The meaning of "life drawing" and how to draw in ANY STYLE

[Kaeth]

Kudos. Very well-written and structured. Wooh.

[Fansub]

Kaiser-chan

You need crappy examples from people who give them willingly? They don't match up with stuff like what you have, but if I can't be a good example, I'm always a great bad one. Pretty bad , or if "third thing someone ever drew" isn't fair, I was like 19 when I made this mess.

HAHAHAHA oh my God Kaiser, these are brilliant. Thank you. I'm putting together a whole paragraph of nothing but bad art and these are going to fit right in. xd

Quote:

But I do think often people just won't listen; I recall trying to show someone a comparison once, because I know I'm not great but I hoped perhaps my bad example would make clear how little drawing just anime works, but they insisted there was no difference they could see between that and my current stuff. gonk

Yeah, I've seen this sort of thing happen too. It's... unfortunate. But I mean, there's only so much you can do to try and help people out, you know? Some people are just so convinced that everyone is a special and unique snowflake and everyone has their own "style" that they just... ugh. No matter how BAD something is, they'll praise it. And these people usually can't really tell the difference between a trace and an actual drawing made from scratch, stuff like that. They just don't understand much about art.

Quote:

I think it's also really, really important to remember and emphasize that drawing from life is not drawing "semi-realism," or "realism" shading or "style" from your head. It is not about a doodle of a person who has more than a line for a nose, because all that teaches usually is how to polish. I know I learned no more from that when I was younger, and I see a confusion between the two a lot. That stuff is just a variant on drawing anime - it's regurgitating what you think a person looks like, rather than drawing one, and also just ingrains bad habits.

Adding this to the OP.

Quote:

This thread is amazing. I want to gush about how nicely you structure the point in a way where it answers the important questions in a way that'll really get over a lot of the frequent questions and arguments, but I'm keeping people waiting in the car who don't appreciate an internet addiction, so I'll have to just leave it at how much I'd like to say about how great this is.

redface
Thank you. I would like to add more stuff (specifically about "style" and what that word actually means) but it's a little TL;DR as it is.

Kaeth

Kudos. Very well-written and structured. Wooh.

Thank you! blaugh

[anooci]

Fansub

Kadsy

Fansub

Kadsy

You explained yourself particularly well, but I just don't know if it's actually going to get through to many people. D: A lot of these kids that are dead set on drawing sparkly animu will probably read this and go "eh, you're wrong, I'm right, stfu."

You're probably right, but you know, then I can say "welp, I tried". And if I link people to this thread and they don't listen, at least I didn't waste any time replying to them...

YEAH MAN. YOU SHOW THOSE KIDS WHO'S BAWSS. cool

Also, I have this to share: http://kadsy.deviantart.com/#/d38s1yc

If only they were kids. Half the time it turns out we're talking to manchildren. neutral

I'll add your tutorial.
Actually, I won't -- I'd like this thread to be about life drawing and learning to observe stuff on their own. That tutorial would be a shortcut. Thanks, though.

It's not meant to be a shortcut. D: It's meant to explain what exactly you're supposed to be observing, and how it can be applied.

[Fansub]

Kadsy

It's not meant to be a shortcut. D: It's meant to explain what exactly you're supposed to be observing, and how it can be applied.

Oh yeah, I understand that. But the kind of person this thread is hoping to communicate with won't see it that way. They'll look at it and say "okay so that's where the highlights go! ^______________^"

Trust me, I've seen this happen. sad

[anooci]

Fansub

Kadsy

It's not meant to be a shortcut. D: It's meant to explain what exactly you're supposed to be observing, and how it can be applied.

Oh yeah, I understand that. But the kind of person this thread is hoping to communicate with won't see it that way. They'll look at it and say "okay so that's where the highlights go! ^______________^"

Trust me, I've seen this happen. sad

.. You know what. You're probably right. /headdesk.
Is there any way to re-write it so it doesn't come off that way? x.x;

[Smegma Princess]

Smeggie's Sadly Rather Short List Of Modern And Relatively Well-Known Manga Artists Who Aren't Embarrassingly Bad At Anatomy And Perspective And Are Therefore Worth Paying Attention To

* Naoki Urasawa (Monster, Pluto, 20th Century Boys)
* Taiyo Matsumoto (Tekkon Kinkreet)
* Kiyohiko Azuma (Azumanga Daioh, Yotsuba&!)
* Junji Ito (Uzumaki, Gyo, Tomie)
* Tsutomu Nihei (BLAME!, Abara, Biomega)
* Iou Kuroda (Sexy Voice and Robo)
* Kentaro Miura (Berserk)

Miura and Nihei start out rather rough (early Berserk and BLAME! volumes must be painful for them to look at now) but their later material is excellent.

