Why Art Hacking is the most fundamental skill — Stephane W... https://www.wootha.com/the-art-hacker/2017/4/5/the-one-reaso...

STEPHANE WOOTHA
RICHARD
Con cept Ar t - I l lus tra ti on - A rt Educ a tion
GALLERY THE ART HACKER TUTORIALS

COURSES PRINTS BLOG SUBSCRIBE

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Why Art Hacking is First Name

the most
fundamental skill Email Address

April 3, 2017 Subscribe

When it comes to art fundamentals, there're

a lot of various schools of thinking.

But overall, many teachers advocates you

to work hard on drawing and painting, October 2017
studying from life, copying from
Open Art Education?
photography and old masters, working on Oct 3, 2017
your human anatomy, then animal anatomy,
practice one, two and 3 points perspectives

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and then get back to drawing and painting May 2017

again.
Fundamentals of Concept Art -
This is a loop that has educated Part 1
generations of ultra talented artists and May 10, 2017

has proved how effective it is. So, why not

Art Hack #1: Thumbnails
stick with it? May 10, 2017

April 2017
Well, if this fails for you, there're several
reasons that I'll cover later, why you might The one secret that lies behind
want to consider another approach. All the Mastery
artists I know of and who are incredibly Apr 11, 2017

successful in the art industry have one

Nine Thoughts about Hacking in
thing in common: Art Hacking. your Art Education
Apr 5, 2017

Four Master Art Hackers of their

During all my childhood, I've been time
desperate to draw like a hero. Apr 4, 2017

Unfortunately, despite of my passionate

Why Art Hacking is the most
daily drawing sessions, I stayed mediocre, fundamental skill
though I can assure you it wasn't a question Apr 3, 2017
of perseverance: I really invested a lot of
Are you an Art Hacker?
hours in drawing from 4 to 17. I eventually
Apr 2, 2017
met some friends with incredible drawing
skills who motivated me and pushed me
forward, but no matter how hard I was
trying, I was incapable of keeping up with
them.

At 17, music, another important part of my

life, took over. Drawing was so hard on me
that I gave up altogether and never looked
back for almost 20 years.

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Decades later, at 36 I took on the crazy

challenge to become a professional artist in
the entertainment industry. And despite my
terrible initial drawing skills, it took me 3
years.

But I didn't follow the academic way. At

first, I had exactly 15 months of cash in
front of me and with a family and a house I
couldn't afford to spend even one week
without incomes. Failure wasn't an option.
So by the end of these 15 months, I needed
to be skillful enough to at least do some
art related freelancing.

The "draw harder and know your anatomy"

way of learning wasn't a satisfying solution:
People were going for 3 years in expensive
art schools and still some couldn't find a
job after! How could I do it in 15 months?

You're right, it's impossible, following the

academic way. Maybe It can work for a few
people, but thanks to the years of
experiencing failures with anything
academic, I knew better and committed to
do it my own way.

So I decided to cut each and every possible

corners and use all the shortcuts at my
disposal.

Still, in my head was a nasty little voice

whispering: You are cheating, dude! For a

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while I felt miserable: I was nothing but a

failed artist, just like my father (a piece of
story I'll share with you later).

Months after months of hard training, an

intuition raised. Until it became a clear
thought: I needed to embrace and push the
cheat so far that cheating would become
an art in itself: hacking.

It did miracles. One morning, instead of

struggling with my drawing I was solving
problems:

Identify a problem, split it into smaller

ones. If one of them can't be solved, split it
into smaller chunks. Then find the fastest
and easiest solution, apply, done. Repeat.

Soon, I started to realize it wasn't cheating

at all, but instead art hacking. By applying
the same thinking to my learning, I've been
able to achieve in 3 years what could have
take 7 or even a decade.

I was soon to discover that every industry

legend I was learning from online, whatever
his learning path (academic, self taught,
industrial design, no pain no gain, digital or
traditional), was art hacking one way or
another.

When I listen to Syd Mead, Ryan Church,

Raphael Lacoste, Sparth, James Clyne, Alex
Alvarez, Scott Robertson or Dylan Cole, just
to name a few, talking about their process
and thinking, I am mind blown by their

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unexpected and yet methodical way of

solving creative problems.

They are Art Hackers. Whatever works.

I'll let you know more about that subject in

my next blog post, but today I'd like to ask
you another question:

What are the biggest challenges you're

facing in your art education?

You can join the Facebook group and share

your thoughts or answer in the comment
section below!

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Join the First Name

Art
Hacker Email Address

The Art Hacker

is a free concept
art oriented Subscribe
educational
No spams,
content delivered
unsubscribe any
right to your
time. I will send
mailbox.
you occasional

The Art Hacker promotional emails.

takes the form of

a stream of
essays about art,
creativity and
hacking them all.

The Art Hacker

offer you to take
the red pill and
and aims to
explore how
deep the rabbit
hole goes.

