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[Information and Tips] How to learn to draw

Started by TheStarNomad✯, Nov 21, 2018, 09:15 AM

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TheStarNomad✯

Nov 21, 2018, 09:15 AM Last Edit: Aug 06, 2019, 03:38 PM by xJimJam
This is a huge update to a post I made exactly 1.5 years ago, which was initially requested by CleverWhale. My art back then wasn't exactly the best, as I had only just begun, so I've decided to update all the wisdom I've gained over the years.

Remember that these are pointers I used/developed for myself; everyone learns differently!!

1. It Begins
The first thing you want to do is figure out what catagory you want to aim for. I aimed straight for cartoons, as I have an affinty for their simplicity yet secret complexity.

The 3 main catagories are;
Cartoon > Simplified from real life and very fun to play around with.
Eg: Wander Over Yonder

Semi-realistic (Between both) > More minute details are generally included, such as hair strands and proper limb shape. This is a very vague catagory since it's pretty much still a cartoon.
Eg: Hunter x Hunter

Realistic > Exactly what it says. Drawings that include so many details that it looks real


Realistic drawings tend to take the most time, but no matter what style you end up with you will need to put in the same amount of effort to learn how to get there.

Take a look online for artists you really like, perhaps you want to aspire to be able to draw like one of them?

2. Starting Out

A. Smooth Curves and Straight Lines
If your drawings always end up with slightly wiggley/messy lines, you'll want to improve your stability with a pencil/digital pen.
The way I learned how is actually from a Graphic Communication class at school. The teacher told us to anchor our elbow on the table, and draw a curved line straight across the page. This is called your natural curve, and eventually with enough practise you'll just be able to draw nice lines no problem.
Remember; quick and fluid movements are much better than slow ones!

B. Observation
One of the most important skills you'll need as an artist is observation.
The best way to refine this skill is to find an image online of an animal, or objects in real life, and sketch them down on some paper. You don't need to add all the details to begin with, just the general shape.
Sketching the same image again after 4-6 months will also show your improvement as an artist!

The red is my first attempt at this panda, and the last image is my second attempt many months later.

C. Gentleness and Erasing
If you're using a pencil and tend to press hard, it's much better not to!
Sketching moderately light will allow you to erase things much easier, and won't leave any marks on your paper.

3. References and Inspiration
If I see a drawing I really like, I have a habit of instantly saving it. References and inspiration can really make a drawing of yours look a lot better.
Say you're having difficulty drawing trainers? Just google "trainers from different angles", and begin sketching from an image. (This is why observation is so important)

I tend to attempt drawing what I'm having difficulty with first, then use an image to see what I keep doing wrong. I find this is the best way to teach yourself.

As for inspiration, it's okay to sample from someone elses drawing! Say you really like a specific colour, shape or piece of clothing; as long as you don't simply copy exactly what you see, and adapt it to make it your own, you're fine.
In fact, this is what artists do everyday!

For example:

This is how I used to draw the goats from Undertale.
The style is fine for young looking characters, but as soon as you want to draw an adult it doesn't work out very well.
So while I was watching a flipnote compilation, I saw the 2 seconds of animation I needed to inspire me to try something new.


Thanks to this image, I now know how to draw snouts.


As for this image, to me it's very calming, ethereal and freeing. I saved this over 6 years ago simply because it inspires me. Maybe one day I'll use it to learn how to make better backgrounds.

ALWAYS DRAW WITH A REFERENCE OR YOU ARE UNLIKELY TO IMPROVE

4. Finding Yourself
Starting off taking inspiration from others is all well and good, but you need to remember to develop your own style too. This will take a lot of time and practise. Drawing the way you like the most, or maybe trying something that not many others do; you will always be unique in the world of art, unless you copy other people far too closely.

------------------------------------------

Now you know the basics to art, the rest of this post will be focusing on specific parts to art, and give (hopefully) useful tips.

