Hello! Also in high school and self taught, I’ll leave the advice to ppl more qualified than me but I really like the atmosphere in your last drawing with all the purple

I  think this is really great post. You make this information interesting and engaging.

I know this is coming late, but I hope it helps. Thus far if you learned this all on your own, you are already doing a great job. What you need to improve is focusing on foundation, following the proper curriculum. I suggest starting with sketching and perspective, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5orI-eYOPys&list=PLMXbAPr21di8DjTKCE3EoS4KFtNZ-FDnP this is a free online perspective course that can give you a great start with foundational stuff. It is boring but worth the time. With sketching, peter than dynamic sketching is a great resource.

Hey, @Jo Edgehill! I’m seeing your post now, and it seems you already got a lot of kind replies - I’m star-struck with the support these people put into their comments. Hope you feel encouraged already! “Am I good enough to continue?” is a relative and tricky question. Instead, try considering this: are you passionate enough to continue making art (whether professionally or not)? Because it’s the passion what fundamentally keeps us doing it, not the skill or the money (although, of course, developing our skills is also important, and being fairly paid as a professional is also necessary). With that said, in my personal opinion, I think your artwork looks pretty good for your age and context! I’d say, if you love what you’re doing, you should definitely keep doing it. The feeling of not improving happens to literally everyone from time to time, it’s just part of an artist’s life - we just got to keep going and, eventually, it passes, and we feel the art drive come back again. But one thing is to continue making art; another is to actually pursue a professional career as an artist. If you do want to pursue a career as an illustrator, it’s important to keep in mind that it’s a long journey and it’s not an easy endeavor - the industries are highly competitive, the jobs are volatile, it can be financially unstable and it can take many years of study and practice to develop our skills to a professional level. And even so, nothing is assured. It’s not just a matter of being “good enough” (whatever that means), it’s mainly a matter of having strategies to deal with all these challenges and uncertainties. I don’t mean to discourage you though: as I said, I believe that if you’re passionate about your art-making, that should be enough to keep you making it, whether as a professional or not (yet). Ultimately, I’d definitely encourage you to keep studying. Learning new things is the best way to grow that I know of. If you can’t or don’t want to attend a regular atelier or art school, it’s totally fine to study online - but doing it on our own can make it harder, so it helps a lot to follow some kind of structure, for example, things like a “coaching program” such as the one offered by New Masters Academy: http://www.nma.art, or having someone specific to act as a mentor for you, assign you projects, give you personal feedback, track your progress and provide you customized guidance. I hope this helps somehow! Please feel free to ask away any other questions you might have. Cheers!!

The fact that you're asking this question is actually a really good thing. It means that your visual library or sense of what's good has outgrown your ability. Worst thing you can do as a professional is to look at your work and fall in love with it. Seems like you're transitioning out of this phase and as crappy as it feels, every professional goes through it.

Look, consider that even professionals continue all their lives to practice and learn new things. If you have the right motivation there is no such thing as not being good enough to continue. Years ago I met a girl who decided to stop because she didn't think she was good enough. Her drawings at the time were actually quite crude but I convinced her to continue and enrol in a school in her town. After a year of practice her drawings had completely changed and now, after a few years, she is very close to being considered at the level of a professional (in the meantime she has discovered that she likes concept design much more than comics, which was her first option at the time). You have to keep going, absolutely, don't be discouraged by the amount of things you feel you don't know now, and above all don't be influenced too much by how you see others working, as everyone eventually develops their own personal method. We all start from the same point and we all, sooner or later, find ourselves in the position of saying "I'm too far away from the objective, it's better if I stop". The point is that you don't have a deadline by which to reach your goal, so you move forward one step at a time, one day at a time. There will be times when you feel like you haven't made any progress but if you try to compare your drawings with those of a few months earlier you will see that you have made quite a few steps forward. The important thing is that you continue to enjoy drawing and that it does not become an obligation.

Just as presented, to be honest with you I'd say no they won't get you an illustration job right now... But are they good, yes! I think it's important to understand your goals clearly. You are asking if you are good enough to be an illustrator, but I would ask do you understand what being an illustrator entails as a job? Do you know what sort of illustration you want to do? What industry? If you don't know if you are good enough, I think that says you don't quite know how to evaluate your own work yet, which just means more studying, practice, seeking critique, etc! You'll get there, but don't just expect to be a professional overnight, drawing is only part of it. You have plenty of time :) @Irshad Karim usually has really good advice for prospective illustrators, search some of his posts here ;) Finally, are these studies or original? Make sure to study from reference a lot, or at least validate against references to help critique yourself. Find your art heroes/muses, study them, ask them questions if you have access to them! Keep up the good work and keep having fun :)

If your goal is to ULTIMATELY do this work, then that sounds like you're not putting a time crunch on this vision. This is good. It means that YES you are good enough to continue because you are giving yourself the opportunity to keep going. Are you good enough to get hired right now? Personally, I think the only people that can answer that are the people you are sending your work to. I mean, plenty of successful artists of all mediums faced lots of rejection in their time. To bring up a writer-- The author from Harry Potter got turned down by quite a few publishers before someone finally said "Yes this is good enough." Does it mean it wasn't good enough before? Who can say? Personal preference, timing... Many things play a part in life. But think about your question: Am I good enough to to continue? Does this mean that people that are less skilled than you should just give up and quit? What if they love illustrating? What if they have the drive and dedication to keep going? You're 17. Where I live you're not even old enough to buy cigarettes which means you have plenty of time to fine-tune your craft. Why do you want to be an illustrator? Answer this question for yourself. If you're doing it because you love it then you are always good enough to continue. This is a journey. Keep going. All in all, YES you are good enough to continue but this is a strange question to ask. Keep practicing, keep having fun, and find out what kind of illustrator you want to be. Send in your work to potential places you'd like to work. Face rejection (maybe) but KEEP GOING. If you love this and you WANT this, you can make it happen. It does take work though.

Really?! This are great! Hell yeah I hope you continue! :) Of course there is going to be things you can improve upon. It will ALWAYS be like that. The most important thing you can do in art is keep showing up every day and doing what you can. Small steps forward consistently will guarantee success. I'm a great example of this, checkout the first daily posts on my website https://chrisbeaven.com Keep going!

I'm not a proffesional but I think that your drawings are good! Illustration is a long journey, give yourself time :)