LF Constructive Criticism

I dunno about the artists sin thing but as far as just your examples go there isnt much shading on them at all thats noticable. I'm not sure who told you that you can't shade in colors but i think they're wrong i do all the time and its one of my personal favorite design elements when other people use it in their cell shaded works!

Stylistically it feels very flash cartoon to me, at least with the nice block colors and the thick, uniform, colored lineart which may just not jive with the people you're offering art to?

Proportionally it looks mostly good actually though theres obviously a few tweaks that can be done here and there. The biggest thing that pops out to me is the hands on your anthros look really small, like they could be almost twice the size that their drawn and it would probably look fine, i had a big problem with getting those kinds of proportions down myself. I cant really give any critique on the feral art though as I don't have enough of a trained eye with animal proportions.

If your drawing everyday and doing exercises and still feel like your flatlining or that youre unhappy with your art: then I'd suggest doing a couple of style challenges, where you pick your favorite artists/shows/illustrators etc. And try drawing one of your OCs in their style and really pick apart why you like that style so much, is it the lineart, the way they shade, their proportions and posing, maybe the specific way they draw the nose on a character or how they draw markings or fur? Narrowing down exactly what you like seeing in others' art can help you incorporate a lot of those elements into your own work and make you happier with it!

Other than that if you really want to improve quickly then its time to get to the grind and do exercises before you settle into casual drawing, you know the usual: figure drawing, shade the box, rando painting/lighting tutorials, perspective exercises, draw the first object you see, pages of hands, feet and the other hard to draw stuff. You know the boring bits of fast improvement lol

I wish you luck, you have a ton of potential right at your fingertips, keep at it!

It can be really disheartening to have your art turned down but don't take it as a reflection of your abilities or your potential.

First, I'd love to see more art from you! The examples you provided don't show your full range (for example, I'd like to see one with the shading you mentioned so I can give proper critique!)

How to improve:

Drawing every day is important but it won't drastically improve your work, instead I think practising everyday just gets you comfortable with a particular style. The best way to improve is to experiment.  Try new line art styles, try new ways of shading, try different types of colours. If you want to improve anatomically then you need to do studies from real life and then try stylisations. Set some time aside each day to do warm up practices that are more realistic then create a full artwork. The artwork you do that day can be whatever you like but you'll find that by doing more work to expand your capabilities you'll improve faster. 

Another important thing to keep in mind is the sort of art you want to make. It will help you improve if you have a clearer idea of the art style you would like to have. Feel free to draw inspiration from other people but please don't outright copy others, its better for your own art if you just take certain ideas from different sources (like maybe you like the type of lineart from one artist or the hard cel shading of another, etc.) and start applying those types of things to your own work. 

Critique:

I'm actually not sure what sort of critique to give you. Not because you're doing bad (you're not! I think your art is nice!) Everything that I could tell you to improve is something that you need to figure out for yourself. Instead, I'm gonna tell you about areas to improve in. 

- try different line art brushes and styles. For some reason, this was the one that got me to improve the most. This is the one that took so long for me to figure out. If you are completely stuck and don't know where to go, you might be neglecting this aspect, try something new. 

- Work on your colour theory. Learn which colours go well together and most importantly, which colours you draw best with. Everyone has different colours that they like and are good at drawing with. For me it's purples and brighter colours. For you? you'll have to see. Usually it'll be your favourite colour. 

-Shading adds so much to a work, try getting good at this one. Shading with purples and blues is absolutely not an 'artist's sin', it's all in the way you go about it. In fact, I would encourage you to use those colours but make sure they go well with the base colour! This is something you'll work out how to do with experimentation.

-Drawing from real life will always help you improve in your art regardless of whether you have non-realistic style because it will help you nail down those proportions.  

-Another shading tip: do cel shading instead of airbrush shading. Of course, you don't have to follow this advice as I'm sure that airbrush shading can be made to work but cel shading does tend to look better in cartoon style artwork. 

