Quote Originally Posted by Neo Emolga View Post

Thanks, but I'm just not sure if people would pay for them. There are people out there that often do these things for free (heck, I certainly used to). And ironically, one of the Joker quotes from The Dark Knight that I remember the most is "if you're really good at doing something, you never do it for free." So yeah, charging someone money for something I enjoyed doing anyway just seems a little... villainous. :P

Now, if I did the stock images (such as draw my own Emolgas, Pikachus, and so on) for someone else instead of using anime or official stock images, that I think I might ask for a little money, because that's much more work involved.

Competition for art commissions is pretty fierce, especially on DeviantArt. I think before I start even thinking of charging for art, I need to get better at the drawn stuff. And I need to kick myself in the butt to STOP USING OFFICIAL/ANIME IMAGES AND MAKE MY OWN, GOSH DARN IT! Especially when it comes to banners. It's too tempting to just settle with the pre-made stuff because it's faster and easier, but it's not nearly as satisfying.
Well...I'm sure it may be worth a shot sometime? Yeah I know now you mostly do free ones for events or for those that won the PSG. Probably occasionally some that fit in the "other" category too just for the heck of it. Yeah I love it too....it's just too bad my best skills are involved with playing video games xD. Oh never. People do it all the time and it's all in good business, not villainous.

yeah creating your own takes way more time than finding an image and creating a design template for a background or something in PS. Though I'm not anywhere near the level most others are at it here so I can't say for sure how "easy" it may be.

DA has some really super talented artists. If anything, it's a place to learn more about what you CAN do. I mean, why break what works? If the ones you use or find works, then by all means continue! Heck, like I keep saying. It's the PSG and your awesome banners that lead me here in the first place. Oddly enough it was the banners at first cause it made me think, "Hey, maybe I can get one of these awesome banners one day." So yeah it wasn't JUST the PSG. So don't think random people might not like them! xD

Quote Originally Posted by Neo Emolga
To get good at something, it often involves having a kind of hunger to get good at it.

  1. Have drive to be really good at it. If you REALLY want to get good at it, you'll read up on all the things you need to get started (tutorials, guides, and stuff), and you'll be willing to put in the time and energy. You might need to invest some money also, such as buying Photoshop and a tablet.
  2. Practice like crazy. It has to be a combination of both work and fun, because if you're enjoying the work that you're doing, you'll keep going with it and you'll want to get even better. But if find yourself questioning why you started in the first place in times of frustration or shortcomings, you might need to revisit the reasons why you want to get good in that skill. Find what triggered your passion in the first place. Sometimes it means revisiting that one piece of art that you were really impressed by.
  3. Be open to experimenting with new tricks and techniques, but don't expect to be an expert with them right away! Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't. Want to guess how many times I've hit Edit>Undo when making banners and graphics? Probably in the millions by now! Sometimes, just trying something freakishly random might actually result in something that sticks.
  4. Amaze yourself. Keep a collection of both old work and new work and you'll see how you're advancing. It's... a pretty awesome and mind-blowing feeling and that will give you motivation and drive to keep going. I look at my old banners and then I look at my newer ones. What a difference!


But yeah, that's usually the stuff that's involved when trying to learn a new skill.
I remember I did want to get good at PS years ago. When I finally got it from a friend on a flashdrive I tried reading up guides or tutorials. None of them helped at all. In fact, I couldn't learn how to properly resize without blurring the image too much until about 3 months later. Guides were not helpful in learning the best way to cut out renders or make use of the extra layers (seriously, I used to put EVERYTHING in one layer thinking this was how and kept wondering why it moved everything when I tried moving one thing ._.). Though now I've gotten better and understand most of it. I mean, look at EmeraldSky's sig/banner for reference of my latest attempt.

(More on EmeraldSky's banner) That was actually my first attempt ever in adding in snow effects to it. It turned out I found a really good guide on how to add it. It was way more steps than I ever would have thought of too, but I can't say I wouldn't want to learn more like it. Especially if they have an easy to follow guide like that one was. Then it's just learning myself from there on to extend on it.

Oh if I posted a list of my old work to my latest you'd definitely see the difference. It's pretty amazing. Some old have spots in them where I forgot to erase some brush marks, or have white spots from a badly cut render, etc.

I'd totally love to learn how to use PS better though...maybe after I get my new laptop and if I can upgrade to the latest PS. I'm still running on CS3 =3