- "One day, eventually, if all the stars align, I want to maybe be able to X" pattern. Yes it's good to have goals, and socially approved of to be humble; a risk with this is that people who are compelled to do X are already doing it right now, badly, because they enjoy doing it. You could have drawn many people in the time it took you to write that post, and then said "draw better action scenes with people fighting" or "more realistic faces" or etc. Something specific. The possible red flag is: "I want to be in a band" imagining being on stage and being worshipped, instead of "I strum on the guitar and enjoy it and want to be able to play Stairway to Heaven". If by any chance you don't like the action of drawing already right now, why will you want to draw people later if you have the ability? What will change?
- You want to draw "people or landscapes". Also good to have goals and range, but possible red flag is that the goals are suspiciously vague. Could it be that you don't know what you want because you don't really want to do either of those things very much? Would you know if you wanted to draw wooden furniture that you are planning to make, or illustrations for a nightmare Lovecraft book? Instead of "I want to play Stairway to Heaven on the electric guitar" you're saying "I want to do music or singing is there a good tutorial for that?". What specific people are you drawn to? Portraits? Action movements? Cartoon style? Anime style? DC Comics style? Or what landscapes? Like Bob Ross, Bill Watterson, Studio Ghibli, or what? If you don't know and don't care, it's back to liking the idea more than the activity. If you do care, maybe choosing and focusing can give you something specific to look for in a tutorial - no point in getting one that covers hands if you want to draw mountains, no point in one which covers plants in detail if you want to draw steampunk, just because you'll be more compelled to work on things you want to work on.
- "I tried X and it didn't work". Yes guides and tutorials and things can help, red flag interpretation is also that's is such a vague comment. "I want to build websites. I tried 'Javascript the good parts' but it didn't work" as if the book 'worked' you'd be able to code and if you can't code after reading it, the book didn't work. As if working is a thing books can do or not do. Did it not give you anything to think about? Anything to practise? Did you do the self portrait at the start and end and not improve?
- "I am willing to pay hudreds of dollars" - Is that coming from a place of "expertise and coaching is something I respect" or from "can I skip the hard and boring bits by throwing money at it?". Only you can know.
- Analysis paralysis. I understand it, and I suspect a common reason for it is that people "want" to do things, but don't really want to, so there's nothing to force any action one way or another. Consider: do you want cake or ice cream? Hard decision. Do you want cake or dog poop? Easy decision. People who "want to write games" can't decide on the "best way" for months at a time. People who are compelled to get their game idea into reality have no time for analysis paralysis, any tutorial will do, get to the point already, I've got things to create! There's no analysis paralysis in "I want to plant potatoes in my garden this growing season and that gives me 2 weeks and there's one garden center near by". There's analysis paralysis in "growing some of my own food would be nice, but what? should I get an allotment? What's the perfect soil? Which online shop has the ~ best seeds ~? What tools do the pros use? What's the best gardening TV show?".
Do you want to spend your time doing the activity of drawing? Is that something you already do, now? If yes, it makes it much easier: look for the courses which teach the thing you want to improve at, specifically. If no, maybe do that first or ask yourself why you "want to be able to draw" when you don't ever draw?
This post brought to you by years of watching people say "I want to learn to program, what would be the best way(tm)" on the internet, when they could be opening an editor and fighting the parser to get some code working, any code. Paradox: If you don't care what you draw, any tutorial will do. If you do care, there should be little analysis paralysis because most tutorials are irrelevant to what you want, and of all the ones which are targetted at what you want, any one of them will do.
I mean, I agree with all your points, but red flags for what? I want to learn how to draw and am willing to invest resources to do it. Currently going through the free drawabox.com lessons and that seems to have all the exercises and videos I need to get going.
nothing terribly concrete and specific; red flags that the author (you) might be approaching it out of a panicky midlife crisis desire to achieve something, anything, to fill a hole in their soul or a desire that people would respect them more if they had more skills and achievements. X is something therefore achieve X as a checklist item to attain, even if without any particular interest in X. That the author might want to reflect on why they're looking for the best course instead of putting pencil to paper or being halfway through any course already.
