These tips arent from me, its from Robert Chang or Lunatique in CGtalk.com. Thanks Rob!
and also thanks Keiichi from ComicFeista forum for sharing.

1) Buckle down and really learn the foundations (composition, perspective, anatomy/figure, color theory, values/lighting...etc). You cannot really call yourself a competent artist until you have done so. Ideally you should not only learn them, but master them, and when you do, you're not merely competent, but confident and authoritative as well.

2) Break out of tunnel vision. If you are obsessed with anime/manga, or superhero comics, or any kind of specific style and have not been exposed to or have explored fully other art movements, styles, cultures, and time periods, then you need to become more well-rounded. Tunnel-vision is creatively crippling and it breeds imitation and homogenized artists who can't think outside the established box. Cross pollinating and hybridizing various art styles and influences is the healthiest and most creatively interesting.

3) Don't be a mindless artist. Think about why you are creating. Is your only interest to make "cool shit" and "hot babes"? Do you even have something to say as a human being living in a complex society? Is everything about your creative works completely disposable and meaningless? I'm not saying we have to be "deep" all the time, but if you are producing works that have absolutely no meaning even to yourself and only serving the basest level of gratification, never involving the higher motivations like intellect or emotions, then maybe it's time to dig a little deeper. You have a soul--use it.

4) Don't slavishly copy reality--we invented the camera for that. Being an artist is about interpreting the world around us, expressing ideas and emotions, telling visual stories...etc. If your commercial job as an artist is to reproduce reality, then well, a job is a job. But if you have aspirations beyond a day job, then really think about how you want to approach your personal works. As artists we have the power to stylize, exaggerate, simplify, selectively detail, idealize, use abstract and surreal approaches--it would be a shame to not utilized those powers.

5) Surface polish is the last on the list of things a growing artist should care about. How clean and tight your render the surface, how expressive and organic your brushwork is, whether to use clean lines or sketchy lines...etc--they are all simply options you can pick and choose as you wish, and often different subject matters will use different surface treatments. More than anything, it's the underlying structure and foundation knowledge that needs to be strong--the surface polish is really an ongoing experiment, and it's always changing and evolving. A good artist should be able to utilize all kinds of surface polish approaches effectively, not just locked into one and knowing nothing else. If your underlying foundation is strong, then almost any surface treatment will work with it, but if your underlying foundation is weak, no surface treatment will save it. You know the saying "You can't polish turd..."?

6) Do not simply practice hard--you must also practice smart. Don't run around in circles thinking merely filling up sketchbooks aimlessly is all it takes. Plan your growth with milestones. Set clear goals. Be resourceful and know how and where to acquire knowledge. Target your weaknesses and don't dwell on things you can already do in your sleep--train on the things you can't yet do and learn to do them well. Push yourself and explore your limits, then break those limits. Learn and grow with a clear focus--know exactly why you are doing what you're doing at any given moment, and know exactly how it will help you learn and grow. Don't just draw and paint mindlessly--think about what you're doing and analyze, observe, deconstruct, and recognize the structures and patterns--be it the scientific physical laws of our world (light, shadows, colors, stress and compression points of fabric...etc), or creative approaches that yield the most effective results (utilizing contrast in color, values, and shapes, varying edge qualities..etc).

7) Have realistic expectations; Rome was not built in a day. It takes years of working hard and working smart to get good. Filling up a sketchbook or two means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Artists don't just draw a few dozen heads and then get it right--they draw hundreds and thousands over the years, decades, and they don't do it mindlessly--they are studying the underlying structure of the human head and the affected surface by different facial expressions. And that's just the head.

8) Learn to take criticism. To be an artist and living among other people means you will get comments about your work, and if you cannot take criticism you will be miserable. Instead of being miserable, you should see criticism as valuable arsenal for your growth. When nobody bothers commenting is when you should be worried, because your work is not able to elicit any response from another human being, which means you are neither getting helpful criticism to help you grow, nor getting feedback on what people like about it. When you get both negative and positive comments, be grateful, be gracious, and keep an open mind. A bruised ego is an ego that's being conditioned to be stronger and more open-minded. If you cannot see beyond your bruised ego, you will become crippled by it. Also keep in mind that sometimes you don't get feedback because you are simply still too early in your growth, where everything you do is wrong, so it's very hard to give feedback on specific points other than "keep learning your foundations." When that happens, buckle down and strengthen your foundations for a while and you'll automatically see improvements.

