Yea, what would be the best way to start in your opinion? My goal is making some badass characters, animations etc. But first ofc, I need a place to start, anatomy, just jump into it etc. I will make you aware of the fact, that I have no idea about drawing. I'm going from the ground and then up (I hope). I hope that's all you need, else I will gladly answer more questions.
My english isn't that good, so pardon me, if I sound like an alphatard.
At 10/5/12 05:05 PM, Middlefield wrote: Yea, what would be the best way to start in your opinion? My goal is making some badass characters, animations etc. But first ofc, I need a place to start, anatomy, just jump into it etc. I will make you aware of the fact, that I have no idea about drawing. I'm going from the ground and then up (I hope). I hope that's all you need, else I will gladly answer more questions.
Well, a good place to start would be at the basics. Start by drawing the 5 shapes; sphere, cube, cylinder, pyramid, and the cone.
Use them to start learning form, shape, value and texture. This step won't really take long, but will be something you will return to and use forever.
After that, just start drawing, mostly from life. Pick up a few books over anatomy and drawing, especially "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards, and you'll be set.
From there, its a couple painstaking years of practice and self torture to become a truly righteous artist.
The journey will never end, but that is the reward, not a punishment. So don't let it discourage you.
Practice practice practice practice
But to be more specific, i'd say study anatomy.
You look nice today.
This guy brutally sodomizes me.
Cereal is pretty cool. If you're cool you'll add me on Steam. Also, Letterboxd.
Thank you! I actually got a book, it describes the human body and how to draw it. Like portrait drawing. But I will take nots, draw these "tutorials" it contains. Also a friend gave me this, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these also drawing/art-related? If it is, what are they called?
http://i.imgur.com/4D54H.jpg
My english isn't that good, so pardon me, if I sound like an alphatard.
At 10/5/12 05:43 PM, Middlefield wrote: Also a friend gave me this, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't these also drawing/art-related? If it is, what are they called?
http://i.imgur.com/4D54H.jpg
They're called manikins. I've got one as well, and truth be told it doesn't help me much, mine doesn't have a very impressive range of motion. It's not a bad tool for studying the proportions of the body, though.
Also i'ma dump a bunch of tutorials I have bookmarked up in this bitch. God forgive me.
http://coelasquid.blogspot.com/2009/01/muscle-tutorial-thing er.html
http://tobyshelton.blogspot.com/2010/10/ive-got-to-hand-it-t o-you-2010.html
http://www.stanprokopenko.com/blog/2009/05/draw-head-any-ang le/
http://www.stanprokopenko.com/blog/2009/05/draw-eyes/
http://polykarbon.com/tutorials/index.htm
http://cedarseed.deviantart.com/gallery/6557
http://tracyjb.deviantart.com/art/Lackadaisy-Construction-24 5356999?q=gallery%3Atracyjb&qo=3
http://alexds1.deviantart.com/gallery/
So go read those'n shit.
You look nice today.
This guy brutally sodomizes me.
Cereal is pretty cool. If you're cool you'll add me on Steam. Also, Letterboxd.
It's a little hard to give advice not knowing what your baseline skill level is. If you could post a sketch or something it might be helpful in showing people what areas you're strong in and what areas you need to improve in.
In general though, I think it's great that you want to start developing your skills and here's the advice I would give:
1) Draw something every day
This might seem obvious but a lot of people can't commit the time to do that. That being said, if you can commit to drawing at least one thing every day (it can be anything, literally) you will see a lot of improvement over time and you will improve more quickly than if you aren't drawing every day.
2) Get comfortable drawing stick figures
For almost everything you draw, whether it's a person, animal, or a futuristic sex robot, it's going to start off as a stick figure that you "flesh out." I can't stress how important stick figures are, especially if you're drawing people, because they allow you to plan out a pose and think about what you're drawing before you start putting down heavy lines that are going to be hard to erase.
The book "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth" by Andrew Loomis is available to read online for free and I think it is the best book I've ever read on the subject. You should also check out Loomis' other book, which covers some of the same basic principles of figure drawing but applies it to cartooning.
3) Look at how other artists draw things and learn from that
People might disagree with respect to this point, but when you're learning to draw, I think it's helpful to look at artists that you like and see how they draw things. You're not necessarily copying (although I think that has its place to when you're taking your first steps), but you are looking at somebody's technique and trying to apply what they do to your own style.
