Some folks get discouraged from becoming artists because they don’t have much natural talent at drawing.

As a one-time T-square and triangle-aholic, I can tell you that many fine illustrators can’t draw worth beans. They just know how to use their tools to make lines, shadows, and what-have-you.

Craftsmanship not talent. Over time, craftsmanship will trump talent. And if you take a little talent and add years of craftsmanship, you start creating some serious work.

Practice. And remember the undo button is there for a reason. Take chances. You can always go back and start over if the idea falls on its face. And sometimes it will soar to heights you didn’t imagine you might fly.

For me, and many others I would bet, the beauty of digital creations is that I no longer produce work with erasures through the paper or eight layers of Whiteout and glued-in sections, like I was doing not that long ago in the Dark Ages before computer art was even slightly practical.

If you can’t draw, work on the skill until it is yours.

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Duncan Long is a freelance book cover illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his cover illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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