Why my iPad drawings still look nothing like the tutorials

Buying an iPad was supposed to be the turning point

About six months ago, I finally caved and bought an iPad Pro. I thought it would be the magic fix for my stagnant graphic design skills. I spent roughly 1.3 million won on the device and an extra 150,000 won for the Pencil, convincing myself that the hardware was the only thing holding me back. I watched dozens of videos on color theory and how to mimic those clean, vector-style lines you see in professional infographics or high-end packaging designs. Every creator made it look like a seamless flow from the brain to the screen. In reality, the first two weeks were just me fighting with the glass surface. The Apple Pencil felt like I was writing on a hockey rink with a stick of butter. My lines were shaky, and the pressure sensitivity settings were constantly throwing off my rhythm. It was way more frustrating than any of the books or articles I read on computer graphics made it seem.

The trap of only drawing finished pieces

I kept falling into the same loop. I would start an illustration—usually something like a simple animal character or a scene for a storybook—and try to finish it in one sitting. It never worked. I’d end up with a mess of layers and colors that looked muddy when exported. I eventually realized that people who are actually good at this don’t just ‘draw’ all day. They spend hours just practicing human anatomy or specific shapes. I was trying to run a marathon before I could walk. I remember one specific night I spent three hours just trying to get the shading on a simple geometric shape to look ‘flat’ instead of amateurish. It was incredibly tedious, and honestly, I didn’t even feel like I got better by the end of it. The gap between what I saw in my head and what the screen showed was just massive.

Trying to replace Adobe Illustrator with cheaper alternatives

Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard for a reason, but paying a monthly subscription feels like a constant weight. I looked for free alternatives, hoping I could dodge that cost. There are a few decent apps out there, but every time I opened one, the interface felt slightly off. It’s like when you’re used to a specific keyboard layout and suddenly you have to use a different one. I spent so much time re-mapping buttons and trying to figure out where the clipping masks were hidden. It felt like I was spending more time debugging my software than actually making art. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the headache, or if I should just bite the bullet and learn the Adobe ecosystem properly since that’s what everyone expects anyway.

Why I still don’t know if I’m getting better

It’s been months, and I still can’t look at my own work without seeing twenty things I want to fix. Even the illustrations I finished last week feel outdated already. I look at official accounts, like the ones from the Goyang city government that share hundreds of public-domain character illustrations, and I try to break down their process. They have these perfectly categorized poses and expressions, and I’m sitting here struggling to draw a single hand that doesn’t look like a mitten. The sheer volume of content out there is overwhelming. You see these perfect, polished images everywhere—on credit card ads, bank promotions, or even government announcements—and it makes the whole process feel like some kind of secret club I’m not part of yet. I’m not sure if the frustration ever goes away, or if you just get better at hiding it in the final version.