For example, in the comic book I draw, I have a lot of characters who have cybernetic body parts, and in figuring out how to render that I looked at a lot of the stuff that Yukito Kishiro has drawn because I like the way he makes robotics and futuristic armor look.
4) Draw on paper - Ink on paper - Color on a computer
Don't try to learn to draw using a tablet like an Intuos or a Bamboo. It's much easier to draw something on paper than it is to draw it on a computer and right now everything you draw on paper will look better than anything you could draw in GIMP or Photoshop.
The reason for this is because there's a certain quality about lines you draw with a pencil or a pen that is not easily replicated by computer software. That hand drawn quality is what gives your art character and you want to preserve that.
In terms of pencils, you can use pretty much anything. I use a mechanical pencil with .05 mm or .07 mm lead.
For inking (tracing your pencil lines in ink) I would recommend getting a set of artist pens. You can get a set of 4 pens from Faber-Castell for about $13, and right now that's what I would go with if I were you.
That being said, absolutely learn to color things on a computer, because that's pretty much the industry standard now. If you can afford it, get Photoshop. If you can't, download GIMP for free and learn how to color using layers in that.
And once you have a better grasp on drawing, by all means draw in whichever way feels best to you. If that means you draw everything on a computer, then go for it.
5) Pay attention to criticism but place every critique into its proper perspective
When you draw, whatever you draw, you're going to make mistakes. If you post your art around the web, and certainly on Newgrounds, people are going to point out the things you did wrong. Sometimes critiques will be helpful, but sometimes they won't.
My personal advice would be to take it all with a grain of salt. Pay attention to criticims that seems helpful, and ignore the people who tell you that you suck without giving you an explanation for why they think that.
One thing to keep in mind is this: the art community does not have a hierachical structure. What I mean by that is, there's no one person or group that can "make" you either a good or a bad artist. There's simply what people like, and what people don't like. And if people like your work, then you're doing something right. And if enough people like your work, then it doesn't really matter what the "artists" think.
Recommended Resources:
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth by Andrew Loomis
Fun with A Pencil by Andrew Loomis
How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema(it goes over basics of anatomy, foreshortening, and perspective, as well as giving some general advice about visual storytelling and is written in a way that's accessible to people taking their first steps)
DeviantArt Resources and Stock Images(lots of different poses and costuming to practice drawing)
Thank you again! You been a big help! But I got a final question. Alot of your links is cartoonish tutorials. Does that mean that I don't really have to draw a portrait version when drawing, but can do it in a cartoonish version aswell? Or does anatomy drawing have to be in portrait version.
Sorry if you don't understand the stuff I just wrote. I suck at explaining things.
My english isn't that good, so pardon me, if I sound like an alphatard.
At 10/6/12 02:54 PM, Middlefield wrote: Thank you again! You been a big help! But I got a final question. Alot of your links is cartoonish tutorials. Does that mean that I don't really have to draw a portrait version when drawing, but can do it in a cartoonish version aswell? Or does anatomy drawing have to be in portrait version.
Sorry if you don't understand the stuff I just wrote. I suck at explaining things.
Short answer: you should do both.
Generally speaking, anatomy studies are done in a realistic style because the point of those exercises is to learn the proportions of the human body and gain an understanding of how the musculature and the skeletal structure of the body all connect to create a human form.
But it depends on what you're doing.
Drawing from life (portrait style as you call it) is going to help you learn to draw the human body and other things more accurately. When you do that, you are learning to draw what you see.
However, drawing from life is not necessarily going to help you learn to draw people in action (running, jumping, flying, throwing punches, etc.) because you will not always have a model or a photo reference for the action that you want to draw. Instead, you will have to envision a pose in your head and then use what you know about anatomy to translate that to paper. The more cartoon-oriented tutorials are more focused on that particular skill.
It's not as if you have to choose one or the other. Ralph Bakshi is a fairly well known American animator who for most of his film career used an exaggerated and cartoonish style, but he can also draw and paint in a realistic style.
If you are just starting out, you probably don't want to limit yourself to just one style. If you want a more concrete answer about what to be doing stylistically, this is the general rule most people will tell you: you have to understand the rules of anatomy and perspective before you can start to bend them. Translated, that means: start by trying to draw as realistically as possible, and then develop your own style from there.
