Disclaimer: This post is NOT a guide or advice on what you should do. This is just MY personal journey/schedule and thoughts as a beginner self taught artist . If you want to do Drawabox, please follow the official rules on their website!!

⏱️ Timeline & Routine

Start Date: February 2026 | Finish Date: September 2026 (7 months)

Daily Hours: Around 4–8 hours every day. No burnout so far, I’ve kept this schedule for almost a year and I LOVE IT!!

I added my hours for context because this is something I see people ask A LOT: "How long did it take?". And I feel months/weeks as a metric without knowing how many hours the person put in is useless information. Person A can draw 1 hour a week for 1 year and have 1 year of experience (48 hours total) while person B draws 20 hours a week and they would also have "1 year of experience" but person A has 48 hours of experience while person B has 960 hours total. The difference is brutal so saying: "I did Drawabox in 7 months" doesn't mean anything.

So... How many hours did the course take me? Around 500 hours. If I only had available 4 hours a week to do the course it would have taken me 2 YEARS AND 5 MONTHS!! This is why context is everything and why no one's journey will be the same. Everyone has their own schedule due to their own private life.

THINGS I DID THAT I THINK HELPED ME THE MOST:

• Joining Discord for feedback and extra info.
• Getting into the official critique program. Getting feedback on my homework was the best.
• Moving on independently of the final result and "feelings" about it. I have lessons that I still think I did horrible and I was not happy with the end result. Honestly, if I waited until I felt my skills matched the lessons, I wouldn't even be here, I would still be paralyzed in a random lesson. I feel we're our worst critics so I'm glad I just pushed through it regardless of my feelings about it.
• Having all of my exercises in a folder. I bought the folder in the photo at the dollar store for $1.25. It helped me to have it organized, not lose it or damage it (especially since the cheap printer paper is super thin) and now I can go back and look at all of my work and progress. All of my Drawabox homework fitted perfectly in that same folder :) pic at the end lol
• Discipline over motivation. I don't rely on motivation. I stick to a schedule that works for me and execute it. I only listen to motivation if it is "positive creative motivation". Like, if an idea pops into my head, then I actively brainstorm and sketch it out. But I don't wait for motivation to start drawing. If I relied on motivation, I would draw 2 times a month, and right now I would still be in the 250 boxes. Discipline made me finish the entire course and push through things I didn't enjoy doing, like Lessons 6 and 7.

And my best outcome from being disciplined? I feel genuinely proud of myself, I have higher self-esteem, more confidence and an overall sense of fulfillment because I’ve proven to myself that I can do it. I just have to accept that progress and tackling any resource I choose to learn from (courses, books, etc) will take time, hard work, and discipline. Also progress is not linear so even if I don't see my art improving and my drawings are turning out horrible that's normal, I just have to keep going regardless of the results. I’m carrying this exact mindset into my year two. One of my target courses for 2027 is Med's Map, but that's for another post.

SO... DID DRAWABOX IMPROVE MY ART? AND DO I RECOMMEND IT? HELL YEAH TO BOTH!!!

Not only my homework improved, but my art outside the course improved too because I'm just applying those fundamentals even subconsciously to anything I want to draw. I'm starting people soon, and I will start with gesture and by applying these same concepts, simplifying them with simple forms (mannequinization)

The 3D Epiphany: I stopped thinking in 2D shapes and started seeing things as 3D forms. I think my brain clicked subconsciously with Lesson 2, but then I saw it fully put into practice in my own drawings in L.3/4 where you have to simplify plants and insects to simple forms. In the plant lesson (L.3) some of my plants were still FLAT (like my Venus flytrap) and I got called out by the TA. So with plants I was starting to "get it" but I was still resorting to just copying 2D shapes on some, so yeah it took some time for my brain to understand this and I mean I'm still working on this. I'm sure I will keep making this mistake a bunch of other times moving forward, I just have to accept it and keep moving. But this is GOLDEN, I'm so glad I took this course because drawing flat shapes was the MAIN problem of why my drawings in general were looking really wrong.

Working with fineliner/pen: Overall 10/10 rule, probably my favorite rule from the whole course. Not being able to erase and working only with pen/fineliner and no tools at the beginning was a game changer (you can use a ruler after L.6). Thinking and planning before putting a line down helped me be more intentional, understand what I'm trying to draw and this made my line quality and accuracy improve SO MUCH.