Share 24 Likes

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Comments (110)
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Preview POS T COMMEN T…

argun
dursun
A day ago

My biggest difficulty is trusting

myself and can't being calm. I'm just
too pessimistic, paranoid or maniac.
For example, I'm drawing a human
skull and if it's going well for me, I
really feel like I'm going to screw
that drawing soon, I will make a
mistake and it's going to be terrible.
I just can't get over this feeling of
making it terrible. I also have been
practicing many many art videos or
atelier courses but whatever I do,
It's like I'm too old to start drawing

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and create stuff (btw I'm 22 and

never draw anything before until 21.)

I'm actually really happy to see this

post and never thought this is going
to help me a lot.
As I read the comments I saw that
I'm not alone.

Thank you

Peter Vanek
2 months ago

My biggest difficulty is design,

finding the right shape language,
and follow through.
And maybe combining the shapes
for storytelling or just emotional
purposes with compositional lines
so there is movement.
Its easy for me to give up on a
painting when I realize after 3 hours
that I need to change it from the
ground up.
I value originality and also just the
pure skill of any kind, i like 2d / 3d,
traditional.
Skills i would like to have spread
wide but I would really like to learn
concept design to quickly get ideas
out and then decide if its worth
building it in 3d.
I have watched a great amount of

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tutorials, approaches and sometimes

i feel like i should already know
everything i need, but its hard to
melt all the info in my head so i can
develop an approach which will
safely bring me from start to end of
a project.

I think i would like to see a detailed

thought process when designing the
shapes and ideas which are behind
them.

Thank you, i look forward to learn

from you

Joanna
Jesionowska
2 months ago · 1 like

Thank you Steph for your story. I

mean really - thank you. It gave me
that feeling that someone may
understand my problem, because
your story has few things in
common with mine.
What do I struggle with now? That
I'm 30 and I see lots of people
younger than me, who do awesome
art - they have their own style,
great ideas, good workshop, they do
awesome stuff. And I'm full of
worries, I try to do lot of studies,
practises, I studied art for 5 years

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and I'm still not good enought. I'm

far from it to be honest. And I feel
that time is running but I'm not
leveling up. Sometimes I want to
give up because don't know what to
do to be better. And I always have
the feeling that it's too late to be
good at art.

So my biggest challenge is not to

give up. I hope to find here
something that could help me
solving solving some problems, or
just show me how can I start. We
will see :)

Fräven
Bravo
3 months ago

For me the greatest challenge is

facing the white canvas, either
digital or traditional. I often
question myself, why? and how?

Thinking always of the storytelling,

the best angle, how you want to tell
the story, because a lot of times I
see the whole scene in my mind but
deciding the best way to approach
it is the biggest challenge for me.

Ann

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Neopatogen
3 months ago

Direction. When you start, or even

continue self-teaching art, it's hard
to decide what to prioritise, what to
skip and sacrifice, what
study/application plan would work
best. Having a mentor telling
exactly what to do is more of a
no-brainer. Slowly, I'm starting to
realise that this problem might have
a benefit in it, a chance to make
decisions and be responsible for
them, to think with your own brain
and not just blindly follow
somebody's guidelines.Still, it
always remains a daily challenge.

Lyen Onyl
Yap 3 months ago

Greatest challenge would be from

imagination to illustration. from
anatomy perspective to color.

-another challenge for me is

thinking I'm already at that Age
where I think I don't think I could
still do it with how competitive the
industry is.

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Kedi
3 months ago

My greatest challenge....
I feel like i'm not good enough
technically. Take so much time
focussing on that that I don't take
the time to think of the story I want
to tell, or polishing the design.

When I red the articIe, I recognized

me so much in your description of
the young you, studying hard but
not improving that much.
I'm obsessed with how efficient i
am, how much time did i spend on
it, why didn't I manage to make it
look good... I feel i never have the
time nor the skills...

I'm always so stunned to see other

artists painting, doing things slowly,
struggling, erasing, redoing... and at
the step i would have "finished"
(shapes, colors, simple lightning),
it's only half of the process for
them. And the thing is they are
quicker than me for the entire
drawing while they do polishing etc
that i don't do.

So, even if i gained a lot of

efficiency since my beginnings, i
think i still lack of it.

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Actually, I spent the last years

working on a video game as
character designer and 3D character
artist.
I know i would have progressed
more in drawing if i didn't spend all
my time on 3D.

It remind me my violin lessons.

[long story approaching]

I was good at first, then had a

professor that blocked me because
he always said "that's not good" and
no indications on what to do to do
it better.
Strangely I had the exact thing at
artschool. Good skills in my early
years, then a professor saying
EXACTLY the same thing, with no
explanations.
It blocked me and gave me a fear of
Still Life, and more generally,
referencies.
Then I had a nice professor for my
violin lessons. I improved a lot. Then
I felt i couldn't be better, I saw my
classmates being better than me
and passing the exams without
problem.
I was convinced that I reached my
maximum level.
It's that way in everything in my life.
Good potential, slow at learning,
and can't be very good at the end.

