TOPIC: Skyfire’s journey to success

Hi guys, after spending years lurking on this forum I have finally decided to create my own log to document my journey on the way to becoming essentially the person I want to be, I’ve never documented my thoughts like this before but I feel like it’s the best way to keep me accountable to my goals. I will be sharing personal insights and stories that I have not told any other human being, I hope you all will give me advice when I need it

In terms of my relationship with GLL Chris’s website has been HUGELY helpful in terms of me losing my virginity, understanding the sexual dynamics of women and developing a strong sense of self-worth.
I can’t remember exactly what date I read my first GLL article but I definitely remember which article it was, ‘The Plight of the lonesome bodybuilder’, up to this point I had been a 17-18 year old virgin focused on nothing else besides lifting weights and becoming as big as I possibly could be. This article definitely caused a switch in my brain, was I actually lifting weights just to get girls?If so, then I was probably already above the threshold for a lot of girls (6ft1.5 220 pounds at 18).

After reading Chris’s site I decided to stop focusing on the gym so much, which I am thankful for, I think that my obsession with the gym may have come from an innate sense of low worth, which I no longer feel. Again based on Chris’s advice and experiences I decided to become a bartender for clubs and eventually became a club promoter, which was a great way to meet girls and really build confidence talking to girls. I did this till about the age of 21, when I was being poorly paid and decided that I no longer enjoyed that life as much as I once did.

At age 21, I embarked on a business and marketing course at a University, ultimately I found that the course teaches you to be a worker for someone who already has an established business rather than teach you any entrepreneurial skills, after realising this I stopped going to my lectures and started drawing in my room, after taking LSD with a friend I decided that my life’s mission was art and decided that I wanted to go to art school. After dropping out of Uni, I spent the months leading up to the course practicing my skills.

I am now 23 approaching 24, I have finished the first year of art school and am specialising in illustration with the goal of becoming a concept designer for movies and games as well as becoming a sequential (comic book) artist. Me and my mate have been working on a story for the last year and are planning to release it after I finish art school when I have the ability to actually draw the story well.

As for my goals, they have changed considerably since I was 18, initially my goal was to just party and sleep with girls, which I did for most part, I am unsure of the number of girls I have slept with up to this point, I want to see 23 but this may be more. I know this may not seem like a big number to the guys on this forum but for me, this means I am not totally driven by my sexual impulses in the same way I was when I was a virgin. The plan now is not to focus on shagging as many girls as possible but to focus on finishing art school, developing my artwork and becoming financially independent.

I currently live with my parents in a small town, which means the logistics aren’t exactly great for pulling girls anyway but like I said this is not a huge focus of mine until I get my own place.

Nowadays I tend to spend a lot of time working on developing my drawing skills, but I do feel like I have an entrepreneurial streak, like I said me and my mate are writing a story that we plan to turn into a graphic novel and market via the internet. This will take some time, potentially 3 years but it may be beneficial if any of you with experience in marketing a product online could give me some advice on this now.

Anyways, I hope to become a lot more of an active member on here in the future and be part of the GLL community, Thanks for reading!

Luke

Dude, I really enjoyed reading your journey, you certainly have the right mindset for success, and you seem like a goal oriented person. Good sense of self worth and self steem is KEY. Good job on getting on partying and getting laid. You sound like you got that shit out of your system.
I also like that you are drawing/art nerd like me and you will certainly succeed at that in an environment with like minded people.

Hey man, am glad you enjoyed the read, it isn't obviously quite as simple as a journey as I make it out to be and doesn't really include personal conflicts and such but it is essentially the jist of it. I agree that self worth and self-belief is an essential part of a mindset for success, if you want to actualize you'r dreams I feel like to some extent you have to go against what society wants and expects of you in the first place and like you may have encountered if your dreams are artistic these dreams are essentially just seen as dreams and not much else, in which case the only person you can truly rely on to realize your vision is yourself.

The days of partying like I did when I was a promoter are definitely over but I have fond memories of being at various house parties, I do not regret any of the decisions I made in this part of my life. It was a of fun.