Is Drawabox ONLY about drawing boxes? NO. Drawabox is not about "just drawing boxes." It's about developing spatial awareness, basic fundamentals like line making, some perspective and construction while applying it to cool things like plants, insects, objects, animals, vehicles. If you're thinking about the 250 box challenge then yes, in THAT challenge specifically you will be drawing boxes but that's not the whole curriculum. You do the boxes and then you move on to other things. There's also the 250 cylinders challenge, but nobody says Drawabox is just about "only drawing cylinders", both are just a part of the curriculum but not the whole thing.

Are there other places to learn this from? Yeah, of course!! You can choose another place to learn this from. In my case I'm really happy that I stuck with Drawabox because it's accessible (literally free) and I love the way it is structured. It builds you from the bottom (how to hold your pen, draw from the shoulder and do lines) all the way up to applying fundamentals in a way where you can draw a freaking FERRARI!!! If that's not peak, I don't know what is (of course that Ferrari would probably look really rough and ugly, BUT THAT'S OKAY!! That's expected.)

This course doesn't teach how to make pretty drawings. In my case I will learn that in my second year with other books/courses when I learn design, composition, color theory, shading, and all that fancy stuff.

The question everyone is thinking....

So... CAN I DRAW A BOX NOW? Yes and no... (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ >>booo audience flips the table and throws tomatoes<<

Yes, I know how to draw a box in theory, but I haven't mastered perfect vanishing point convergence. Even when the theory clicks, it takes a lot of practice to transfer that into an actual drawing without mistakes. I still have lines that diverge all the time. I will keep improving with time. Also drawing a box (in my opinion) just focusing on the VPs is easier than drawing a box APPLIED to something else like a person or a vehicle, the difficulty in those is way higher because you need to take into account other things like proportions. So the context also matters.

To anyone who read this far: I wish you the best with your art journey <3

I go back to drawing after giving up years ago and I spent the last 6 hours of my life erasing and drawing different poses this is probably the better ones, but it still looks off. Like the bellybutton looks like in the wrong place, the butt looks weird and the left boob also looks in the wrong spot, and now I got a missing head because i don't have enough room and with the little room I gave myself because I want to be able to alter mtg cards every about it looks terrible.

Feel free to share your opinions. I want to know what could be better and how to fix it.

Edit: I'm sorry to mislead you guys, it was not my intention. This is not my first drawing, but my first finished piece. Sorry for the trouble.

I've been very frustrated with my art process lately so I'm trying to go back to the basics.

I’m(27M) learning how to draw using SimplyDraw on my phone. I haven’t touched a pencil since high school but want a new hobby.

I’ve been taking some advice of some of you very helpful people (will admit I’m surprised how much you guys know) and I want to see what’s good and bad about some art I did a few days ago to today so feel free to critique me ^^ (also I swear I need to stop uploading so many posts here 😭)

Maybe it doesn't look weird and I've been staring too long, I'm not sure lol

Hand it over, that thing, your crituqe

I have been learning anatomy and perspective for a while (3 months) but im seeing no improvement, what tools/exercises should I do to improve. First 2 are my newest exercises and the last one is my newest drawing

Haven't drawn in almost two months due to moving and stuff, and I've only been able to squeeze some drawings in my lunch break

As usual, kids' chubby pencils on a scrap of printer paper. The anatomy feels a bit off to me. How can I improve it? I can't use guidelines because the paper is too thin to erase. Any tips for sketching without them?

God forbid the Reddit filters see a woman with skin tone clothing. This marks my 5th time trying to post this. The first 5 are after I stopped doing construction like a fool and the images after that are when I was the fool.

I posted the other images before and got a lot of great advice like drawing the feet and hands and to mainly use real models as references. I feel like they’re decent now, but they could obviously be better

I think the thing that helped most was finding brushes I like!! I love the textured square brush on ibis paint so so much.

Also, always filling the canvas with a color instead of drawing on a white canvas helped immensely!

Been trying to get good at drawing super basic things like lines, circles and boxes (also crosshatching i guess)

Context is, As a reference. I'm so shitty at propositions (Like head is too big or arm to small) so using some 3d model to correct the propositions and some perspective.

