Anybody else here feel intense jealousy of people who are naturally creative?
I'm talking about the type of people who never run out of ideas of what to draw and naturally love to explore new methods and materials to use to reach the next level
I've always been a pretty analytical and pessimistic person but if I could do my life over, I would be some kind of cheerful musician or artist that is always buzzing with imagination and is obsessed with their craft
It seems like they have so much to live for and will never stop striving whereas I'm the complete opposite
Tl;dr: Is creativity a trait you are born with or is it something you nurture?
>>2512159
Creativity in itself no, but curiosity is. If you aren't a naturally curious person your gonna have a hard time exploring and striving towards the next great thing.
You're not alone op, i have the same problem
i also wish i had more time to test out all the tools i have, but i feel really limited with everything
im very uncreative and i have very little time, so i end up drawing shitty portraits too often : l
>>2512159
It comes easier to some people than others. There are ways to stimulate your imagination though--watching movies, reading books, playing video games, listening to music, going on walks, travelling, photography etc.
Also not all art has the same goals or pathways. Maybe you do not need the type of creative energy that another artist needs for their work. Do what feels right for you.
>>2512172
I'm the OP and this describes me 100%. Whenever I look at a blank piece of paper I can't think of anything to draw but a portrait
I'm still a giant noob learning my fundamentals and I can't seem to break away from symbol drawing
Sometimes I look at art over the Internet and wonder if I'll ever get that good or if it's just something those people were born with that makes them create such beautiful things
Maybe I will spend the same amount of hours they have on practice and not get anywhere near where I want to be
That possibility scares me. To know I have worked so hard to ultimately realize I'll never be what I want to be
I've never been this insecure about anything else in my entire life which is why I made this thread
It's hard to describe really
I dunno where my creativity comes from. Maybe you need to be passionate about things. Or maybe you need to be a feely person, I dunno.
I always have lots of ideas, but I am 99% of the time too lethargic to do anything with them.
Still, getting lost in my imagination is where I derive most of my happiness from at this point. I honestly don't know what I'd do if I couldn't zone out like so.
As often as not those people still fall into creative ruts, you just don't see it. Outwardly they project creativity and artistic ability because it's part of their persona.
There's the odd person who actually is just overflowing with awesome ideas and has the ability and confidence to execute them, but they're quite rare in my experience.
>>2512180
>I can't think of anything
Maybe you should try drawing instead of thinking
fuck
>>2512233
...what I'm trying to say you shouldn't agonize too much about coming up ideas for drawings. Put lines and squiggles on a paper and something inevitably forms out of them. There isn't anything cosmic about creativity, it's just about combining things. My best ideas come out of boredom. Back when I was still in school the best drawing time was boring classes and lectures. I'd just zone out and start drawing squiggles in my notebook, I'd look at the squiggles and my subconscious would interpret them as images kind of like a Rorschach test, then I'd draw whatever they remind me of.
>>2512159
dem edges tho
sometimes, but then I try to turn that energy into something useful and tap it for creativity.
it works
>>2512162
Hm. I think I agree with that!
>>2512159
>>2512180
Hey, why are you putting so much pressure on yourself? Why don't you just let yourself play? You don't want to put your nose to the grindstone because it fucking sucks. The git gud thing is fucking retarded. Yeah, you need some skills to express yourself, but who's setting this fucking metric? I've got an experiment for you. Sit down with a blank piece of paper and a pencil, then do something with it that you're not supposed to do (hint: don't do a drawing). Does this suggestion piss you off or seem ridiculous? I dare you to do it.
>>2512159
>It seems like they have so much to live for
Not really. A lot of them use art as escape tool. Look at them as troubled people who play vidya. Some people play just for fun or good emotions but others want to become good at this. I'm guessing if you'd meet a lot of musicians or artists they would be shy and humble people.
If you don't even know your fundamentals you can't even tell how creative you are. You just feel lost because you lack skill and courage. Let me tell you an honest fact. When I was a beginner I thought I was very creative. I had all kind of images in my head thinking I had a gift for it. When I started designing I realized I was creatively bankrupt though. You know you will have what really matters when you can draw.
>>2512277
The first thing that comes up in my mind is to just put down random lines and connect them together and I used to do that a lot in class
I agree that the git gud meme is retarded and that it takes away all the fun I used to have for art but I'm such a fucking perfectionist
Once I want to reach for something I push myself to the point of exhaustion and quit
I need to take a chill pill yet I can't seem to be able to swallow it
>>2512159
>Is creativity a trait you are born with or is it something you nurture?
