ArtGrind

The ArtGrind is a 60 day art challenge aimed at helping you improve your art through regular practice. The idea of the grind is to show your improvement from beginning the exercise to after.

Participation is easy, and artists of any skill level can join.  First, Choose an original character of your own, or, if you don’t have an OC, you can use any character really. Then you will Draw 1 picture of that character (following the promps or not) every day for 60 days.  On the last day, post a side by side of your 1st day and your last day on social media to show your progress!

Make sure to tag your posts on Twitter with #artgrind2020 so everyone can see how you are doing!

The ArtGrind originally began on Livejournal in May of 2008 by Jakkal and ShadowsMyst. The original challenge was to draw for 6 months (or roughly 180 days) , but the modern one has been cut down to 60 days to make a bit more manageable. We may bring back the original format in a secondary challenge that really hardcore people want to talk on can. But for now, this is a 60 day challenge.

The ArtGrind is for artists, by artists and is driven by the idea of honing their skills through consistency and practice by drawing a character of your choice (preferably an original one, either made for this challenge or maybe one you’ve had for years) over period of time. It’s an opportunity to try out ideas, techniques, and work on building good art habits to keep you growing as an artist with a known subject.

If you would like to join the ArtGrind, its easy. Just read the rules, follow us on twitter, grab the prompts and start drawing. speaking of rules, here are the basics.

Step 1: You will need to pick one character that will be the subject of your grind. This is preferably an original character, either made up specifically for the grind, or a personal OC. You can use a fan character, or draw a real person instead of a fictional one BUT you cannot trace and you absolutely /must/ credit the proper owner of the intellectual property. It must be your own interpretations of the character/person not something just copied from a tv screenshot or traced from a photo.

Step 2: Check out the prompts for inspiration, but you are not required to use them if you want to do something else. The most important thing is doing a drawing of your chosen character every day. You can add backgrounds, or other characters, but you must include your chosen character in all your drawings somehow for 60 days. Post them on twitter and hashtag them with #artgrind2020 (Please note that we will only share/like stuff that’s SFW.)

Step 3: When you have completed the challenge, put your first drawing and last (60th) drawing side by side and savor the improvement!

Q: Do I have to do a drawing everyday? Can I do more than one?
A: We understand people have lives and can’t always post everyday, but the point of the challenge is to try as hard as you can to make drawing a daily activity. If you can do more than one, that’s great! If you miss a day, its not the end of the world, but try to stay on the daily schedule once you start. If you can make it up, awesome, if not, well this is a challenge! See how far you can go.

Q: Can I start after the ‘official’ start of a grind? I only found out about this now.
A: Absolutely! The point is to get 60 consecutive days of drawing done. So if you miss the ‘start’ you can still join in, you’ll just need to get cracking to make up on lost time. You can also just start and work through one of the prompt lists at any time.

Q. What if I want to draw more than one character?
A: For the purposes of the challenge, generally you want to focus on one character at a time, though you can certainly draw extra characters in a particular day’s picture. If you want to draw more outside of the challenge, feel free!

Q. Can I draw fanart characters (anime, or whatever) instead of my own OC?
A. You can, but there are some rules as above. You cannot trace them, or closely copy from another source. You must come up with your own interpretation or expression of the character. If its someone’s personal OC you should get permission from that person, and regardless, we expect you to make a point of crediting your source material. This applies to drawing real people as well. You must pick a single person and you must do your own interpretation, no straight up copying existing sources.  We have no respect or time for thieves.

Q. Can I do a NSFW character? 
A: You can if that’s what you want to do, same rules apply about picking only one character to focus on. We will not however be officially sharing anything on our twitter feed that is NSFW. We want this to be a challenge that is suitable for all ages, including minors.

Q. Is there a prize for this challenge? 
A. No, its just a fun challenge for artists to test themselves against. The only prize you get is improvement of your skills and satisfaction.

Q. Can I make or sell collections of artwork that is related to this challenge?
A. They are your characters, and your art, do what you want. If you are doing fan art of a known or licenced property, the same rules for that would apply regarding selling/publication of a copyrighted work. If you want to use the ArtGrind name, all we ask is that you add our URL and our name in the publication. If you require a logo, please let us know on twitter.