As for drawing, I think this was something I always knew deep down that I wanted to do, but I think it's only once I accepted that I had no intention of doing anything else that I really decided to pursue it despite what is told to us by our parents and society about pursuing a career in art. My knowledge on the subject of art has grown exponentially this year and I'm doing everything I can to increase my knowledge and my level of ability Most importantly I feel content on the path I am on, I no longer feel trapped.

If you haven't come across Heavy Metal Magazine (it has nothing to do with Heavy Metal music) I urge you to do so, it's an illustrated magazine founded by Moebius and the level of artistic skill of the guys they promote is genuinely staggering. I've also noticed your stream of consciousness posts in your log where you tend to get quite philosophical, I would recommend looking into the ideas of Joseph Campbell from the Hero with a Thousand Faces, the ideas are usually associated with storytelling but Campbell believed that these ideas are fundamental to the human psyche. You may find some of these ideas relevant, considering that you are also trying to become successful. Hope you find this helpful in some way.

Luke

For some reason I've been unable to post here. Here are some pics of my art currently, with the ones don in pencil copied from references (photographs) and the digital ones being ones I've designed myself.

For some reason my post isn't working when I try and post it so I'm gonna write it again. For the last few days I've been focusing on drawing my Xenomorph Queen from the films Aliens(1986), it happens to be my favorite creature design from any film and I thought it would help me to develop my traditional skills as this is something I haven't worked on for a while.

I've also been expanding my instagram following so I have a better community of artists to interact with etc, we're not talking big numbers but I don't feel like I need to go mad with promoting my artwork while I'm still developing as an artist.

Also, I've set up a Facebook page for my art, I have about 4200 friends on my Facebook at the moment (from the promoting days) which I plan to translate into followers for my art social media accounts, although the majority of these people might not be interested in my art, at least the people who will be will if that makes any sense. I am sort of apprehensive in promoting my work at the moment because I'm not at the skill level I want to be, especially with the the stuff I design like characters etc

However, the important thing is knowing where I need to improve and I'm pretty sure my lack of understanding of form and how light affects forms is what is holding me back from creating better artwork. I've also only been attempting to design my own characters for the past 5 months so I'm not really holding anything against myself

I've attached my images in the post above if you want to take a look

Luke

Your art is awesome.

The way to get better is to draw a LOT. Consider doing a "365 project" - where you do 1 piece a day for a year. I did one with photography, it made me infinitely better:
handyandypandy.com/365

A year of drawing every day will take you from "good" to "elite".

Hey man, thanks! I definitely think that's a good idea, I wouldn't say I've been lazy lately but maybe I haven't been drawing as much as I should have I guess, mainly because I've been spent a lot of time doing research online. Some would call this procrastinating haha.

I watched this guy on youtube do the exact thing you recommended for 2 years, so I might buy like an actual calendar to stick on my wall to keep myself accountable to that like I'm doing with this log.

Love the photography by the way!

^ Lol. I literally JUST wrote, right this fucking second, an article about procrastinating:
killyourinnerloser.com/how-i-procrastinate/

Yeah I've seen the "Do ____ every day for a year" thing work for a tonne of different people - Youtubers, artists, writers, bloggers, one of my clients is even doing it with cold approach.

Read that and a couple of articles bro, personally took an interest in the Shabari. You also gave me the next idea for what I want to draw. Gonna draw a girl tied up basically, will post it on here when I'm done. Will keep a look out for more posts on your site.

Luke

Awesome; my girl's done a lot of artwork around BDSM too. We put some of them on my site in articles.

Those are sick!! If your girlfriend isn't trying to promote herself as an artist then she definitely should be man. Really cool stuff. I'd buy a print off hee if ahe was selling them.

^ She says thanks, and says to say she really likes yours too. She's just set up her own Instagram/Fiverr (here: www.fiverr.com/immydraws?up_rollout=true ) - she does custom commissioned drawings for people for a few bucks.

You could consider doing the same thing, man - it literally only took her a couple hours to set up the Fiverr and she's already had a few clients. I know you'll probably say, "Yeah but my stuff isn't good enough yet" - guess what, that's literally what she said. That's literally what I said when people told me to sell my photography - "it's not good enough yet".

And it's exactly what I said when people told me to set up my own website and start writing articles - "I'm not good enough yet."

Your samurai drawing is fucking sick, and WAY above the threshold of "You could be making money off this".