Can You Still Learn to Draw in the Age of AI?
Hugo
I started drawing as a teenager because I loved comics and several people around me worked or had worked in bookstores. I copied everything I could—comic book characters, European BDs. I got good at copying, but without mentors, I eventually plateaued. Then studies took over, professional life began, and I stopped drawing.
Here are some of the last drawings made in 1999 :
The golden age of Youtube
But in 2018, I thought we were living in amazing times. There were now tons of online resources to learn from. I found hundreds of talented artists on YouTube who reignited my desire to learn. I finally had everything at my fingertips to understand the basics I'd missed when I was younger: the Loomis method, proportions, perspective, inking techniques...
So I started again. I drew traditionally with pencil, then ink, tried watercolor, and finally digital drawing. I felt steady progress, even though drawing is one of those skills where learning happens in plateaus. There are tough moments where you stagnate, and then something clicks and you leap forward again.
It was better, but I still I felt limited, especially since I wanted to write stories and tell them through drawings. The gap between being able to reproduce a drawing correctly and bringing a story to life is massive. But that's part of the game. Drawing is learned slowly, in stages. I'd learned a lot, but now I needed to tackle composition rules, master lighting, understand how to structure a story, how to chain shots to guide the reader's eye to the right place, lettering, and many other things.
And then AI arrived.
DALL-E was born in 2021. Midjourney followed in 2022. Today in 2025, these AIs are incredible at creating drawings that I still can't produce after several years of training. A professional will always be better, but only after many, many years of experience. A beginner like me is quickly discouraged by the gap between my current knowledge and the minimum level needed to at least match an AI.
That’s what I call “the AI wall”.
Digital tools got me back into drawing in 2018, but AI cooled my enthusiasm a few years later. I haven't drawn in a year. My last drawing post on Instagram was at the end of 2023.
And I'm conflicted.
I see people who, on the contrary, found new motivation in it. They couldn't draw but are now able to tell a story in comic form. Overall, I could do that because the story I have in mind could use this medium. You could say it's the story that matters more than the drawing. There are plenty of counter-examples, but let's assume it's true for the sake of argument.
Except I don't want to learn how to prompt an AI. It's less exciting than learning to master your line work and thinking about character design or composition.
What about software development ?
And in those moments, I draw a parallel with my job as a developer.
I've reached a point where, like the professional artists I admire, AI doesn't scare me too much. I know how to use it as a tool and I'm still capable of doing what it produces. I can go faster with it, but also because I master the equivalent of the basic rules of drawing for my profession. I understand architecture, UX, security, etc. I am above the AI wall and I'm looking down from above.
But what about young people entering the tech industry today who face the same AI wall I have to climb as an artist? Who's going to take the time to learn the basics?
I was born in the last century. The year 2000 made me dream. There was a kind of technological mythology where we'd end up delegating all the tedious tasks to machines so we could focus on what interests us most: discussion, games, arts, creativity.
And I admit I feel like we got a bit lost along the way and did the opposite. I hope I'm wrong.
On the other hand, will they be just as important in the future? In the past, driving meant adjusting the dynamo, setting the choke to enrich the air-fuel mixture, cranking a handle to start the engine. I imagine you needed to know much more about mechanics than you do today.
But that doesn't stop me from driving today. Cars have evolved. Computing tools are evolving too.
Once AI masters all the basic aspects, won't the issue simply be knowing how to properly dialogue with an AI? In the same way that some new comic book authors can produce by prompting an AI. In fact, their job has changed compared to their equivalents from 20 years ago. And it's quite likely that this will be the case for software development in the future.