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At this time i was beginning my

artschool, and my violin lessons
were in another town.
I spent all my time studying and on
the train.
Then, I got a strange idea. Take a
hiatus from my violin lessons to
concentrate on my last year at
artschool and have more time for my
art degree.
Well, I didn't get my degree,
actually I almost got it. It's one of
my life diapointments.
Then I took violin lessons back and
also entered at music uni.
I struggled learning violin again. I
understood that i couldn't master
violin if I was doing something else
beside. Fisrt semester at uni was
easy so i didn't have to work, and I
decided to keep not working for uni
for the second semester. The point
is, uni took all my time, from 8 to 12
hours a day.
I didn't get my 2nd semester. i didn't
get my violin degree too.
I took a hiatus from school and
concentrated on violin. I spent all
my time playing violin, starting
taking pleasure to do scales (i hated
that before), etc. I started to be as
good as i always wanted to be :) i
did it! And i also got my degree.

[end of the long story]

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So, as I'm a slow person with no

hacking habbits, I had to
concentrate on one thing to surpass
my level in that thing, and starting
to be efficient when doing
exercices.
That's exhausting <_< I can do it, I'm
stubborn. But what a loss of time if
I want to do that for all the things I
like (drawing, sewing, violin, 3D...).

So, thanks Wootha to want sharing

your hacks with us <3
You will probably save me and a lot
of people.

Emanuel
Burke
4 months ago

My greatest challenge right now is

creativity. Specifically, I have a
really hard time putting together
original pieces.
For example: I can paint really well
from a photo reference. Almost
photoreal. But when it comes to
designing my own scenes and
comps, I fall flat. I’m not necessarily
looking to paint photoreal
environments or characters or
anything- my point is that I don’t
know what to do. It’s like freezing

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on a test. All the study time goes

really well, and the practice test is
easy. But taking the actual test is
another story.

Ian
Hampton
4 months ago

I have the worst time spending

longer than a day on a project. It
loses all the fun, and I just get tired
of looking at the thing. I hate
spending any longer than a day on
the project, but I know it needs that
10% of polish to really look good,
and look complete. I never can tell if
i'm polishing a turd though.

Dumitru
Furculita
4 months ago

Hey Stephane,

I've enjoyed reading this since a lot

of it rhymes with my own story so
far.I've tried the academic way,some
things were easy to pick up some
not really and in the end i just leave
sketches in their raw phase ,not
knowing how to properly combine

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the knowledge or where to cut

corners.
I've watched your gumroad tutorial
on environments and i gotta say i
was bamboozeled.

Thank you for sharing this,it

reignited the hope :)
cheers!

Brian
Narendra
4 months ago

Hi Steph!
after reading your story, i feel
motivated! because i do leave my
drawing live and i gave up after
years of study back then to pursue
something else.
the biggest challenges on art
education is we never taught on
how to make ourself as a
professional artist. they always said
that do a good drawing and good
drawing and practice more but we
never get taught on how to enter
the market. it ends up we're
accepting small works with small
payment and without exposure.
because no matter where it is,
market is an evil places where there
are lot of bad people than good

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people.
but it doesn't mean that i didn't
want to pratice at all, i just hope
that i can find a balance between
practice drawing and learning about
the market.

George
4 months ago

Wow! I'm glad I read this. I'm in a

similar boat! Late 30's, trying to get
more into the art and concept side
of the industry. Trying to learn the
"correct" way for years, has left me
with thoughts that i may just not be
cut out for it. Somehow I end up
here because i continue to work
towards this goal. I like this art
hacker method. I will continue to
hang around here and see how it
may guide my journey! thx for this
post!

Vika
Moskovaya
4 months ago

Hi Stephen!
Thank you so much for this
question.
I studied 6 years at the University,

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the faculty of environmental design.

But it was so far from real life (not
to mention game development) .
What about painting, academism
was a good base for digital
painting, but at the same time a
problem of many people! We can
well reproduce: models, nature, copy
masters. But when it comes to
creating ideas, creation of
something new is a real pain.
I'm trying to relearn and to imagine,
like create not for self but for
someone else (sometimes so much
easier to generate ideas) but it still
remains a challenge.
Thank you and forgive my mistakes.

Leandro
Pozo
5 months ago · 1 like

The biggest challenge I'm facing is

that I get scared when I see a lot of
things I still have to learn. This
often gets me stuck and I am asking
if I really should invest my time and
energy in this new direction.

Sandra
5 months ago · 1 like

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my biggest challenge is i am all over

the place trying to get better at too
many things at once. Working on
both 2d art and 3d. I am trying to
be an environment artist in 3d. For
3d art, I am having trouble finishing
my projects and not losing interest.
And finalizing/polishing.
For 2d art having trouble with 2d
painting, getting the brush strokes
to look write. In gesture drawing I
am having trouble with flowing.

Tim 5 months ago

The biggest challenge i'm facing

currently is my work ethic. I'm
struggling to balance spending time
outside of my job to get better, to
having a life and seeing friends.

