My Most Important Pro Tip For Beginners

Hey everyone!

I often share a wide range of tips with no explicit knowledge requirements on behalf of the reader, this means that whether you are a beginner or a professional, you can still find some utility behind my thoughts and processes. But today I wanted to focus on beginners precisely as I read many of your messages and I see very common concerns or goals. Because time is money let's go straight to the point.

Embrace The Pain

I know many of you might be looking for a technical tip like "draw this way" or "use this color", but you can find those frequently on my posts. This specific tip in my opinion is a life lesson, as not only will it make you improve but will teach you some valuable skills for life, here is the reason why:

You and I sometimes don't know what we are doing, especially if you are a beginner. This uncertainty will fill your creative process with doubt, fear, and frustration, making you STOP, which I think is probably the biggest problem you might encounter, as you eventually will see no progress.

Embracing the pain is accepting something tough about you, you are not as good as you think you are and that makes sense. You might say "I already know that Ramon, that's why I'm here, I accepted this" but here is the second part, you cannot allow this to make you stop, on the contrary, this is the fuel that must push you to keep trying.

There is no solution that works for everybody in the short run, improving art skills is a trial and error long-term game and the trick to see progress is endurance and resilience. Based on my experience I made progress because no matter what visual challenge is presented in front of me, I take it, even knowing it would be a struggle, painful and not as perfect as I'd like to be, it's the "price" I pay to learn something new, to improve my current process and to become stronger.

You can say "but your work is fine, mine is not" well that's your subjective assumption, but keep in mind I do have different standards that might be higher than what I'm currently able to create. This means this is a problem we all artists have and the difference between you a beginner and me a professional is not that I don't suffer when creating but that I've suffered for so long that I understand suffering is just part of the process and is fine, so this will not make me stop as my goal is not suffering but suffering under meaningful reasons, my reason is to build my universe and tell my stories.

Let's answer some other questions you might have:

"How do I start?"
"Where do I get the inspiration or motivation?"
"What should I do?"

Simple, go to our Discord and try the 30-minute challenge. Here are some of the common reasons for not trying:

"Feeling my art is not good."
"I don't feel like trying X topic."
"I'm afraid of sharing my art and being judged."
"I'm waiting for X thing to happen."

This is what I meant by embracing the pain. Many ideas like those will make you stop in order to avoid discomfort, but I'm here to tell you that's the hack, actually doing it, and after a few times, you will see how this "X" reason that bothers you will disappear, not completely but it will not make you stop.

Now you don't need to exclusively do this challenge or share your art with me and others, but challenge yourself to make small steps through sketches. The 30-minute challenge is defined by topics I consider visually interesting based on my taste or experience, with the community participating and sharing, which is great for motivation and competition. Also, we have a reward system in which each artist participant can win "Skill Points" every time they post their 30-minute sketch. Monthly, the one with more points will win time with me for feedback and when the month ends points are reset to zero so everyone can have a chance to scale to the first place.

The goal of the 30-minute challenge is not for you to win skill points or have specific rewards with me involved, which is completely fine. The goal is for you to build the habit of "Doing," a habit that helps you break the creative block, a habit to explore and find out solutions to problems you never thought you would run into.

Conclusion

In my Patreon, you will find plenty of technical tips, about concept, direction, execution but the attitude you have when encountering new challenges across your journey is what will bring meaning to all those useful tips. Embrace the pain and become stronger.

Thank you for your support!