Not 100% sure about this but it's bit of both, I guess. As an artist it requires tons of disicpline either way so I'm not sure where you're going with creativity bit because at the end of the day if you enjoy
>drawing
>coming up with ideas
Then the rest kinda follows up on that. It's got nothing to do with being creative or not, it's basically if you love drawing, basically. I draw all kinds of things so I would be bored if I drew sameface. Later on when I get better I also want to draw in different styles. I have only drawn for like 1 year.
I think a lot of people on this board are naturally creative, I like to think I'm one of them. Man it must suck to have no creative drive, making things is the most satisfying and fulfilling thing I can do. I would feel lost and empty without it.
>>2512438
Good for you. Very, very good.
>>2512159
>tfw you're so creative that your technical skills is so far behind it.
>>2512623
implying those have anything to do with each other.
go study lazyass
also youre not as creative as you think you are
I already tried once, but maybe I'm bad at putting it into words since people still don't seem to understand. So I'll try again.
"Creativity" isn't about waiting for ideas to just "pop up" to you. It's just another type of grind.
All of those "creative" people you're jealous of are almost certainly people who draw. A lot. While you, and others like you, who sit around complaining how they don't have ideas, are usually people who don't draw.
It's really about volume. Like when I'm drawing in my sketchbook 9 out of 10 things I draw are just the same boring heads, figures, robots and spaceships I've drawn a thousand times. Then one out of ten is something interesting. One out of a hundred is something I *might* consider making into a full work. I bookmark these for later perusal.
Or think about the way concept artists work. They'd start with a bunch of tiny thumbnails made in less than a minute each. They just make a large number of these, and then select just a few for developing further. Coming up with concepts is not so much about waiting for them to magically appear in your mind, it's literally about throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. You just eliminate the bad stuff and keep the stuff that has potential.
Look back at the last week. Have you drawn a hundred things?
try shooms.
do some research on it before you go on about doing it though.
>>2512159
I try to draw, then when I start it, it turns out awful or stiff, then I try to practice with furry porn.
I'm highly creative, but I'm super stiff as an artist. I don't know when it started, but at some point, I became a lot less free as an artist, and I don't color or do it for fun like I used to.
I hate my own style, too. Anyone else feel the same way?
>>2512159
I draw less to enjoy the process more to revel on the end result and stroke my ego, I like to imagine myself as a busy and important man yet in reality I'm the exact opposite, even with all the free time in the world often I cannot bring myself to draw.
Naturally I'm jealous of better and more popular artists, again, more because they're popular than being better than me, for some reason I can't reach deadlines, mostly due to the fact that I'm never sure when a drawing's ''finished'', especially when I realize a bunch of flaws after, it's either me or a bunch of people nitpicking
It's been eating me away lately, to describe these latest days where I'm just not satisfied by anything I draw is to basicaly say that I'm frustated by the notion of not feeling any improvement since last year, as well as simply not being able to grasp these great pictures to go and say ''I can do that''
>>2512417
Yeah, it's a very rigid, formalized format of communication, just like writing is... and it gets boring as fuck. I'm trying to help you see the boundaries (although infinite within the parameters of the format) are still there. Back in school, I always took assignments with boundaries, or rules to be an exercise in creativity. I liked to feel out the edges of the rules and see how far I could bend them before I pissed people off. Like breaking them without technically breaking them. Because it's fun and it's funny. When you question everything it opens up pathways to unusual possibilities.
All right, so anecdote: I was in this gay ass beginning drawing class with a one and two point cube perspective assignment. Who hasn't already done this a bazillion times? Why do I have to do this? I'm sitting there all kinda pissy. Then I question that: why do I have to be pissed off? I'm going to fuck with people. Then I sat there for a few minutes and realized nobody ever said I had to only draw the cubes on only one side of the paper. I drew the forefront faces of cubes (squares, parallelograms) on the front of the paper, flipped it over, taped the paper on a window and drew the rest of the lines on the back. Technically, I completed the assignment, you just had to hold it up to light to see it. The professor had this goddamnit look on his face, but still accepted it.
You need to adopt a what if mentality. Because fuck it. It makes the world fun. You get those boring ass technical skills along the way, but the drive has to come from you chasing something else. This shit has to amuse you somehow.
I'm totally serious about the blank paper exercise. Actually do it. 5 pieces of blank paper. Each one is something different you're not supposed to do. Your imaginary peers are probably going to draw something fucking elaborate/beautiful with wonderful line and form and rendering and it's going to be so fucking dull. What are you going to do?