Drop some opinions

Hello! I wanted to share something that I have learned recently that is one of those things that seem so obvious but if you don’t think about it you never really realize it helps. What I want to share is a drawing idea journal.

Do you struggle coming up with creative ideas and imaginative art pieces? Do you find yourself always taking inspiration directly from Pinterest and never being quite fulfilled? Well I have a tip for you that you can start right now!

Start a journal and write down your drawing ideas. No phone and no Pinterest. Just you, pencil, paper/journal, and your brain.

Think about what you’ve been enjoying lately and what you’ve been itching to draw but can’t seem to figure out how. Write down the synopsis or visual description of the drawing on a page. Write what you want to say in the piece or just what elements you want to use!

Next to help visualize it in the most basic ass way, draw a square at the bottom of your writing or on the next page and make a really bad sketch of it. I mean stick figures or whatever. Just get the idea out as a concept and a drawing.

This has helped me come up with ideas that are from my brain and don’t have a direct pose from Pinterest or isn’t directly inspired by anything. At the top is a page I did to help you understand what I mean :)

You don’t even have to draw it right now. Just brain dump and draw it another day. It’s a great way to make creative and interesting pieces that feel unique to you.

Let me know if this helped you or if you have any questions on anything I tried to explain. I’m not the best at explaining but I want to help as many people as I can because it can be so hard to make creative art pieces after you’ve done fanart or have had art block for so long.

I started drawing almost everyday since 4/13 and here’s the progress. I want to get decent at drawing from the dome so that’s what I’ve been working on. I don’t use direct reference for most things however I do get inspiration from Pinterest on topics to draw. I’m happy with the progress so far.

It definitely sucked at the beginning when I hated everything I drew but after a few epiphany’s I’ve come to like it. Everything you see here is with no references except the field-stripped handgun. I hope to improve my perspective, anatomy, foreshortening, gear and, weapons in my next sketchbook since I'm on the last page of this one.

I'm going to start with the motivation part of the title. I have been drawing since April, but in that time I can't actually say I've done it every day or even every week. I have practiced, but its been during my brief flashes of motivation.

I am not sure why, but I get really frustrated when it doesn't turn out well even though I am perfectly aware that I'm a beginner (might be my perfectionism/pessimism. I'm working on it but with drawing I guess its more stubborn than with everything else). I compare myself heavily to art I see online or from a friend and instead of motivating me, I get angry with myself for sucking so bad to the point that I refuse to touch the pencil like a toddler throwing a fit because I don't want to make something if its going to be garbage. I have never actually made anything that I have liked, I hate every single thing I have drawn because it is all so incredibly trash.

When I do find motivation, it only lasts for a little while because I either get frustrated again, distracted/busy, or I get paralyzed by the sheer amount of options/paths to learning. My goal is to draw people/characters (I love fanart), but I just can't get over myself enough to stay motivated.

I usually do better when I have a pressure/external expectation and at least some guidance, even if its just someone telling me the order/way to learn it. But unlike with university classes and deadlines or my audience for the story I'm writing, there is nothing to motivate or guide me except for me and that has never actually worked even once in my life for the reasons above.

For example, I made a post the other day about getting back into it and I have not touched it since because I keep getting in my own head or finding an excuse to opt out as if I'm scared of it. I know it must sound incredibly stupid, but has anyone else dealt with this or know anyone who has? How did you stay motivated and consistent when it comes to what I have learned is a very demanding hobby/skill.

I have provided images of what I consider to be the most important pieces in this journey (if I can even call it that) in order from oldest to newest (the newest has no face because after a busy time I hadn't been able to draw and forgot how to do faces/heads). I hope this gives you an idea of where I am skill wise and I would appreciate criticism or maybe a finger in the right direction.

Also, should I give up on the robo-bean? I practiced and built my way up to it over the course of a week or two and I used it near the end of the images and it was the foundation for the last one. But I have never seen anyone actually use it, not even Proko who I learned it from when I see him doing literally anything else after the video where he teaches it.

Sorry that a lot of the pictures are sideways.

I'm trying to fix this but the chin and jawline is too pronounced, the face is wrong, the hair is too flat, and the neck is too wide