The other issue I often face is when

I do have the time and decide to do
a study, I start procrastinating
trying to decide what exact
resource to study! It sounds silly
but It's not always how much time
you spend studying as WHAT you
are studying. That's something
that's harder to find out from other
artists (feel free to chime in people)

Maider

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Saralegi
5 months ago

Hello Stephane,

Mi name is Maider Saralegi and I'm

from Navarra, Spain. First of all
thank you very much for sharing
your experience with us. Until this
year I havent got idea of wat to do
or what I want to be. All this
changed when I started a 2D and
Concept Art master. This year I
studied and improved my drawing
skills more than ever and discovered
that I wanna be a concept artist.

It's difficult to find around here

good school's and almost all the
good tutorials are in english,but I
think the worst thing to deal is
people's mentality about art. Many
times people ask me what I have
studied and when I tell them about
concept art and 2D nobody knows
what is it untill I tell them that is
"drawing". It's difficuld make them
understand that this is more than
just make portraits or painting
landscapes, or just a hobby.

At home the situation was like that.

It was very difficult convince my
family. They tryed very hard to
convince me that now I have to find
any work I can and to mature. It has

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takem me time, but eventually they

started changing their mind. I think
watching me working and studying
every day influenced them.

I have resumed a lot because I'm not

very used writting in english now,
I'm sorry.

Marina
Ortega
8 months ago

This is super inspiring to read. What

makes me struggle is chaos and
indecision learning basically.

Unlike others, I always knew what I

wanted to be, exactly what I
wanted, being a concept artist for
videogames, since I was 9. But my
struggle coming from Spain and not
understanding properly English until
I was 23, was that I found very
difficult to find the proper
education for me. I've been always
too focused on lessons, I find it
difficult to find knowledge
researching on my own without a
plan as ignorance makes you don't
know what you need to learn. So
self teaching for example is
difficult, at least it was before, as
you cannot look for answers if you

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don't know exactly the questions,

right?

So I went to a 5 years degree in

Fine Arts (which was not all bad,
but it didn't teach anything
properly, and even less applied to
digital art). And took me way too
long to learn how to be a concept
artist, even knowing it was what I
wanted, as I couldn't find the
appropiate knowledge source until I
learnt English.

Then I got back on track with some

CGMA courses and more practice
and research on my own, now that I
could understand things. And luckily
now I work on this as a full time
freelance, and I'm quite happy. But
somehow the struggle is there yet,
when I want to keep improving.

I do, but way slower than I know I

could because I find it difficult to
focus, to make a plan. Sometimes I
feel I need to focus on a 3d
software (which are difficult to get
used to for me), but then suddenly I
notice that my fundamentals need
to be reviewed (as I didn't develop
them as much as I wanted during my
degree) and that feels more urgent.
And then a job offer or a
commission appears that makes me
review another skill.

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So at the end I feel like bouncing

from one to another, and I'm not
sure that is correct or is making me
progress as much as if I pick one
subject and spend months on it. And
I don't do that because in the
process I feel that it would be
better to just learn small bits of
different things that catches my
interest on the way.

So after this huge text... yeah, one

of my biggest struggles is chaos
and indecision.

Thanks for sharing these posts and

speak openly, it's really helpful and
encouraging.

Bima
8 months ago

Wow, so you started getting serious

about art when you're 36, right? Can
you tell us your method of study? In
the other words, can you break
down your way of study at that
time? (For example, maybe you
studied about fundamentals of 2d
for 1 week and then move on to 3d
another week). And also, can you
show us that "garbage-ass work"
when you were learning about art at
36? :)

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And my biggest challenge in

artschool is that my artschool don't
teach me shit about concept art
because I got stuck in a graphic
design school and what it's teaching
is really different from illustration
and concept art. The challenge is I
have to work more and I have to
sacrifice my gpa because I only care
about ilustration and concept art. I
have to learn it all by myself. It's
almost detrimental at some point.
But it's my fault, I didn't research
about my artschool at that time. I
wasn't ready. But now I'm a final
year student and I say to myself,
"Just get over with this artschool
and learn and work harder than your
friends."

Natsuzemi
H 8 months ago

It's astonishing that I found I have a

similar situation here.
I'm desire, and just decided to
become a concept artist in certain
Japanese game company.
( I'm not Japanese but working in
Japan as a store manager. ) I need
to be skillful enough to let the game
company want to hire me as a
concept artist after 2 years later ( in

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2019 Spring ).

I'm totally proponent of academic

way of art, and love it deeply. I got
an academic education of art when I
was 16. Despite of my fine grade (
even though actually not good
enough ), I left my school at 17, and
almost never working on it for about
10 years till now. ( maybe one piece
of work for 1-2 years ) I was also
given up my dream to become an
artist in those 10 years.

10 years later, I decided to take on

the challenge to become a concept
artist in 2 years. And putting myself
in some academic self-practices.
But just as you said in the mail, the
truth is, there have no time to do
things that people takes 3 year or
more to reach my goal.

I guess the solution you find is that

take the 3D way instead of those
academic practice, and focus on
how to put 3D models in to concept
art works ( like painting practices ).
Even though I'm struggling as you
did, I’d like to try anything to reach
my goal.

