In a world where information is at the tip of our fingers and tutorials and advice are so easy to come by its no wonder that we want everything fast.

I've found that a lot of questions to artists are now worded in a certain way: what tutorial did you follow? What brushes did you use? What reference did you use? What technique did you follow?

It seems like they're trying to find the shortcut to why the artist is so good. It must be the type of brushes they're using, they must have watched a great tutorial etc. But funnily enough there is never a straight answer to these questions."I watched this 5 min tutorial and gained 3 art levels" - it never sounds like that.

The answer is nearly always practice. Working hard every day and being bad before you can be good, and taking a long time to get good. Nobody wants to hear that! They want a quick solution, they want to get good fast. I'm no stranger to feeling some kind of disappointment when an artist's skill comes down to practicing; it's like reaching the top of a flight of stairs only to realise there's another 100 flights to go. It's hard, but it's the only way to truly get better at your craft.

So stop trying to find the shortcuts and accept this is a long journey and you're gonna hate it a lot of the time! You will get better, but only if you practice.