>>2512162
This this this.
Curiosity is the key, not imagination, nor skill.
You all know that skill is just a craft that can be learned and you all know that imagination can be improved by observing, analizing, reading books...
But you know what? That key, curiosity, can,t be learned, neather gained in any other way. Eather you are naturally curious person or you are not.
And this curiosity shows in EVERY field in your life, not just arts.
So based on quick analize of yourself you can find out in 5 minutes if you are curious or you are not.
If you know what curiosity is, you allready have an answer.
>>2512159
Not jealous, just kicking my own ass for not sticking with it when I was younger.
>>2512159
learn your fundamentals first, there is no creativity needed to do that. after that you fill your visual library by drawing things from life, looking to different artists for inspiration, watching movies etc. pretty much everything that is created is built off of something else, watch the documentary 'everything is a remix' . you really can't have a high level of creativity if you have nothing to draw from when you put pen to paper.
research stuff. if you want to draw a futuristic biker gang, research real biker gangs, scifi movies, what kind of environment is it? research people living in a similar environment to that place. what is their culture? what do they wear? even based kim jung gi spends a few hours every morning looking at reference.
just remember every good 'creative' artist that is doing what they are doing now took the time to research what they are interested in, studied those things and combined it with something else to create something new.
>>2512159
Not trying to take the worth of the artist who made your OP pic but did you know that 80% of what this guy do is paint cats and make comics that aren't very funny?
pretty sure you can train and refine your creativity. just look at artists who's early work sucks balls.
>>2512789
You're just jealous he's more successful than you.
>>2512801
post your work
>>2512801
Nah man. I like his art very much. But he's not exactly creative. He draw cats and sometimes other cute things and that's it.
>>2512805
I just chose something random that I had on my phone desu
The artist isn't that impressive, I agree
>>2512159
You sound exactly like me, anon.
>>2512159
I've always wondered how much person with high discipline but with low creative can achieve vs person with high creativity but low discipline
>>2513048
With low discipline it is hard to develop skill. So a highly creative person with low discipline might do things like a lot of the innovations and breaking of conventions that happened in the 20th century.
Someone with high discipline but low creativity will produce competent work that may be a bit boring, like a lot of the academic art that is/was produced.
>>2513053
Feels like the first type of people only get sidelines while highly creative people get the spotlight. I referencing post-modernism as a art style which require low to no discipline.
>>2512772
I'm not sure I'd say it can't be learned. No human is so simple that their entire potential can be assessed in some random 5 minute period in their life.
At the very least, being able to recognise and utilise your curiosity is definitely a learnable skill.
>>2512175
I do all of that but I can't come up with a creative illustration. Everything I think of has been made a million times before.
I prefer designing separate things
>>2512159
>Naturally creative
>Naturally creative
>Naturally creative
You're just a lazy.
>>2513964
>Everything I think of has been made a million times before.
So what? Human beings have learned to walk countless times before you did it, but that was still a massively important moment in your learning.
It's a process. Your creativity will grow as you continue to pursue ideas. It's just problem solving.
Every master of their craft has a billion bad ideas and failed attempts behind them. They're masters because they've done it all, because they learned what does and doesn't work, because they mastered simple concepts and gradually added complexities from a strong foundation.
So go ahead and pursue whatever cliches are in your head. Get them out of your system, figure out why they work from the inside, then ask yourself "what else is possible?"
I'm very comfortable with my level of creativity. Having a lot of ideas is like having bad gas. If you can't let it out, it just fucking hurts after a while. I've got about as many ideas as my skill level and lifestyle can accommodate for now.
>>2513972
Thank you for the motivation, anon. I've been feeling especially shitty lately, but you're right.
>>2512159
being envious is kinda cute anon
>>2512180
are you fucking retarded? can you not form thoughts? just think of ANYTHING and draw it. a vase, a cat, a car, a house, a landscape. fucking anything.
Do you have hobbies? Did you see a really good sunset recently? Do you have a pet? You can draw just about anything, regardless if it comes out good or not, you now have that little bit of practice of whatever you just drew.
>>2513964
People have been drawing the same trees or birds or whatever since ancient times. Just because it's been done before doesn't mean you're suddenly banned from doing it. Good ideas will likely come to you while you're drawing mundane stuff.
Do you guys always draw from an image or it just comes to you and you don't need any help or resources?
>>2512646
This. Look at Kim Jung Gi. He draws literally anything and everything he can, all day every day.