The distinction between "I want to learn the basics of conversational Spanish for my holiday this summer" compared to "if I could learn another language people would like me, Spanish is supposed to be easy".
The distinction between "I want to learn to fly a helicopter and need a course which won't kill me" and "I want to learn to cook, I have a kitchen and spare food and money, and it's been years and hopefully what I need is out there somewhere I can watch or research instead of in a messy pile of ingredients in the kitchen right here".
> "Currently going through the free drawabox.com lessons and that seems to have all the exercises and videos I need to get going."
That is good. Nowhere do I mean to say "don't do it"; only to reflect that from the outside your description feels like you aren't really interested, not to tell you that you aren't or shouldn't be interested. Good luck! :)
- "One day, eventually, if all the stars align, I want to maybe be able to X" pattern. Yes it's good to have goals, and socially approved of to be humble; a risk with this is that people who are compelled to do X are already doing it right now, badly, because they enjoy doing it. You could have drawn many people in the time it took you to write that post, and then said "draw better action scenes with people fighting" or "more realistic faces" or etc. Something specific. The possible red flag is: "I want to be in a band" imagining being on stage and being worshipped, instead of "I strum on the guitar and enjoy it and want to be able to play Stairway to Heaven". If by any chance you don't like the action of drawing already right now, why will you want to draw people later if you have the ability? What will change?
- You want to draw "people or landscapes". Also good to have goals and range, but possible red flag is that the goals are suspiciously vague. Could it be that you don't know what you want because you don't really want to do either of those things very much? Would you know if you wanted to draw wooden furniture that you are planning to make, or illustrations for a nightmare Lovecraft book? Instead of "I want to play Stairway to Heaven on the electric guitar" you're saying "I want to do music or singing is there a good tutorial for that?". What specific people are you drawn to? Portraits? Action movements? Cartoon style? Anime style? DC Comics style? Or what landscapes? Like Bob Ross, Bill Watterson, Studio Ghibli, or what? If you don't know and don't care, it's back to liking the idea more than the activity. If you do care, maybe choosing and focusing can give you something specific to look for in a tutorial - no point in getting one that covers hands if you want to draw mountains, no point in one which covers plants in detail if you want to draw steampunk, just because you'll be more compelled to work on things you want to work on.
- "I tried X and it didn't work". Yes guides and tutorials and things can help, red flag interpretation is also that's is such a vague comment. "I want to build websites. I tried 'Javascript the good parts' but it didn't work" as if the book 'worked' you'd be able to code and if you can't code after reading it, the book didn't work. As if working is a thing books can do or not do. Did it not give you anything to think about? Anything to practise? Did you do the self portrait at the start and end and not improve?
- "I am willing to pay hudreds of dollars" - Is that coming from a place of "expertise and coaching is something I respect" or from "can I skip the hard and boring bits by throwing money at it?". Only you can know.
- Analysis paralysis. I understand it, and I suspect a common reason for it is that people "want" to do things, but don't really want to, so there's nothing to force any action one way or another. Consider: do you want cake or ice cream? Hard decision. Do you want cake or dog poop? Easy decision. People who "want to write games" can't decide on the "best way" for months at a time. People who are compelled to get their game idea into reality have no time for analysis paralysis, any tutorial will do, get to the point already, I've got things to create! There's no analysis paralysis in "I want to plant potatoes in my garden this growing season and that gives me 2 weeks and there's one garden center near by". There's analysis paralysis in "growing some of my own food would be nice, but what? should I get an allotment? What's the perfect soil? Which online shop has the ~ best seeds ~? What tools do the pros use? What's the best gardening TV show?".
Do you want to spend your time doing the activity of drawing? Is that something you already do, now? If yes, it makes it much easier: look for the courses which teach the thing you want to improve at, specifically. If no, maybe do that first or ask yourself why you "want to be able to draw" when you don't ever draw?
This post brought to you by years of watching people say "I want to learn to program, what would be the best way(tm)" on the internet, when they could be opening an editor and fighting the parser to get some code working, any code. Paradox: If you don't care what you draw, any tutorial will do. If you do care, there should be little analysis paralysis because most tutorials are irrelevant to what you want, and of all the ones which are targetted at what you want, any one of them will do.