1. Making Your Drawings More Interesting

A. Angles
Always drawing characters face-forward or directly from the side is good when you're starting out, but you're going to want to begin drawing from 3/4 views as well. Knowing how to draw from 3/4 view will open up many new poses and angles for you.

B. Posing
Something overlooked by many artists; the way your character is posed can not only make your drawing 10x more interesting, but also tell everyone a LOT about your character.


As you can see, the first image is very striking. Since the hand is covering most of the face, this shows mystery, and you are very unsure what this character is capable of.

The second image of an Eevee has its feet spread out, in a playful manner. The expression combines with this, to show that the Eevee is either battling, or is ready to train.

The third image however, is much less expressive than the other two. This is because I never really had a set personality, and was just making up a pose as I went along. Sometimes the poses aren't expressive, but it's definitely more interesting to look at than a normal, boring face-forward position.

I used to be absolutly terrible at posing, and researching poses on the internet to sketch a few didn't help me. In the end, one of my favourite shows called Wander Over Yonder, with its fluid character design, is what broke me out of this problem.

Remember; even if you're drawing a character ref, simply tilting the head, or making them lean on one leg, will make all the difference.


Simply find your inspiration, and you will find yourself.

C. Perspective
Basic perspective (such as back legs being slightly further away than front legs) is very important, but if you want to make your drawings 10x more striking, you need to master foreshortening.
This is an extremely difficult skill to learn and I highly recommend knowing how to draw pretty decently before aiming for this.


Examples for your leisure.

Much easier foreshortening example that I made a while ago:


D. Expressions
One thing I love about cartoons is their expressions. A cartoon is able to blow up the wackyness of normal expressions and make them so much more amusing; but expressions are always important to learn no matter what.
You don't want an angry character to look tired, or a happy person to look like they're hiding something.
For this I recommend either watching cartoons, googling expressions you need or taking an expressions challenge.

Remember that expressions aren't all about the eyes; ears, tails, the mouth and even body language all tell the story.




Never be afraid to experiment!!

E. Designs and Colours
When reinventing or making up your own stuff, design and colouring are very important.
Moderatly complex designs with nice colours/patterns are very appealing to the eyes; but make sure to never go overboard with the colours.


For example, the simplistic black and white with purple is easy on the eyes, and the star pattern on the black is very appealing, as it adds more detail to an otherwise over-simple drawing.

The thing with colours is to make sure that you don't make them too strong. Very stark, contrasting colours can be painful to look at.


I experimented a lot with Oto's colours before settling on the first palette; but as you can see, the difference a good palette makes is huge.

As for designing, it can be difficult at first to make up ideas. (Unless you're naturally loaded with them)
The difference even one extra line can make on your basic drawing is immense.


Zylon would be extremely boring without all the extra lines and colours.

Perhaps you could base your character on a specific theme?
Get out there and make someone/something unique to you!!

F. Backgrounds and Graphics
Another great way to add interest to your drawing is adding a background.


You don't have to go fully graphic like I did, but whatever the background you stick with, make sure it isn't too distracting and fits with your drawing.

If you can't/don't want to add one, just make a gradiented colour or image, and place that in the background instead! (Such as what I did with Zylon above)

As for graphics, added spots in the eyes of your character; a gentle glow from their fire; things like this can all make your drawing more interesting.


Which brings us to;

G. Shading
When I first started adding shading to my drawings, I always used an air brush tool, which meant I had to spend ages going around the whole drawing to make it neat and tidy. This meant that a lot of my drawings ended up shading-less.
In the end I learned to use opacity on the normal brush tool, which not only works with my style a lot better, but is a lot faster too.


Air brush shading is perfect for line-less creations; it's all your choice what do you want to do.

If you want to improve your shading skills, once again, find an image online with a lot of shading, or sketch from real life; it really pays off!

2. Other Important Drawing Features

A. Proportions
Whatever the image, proportions are extremely important to keep correct, otherwise your entire drawing can look off.
I had an extremely bad habit a year ago, where whatever human I sketched, they always looked 12-14. (Or even younger...) My brain couldn't figure out why certain characters looked a lot younger than others; the answer to this? Proportions.