Go and look at someone like Zedig or Pascal Blanche's Pinterest boards. They're rich mines of obscure Eurocomics, old anime and manga, classic sci-fi and fantasy art, Old Masters art, real-world design and architecture, etc.
What you're dismissing as 'creativity' is simply hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of synthesis of things these people deem to be 'good'. Most importantly, at some point in their artistic journey they developed almost objectively good taste in what they consume for inspiration, and that in turn propelled them to the top of the game over artists with equivalent technical skill and poor taste in aesthetics.
>>2512192
you sound like me
>ctrl-f envy
>Phrase not found
You all need to learn the difference between jealousy and envy.
Envy can be a very usefull emotion, as it points you towards something you want. Ofcourse this requires you to channel that emotion towards something productive. If you're going to just sit around being angry at others for something *you* lack, nothing much will happen.
If that fails, stop comparing yourself to others.
>but I still don't know what to draw :(
Find one of the hundreds of "random X generators" found on the web and let it decide for you.
>>2514272
interesting af
I had a look at my sister's sketchbook one day, and noticed everything in it was boring. She drew as a hobby and was serious about it for several years before I was, but everything in it was the same couple characters with the same expressions in the same five to nine positions/setups over and over and over again (the linework etc. never got better either but that's unrelated to "creativity"). So I asked her when she drew and why it was all the same, and she said "I draw when I get inspired" and "There's only so much to draw anyways."
I've always thought of myself as largely uncreative/uncurious, but that line just stunk to high heaven.
From then on whenever I noticed I thought there wasn't much to draw, I forced myself to just draw anything I think was too obvious or below me. Oh a bus stop is trivial and simple? Why don't you draw it then? So then I go and draw it and I find I only know a bit of what one bus stop looks like, find that I don't know what lighting or camera position to use, what to put in the scene, how to arrange them to present the bus stop as the primary subject and focal point, and a number of other things. And then I realize my folly and go back to studying whatever it was I was doing before then with renewed respect for the subject matter.
What's probably more important than "stop symbol drawing" is "stop symbol thinking". Philosophy about all thinking being simplifications and symbols aside, it's just recognizing what items it is that you can and can't do.
Certainly there are things you don't want to draw, but there should be plenty of things you don't mind drawing. Draw them. Change up perspective, camera position, lighting, whatever. From there you'll notice that you can't actually do this, could do better at that, and the other thing you're not really sure what it is but you've seen other people be amazing at and want to find out how you can do it too.
If you can't, then it just goes to show there's no cure for stupidity.
yes. i want to punch them.
i feel like it's really a matter of getting into a flow, both short term and in terms of your approach to life.
my approach to life is shit. i hate people who are in a better place. they make me bitter.
>>2514272
i finally understand pinterest. free visual library
>>2514272
Can you link Zedig's personal pinterest? I can't find it.
>>2514514
That's some hate for your own sister dawg
>>2514572
https://uk.pinterest.com/adiboine/
>>2514627
thank
>>2514263
Personally, I'm interested in storytelling first and foremost, so most of my ideas come from wanting to capture some sort of situation. From there, making decisions is easier because everything's focused on communicating something specific.
Limitation breeds creativity. If absolutely anything is equally possible and appropriate, it just weighs you down. But if you go into it with a hard focus of, eg, "I want to use a single image tell the story of a man who's just put his dog to sleep," suddenly the breadth of what's appropriate is pared right down to something manageable, and all the ideas that ARE appropriate come into focus.
From there I just brainstorm, sketch a bunch of thumbnails until I start to hit on something that's starting to feel right, build on that, and do various passes to crisp up the composition of figures, of lighting, etc. And sometimes completely turn it on it's head just to see what'll happen - it's just thumbnails, they're cheap as chips, explore the possibilities.
Maybe I'll trawl google for images to get an idea of what's possible (anything from the entire situation, to just the setting if I'm having trouble finding an interesting way to frame figures in a car for example, or ways to richly dress a living room. Facial expressions, lighting etc whatever), or I'll set up something myself to play with (eg mixing and matching my possessions to dress a fictional room, thinking physically about how I'd hold my body in certain situations, etc).
And, of course, make a habit of looking at other art (or films, music etc) to see how others communicated their ideas.
Nothing just happens, it's all exploration and problem solving. Anyone who seems to just do it most likely has years of familiarity with their subject to a point where their process is simply streamlined, the same way tying one's shoes becomes second nature because they performed it consciously so many times as a kid.
>>2514263
The only resources I have are the reference material I have from memory as well as the advice from drawing masters like Don Bluth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md0hESCYFK0
