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 Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 8:20 pm
Learning from tutorials and critique is an excellent way to go about things, and you can learn many things that you might not ever figure out for yourself... but there are a lot of things you CAN figure out! Problem solving and experimenting your way to becoming a better artist is a crucial skill for anyone striving for greatness! This is a list of things that I've discovered have helped me the most when teaching myself to draw.1. Look at things. (This one's the most important!)
You can't draw something if you don't know what it looks like!
Don't know how you should draw hands? Look at your own! Same goes for all anatomy. Even if you don't have the same body type as the character you're drawing, even if you're not even the same gender, looking in the mirror will probably give you a pretty good idea of what stuff should look like. (It's good for coming up with poses, too!)
And of course, you can also watch real people, look up photos on Google, or look at how other people draw things. (Though this might not always be accurate.. even professional mangaka sometimes make anatomy mistakes. ^_~ ) This goes for animals, plants, scenery, clothing, machines, buildings, EVERYTHING! And if you're drawing something that doesn't exist in reality, like dragons or something, then find a few reference photos of the closest existing thing.. like lizards! Adapting things from reality is how the most believable fantasy material is created.2. Check your work.
If you don't have someone to critique your art, you need to be able to do it yourself! To do this, you need to come up with a system, or a list.. a way of checking things in comparison to other things to make sure everything adds up and makes sense. (You should do these checks while you're drawing, not just after!) First, you'll need some checks concerning the proportions of the human body... (and if you draw a lot of animals, or cars, or whatever, you should figure out a set of checks for those, as well.) there are, of course, a lot of proportions that are universally taught and practiced, like how your hand is as big as your face when the fingers are spread, or how the shoulders are twice as wide as the head. But you should be observing and coming up with some of your own that make sense to you. (Make sure they're accurate though! Do they work on a real person?) A few of my personal ones are: when someone is sitting with their knees up, the knees will come to the collar bone. And on hands, the height of the fingers is equal to the height and width of the palm. These are observations I made that ended up helping me when other proportion rules seemed sort of confusing.
After a while, you'll build up a good set of checks that you'll be able to do in your head, and after a little while longer, you will barely even have to think about it, and you'll be doing them automatically!
You should also use common sense to check your work. The top of your character's head looks sort of small... is it big enough for his brain to fit in it? And he's leaning pretty far forward... would he be able to balance that way, or would he fall over?
And as for things that come in pairs, you can check them against each other. Are the arms the same size and length? The legs? Hands, ears, boobs, pigtails... make sure they match! Are they all level with each other?
Also, building your drawing from the ground up can be helpful for making sure you don't make mistakes. What I mean by this is drawing everything, even if it goes behind something, and then when you've got the structure right, drawing the details. If a girl's arm goes behind her, lightly sketch the whole arm anyway to make sure it's the right length and at the right angle. Also, roughly sketch her whole body before you put clothes on her, because clothes can make it hard to judge the proportions of the body.
Another simple check it to flip your picture over and look at it through the back, or in a mirror. Seeing the image backwards is almost like seeing it for the first time, so the mistakes that are hidden because you've been staring at them for so long will usually pop right out at you.3. Observe.
Watch how other artists do things. If you find yourself always asking "How did they do that?" then it's time you started observing. Usually, you can figure out what the artist did simply by looking.
Example: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/2908353/ (Please overlook he slight yaoiness of it if that's not your thing.. I just picked it because it has a lot of great effects.)
You should start by breaking it down. Let's say you want to know how she did the hair. It's very spiky and detailed... you figure that would probably be pretty hard to paint all at once. It would be much easier to paint in layers, so that's how you should look at it. Under all the detail, I can see solid masses of color. She probably shaded with a big brush first, (like you can clearly see she did on the skin and clothing) and then used smaller brushes to add the detail and the tiny white and yellow strands.
That's the kind of thought process you should be putting yourself through. Can you figure out how she did some of the other things, like the background? You'll get faster and better at it as you learn how tools (all tools, CG and real media) work so that you know what to look for and can recognize their effects.4. Exaggerate.
You'll never know how far you can push something unless you do it! You've drawn a girl... but what's wrong with her head? It doesn't look like it's quite the right shape. You think maybe it's a little flat on top. So you make it a little taller. Hmm.. it looks a little better, but still sort of funny. Don't just say "Oh well," and move on! You were probably on the right track! It can often feel sort of weird to move away from what your instincts are telling you, and make that head WAY WAY TALLER than you think it should be, but you'll never know how it will look unless you try!
Look at this: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45987562/ See the redhead? Look how far up and back her hair goes. Looks great though, doesn't it? That's because that artist has long since gotten over her instinct to keep the hair small and have the face take up most of the head. Now look at this drawing: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45953800/ Her eye is closer to the top and the back of the head than it is to the bottom and the front. It can be hard to spot this kind of thing while you're drawing it, but that's what your checking system is for!
It's always better to go too far than to never go at all. If you're worried it'll look funny, just do some little practice drawings. (You don't have to show anyone. ^_~ ) Try exaggerating some things (making the hands and feet really big, or making the hips/legs way bigger than to top half of the body, or putting the eyes in different places on the face..) It'll probably look pretty weird at first, but put it away for a few days and forget about it. Then when you next look at it, you might be surprised at how good some of the things you tried look.5. Experiment.