Manga artists who I would put on the "entertaining storytellers but have problems with anatomy and/or other things" list would be:

* Hideo Yamamoto (Homunculus)
* Kouta Hirano (Hellsing)
* Shintaro Kago (if you don't know who this guy is already DO NOT GOOGLE HIM because your brain will shoot our of your forehead)
* Miwa Shirow (Dogs and related stories)

and probably lots more that I'm forgetting because it's late.

Note that I've specifically left out the shonen and shojou manga artists and stuck to "adult" manga, not in the porn sense but in the not-about-ninjas-or-schoolgirls sense. Some of them are technically very skilled, but these books tend to be produced under extreme deadlines, which means that the quality of the art tends to suffer a lot.

If I was to expand this to include American and European comic book artists then I'd be here all night.

[Fansub]

Smegma Princess

I literally love you.

[Fansub]

Kadsy

Fansub

Kadsy

It's not meant to be a shortcut. D: It's meant to explain what exactly you're supposed to be observing, and how it can be applied.

Oh yeah, I understand that. But the kind of person this thread is hoping to communicate with won't see it that way. They'll look at it and say "okay so that's where the highlights go! ^______________^"

Trust me, I've seen this happen. sad

.. You know what. You're probably right. /headdesk.
Is there any way to re-write it so it doesn't come off that way? x.x;

It's not that it's coming off that way. It's that the kinds of beginners who look for tutorials on DA are just looking for shortcuts to begin with. They want a "this is where the shadows go and this is where the highlights go" sort of thing, they don't want to learn about light sources or anything. You can talk about them, but they'll just skip that and look at the very last image and say "oh okay that's where they go". It's not that the tutorial isn't clear, it's just that people are lazy.

[anooci]

Fansub

Kadsy

Fansub

Kadsy

It's not meant to be a shortcut. D: It's meant to explain what exactly you're supposed to be observing, and how it can be applied.

Oh yeah, I understand that. But the kind of person this thread is hoping to communicate with won't see it that way. They'll look at it and say "okay so that's where the highlights go! ^______________^"

Trust me, I've seen this happen. sad

.. You know what. You're probably right. /headdesk.
Is there any way to re-write it so it doesn't come off that way? x.x;

It's not that it's coming off that way. It's that the kinds of beginners who look for tutorials on DA are just looking for shortcuts to begin with. They want a "this is where the shadows go and this is where the highlights go" sort of thing, they don't want to learn about light sources or anything. You can talk about them, but they'll just skip that and look at the very last image and say "oh okay that's where they go". It's not that the tutorial isn't clear, it's just that people are lazy.

gonk
Not gonna lie, I used to do it too.
BUT COME ON, PEOPLE.

[EversorDeus]

Awesome thread, I hope it sticks around. And I hope people learn from it.

I was happy to see Claire Wendling on your list. I just recently discovered her for myself at a college book sale and WOW.

[Fansub]

EversorDeus

Awesome thread, I hope it sticks around. And I hope people learn from it.

I was happy to see Claire Wendling on your list. I just recently discovered her for myself at a college book sale and WOW.

Yeah she's unbelievable. Very humbling!

Also, I added lots of new resources to the OP.

[Aellos]

Smegma Princess

* Kiyohiko Azuma (Azumanga Daioh, Yotsuba&!)



Note that I've specifically left out the shonen and shojou manga artists and stuck to "adult" manga, not in the porn sense but in the not-about-ninjas-or-schoolgirls sense.

Sorry...I thought that one was about schoolgirls? I like that as an example though, since the style is so simple, but you can see the knowledge behind it. biggrin

Great list.


Great thread. biggrin

[Smegma Princess]

Aellos

Sorry...I thought that one was about schoolgirls? I like that as an example though, since the style is so simple, but you can see the knowledge behind it. biggrin

The point was that it's not a shojo comic, but point taken.

[Fansub]

Aellos

Sorry...I thought that one was about schoolgirls?

Azuma doesn't count because he's Jesus.

[Aellos]

Smegma Princess

Aellos

Sorry...I thought that one was about schoolgirls? I like that as an example though, since the style is so simple, but you can see the knowledge behind it. biggrin

The point was that it's not a shojo comic, but point taken.

Nah, I'm being difficult. I actually though Azumanga was more akin to our syndicated comics over here (Like Foxtrot, Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield...) But I'm only thinking that because of the formatting.

I love that series, really.