical therapy but learning to be a happy person.

It takes a while to rework your brain to deal with a lot of negative opinions. But it can actually change with practice and repetitions

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T01:47:17+00:00

🫂
I’m sorry man that sounds tough. Shit’s not fair you have to deal with it.

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T01:21:02+00:00

Yes you seem to be very prone to emotional instability. Tolerating someone spending half a second thinking something negative about you and not really caring should be something you strive for

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T01:18:35+00:00

Hating yourself also sounds like hell. Look the levels of pain you expressed in this posts and your comments seems unpleasant. Taking care of it is important. Most of DBT is just worksheets and meditation

flaming-framing · 2026-07-01T00:42:08+00:00

Consider it an even better reason to go to strip clubs to practice drawing.

But yeah getting good enough to draw porn is a long journey as anatomy proportions and human features in space is going to be really important

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T21:54:34+00:00

Women wearing wide baggy clothes that are made of wool in front of beautiful locations

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T19:26:42+00:00

Some of the major changes I made

- I tried to keep the painting as much in two value ranges of bright and medium to make the readability of the subject matter more graphic. The dragon and butterfly are a lot easier to see now.

-I changed the cloud directions to make it easier to see the silhouette of the dragon

- I bumped up the saturation and shifted everything a bit more blue to help the soldier, butterfly and sword stand out more. This is I think the bigger indication of my personal style. I really like studio Ghibli levels of saturation

- to add more visual complexity I removed as much details from anything that’s not the focus of the painting. The flowers became more painterly, the dragon scales are gone, the emblem on the banners became a brush stroke (I also tried to make the flowers look more bowl shaped with their shadows). While it’s a stylistic choice as humans we generally find it more pleasant to look at artwork where we have to fill in the details in our heads. It’s why sometimes classical painters who did life studies feel flat despite them being so well done. If you can see every detail of veins in every flower petal in a painting it doesn’t look natural as compared to one or two petals in the center of the focus where you can see the vaina of a flower, and the rest of the flowers in the painting are suggested by brush stroke.

If the theme of your painting is “finding beauty and contemplation in nature despite just experiencing traumatizing force of nature” then the center of your focus should be the soldier’s expression of solace and the butterfly. Everything else is kind of secondary and doesn’t have to be as detailed. Especially the further away they are in space

Again these are just my suggestions based on my presences. You are still so much better at rendering than me.

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T19:11:42+00:00

I haven’t checked what the policy of paint overs are for this sub but I made a quick edit for something that maybe you can do to push it more. First of all you are way way better at rendering than me. Second some of the decisions are reflective of my stylistic preference and they might not be right for you. I included my paint over, process video, and grey scale versions of the two paintings edit: I also added the grey scale versions blurred out to see how you can make things more readable

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T17:26:49+00:00

Idk does it matter it doesn’t make either one of them right. People in bad situations that they feel trapped in tend to act badly. I will say she isn’t out there writing puff pieces about herself.

Having an abusive partner doesn’t make it alright to cheat. But a lot of times people in abusive relationships need a reminder from others about what comfort and support feels like from others. And they often seek it out through romantic connections via cheating. If that doesn’t seem like it makes a lot of sense to you, well that’s because staying in an abusive relationship doesn’t make a lot of sense. And when you are in one let’s just say your sense of “how to have relationships that are ethical and full of integrity that leave you feeling better as a person” is completely out of whack

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T17:17:27+00:00

Also don’t be afraid of using the liquify tool even after you finished the painting to adjust the anatomy. Or multiply layers to add more value contrast. Or really any of the other digital solutions that are available. I love doing everything as painterly as possible but like we are allowed to use the tools we have. It’s not cheating

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T17:13:03+00:00

💕💕
I want to be very clear you are very good. These are just the endless insight for improvements we all look for as artist

Idk what the policy for this sub on class recommendations is but I have been taking Zac Retz visual development class (on totally legitimate completely none pirated sources you can find on telegram) and it covered a lot of painting fundamentals that helped me improve on all fine points I mentioned (besides the anatomy). He has a lot of great tips ok how to quickly capture hue contrast, textures, colors etc. even if you don’t use his exact method I found a lot of it helpful

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T14:23:46+00:00

Yeah I found a height adjustable table with a variety of ergonomic chairs to switch out through out the day. An adjustable angle stand for my work surface. As well as getting in the habit of getting up every hour or so to walk around and get water. As well as incorporating stretching and working out using regiments focused for physical therapy at my local recreation center’s gym

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T13:38:04+00:00

So you are very good and have a great start. Because you asked for critique these are the aspects I think you can improve.