The biggest challenge I'm facing

first, is COLOR (painting skill).
I want to know how to composite
colors to create a beautiful,

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powerful work, and how to practice

those skills.
( I want to mix a style between
watercolor and oil painting in my
work. )

If there has any solution can solve

my problem, I’ll try anything.
( and I won’t give up my passionate
academic practice.)

Thanks for sharing these blogs and

email, it's very helpful and
encouraged.
I'll do my best and keep going :')

Luis
Pedraza
8 months ago

Creating for myself instead of

creating for my teacher's
expectations. Letting go of my fears
to start my practice because I will
face imperfection at the beggining

Caroline
8 months ago

My biggest challenge is letting go

of what I think other people want
from me, and doing what I want
from me. Figuring out what I want

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without it being messed up

somehow by what I think a future
employer wants, what society wants
or what my friends wants. Having
the confidence to do whatever I
want.

Archv
8 months ago

What is balance?

rio85
8 months ago

My biggest issue I think is guidance.

I started pretty late on art, when i
was 28 i decided to quit music(had
been a musician for 10 years) and
start studying visual arts. I'm 31
now, i have graduated on a graphic
design 2 years course and after 1
year studying 3d i started working
at a studio as an modeler and
animator. It's a small studio doing
jobs mainly for publicity in my
country, Brazil. I don't wanna work
for the industry, i wanna make indie
games and i have realized that last
year. So I quit my job and started
teaching music again(my previous
job) just to pay the bills(it gives me

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more time to studry visual arts).

Now after studying 3d for 3 years i
started studying painting and
drawing. It's been quite a challenge
but i'm loving it. I found your
gumroad because of my interest in
mixing 3d with 2d. I think what i
miss is a mentor and a
guideline(homeworks, deadlines,
etc). I'm trying to do that online
asking for feedback from the
community. Any hints on that? i cant
afford a good school neither there's
one nearby.

andy
8 months ago · 1 like

My biggest challenge is overcoming

my anxiety issues. Will I be able to
get into the freelancing industry?
Am I good enough? Will I ever be
good enough?
Everything's uncertain and I'm trying
to manage. :)

Teo
Wan
Yee
8 months ago

:') I have the same problems

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too actually, it's pretty hard

in this field because the
amount of time and money
invested cannot be seen. But
if this help, no matter what
kind of education you still
need time to get in there. I
guess one way is to manage
your relations with artists?
Because I feel that there are
so many great budding
artists out there just that
they don't have any
connections so it may be
harder to get work.

As for being "good enough",

what exactly is being good
enough? if you show your
work, to a kid they'll go like
whoaaaa COOL STUFF. What
I'm trying to get here is that
it depends on your catered
audience so I would say
there will be an audience
there to like your work just
you need to find a way to get
it out to those audiences for
a freelancer.

I guess good luck to the both

of us :') let's see what the art
world as to offer

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abbas
9 months ago

HI
im about to start my art education
but my problem is im 30 and broke.
and not sure if it is a good idea to
dream about becoming a graphic
designer.

CRX
8 months ago

Use your experience like an

ally. With 30 you have more
awareness about what you
want. The internet is a low
cost tool to learn about
anything you want is almost
infinite. Dream, learn, work,
and make real your dream.
You know, anything is
impossible if you propose it!

Joseph
9 months ago

Music has always come more

naturally.

This has always been a grand

challenge to overcome. I want to

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produce visual art professionally,

and have wanted that since as long
as I can remember. Music has just
always been the easier road. My
social circle has always revolved
around more musicians than visual
artists which has dictated that
growth.

The greatest challenge I face;

however, is tackling this art journey
in the time of our lives with young
children. My wife and I and our 2.5
kids (5, 2, and one on the way) are
very happy and blessed with the
amount of time we get together. It
can be quite the energy drain and
time is a hot commodity. Wouldn't
trade it for the world though. In
fact, as I continue on my own art
journey, I know that my children will
be present and hopefully, with
intentional direction and time spent
practicing together, we can all grow.

This could turn my greatest

challenge into the ultimate boon!

Thanks for sharing these letters and

your insight,
Joseph

Awet M
9 months ago

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The biggest challenge in my art

"education" is that I am somewhat
resistant to advice or instructions
from experts. I changed my major
from art to philosophy because I
was too self-taught. But once I
began drawing Pantheon, I realized
that all those lessons and
instructions were absolutely
necessary.

Maria
9 months ago

Hey, thanks for your letter. I am also

got back to drawing in my 30s. I've
been in a self-learning track for two
years now. I am very slow in
understanding new things and it
takes quite a time to approach any
problem in visual development for
me.

I like your idea about art hacking

because I also meet this idea of
using technology/tools to achieve
great results. Like I will never
overtake the marathon champion
unless I will go by car. The main
idea is to create the image that you
have in your head.

