For the first in a really long time, I had to stop a tutorial I was working on because the instructions weren’t written in-depth enough to continue. I have found that with older tutorials (dating back to 2008) this seems to be the case.

There are two very important things to remember if you’re going to learn from a tutorial. The first thing is making sure the tutorial is detailed enough to take you from the beginning to completion. The second is to make sure the tutorial has all of the assets you need to complete it.

I did not listen to my own advice with this tutorial, and now I cannot complete it. At first, I thought it might just be me and that I am just not following along correctly. But then I checked the comment section and sure enough, a lot of people had the same problem with the tutorial. It was not detailed enough and did not explain everything step-by-step to finish it.

I think it would be easy for a tutor to forget that they already know what they’re creating, they know the steps inside out. And therefore, when they are writing out the tutorial, they forget one little detail that can impact the process immensely.

If you are going to teach, you must first be the student. In other words, put yourself into the student’s position, don’t think like a tutor. Think like someone who doesn’t know a thing and then write.

With video tutorials, this issue doesn’t exist. Which is why I prefer video over text explanations and tutorials. When someone creates the same thing in a video, it is tough to miss a step because you are actually creating the art as you go. If you miss an action, you’ll know because something won’t work or won’t look the way it should.

So before I can finish the tutorial I had chosen to do, I must learn one step first and that is how to correctly create custom brushes in Photoshop. I have created brushes before but I didn’t have any problems like I had yesterday. So I will come back to this tutorial once I have looked at Phlearn’s more detailed video on how to create custom brushes.

I don’t like to leave things undone. Which is why I am going to learn from a thorough tutorial and return so I can finish it and critique it for you all.

Until then, stay safe and keep creating!