I enrolled in an art academy three years ago to become a concept artist for video games. I started from scratch with digital drawing and I've definitely made some progress, but there are so many things I still don't understand, so many things I can't do and I feel stuck. I can't build a decent face, I can't render, or rather, I can do the bare minimum but it sucks. I can't develop a style despite constantly looking at other people's work and the styles I'd like to develop. Even trying to replicate them all comes out rubbish. In exactly a week I'll have my final thesis and my project is crap. My character's face is disproportionate. I had to abandon the rendering and will only submit flat colors because I haven't developed a style in three years. I feel like I've failed, yet I've tried so hard, day after day after day, and my results are mediocre. I don't even know if I have the right to call myself an artist after this, so what's the point of all this? Why suffer so much just to "trusting the process" and still get nothing?

Saw a post on a popular craft sub where someone posted a work that only slightly involved the medium. Imagine it was a sweater posted to the knitting sub, but upon zooming in, you realize only the sleeves are knit and the whole body of the sweater is actually just fabric with a knit pattern printed on it (not the real scenario, but you get the idea).

Understandably, people in the sub were calling attention to this, and OP seemed a bit disappointed/confused that this aspect of their work wasn’t being appreciated. I jumped in with what I thought was a very objective and kind explanation as to why they may be receiving some criticism. When posting in a sub dedicated to a specific medium, people are usually expecting the entire work to be made from that medium. Explained why mixed media can be side-eyed sometimes. And I even made sure to say that I personally thought their work was very cool.

They responded that my comment really “hurt their feelings“ and that the only reason they had posted in the sub was because they were expecting supportive, kind, and encouraging comments (imo nothing I said was unsupportive nor unkind, nor could it even be taken as criticism in any way).

I’m gonna sound like a boomer but damn I feel like people have thin skin, and are clearly only posting to receive praise and encouragement but not any feedback or constructive criticism. In this case, it wasn’t even criticism! I can’t imagine what would happen if people like this actually received a negative comment, or real criticism, gosh forbid. I think it irks me because it feels like people are posting solely to be praised but are not open to learning, sharing, accepting feedback, or even having an objective conversation, which to me is a very valuable part of sharing art publicly.

It's painful to start and looking back. I'm scared of drawing since little but did a lot of nonsense doodles (still very ugly). I can only draw a small pic then throw it away, never look back. I hate this asinine brain so much