My main challenges are:

- it takes too long to become a

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professional (I will be so old by then

:)) )
- I work very slow. Can't finish any
of my personal pieces because I
already see a lot of mistakes and fix
them right away and it won't stop.
- I have injured my hand as I try to
draw a lot after work (I do pixel art
for a living now) and it causes a lot
of pain and fear for my main
instrument (hand)

Hiền
9 months ago

zbrush.. i cant understand

Edgar
9 months ago

I am 37 so your email resonates a

lot with me. I have a lot of fear
about not making it as an artist and
very little time after my full time
job. Thankfully I have been studying
for a while and have some of that
ground cover with but I don't feel I
advance fast enough and I would
like to hear more about art hack and
wonder if is something I can
incorporate as a 3d artist /
animator.

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Filip
9 months ago

I am terrible at anatomy and lights,

these are the two biggest gaps I
feel are holding me down. There are
others too but these two I feel are
holding me back the most. I watch
tutorials by XiaTaptara, I do practice
the old way-pen and paper, but I
still feel its going slow.

Oleg
9 months ago

The biggest challenge is to change

photobash to digital art. It is really
hard to create something from the
very beginning without using
photos. Meanwhile it takes lots of
time to find stock photo with the
right pose of a man etc. Sometimes
it is seems it is easier to draw then
to search for photo. But combining
photos is easy, drawing is not.

Rebecca
Wright
9 months ago

Hi guys,

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if you're feeling a bit grim about

your art, and trying to be perfect,
have a look at www.theschooloflife
videos on youtube. They've done
wonders for my determination and
mood. It's run by Alain De Botton,
international philosopher.
https://youtu.be/BY6bGhcnDDs
https://youtu.be/1D-vyjQIUDc

Sonic
9 months ago

Hey Stephane! :)
Thank you for your last email, and
let's see..I think the biggest
challenge for me is accepting the
fact, that i'm not perfect. When I
start drawing something, i feel like
ruining the idea i had. The picture in
my head looks beautiful and it has
it's charm, then i start sketching it
and it is gone. From that moment I
can't see the picture anymore, I just
see the mistakes I've made. And I
can't accept my mistakes. I think i
have too high expectations and
that's why i give up easily. The next
difficulty is learning the basic
concepts, like anatomy and
perspectives. I have big problems
with drawing human figures and
gesture. In my drawings people look

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like marionettes or rigid sculptures.

They're inhuman and lifeless. And in
top of that i have problems with the
proportions of the body and face.
You can't imagine how ridiculous
they can be.

I think that's all. Have a nice day

and sorry for my bad english :)

Eugénie
9 months ago

I think art block is the most difficult

thing I ever had to challenge.
Anatomy, perspective, basic
concepts, you can learn them and
improve your aknowledgement. But
art block ? I don't know what to do
when I go through that, because it
is totally random.

Nicola “Roy”
Ballerini
9 months ago

Maybe the toughest part is knowing

that everyone's gonna appreciate
what you do only when you will be
very good. It's difficult to keep
telling yourself your is the right
way, when everything you draw

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looks better than before but still

not so good.
Even my father wasn't able to look
at the whole picture, and kept
criticizing the character for not
"looking good". That was maybe 1/5
of the whole piece, but in his eyes,
that was all that needed to be seen.
I feel this is something that often
happens.. Everything's got to be
really good, because any noticeable
mistake will end up casting a
shadow on the whole art piece.

Rebecca
Wright
9 months ago

Hi,
maybe think of it like an
apprenticeship- in the past
people would spend 7 years
learning their skills, until
they could truly be seen as a
professional. It sounds like a
long time, but you can truly
call yourself an artist then,
it's your craft, skill,
profession, and something to
be very proud of. Lots of
luck.

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Wenley
9 months ago

Hello My name is Wenley,

I was born 3 months early and had a
brain haemmoreage which caused
cereberal palsy, mostly on the right
side of my body. 70% on the right
side, 5 to 10% on my left side.
Unfortunately, my spacial awareness
and the mathematical side of my
brain hardly function at all. Despite
all this, I always loved drawing to
express myself.

Due to my handicap, I went to a

special elementary school where all
kids had a physical handicap. The
focus of the educational program
was mostly on laguage and
mathematics etc. Art was never
really touched and teachers never
bothered to discuss the basics.
They said art wasn't really
necessary for us.

Despite their reasoning, I always

loved to draw, because this way I
could express myself without words.
What I hated though, was the fact I
always had to go with my gut
feeling. I did try to study the basics
via books but due to my handicap,
the transfer, in my brain, from

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seeing to drawing always sucked.

The same goes for working with
proportions (photoshop offers some
relief because I can scale stuff
afterwards).

Later on, I studied Graphic Design,

but this was kind of too technical
for me and I really struggled, but
graduated. I wanted to get better at
it, so I applied for Art Academy. I
studied animation for like 4 years. In
the model drawing lessons and
painting lessons as well, I really had
a hard time to keep up with the
others in class. Again, the difficulty
with transfering that which I see
onto paper.