An adult, human-esqe figure will tend to have a chest-torso length the equivilent of 2 of their head. Legs will then be twice the length of the chest-torso. Arms will always end by the waist, with hands just below.

A child, human-esqe figure will have their chest-torso the equivelent of either 1 or 1.5 of their head, and legs will only be the length of 1 of their body.


Regrettably, you can see the huge difference above.
(Left drawing was made exactly one year ago)

Make sure to pay attention to sizes as you're drawing, and use your fingers to measure.

B. Stick Figures and Circles
This is something I don't really use much of, but the idea is to test the pose you're putting your character in, before actually drawing them.
In theory, this works well, but for some reason I have huge difficulty drawing like that.



I always use a circle for the head, and sometimes stick figure lines if I'm having trouble posing legs; the decision is yours.

3. Extra Tips

A. Effort always pays off
Having difficulty with a drawing? Good. The longer you spend trying to figure out how something is drawn, the more you learn.

Remember, without failure, you won't know how to succeed.
(Just don't go overboard and spend days on it)

B. Giving up is okay
As the title suggests, giving up on a drawing is perfectly fine. Spending weeks on the same drawing and getting nowhere, will in turn, get you nowhere. Come up with a new idea and try and draw something else!

C. Work on what you need to
I used to be terrible with expressions, posing, legs; you name it.
But over the months I focused completely on one of these subjects, and I found that even if I was watching an anime, my eyes would be drawn directly toward observing what I needed to work on.

Focus on improving what you need to; baby steps!!

D. Changes don't happen overnight
The longer you think about something, the more thought-out and less worrysome it becomes. This is exactly the same concept with drawing.

Having trouble drawing the other eye?
Take a 3 hour break then try again later.

No ideas?
Wait a few days to allow your brain to be influenced and inspired.

Not improving your ability to draw hands even though you're trying hard???
Work on something else for a month, and go back to it later. You'll find you have actually improved in this time.

E. Terrible/boring designs and poses
This is perfectly fine and an understanable ailment to have when starting off. You tend to focus all your time and energy into making limbs look right, rather than what pattern fur will have.

Don't worry; once you get better, your designs and poses will also get better.

F. Flipping drawings
Spending a long time staring at the exact same drawing, a lot of the time, causes you to overlook a lot of things that don't look quite right to other people.

I've found to fix this, to flip your image. Doing this will reset your brain and allow you to see where all the mistakes are.

4. Challenges and Inspiration

A. 10 minute challenges
Set up a little drawing contest with friends!
Grab an image online, and challenge them to see who can sketch it better or faster; things like this can keep you drawing even if you have no ideas.

B. 31 day challenges
There are so many of these online; personally, I can't draw that often due to my slow speed and lack of ideas, but doing these can really make you put in the effort to improve. #motivation

C. Draw the squad images
Surprisingly, a great way to learn proportions. Drawing a character who is much shorter in the pose a tall model is in, can really improve your observation skills. Go for it!

D. Drawing what you see in a song
Imagination is a very prised and valued skill; at least to me.
Try sitting down with one of your favourite songs, and imagine a character dancing to it, or a scene unfolding around it; then attempt drawing what you see.

And that's it! Remember that drawing will take a lot of effort if you want to get pretty decent, so make sure you're willing to commit.

In terms of time, you can literally draw only once a week, every week, and still improve; it's all up to you to become what you want to become.

The old post: https://www.superfuntime.org/forum/index.php/topic,177366.0.html



Happy drawing and hope this helps!

Long time StarNomad

stevebean

That's awesome! All your drawings are amazing!

_0i


Autpek

Thanks for the expert write-up _0i!  I used to draw a lot for school and college but lost the spark.  This helps to motivate!

Lewis-H

Thanks! You have explained it quite well. Though I am not an artist still I would give it a try.
Regards,
Lewis

GRIMI_

Wow this guide is really helpful here's something I knocked up in a couple of hours, any pointers welcomed