I Drew for 11,770 Hours... Here's What I Learned

Hey friends, in this video I share the details of my 11,770 hour art journey, from how my art evolved every 1000h of the journey, to the challenges and life changing lessons I came across along the way. Enjoy :)

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WHO AM I:
Hey 👋 I'm Ori, an artist and (soon-to-be) VTuber. On this channel we dive into all things drawing—from tips and tutorials to exploring how we can level up both our art and ourselves.
Clients I've worked with include Hololive, Clip Studio Paint, Coloso, Haoplay, Huion, XPPen, and more.
I also received the Player's Voice award in Honkai: Star Rail's Creator Competition 2024.

⌚️Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:02 Before the 10,000 hours
03:57 The Wake Up Call
07:12 0-2000 Hours: Beginner’s Hell
09:11 2001-3,000 Hours: The Shoulders of Giants
12:31 3001-5,000 Hours: The Grind
14:32 5001-7,000 Hours: Range & Deep Work
17:23 7001-9,000 Hours: Breaking the Bottleneck
19:24 9001-10,000 Hours: The Breakthrough Point
20:46 10,001-11,770 Hours: The Changing Game

PS: Some of the links in this description are affiliate links that help support the channel (at no extra cost to you) ✨

[oridays]

📝 P.S. I wasn't able to fit this into the video but wanted to share it anyway:
Upon reading some of my old notes I found out that I thought about quitting multiple times throughout the journey.
It was bizzare since I didn't remember at all until I read those notes again.

I heard someone say before "you're not an artist until you've thought about quitting at least once."
So we're definitely not alone in how difficult the journey can be.

And probably the biggest 'secret' to art is sticking to it, and pushing through all the hard times.
Keep at it gang 💪

[ZeroKung]

This video doesn’t just give us an artist’s perspective, it’s like a therapist guiding us through life’s journey and a successful mindset. I truly enjoyed your story, and I’m so glad that I found your channel. Thank you, Ori! <3

[JustSomeoneFallen]

When I was in grade school I used to draw super well but due to struggles in life, I stopped all my hobbies and lost interest in most things I loved doing. Now in high school, I started drawing again but I noticed all my drawings sucked unlike before. I practiced for about 2 weeks and I drew a character for about 3-5ish hours I was proud of it, and I showed it to my "friends", and they said my drawing was... bad. After that I never drew once, but... this video gave me hope! Thank you for this video Ori! To anyone who reads this, I hope you have a nice day <3

[SlimeyHD]

Hearing how much you struggled in the beginning gives me some hope again! On the internet you usually you just see the success of the people and never the path that lead to the success so this video is really helping me understand that I am not a slow learner but just need to stay consistent. Thank you ori!

[yukishika.yamamoto]

As someone who taught violin for 22 years, I realised that the 10, 000 hour rule works better if the learner is mindful, is aware of one's ultimate goal and does research on how to get there.

Illustration wise, playing Azur Lane helped me to improve a lot as I observe their artwork from various points like anatomy, proportions, and inking.

[freakish]

Another tip for any aspiring artists that I picked up from Marc Brunet
Observation haki(Just look at your favourite artists drawings)... Not just look but look hard and thoroughly for a few minutes without drawing but just imagining the process you would follow while drawing that subject matter... Do it enough times with all your focus and you'll start seeing lines float in your head(the amount time is obviously different for everyone)

[Naescent]

This is honestly the best, most condensed video on art I've watched. It feels like this is the only video anyone would ever need to learn art, besides some fundamentals videos. Great work!

[inekd]

Taking sponsorship deals from better help in 2024 is wild

[ContinentalDrip]

I've been trying to learn anime style art for the past 4 years but i never met any major improvement or breakthrough, and for a while I just did the cycle of doing it again and just quitting, I felt like I was stuck in this beginner's hell.
That was until i found some of your tutorials recently when i actually started to improve.

I'm still very VERY BAD at drawing anime style art, but after watching your videos and my Japanese friend motivating me recently, finally after 4 years of quitting I finally started to improve even if it's just that minor 0.1% improvement, it felt like a very MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH and I couldn't thank you enough!
I still have a long way to go but having your tutorials makes it easier.
Thank you from Indonesia!

[MauveButterfly]

"I'll see you guys again, hopefully, at twenty thousand hours."

Hopefully we see you again before that.

[schindy]

This did so much for my mental health. I am currently at around 400 hours and I kept on judging myself for not being as good as I expected myself to be. It is nice to see that someone whos art I appreciate (ori) took a long amount of time and I might just need more time. It kinda made me realise that I am not bad, I just didnt spend enough time on it yet

[luzztheluzzer]

You’re actually the best guidance for me here on youtube, you actually know how to tell and make people listen. It’s so entertaining to listen and watch who has the same dream as mine and listen to their journey. Thank you Ori.

