how long did it take you to get good at your desired art style?

[Stealth]

you know, if your a cartoonist, an action comic fan, a car designer, a abstract artist, ect. ect. cause i think drawing is hard as hell. because i dont have a natural talent for it. whereas im a quite advanced music producer who essentially, mastered his craft and got bored of it. i got to the point in writing music where i became an 'expecter' meaning, when i posted music, i expected praise.

however, im not a good, nor talented artist in the least. every stage of progression takes a hell of alot of work to get there. however, i took a step forward when i bought my bruce blitz 'big book of cartooning' on pc kindle. i only realized yesterday why i wasn't getting any better at cartooning, was because i wasn't actually utilizing my paper book as with drawing books you cant read and follow on a computer. you only have two hands. and if both of those hands are holding pages...

so, how long did it take you to get good at your desired style, and how did you overcome your 'that looks awful!' stage.

[capellan]

From my point of view, is really difficult to talk about time in this topic.

If you read biographies, anecdotes and stories about artists
you would find some interesting insights about their
development in their trade. Do not get surprised if
you found works that required weeks, months and
years to complete or never get completed.

About cartooning, I suggest that you practice sculpture
in your medium of choice: http://figuredrawings.com/sculpture.html
http://smartflix.com/store/category/47/Sculpture

Just notice that to create outstanding work in any area,
you should enjoy what you are doing.
Eventually, that joy shows in your work.

[Stealth]

i do enjoy it. but its not easy. but thats a good tip. (having fun doing it) and dont think of it like work.

[Stealth]

From my point of view, is really difficult to talk about time in this topic.

If you read biographies, anecdotes and stories about artists
you would find some interesting insights about their
development in their trade. Do not get surprised if
you found works that required weeks, months and
years to complete or never get completed.

About cartooning, I suggest that you practice sculpture
in your medium of choice: http://figuredrawings.com/sculpture.html
http://smartflix.com/store/category/47/Sculpture

Just notice that to create outstanding work in any area,
you should enjoy what you are doing.
Eventually, that joy shows in your work.

i do know what you mean by 'time' i know it could sometimes take me 3 months to finish a song. i don't believe art is any different in that way. and dont want to give you the impression that i do. i agree with you there.

[handrawn]

it helps a lot if you can write - it gives you a real incentive to draw something if you wrote it

read as many comics as you can lay your hands on, because if you don't read 'em you'll never be good at writing/drawing 'em - all you really need to know is there once you have the drawing basics under your belt

book[s] will help you with the basics, art class is better - look on this as being the same as learning to walk, or ride a bike/horse, yes it is damn hard at first but once learnt it comes naturally

then you can really study all talent out there and from it develop your own style

how long does it take? - it never stops
you don't suddenly have a style - it develops, and it carries on developing when you get really good...

I guess it took me 20 years to be comfortable, but hey I was doing other things [like earning money for a start... ]

[wizard509]

how long does it take? - it never stops
you don't suddenly have a style - it develops, and it carries on developing when you get really good...
]

practice,practice,practice.
I was fortunate in that I worked for several delineation studios. We all learned from each other. It never gets any easier, you end up setting a standard and have to keep it up. It just becomes easier to do the quality of work.
I started using Xara programs several years ago and am still waiting to do something decent. Actually I finally did something I liked, but that was on another site and I have debated about posting it here.

[James Allen]

so, how long did it take you to get good at your desired style

As a kid I found I could draw caricatures of people and others would recognize them. In school I drew cartoons of teachers and threw them away afterwards. One teacher found some and put them up in the staff room, asking for more. My art teachers encouraged me to do an art course after high school, which I did, back in 1975. During those three years of Fine Art our lecturers told us to our disbelief that we would not be real artists for decades. They said their job was to remove all the stuff high school had put into our heads about art. First year was like boot camp, and many students left. I saw girls in tears as the lecturers tore into them. Second year was more fun, and we learned a great deal. By third year there were only about 15% of us left. After the course we all went out into the real world, where most of my colleagues became teachers. Only a handful of us began working as artists. I improved as the years went by, and reached my height about 20 years out of college, so the lecturers were quite right. It’s no different with lawyers (my daughter is one). First year out of college they have no idea, and make many mistakes. As the years go by they learn by hard experience, and after a few decades they are pretty good, providing they have talent to start with. Years ago I hired a cheap lawyer and I will never do that again. The guy had less talent than a box of hair.

[gnurf]

I think "talent" is just your head start... the earlier in life you start drawing the better you are when other pick up drawing, and they will consider you a talent just because you are better than they :-)
Time is very relative, and the style evolves all the time: When you have done this for a while you can compare your latest drawings with drawings made five years ago and you will notice that your style has changed without you noticing it.

I've been a cartoonist/comics "teacher" for school children and the first thing I tell them us that the best thing with cartooning is that it can be whatever you want it to be: No one can ever tell you that you cannot draw like that or you cannot draw about this - they are wrong and you can take your creation wherever you want to. To achieve commercial success is a completely other story though :-)

To get "good" at cartooning the same rules apply as with any other job: Hard work, practice, practice and more practice (and there between a lot of more hard work, and not to forget practice).
You draw when you have a chance, and by that it doesn't mean finished artwork: Doodles on napkins are equally important to try out new ideas. Read a lot of cartoons/comics. When you read comics you don't like, analyze why you don't like it (to avoid making the same errors). When you read comics you do like, analyze why you like it (composition of both story and drawings).

Good comics doesn't need to be pretty, detailed or realistically drawn (Al Williamson, Bernie Wrightson), but can be very simplified like Peanuts or BC. Even action comics can be drawn in simple styles like Hell Boy and art by Frank Miller or Gilbert Hernandez.

If you find comics hard to draw I suggest you start with keeping it simple and let your style evolve with the years (a good example of evolving style is the webcomics Atland by Nate Piekos, compare for example episode 1 with episode 100 and 200).
And don't forget that the most important thing in comics is still the story: A great story saves poor drawing, but great artwork doesn't save a bad story! (Meaning you have to analyze the structure of the stories you like - what makes them good)

[handrawn]

practice and research are two of the three elements that are crucial, as has been emphasised [and in 'practice' I include 'training as necessary']

the third is' voice' - you have to have a voice - even if you are not writing your own stuff you still need this, as its an integral part of style

'a cartoonist/animator is an actor with a pencil'

a good cartoonist interprets the script the way an actor does - and for that to work well you need the guidance of an inner voice that puts 'you' into the performance - it comes from the heart...

like Paul says, one of the beauties of cartooning is that it is difficult to be wrong - you have the freedom to go wherever that voice takes you

the only real restriction is if you work with others then you will need to be in harmony to work well - but that is a fact of life... so take care to make the right choices if/when you collaborate on a project

[Albacore]

It is different for everyone, there is no "Tinker Bell Dust", with me it is just hard work - doing a drawing on paper - refining the drawing to get it right - rubbing out - then at last pen & ink to get it into the computer. Things that are mechanical and are easy to learn are the physicalness of the human and animal shape. With a bit of study which you can take to every drawing that you do even though you enlarge say a head to a body the eyes are still positioned a long with the ears in symmetry.