My teachers were always pissed off,

because they didn't understand why
I wasn't progressing. This went on
until my graduation year. This was
probably my biggest let down with
drawing. I deal with the same
problem when I'm digital painting,
but I can get away with more. My
whole last year, I switched to digital
painting in every form possible.
Although I graduated with an
digitally painted animation, it felt
like I cheated a lot and talk my way
out of things (because you can get
away with a lot on an art academy).

So I got 8 years of education under

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my belt, but to me it still feels like

I'm starting at Square one again, day
after day. I still study from live and
photos, but especially books on the
fundamentals of perspective and
proportion. I still struggle
understanding the techniques and
transferring it to paper or screen.

The other fundamentals are coming

along but for now they feel like a
cover up for the actually basis that
still isn't working out well enough.
What would you guys advice me to
do to overcome my difficulties?

Kind regards,
Wenley Spijker

Rebecca
Wright
9 months ago

Hi Wenley,
I think you're tutors at
college weren't working
enough to nurture you as an
art student. A lot of art is
about your feelings and
expression of something that
interests you. Perfect
drawing is very rarely
featured in art at the
moment, lots of my favourite

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artists like Grayson Perry

have a very distinctive style,
and are able to express their
ideas in an engaging and
deep way.
I don't think digital is
cheating, I changed over to a
Wacom and photoshop about
10 years ago, and it's really
changed my work. I can erase
and change things endlessly,
it still uses the same skills
learned 20 years ago. You
can also zoom in really close
which is great for me cos my
eyesight isn't as sharp as it
used to be. LOL.
Just keep going, you've got
so much time to get better,
(and you will because you
want to). Stay true to
yourself and what you want
to do.
Best of luck,
Rebecca.

Victor
9 months ago

My biggest art issue is to produce

faster. I never know if I'm doing it
right doing it slow, but carefully, or
if it's wrong and I should produce

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more, but pieces that I won't like

that much.

Winter
9 months ago

Anatomy and poses. I've been

struggling to learn how to fluidly
draw people, comic wise or
anything. Every thing always looks
very stilted and just off.

Pedro
Esteves
9 months ago

Hey Winter, I think I can help

you with that. Lately I've
been studying figure drawing
and one of the most helpful
practices I've done was 1
hour of gesture drawing daily
(if you don't know what is
gesture drawing, take a look
at Proko's Youtube Channel.
I'd recommend buying
Michael Hampton's Figure
Drawing: Design book and
Invention as well).

Just as a heads up, when

drawing a figure, try to not

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focus on the contour, look for

the overall action of the pose
and then, once that was
established build the
structure on top of it (if you
have trouble with the
perspective, try to think of
the forms as basic boxes or
cylinders.). When I'm doing a
gesture, I don't really focus
on the proportion, since we
are dealing with quick
drawings, it is really easy to
come back later and fix that.

As for good resources for

gesture drawing you can
check New Master's Academy
and Croqui Cafe youtube
channel, I really like the
latter because the models
are in movement, so it really
simulates a life drawing
session. Hope I could help
you out :).

German
Molto
9 months ago · 1 like

My biggest challenges are

motivation, perseverance and
insecurity. I'm almost 30 years old,

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have drawn intermittently since I

have memory and I have actually
made some commissions and paid
jobs.
I have actually never been
comfortable with my drawings, can't
find my style. One day I would draw
something that is jaw-dropping and
the next day I couldn't even draw a
face or a hand... it's really
frustrating because it feels like my
good drawings are pure luck and not
actual skill.

Crxin
9 months ago

Change the way of thinking. You

mentioned it. We almost passed our
whole life doing the academic way.
So, when you grow up, you don´t
know how to respond to complex
problems because you´ve always
known one answer, just one correct
answer. So you start to doubt about
yourself and your skills. And then
this doubts begin to infiltrate
throughout our lives. "I've been
doing the right way," "is this the
best way?" "Is this what I want to
do all my entire life? What If I
fail?..." But, come on, paraphrasing
one my teacher´s university, one of

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those who whort it, we are just

creating, drawing, we are not
doctors, we are not taking on the
economy of our countries, it´s not
that one life depends of us. We can
make mistakes, we must make
mistakes, "the sooner you make
mistakes. the sooner will learn
about something"
So let´s go to change our way of
thinking. Let's make conscience
about the time we live on. Let´s
colabarete with each other.
Overturn those ideas that prevent
us from creating.

Natalia
9 months ago

Hello!
My biggest challenge is creativity
and motivation. I have improved in a
small bit in these last years, but I
made the mistake of going to an art
school that loves money more than
the idea of helping and encouraging
young artists. it made me lose my
passion for drawing for a time.I have
since changed my career path and
that helped a bit.
drawing became a chore. but i still
love art, so I follow artists and
support them. and hope that one

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day i'll get my passion back.

Akemi art
9 months ago

Hi,

My biggest challenge right now is

figuring out where I'm going wrong
in personal pieces and working
through the thought process to
make the piece better.

