Improving your art through ARPGs: pros and cons

Heya, so recently I've been thinking about this. I've been in probably more than 50 forum, ARPG and other RP type groups throughout my life. All of them to an extent I've treated like an ARPG, doing almost as many drawings as I did text posts.

I realised that in a way this has shaped the way I've learned and I wanted to clue you guys in on how you can possibly avoid my mistakes and use the games to your advantage.

Now, I know that plenty of you will be lackadaisical about your art: it's a minor hobby for you or you don't really have any strong desire to improve your work. You just want to relax and enjoy - that's fine. You can probably stop reading. This is for the others - those of you who love games like this but want to level up your skills at the same time. Because these games have a lot of good points but they also have some major pitfalls if you care about improvement.

The Pros:

It's a short list, but all of them are great reasons to stick around.

- Community.
This is right up there: you can talk about your art. You see art that inspires you, you can reach out for help. There are other ways to get this help and community in the art world, and some are better for skill, but most of them are less fun. 

- Gamification.
This is a psychological technique that is being accidentally employed by ARPGs. Doing a sketch is fun, but it's more fun if you get some points or items out of it. This means that all of us are subconsciously encouraged to do more art than we might be doing just on our own.

- Inspiration.
All of us in these communities are building stories together, and it really fires your brain to do that sort of building with other people. I have stories on my own, but I always feel more inspired when I'm in a RP community.

- Challenge (sometimes).
This is a partial-pro. On the one hand, you may be asked to do something you don't normally do in order to get more points. Humans and backgrounds being very commonly cited. On the other hand if you can do these things already they may not be a challenge for you. It's a matter of context within your learning curve.

The Cons:

Here we go. The pros list was pretty obvious, but some of these are not so obvious.

- You are rewarded for doing work that doesn't challenge you.
This, to me, is a major problem. Take Tokotas: you might want a bunch of HP for your character. The only criteria for HP is that you make a picture with X, Y and Z in it. Well, you could knuckle down, do poses that are hard for you, do settings that are hard for you, really push yourself. 
Or in the same time period you do 3 badly-drawn pictures of your character standing still, facing dead straight, on a dull background.
Both will be rewarded the same way by the game - in fact you would be getting less reward if you challenged yourself because it would take longer for the same points.

- The Hugbox Effect.
I love praise. I doubt any artist dislikes praise, it's freakin' awesome. Sometimes it can be exactly what you need when you're feeling doubtful of your work.
But, too much praise is like too much cake: it makes you a bloated sugar addict. Soon you won't want praise, you'll need praise in order to keep from being depressed with your art. You start repeating the same type of work over and over, never taking risks, because you don't want to risk people disliking your work. This is DEATH for your skill progress. You need to take risks and make mistakes, how else are you going to learn anything?
My friend, you've been locked in the Hugbox.

- Reading about art or the game is not the same thing as practicing.
I'm extremely guilty with this one: I will commonly read tutorials, download brushes or do other muddled stuff when I would probably get way more use from the time if I just made some pictures.
I'm not saying never do those things - they're fun and they can be genuinely helpful. But keep in mind that out of all the things that will help you improve, practice is definitely the most important.

- You're locked in a narrow section of the art world.
There are other people out there with other styles, but you're not seeing it. The community has a particular 'look' to most of the artwork. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it always helps to expand your horizons. Stick your head out sometimes and take a good look around. Look at great artists from the distant past or distant parts of the internet. Draw settings and creatures and people that are outside the bounds of the game. Learn about the big wide world. It's super refreshing!


Guys, none of that is a good reason to quit. BUT. You need to be aware of these things if you're going to keep your head on straight and improve your work while you're doing ARPG art. I hoped this has helped someone! There's probably more that I haven't thought of, but I might add things on later.

If you have some more pros and cons or you just want to discuss please comment below