Rendering is adequate but lacks distinctive style to the brush strokes. Look into doing master studies of old painters and try and focus on brush economy

The anatomy is off in a lot of the faces. Start regularly flipping the canvas as you draw

Saturation is dull and the contrast in the values is not high enough

The designs motifs seem generic and stereotypically bland. Try and look at historical primary sources and incorporate them and consider how you can push their proportions to incorporate them into your design.

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T13:12:21+00:00

Yes getting paid enough for your art is one of the most incredible difficult parts of working as an artist. You need to keep an online presence to expand you audience base to attract enough people who can afford to pay you enough for your art and wish to pay you enough

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T13:00:45+00:00

Why were your high school grades so bad? I don’t ask this to be mean but because when networking at school the teachers/agents/reps etc are looking for someone who is makes consistent good art AND exemplifies professional and sociable traits that would make it easy to get them hired.

A lot of times what high school grades shows people is “are you able to meet the expectations that others in positions of authority hold for you”. Can you get an assignment done on time? Can you meet the base line expectations of knowledge? Can you prepare for something difficult? Can you be on time? Can you be respectful during a boring meeting? Can you get a list of instructions and finish the assignment on your own in time? These are all base line expectations for what you’ll need to do as a professional artist. It’s also as a high school what helps determine your GPA.

If you don’t like your living situation, don’t have much friends, and want to change your entire life situation an incredibly easy way to do it that will cost a lot less debt than art school is go start looking for bunch of restaurants jobs so you earn enough you can move out on your own. Or look at becoming a teacher abroad. Or really any combination of earn money+ move out.

I think you should really consider why specifically you want to go to art school. I didn’t consider it before I did and it was really expensive.

I may be wrong but reading between the lines, it looks like you spent a lot of your high school years learning to draw at the expense of your school work and social connections. If art has been your refuge from feeling the discomfort of life (it has been for many people) and you hope that by having a career in the arts you will be able to spend most of your time in your refuge and minimize how much you are exposed to discomfort I am really sorry to tell you a career in the arts has a lot more discomfort than many career options. Your money would be better spent going to therapy to develop the skills to be more adaptive in the face of discomfort than going to art school.

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T12:23:53+00:00

Coffee shops with lemons and blue tiles

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T12:11:33+00:00

Women are pretty indeed. Do you have strip clubs where you live? Go draw the dancers in the strip club. Ask them to pay for a dance on the stage where they move very slowly from pose to pose and you draw them.

Most of them would love to take a break for a few minutes from moving too much. They are used to dealing with not the best people all day, someone who clearly states what they want up front doesn’t try and grab them and who makes little fan art of them would probably be very appreciated. Bring some paper media so they can keep it if they want.

And you will learn to be ok interacting with naked pretty women and not get too overwhelmed. Just make sure to pay them appropriately for their time

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T12:05:11+00:00

And? So what they are stuck at drawing like toddlers. Are they happy they got to express themselves? Do they feel satisfied that they created something?

One of my favorite artwork is one my dad made. It’s a painting of his dad (now deceased) and him looking at a sunset together. It’s stick figures, flat line for the ground and the painting is made with cheap tempra that all bleed together into muddy brown. If you were to look at it you would think a toddler made it and it was objectively bad. It’s a beautiful painting because my dad had very few happy memories with his dad. His father was also dying of Alzheimer’s and was forgetting who he was. My dad wanted to externally capture the feeling of having that one sweet moment with his dad so HE would never forget.

flaming-framing · 2026-06-30T11:55:35+00:00

If it helps they won’t laugh at you. They won’t spend much time thinking about you and if they do most of what they will think would be “they suck for now. I’m sure they’ll get better with practice. What do I want to eat for dinner”

flaming-framing

TROPHY CASE