9) Be a well-rounded person. If you know how to draw and paint well but have no life experience, your work will suffer. Learn about the world we live in. History, politics, religion, economics, science, literature, music, photography, film...etc. You'd be surprised how the world is interconnected and so many things have direct or indirect relationships with each other beyond your initial understanding. The more insight you have about the world we live in, the better artist you will be. Have healthy relationships with other people--family, friends, lovers. They often form the core of your emotional expression as a human being and as an artist. An intellectually and emotionally sterile or vacant person will have very little to offer as an artist.

10) You may or may not be suited to become a good artist. There are all kinds of personality types, and not all are suited to become a good artist. If you are impatient, cannot sit still, lose focus quickly, easily frustrated, lack motivation, lack ambition, cannot take negative criticism, wants only instant gratification and not willing to pay your dues...etc, then you probably won't fare well as an artist. This goes the same for many other human endeavors--not only the creative ones.

Human beings are not created equal physically or mentally, and we have different potentials and different degrees of natural inclination for certain endeavors. Whether you have the natural inclination to be good at art may or may not dictate whether you'll become a good artist--it's your willingness to learn and excel and your ability to persevere through hardship that is the most important. More than anything, you must be able to enjoy the process of learning and growing. If you are hating every step of the way, then maybe you love the idea of being an artist but your personality dictates you are not suited to actually be an artist. Remember, wanting something and being suited for it are often not the same thing.

It's like how some people watch dancers on stage and wish they can do it, and they love shaking their ass to the beat--they feel good doing that. But once they look into actually becoming a competent or professional dancer, they lose the will to go on because the demanding physical training and the relentless pursuit for perfection that pushes their body and mind to the breaking point is way too exhausting for their personality to deal with. In other words, they have the desire but not the personality for it. It's those that enjoy the demanding training and whose passion extends beyond merely the desire, but also embrace the demanding training and pushes on through pain and exhaustion to triumph over the odds--they are the ones who end up on stage. Becoming a good artist is very much the same. You must embrace the entire journey, through frustration, failures, sore eyes and cramping hands, long periods of no apparent progress, self-doubt and self-loathing, insecurities, envy and jealousy over others' talents and achievements, and so on, to finally emerge as someone that others will look up to and label as a "good artist."

You have to not only have the desire but also the ability to persevere, or else remain a fan, a hobbyist, or pick something else that's more suited to your personality. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because you may actually end up a happier person by remaining a fan of good artists instead of trying to become one yourself, as being a fan does not require you to make sacrifices or go through years of anguish and frustration only to feel like a failure and nowhere near your goal. No one can tell you whether you can stick it out. You won't even know until you have reached your breaking point. Some people get a couple of years under their belt and have started to get competent, but not yet good enough, and then they stop for whatever reasons. Some people get a few weeks into it and decide it's not as fun as they thought it would be. Some even get very close at becoming a good artist and then they stop because they feel they've had enough, or they have focused their attention on other endeavors in life. There is no right or wrong in any of this--your life's journey is your own, and as long as you feel fulfilled as a human being, you're on the right track (well, unless your fulfillment involves harming others).

So yeah, that's pretty much my top 10 tips to becoming a good artist. Just about everything on the list is interchangeable with other endeavors in life. I really believe it to be true because I have gone through the journey to teaching myself to excel at multiple creative endeavors (art, writing, music, photography...etc), and those 10 tips apply to every one of them. Becoming good at something is not the end-all, be-all goal--it merely opens one of the doors to a life of fulfillment, and the journey continues well beyond merely becoming good at something. Once you become good at something, you try to master it, and on the journey to mastering something, you realize it's only a part of your entire life's journey that includes everything else in life--your growth as a human being--emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and the journey goes on until you die. Maybe it continues in the afterlife, but we won't know until we get there.

end of the tip msg.
hope it gives some help to u DA pals! XD
anwy from the previous journal that i mention about that i had finally able to sew my own cosplay after having the materials that i waited for so long. while i was working on it half way...the darn sewing machine broke down. i was like screaming in super frustration. it was so coincidence that it made my month worst into far worst. =.=' for atleast i have my own cosplay i won't feel so bad.
oh well.. nvm...i gues going there as a customer wouldn't be that bad either. just that...i feel kinda sad that i can't get to join them and getting to know them better.
and i post and recieve some feeback at the comic feista forum about "becoming a cosplayer tailor can make a living?"
hmmm...hate to admit... my parents were right.. =.=' but the ppl there say working as a side job can earn good money. so im gonna try that~! but also worried whether i can do it or not...anwy im also going job hunting. pray for me that i can get a job i can fit in >.<

my beloved DA freinds~


clubs that i join~