How much time is too much time?

I'd say to not worry about it as much. Take your time as your still learning(correct me if i'm wrong) When working professionally, the time can vary depending on the company and your position. The more experience you get, the faster you'll get. Just focus on your objective for the piece as well as the most important factor which is having fun.

If your struggling with anatomy, do more figure/anatomy studies. If you want to focus on design only, you can do what Marc Brunet recommended and take a real life model and draw over it. Just take your time no pun intended.

Again if you're struggling with your poses, then just do more studies and try to find a way for yourself to remember it better and continue to do a lot of studies.

Hope this helps.

I don't remember where, but I once read this by an artist I admired (except he for sure put it more eloquently than me):
Concentrate on doing well, having the right anatomy, lighting, making interesting and logical design, colors that fit together and so on. Those are your keystones on which you build your future skill. You are still learning them and that what takes you time. Speed will come naturally later with practice.
If you instead concentrate on speed, everything else will suffer.

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Anyway, in my opinion it's also important to know when to stop a piece and consider it finished, but when I read this, I stopped fretting about my times.

If you skip the learning part and use some shortcuts, you will be done quicker, but end up with a rushed piece and no new knowledge.
If you get stuck on one piece for a month and learn nothing from it when you could have made 5 other pieces and learn a lot, it's not worth it.

Balance is the key But what the balance is, it's up to you. Do what feels good and don't stress it!

I think it varies per person but in art school we stop when we get stuck and come back later to see what can be changed.
Personally I wouldn't spend too much time on a piece when I get the feeling it is a waste of time or I'm getting stuck.

If you get stuck on a pose, then do more studies on poses. It doesn't have to look neat, just get your mind off your work. This method helps me a lot.

I can only mirror what everyone else has said - take your time and make something that you're happy with without worrying about how long it's taking. You'll probably find you make less mistakes that way as well - I was always told 'slow is smooth and smooth is fast.'

Also, for the most part, at the end of the day people will remember how great your work is, not how much longer it took you than the other person.

Hi, I know this is an older post but I want to get back to these forums and would like to share my thoughts on this subject.

My first point I'd like to point out is you will never stop learning. If your doing characters you will struggle with poses forever. The human figure has a near infinite pose potential. Mastering every angle is a huge task and one that takes a life time.

However, to speed up your drawing time I would suggest doing gesture drawings for 30 min's to warm your self up. Drawing cold leads to longer drawing times. Warming up also helps you get into the drawing mood and lets your brain shift gears to the artist side easier.

As far as time goes I break it down to sections.
1. Anatomy and Pose - This part I'd say is 90% of the work and can not be rushed.
2. Clothing and Details - This part I'd say is 8% of the work and is the fun part.
3. Light / Shadow / Color - This part is really the final 2%

In terms of time there's a major difference in drawing thumbnails and getting a final render. Thumbnails need to be created fast and this is what you show your clients to see what they like and what they want for a certain character. The turn around pose is some thing you'll have to learn to do quickly. However, the final render based on the turn around drawing is where you spend your final time.

To create a character it can take days, weeks, or even months before a client feels like the character is done. Now for your portfolio work, I would say come up with a concept and spend a week or 2 weeks on one character until you feel you have hit the nail.

Anyway I hope this helps you and anyone else who may be having the same questions and / or concerns.

Happy Drawing !

I have this problem sometimes. My average work on a painting is 2 to 3 hours. And then I look at all those artists and I see that they spent more than 6 hours on a piece. So if i add in those extra hours I could get an even better illustration! But then you see Marc's work and he take so little time to finish a concept art piece but he has like tons of experience prior. So i think you just need to take a much time as you need, but if you are working on concept art or this that require a deadline then practice setting a time limit for a couple of drawings to see what you can get within that time frame.

Marc has plenty pieces that took him 8+ hours. Hehe.