Tung
9 months ago

Hi Stephane,

I'm 16 and currently aiming to be an

artist that could work on big gaming
projects. For now my biggest
challenges is to practice with a
limited resources. Because I'm living
in Viet Nam and my parents, whom
refuse to use card payment, I
couldn't buy books or online lesson.
All I have is free online tutorial and
few pinterest references. Currently
I'm trying to learn anatomy but it's
going nowhere, really looking
forward to a method that can help
me practice better with limited
sources.

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Max FIEVE
9 months ago

Hi there,

I'm 22 and I study to become a

concept artist, I began to draw for
real only three years ago, and if i'm
starting to do nice landscapes and
backgrounds, I still struggle very
much with characters, and i can't
find a good way to practice
character drawing. Every time I start
to draw characters It looks like shit
and I get frustrated. I'm looking to a
way to practice characters and
anatomy without it to be
frustrating.

Jérémy
9 months ago

Hi, I'm a student in animation,

At the beginning of my studies, i

felt a little bit miserable, i was not
really good at drawing, awful at
painting. All that keep me in this
way was my huge refecences and
knowledge of art.
For my part, the biggest challenge
i'h to face was to understand that i
don't have to create new think, i

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don't have to "get your style", it's

hard to understand when you're are
a beginner. Before creating you have
to copy great artists, you have to
reproduce great artists and learn
from it. When you'll get enough
references, you can take what you
want, what you like, what you think
it's interessant and use it to tell
your stories.
More you do that, more you'll see
what you like the most, what
corresponds you.

And there is the most difficult part i

think, because, when you start art
education, you thnik it's plagiarism,
but it's not when you're in studies,
because it's a part of your
education, so don't hide it, donc try
to cover you tracks, assume it.
Plagiarism it's bad when you use it
and tell the world it's your creation,
not when you use it to understand.
And don't forget, art is a tool to tell
your stories, to share your universe,
to diffuse you ideas.

This was my personnal way of

thinking, but i hope it could help
someone who are in the same
situation.
Wish you the best.

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Kate
Miterko
9 months ago

I'm practicing what I can, as much

as I can, but I feel like I'm only
improving at studies, and I always
worry I'm not creative enough to
come up with actual unique
concepts. I put a lot of pressure on
myself to think of something great
when thumbnailing, and in return, I
don't get that free flow of thought
thumbnailing is supposed to
provide.

Artur
Valverde
9 months ago

Stephane, Thank you for creating

this place!

Like most of people here I can relate

to your journey. Walk a mile in my
shoes, right?
In two weeks I will be 35. Two years
ago I've decide to pursue career in
concept art. Little did I know... But
only a year ago I found enough
discipline to keep learning and
practicing.

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It was hard, still is but the hardest

thing for me is achieving balance
between providing for my family (I
do motion graphics) and pursuing
my passion.

Anywho, we all struggle and the

most important thing to remember
is that we are not alone.
Thank you again for creating this
place Stephane! I'm looking forward
for more!

Cheers!
Artur V.

Phongsak
9 months ago

Hi here,
first thing first i started art really
late at 18-19y/o. then i spend 3
years in an art school, but never
found what i wanted there, the
teaching wasn't made for me, and i
never got real art classes so it was
bad for someone like me, a total
newbie with no foundations. I also
didn't like the environment, the
mood in the school, the teachers
got a different mindset about art
etc. all i care about is to make
concept art and design.
But hopefully i learned to do things

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Why Art Hacking is the most fundamental skill — Stephane W... https://www.wootha.com/the-art-hacker/2017/4/5/the-one-reaso...

my way, thanks to youtube and

google, especially Feng Zhu and his
channel.
So i just quit this school after 3
years and found a job and enrolled
to CGMA online classes and it
helped me a lot in dynamic
sketching, anatomy, perspective,
also books like "how to draw" from
Mr. robertson and "color and light"
from Mr. Gurney helped me a lot.
Then i took a break from CGMA and
went back to that school thinking
that i can maybe learn something
there, but it was a mistake and quit
it again last january. So right now i
am back at home and try to improve
by myself with books, gumroad
workshops like yours etc.

So from my personal experience, i

don't know what is the traditional
way to learn art because at the
school i went... it was all about
learning new softwares to draw on
while we don't even know how to
draw right. it was really f*ck up.

I really found my own way of doing

things, trying to absorb what is
useful to me from others artists and
doing art hacking and tricks. i am
proud of my level up from 2012 to
now.

My biggest challenges right now

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Why Art Hacking is the most fundamental skill — Stephane W... https://www.wootha.com/the-art-hacker/2017/4/5/the-one-reaso...

are:
-being consistent/lack of motivation
like drawing everyday, or 3 to 4
times a week. sometimes i just do
nothing, and i feel bad about it. I
kinda have a really low start when i
want to draw. posting art etc.
-better organisation because it is
not like school, no deadlines so i
tend to take too much time to finish
my concept art or illustration.
-better focus? it is hard for me to
find balance between art,
friends/family and my other
passion, dance.
-how can i improve my
understanding of light and color, i
am really bad at coloring things?
when it comes to it i always use art
hacking.
-How to start marketing myself in
the art industry, finding clients etc.?

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