Hi! I'm Oya and I like to draw animals but more than that I like to help people improve their art. I specialize in dogs/wolves/dragons and other four legged critters. I am not so well versed in human but I can help with that if you would like. I use a Wacom Bamboo Craft tablet, a laptop, and the free program called Firealpaca. This is all free, no payment required. Just post the image you would like me to critique below. This is more of my own opinion and what I have seen from my own experience of helping people, it's okay if you have differing thoughts about what I say here.

With introductions out of the way lets move on to some Faqs and rip off a few bandaids.

"My friends say my art is perfect but people never commission me in my art threads. Why?"

This is going to hurt but.. your friends are being nice. If you're not getting commissions then chances are people are not interested in paying the amount of money for your quality of art. Instead of lowering the price of your art to pennies (which hurts both you and other artists struggling to get commissions.) you need to focus on raising the quality of your commissions.

"I try and copy the style of popular artists and anime but my drawings always look off."

To truly improve you need to get back to basics. Many beginner artists skim over art basics and later wonder why their art is lacking. When you try to draw in anime style without knowing the anatomy or form of your subject your get bad proportions and your drawings might come off weird. Most anime artists start off sketching their subjects in a realistic fashion before moving into anime or cartoon style. Google and watch videos explaining art foundations and basics to brush up on things you might have missed. You want to start drawing realistic and THEN move to cartoony as many of the major artists do.

"I have been drawing 62 years! I don't need to brush up on my art foundations!"
If your art is not selling/improving then you probably do.


So how do I improve, then?

One simple way? Sketch your own pet dog in real life as often as you can. Take out an old fashioned pencil and paper and follow Rover around the house and sketch the different poses and angles of your pet. Try to do this a few times every week and you will see your anatomy improving.

Don't have a dog? Sketch dogs from photos or videos on the internet. Do not cherrypick the angles (such as you only like drawing dogs from the side so you only sketch dogs in pictures showing them from one side.) Draw dogs from many different angles, especially angles that make you uncomfortable or look silly.

Make sure if you turn your sketch of someone's dog into an actual drawing and post the drawing online you must have their permission to use that image/video as an art reference.

These exercises help you get a mental image of the form and anatomy of the dog so when drawing without a reference you will know what is normal and what is wonky.

Study canine skeletons. Look at pictures of dogs in motion. Study muscle charts of canines. All of this helps you to know the body of a dog like which way legs should naturally bend and how far back they can move their neck.

-Another way to improve is as I stated above, to brush up on your art foundations. Practice drawing simple objects in real life. Like an apple or a shoe. Spend time sketching and trying to draw it realistically.

-If you don't have a tablet then traditional art is fine. Just use a free photo editing program where you can sharpen and brighten up your image.

Some things to remember.

-Try not to trace if you want to improve. Tracing will not greatly help you improve no matter what you Uncle Frank might tell you or your friend might swear that it helped her. Tracing just teaches you to exactly copy something that is not your own and is typically obvious when done.

-Flip the image horizontally or turn upside down to better see your flaws in it.

-Don't blame your tools. Unless you are drawing with a potato and plywood you cannot place the blame entirely on your free programs or cheap tablets. Some tools might make doing art harder but rarely do they make it impossible. If you don't have a tablet draw on paper and take a picture.

-If you heavily reference an image always make sure you give the photographer credit and that you have permission to use that image as a reference.

-Watch online videos of people showing how they draw their art and you might pick up some tips from them.

-Don't give someone a critique unless they ask for it or it may come off as a personal attack. A critique should never be "Man this fucking sucks, his legs like broke af". Make your critiques with the desire to actually help a person improve their art.

I think that is all for now, I may edit as I see things that need to be added or changed.

If you would like a critique on one of your images just post the image below and I will write something up for you.

And remember "Sucking at something is the first step to being kinda good at something."