[lolovecat]

As an artist who drew for more than 10 000 hours and still feel like I'm unable to break the bottleneck, it's inspiring yet making me anxious as my artist friends don't give me helpful feedbacks and grinding isn't enough to make me past that level
You're amazing

[くもすけ]

You have no idea how well timed this video was for me

[AmiMizook]

As beginner myself... I... actually overwhelmed just by watching this vid... the amount of experience, knowledge, wisdom and struggle you went through is... simply beyond my comprehension... as if i appraisal a god-lvl playerXD
I hope you make video about you actually "learn" during your beginner days... im pretty lost at what should I do...

[meisheet]

This reminds me of a video i watched for school about growth mindsets. At the time, i just brushed it off because for some reason whenever school tries to do things for mental positivity, it feels like it won't work. But this is a great example of not letting your obstacles discouraging you and viewing everything with the opportunity to grow. It makes me think, maybe this growth mindset thing isnt a sham after all xD

[ASerokai]

I don't know if this is just the usual "3am motivation" thing going through my head right now, but I saw a reflection of myself right now from the 6 years of you before

Depressed. Lost. Frustrated.

All of the wisdom you've shared in this video weighs gold for me right now, despite being apathetic and lethargic for the past 2 years.

If I were to see this video before, I may have just gave it a listen and give up on it because I just simply don't see a future in me. But somehow, right now, I feel like I've been given a chance by someone whom I don't know and doesn't know me either.

I would use the word 不思議 to perfectly describe this moment. Maybe this IS the wake up call. Maybe I DO have a chance. Maybe I can BE someone that my parents could be proud of.

If you are reading this, might be a stranger or Oridays themself, we are lucky that fate lead us to this miraculous moment, that because Oridays made this video that it could just be that one thing to be a catalyst for someone to start something fresh and anew, despite life treating them horribly.

I would like to end this somewhat melancholic comment in a happy note. It's a blessing that these types of encounters are now possible because we live in this current age. Ultimately, it's up to us what to do with this information. But I guess we should complain after we travel through the first "10000 hours" first 😊

[JH-pero]

I'm old enough to have taken this kind of journey through programming, and then I decided I wanted to do it again with drawing and comics - and along the way I gradually narrowed that to traditional, mostly black and white inks. While I'm probably not at the 10, 000 hour mark, it takes less time when you're doing the new game plus, and that's mostly because of learned patience, access to resources, and selective focus 😅

I would say this about the skills, though. Most narrow/deep skills can be successfully introduced at between 10 and 100 hours, which is much less intimidating than "10, 000 to mastery". That's the level where, if you're doing something for a class, that level of effort will give you a major breakthrough and let you pass a test, even if it's not with a perfect grade. The biggest difficulty in the early phases of drawing is that there are actually a lot of ways to narrow things down, but each one takes you away from the language and initial motivations: "draw this character" has to be broken down to a bunch of technical things about how to compose a scene and making use of reference and applying perspective and so on. Those barriers are overcome by telling yourself to immerse yourself in each of these fragments of language for a while so that you can bring them out fluidly when you return back to "draw this character". The hardest part is always in that early committment of going from hour 1 to hour 2. It's not going from hour 999 to hour 1000 that's hard.

Thus my current study project is to work through each page of Bridgman's "100 hands" book, just copying and doing some breakdowns a few different ways. Instead of counting hours, I count pages. I've done this with anatomy, animal drawing, and composition already. At the 80% mark, my hand drawing has definitely improved, although my success rate when working from imagination remains mixed.

[JustPeasu]

Nice video! I have a feeling that this channel will become very important for a lot of artists in the future, especially as a bridge to Japanese-Stylized Art. I think your unique journey can really illustrate this well.

[MrAflac_]

This video gave me a lot more motivation for my music career. I originally wanted to be a professional bass player, but i realized that i can’t do it without a teacher, and the music school i got accepted to is super expensive on campus, which really demotivated me.

Then i realized that i have another talent for making music, i listen to Jpop/rock/anime music for 5-6 years, i know how to make anime music from the experience i have from listening to them every single day. Which made me decided to switch to online music school and focus on music production, where i can fully focus on making music, and getting better on bass as a side hobby for the moment.

Everything here i can relate to you, music is a very long journey, just like art. Before you can find yourself, you have to be inspired by the music you love, and slowly mix in your own music taste into something that resembles you.