Inspiration, Critiques and Story.

Inspiration, what inspires you and why does it inspire you? For me, a lot of things inspire me, but I’ll talk artistically because that’s what I’m all about. For the longest time… honestly what I’m about to talk about still happens to me from time to time. Sometimes I find it weird when artists talk about what inspires them. There are those who will talk about how they find great inspiration from people like Salvador Dali, a Pablo Picasso, or a Van Gogh, and the list of great artists goes on, I have a lot of respect for all these great artists. There are those like me, who are different in a sense, personally, I think it’s different for me because of my background. Growing up none of these famous artists from our art textbooks inspired me to make art. I’m sure they probably would have inspired me if I was born and raised in America, but I wasn’t. Up until I picked up art in college I had never heard most of those big names, and at that point, they didn’t appeal to me, because I knew I loved art and it wasn’t because of any of them. I tried so hard to find inspiration from their art like most artists of my generation did, but I couldn’t, and at that point, I felt so bad, I felt like an outcast in the art community. Artists talk with passion about all these great pieces of artwork, and I admire the passion, to be honest, at times I’m envious of their passion. I had to convince myself that it was okay TO LIKE WHAT I LIKE and be fine with it. Now let’s talk about critiques, I hated critiques back in college and I think this was because I didn’t go to an art school, rather, I went to a college that offered art. In a lot of my art classes, there were students who attended for one reason; their major required them to take an art class. Oh boy, let me tell you about the critiques, for the most part, it was tragic, you could tell such students gave their opinions to your work not because they cared for your improvement but because a grade was attached to their comments, they didn’t know anything about colors, linework, shading, composition or nothing, of course not all of them acted in such manner.

That was my first experience with critiques as an artist and I hated it, and I MEAN HATED the hell out of it. Fast forward, after graduation I joined some art communities, in most of them people were nice, and some were just there to promote their social media, and I respected the hustle. But in some situations it felt like someone who didn’t know what I didn’t know gave me advice to something we both didn’t know; it was like a story of the blind leading the blind, don’t get me wrong there were some valuable critiques but it felt like a never-ending cycle. It was, make art, post it, get critiqued while hoping the person critiquing knew what they were talking about, rinse and repeat. So, I decided to DM a bunch of professional artists asking for some advice. Some who replied were nice, they gave me valuable points, but some didn’t give me any advice they just directed me to their gumroad, Patreon, or a paid service of some form, deep inside I was just like, ‘’dude I just want to know if my lighting is right”. At some point, even that felt like a never-ending cycle of learning, I wasn’t making art I was just practicing. If you had asked me then, ‘’hey Sakuan let me see some of your pieces,” I had nothing to show, and it felt bad.

I decided to start making my own stories through my art, even if the art part sucked, I figured if the story is there, that’s all I needed. This decision was influenced by other forms of art; dancing, acting, pottery, sports, singing, just to mention a few. Out of all these different forms of art, we are the only ones who come up with an idea, make sure to tell a story with it, then create something from a sketch while making sure you have the fundamentals in check, make sure your designs work and after spending hours on it hope people like it, mind you all this is done solo. As a writer, all you have to do is put a story on paper and hope someone likes it, as a dancer all you have to do is master a couple of moves and practice. I only use those two comparisons because those are two forms of art I also have some sort of experience in. A lot of artists (painters and such) are stuck in practicing and they have nothing to show for it other than accurate dynamic poses and it’s sad. Story is KING. Advice from me to you, figure out what you want to create and then start creating, in the process of creating you’ll learn. For example, you want to draw two people fighting, start drawing and if the arm is not looking right then go do some arms studies and come back, apply the knowledge you got and keep on going, that’s how you grow. You grow by doing, you can tell a cool story through stick figures. That’s what matters, STORY.