-For your feral art, work on your legs + paws. When I first started drawing, those were the ones I had the most trouble with and they're the hardest parts to get right. It'll be frustrating working on it but eventually you'll get there and be able to draw them confidently and well. 

I can see a lot of techniques you're developing at the moment such as in this piece where you're using guidelines to help you, this is great!

Also, I noticed that it says you draw with your finger on your iPad. I started out the same way! When you get a drawing tablet, it'll be hard to adjust to at first but it does get easier. You'll also have much greater access to art tools than on the iPad so that'll help you improve! 

Keep in mind:
I'm not sure how long you've been doing art for but it takes years to start being happy with it. I've been doing digital art since I was 12 and I'm 19 now. Want to know when I finally reached a point where I felt happy with my art? Last month! It took 7 years just to start to feel okay and to feel like I was making the art I wanted to make. Don't lose hope!

Keep working at it and one day you can reflect on your old pieces and see how far you've come.

astro Thank you for all your advice! I'll try all of  it ^^

As for the iPad thing, that's around 4 months old ^^'' My cousin helped me out to get an XP-PEN Artist 12, so that's one of the reasons I've improved (Those art examples are cringey to me and I find it hard to believe that was 4 months ago, drawing with an iPad is super hard and tends to take up more time, so I put less effort into it sadly.) 

Again, thank you, I'm starting to get more faith in my art c: I guess I was just being a little sensitive that around 12 offers got turned down because of my art quality. (Some even stopped replying after seeing my examples, I dunno, maybe they got busy and I was just being overreactive?) 

@Kree_Kat Thank you ^^ I'll look into cell shading, I've seen people mention it a lot but not quite sure what it is. I think I'll also do the "draw in other styles" too, since I've done it before and it helped with improvement. >w<

SushiiBean

unfortunately some people are a bit rude and just don't reply, I've had it happen to me too. I would much rather be outright turned down than have people not respond. 

It's awesome you got an art tablet tho! I'm sure you've been making lots of cool art with it. Don't let other people get you down, you're on the right track!

astro I would rather that too :c Sometimes I feel like replying with "So that's a no then?" but honestly that wouldn't do me any good if they just forgot to reply  ;w; 

Thank you! I'm so happy to have it now, I've wanted one for around a year and a half now :D I'll try not to!

Well, you could do with quite a bit of improvement on the anatomy side. Getting an art tablet helps a lot compared to a mouse, but I actually find it harder to draw with a tablet compared to paper!

With anatomy, look at references, references and references. Look at muscular structures to break down bodies into simpler shapes.

Left is the basic breakdown of the shapes. My stuff tends to be super sketchy so I'll usually make a new layer and draw over it to refine. I did this in MS Paint though.

Right is the MINIMUM number of refs I'll use if I want to do a good job.

I think the main problem is that your art is very simplistic and small. Simplistic art isn't necessarily bad. It depends on how you do it. Like some people said before me try to improve the anatomy a bit and try to make it pop more?! The current state you're at is not bad at all, it just needs some refining in my opinion. Try to add more details. Adding details is also generally a bit easier if you have a good anatomy understanding. (Speaking from own experience here) . If you know where to place things you can put in more refined muscle shapes ( by that the character doesn't have to be very muscular ) 

Just continue practicing. :) It sometimes takes a long time but it's worth it. I know not getting responses can be very frustrating

I recommend working on life/anatomy studies and trying more dynamic poses 

There's also nothing wrong with copying other people's art for your own learning, as long as you don't make $ or say it's your own work.  That's a good way to develop complexity in your art if you don't know where to start - find different artists of a higher level that you like and want to emulate, and copy some of their art - first exactly, then try and make your own images out of what you've learned.  After a while you'll no longer be copying certain people, it'll just be integrated into your style. Combine that with observational studies and your own artistic tendencies and it can help push your style in a certain direction.