What I'd trade for being able to sketch quickly and reliably? Pretty much every other art-related skill. I know what I'm asking for: it's a great understanding of the basics. And I know what it takes: it's practice.
But I have practiced a lot (actual classes and lots of hours) and I still really REALLY struggle with simple anatomy, form and perspective. I'm super inconsistent and very, very slow because I'm kinda guessing at lines until something looks kind of right. I can do finishing work I'm okay with but that's like the frosting so if the cake is lumpy and underbaked...
I love visual storytelling. Ideally think of, say, a storyboard artist vs a comic penciller. I'd be happy at storyboard level, just getting the point across, if the product was understandable and didn't take five or ten times longer than it should if I'm lucky. Even if I never got farther than that or ever "finished" a piece. Because there's so much I'd like to communicate with art that I feasibly can't, so I just kinda feel frustrated all the time.
I hope it’s ok to reblog and add to this, but I just wanted to say this was SO relatable. Recently I don’t struggle with it as much as I did, but for the vast majority of the time I’ve been drawing, I’ve felt this pretty hard. It seemed like I was just not grasping something fundamental and I was constantly struggling to make something halfway decent to me. And forget about drawing or even sketching at a decent speed. I was like cold molasses. (And then some other artists I’d follow seemed to just have some innate ability which made me feel even worse lol) Right now I have a few ideas for original and fan projects on the back burner because I know I don’t have the ability to make something that carries the content in a way that does justice to how I imagine it in my mind (and it’s frustrating to think that I maybe never will). Sometimes I think I should just learn to write well but it seems like that’d be just as much its own struggle. I think a lot of artists have to deal with that frustration. Having said that, I can say what helped me kind of get out of that rut... I know everyone has their own path with art and creativity, but what helped me the most to be more confident and happier with my ability was probably youtube (lol). Watching really amazing artists go through their process and explain how they approach things was so so helpful. Even though I was doing that before, finding the -right- type of material to learn from made a big difference. Second most helpful for me was quick sketch poses. I suggest watching different established methods for it first instead of diving right in, but videos with timed poses at 30 second to 3 minute intervals is just amazing at forcing you to learn gesture and the ability to draw Fast (which has been my biggest gripe for a while and something I’m still trying to improve). I know it doesn’t show much in my animu fan art so it’s weird to talk about it here but I just thought it might be a helpful addition. I still feel slow and unsure a lot of the time, but compared to how I felt before it’s a world away. I guess all that to say “I feel ya” =__=