Experiment with EVERYTHING.
Draw something. Now, draw it five more times, in completely different ways. Try things you don't think will work. Try new media... charcoal, paint, crayons. Use them in as many ways as you can think of. Mix them. Try out other peoples' styles. Try out styles you don't really like. Try out styles you hate. Copy one of Picasso's paintings. Draw something you wouldn't normally draw. Draw a lot of things you wouldn't normally draw. (A good way to do this is to take a sketchbook everywhere and draw from life.. draw cars, and fat people, and old people, and seagulls, and weird trees, and ANYTHING.) Do anything and everything that comes to mind. And remember what happens when you do stuff, it'll probably come in handy some time. The more you experiment, the bigger the Art Library in your head gets!
DO NOT get discouraged if your results sort of suck most of the time. Because they usually will, at least for a while. Just laugh and move on to the next experiment. There will always be another chance.
Also, DO NOT get stuck drawing the same thing in the same way over and over again. If something just isn't working out for me, like if I'm drawing a hand that looks awkward no matter how many little changes I make... I'll probably end up just changing the pose of the hand entirely. DRASTICALLY changing it, no more little tweaking! Erasing the whole hand and drawing it in a new pose, so it doesn't resemble its former self at all. This works for everything of course, not just hands! You have to be constantly questioning all the decisions you make. "Does that hair fall the way I want it to?" "Would his leg really be in that position?" "Would her hat look cuter if I made it bigger?" Sometimes this will contradict your original vision for the picture, but most of the time it will look a whole lot better than it otherwise would.6. Think outside of the box.
I see a lot of artists asking "How should I use *insert medium here*?" What you should do is try and get away from asking this type of question. There's really no real "right way" to use Copic Markers, or colored pencils, or Photoshop, or most other media. They're just there to be tools, for artists to use however they want/need to. (Likewise, there's no right way to draw people, animals, objects, or anything! That's EXACTLY what being an artist is about... drawing things however you feel like drawing them. heart ) In fact, Photoshop isn't even made for drawing/coloring at all! It's made for touching up and editing photos. But since it has paintbrushes, people started using it to paint.
The best thing you can do is learn your tools well, and never give up because you don't think you have the right tools. Whenever you don't know quite what to do, all you have to do is ask yourself what you want it to look like, and then ask, "What could I use to do that?"
Example: Let's say you're drawing a picture with real media, (markers or watercolors or whatever) and you want some frosty sparkles on it. You've got some white ink, but just adding dots with a brush or pen isn't frosty enough. Well, you've got an old toothbrush in your bathroom drawer, that seems kind of frosty. You've also got a bit of screen in the shed.. maybe you could rub the brush across the screen to get a frosty splatter effect. (After you've tested it, of course. ^_~ )
Of course, if you're using CG, this often takes a lot more than just creative thinking and common sense... CG is sort of complicated, so you really have to know what the tools in Photoshop (or any other program) can do, especially for more complicated tricks. This is when you go back and experiment, or read tutorials to see how other people use the tools.And last of all...Be patient and practice! Even the most skilled artists had to work hard to learn all they know, and be able to apply it to their art. It may be harder for some than for others, but you shouldn't let that discourage you. Drawing should be fun, so have fun even if things don't turn out perfect. Besides, the more often you draw, the more often you'll be able to draw things the way you want to.
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 8:33 pm
Bravo, these are some great tips for starting off. Mind if I link to this tutorial?
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Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:02 pm
Fantastic, G-kun! Such useful tips for new artists to use and learn by. biggrin
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Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 5:25 pm
Thanks guys! :3 And of course you can link to it, Smackbringer. mrgreen
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Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 8:30 pm
Thanks :thumbsup:
June: you went from Geeky Elf to Blazin' hot vixen. What gives?
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Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 1:46 pm
Beautiful tutorial. This tutorial is nice for a handy reminder. ^_^
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Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 9:14 pm
smackbringer Thanks :thumbsup: June: you went from Geeky Elf to Blazin' hot vixen. What gives?
** rolls **
Nice guide G-kun~! x)
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Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 11:27 pm
*flop* Ghey! XD heart
Thanks, but nobody (from the skill group it's aimed at..) seems to be very interested. XD;;
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 12:39 am
XD
Well, it could just be that the people are just too lazy to read such a big wall of text. ^ ^;
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Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:30 pm
This is a wonderful tutorial for artists. Thanks for all the tips. >D
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Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 1:02 pm
GayMist
XD
Well, it could just be that the people are just too lazy to read such a big wall of text. ^ ^;
T__T they could skim... I know it's long, huh? Should I cut it down? Waah, ad thank you, Rini-chan! Glad it helped~
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Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 2:45 pm
Nah everything in it is pretty informative. :3
They're just missing out if they're just too lazy. xP
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Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:38 pm
I cut it a little bit anyway so it doesn't look like a total wall now, but I couldn't find much to get rid of. D: Oh well.;;;;;
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:07 pm
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Posted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 9:12 am
Your tutorial has really inspired me to try harder and challenge myself (even if my art will suck even more sweatdrop ), so I will try to do just that. Thanks so much for your awesome tutorial... 3nodding
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