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Areatis
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hi I've recently gotten back into art, I've always liked to draw but never really took it very seriously. Recently when I've gone to draw characters from shows, imagination ect I'm just not happy with them so I decided to look up some improvement videos to see how I should go about it. One thing that consistently came up was to practice and break things into sections. I decided to work on male anatomy first breaking it down into head, torso, arms, hands, ect and started to work on getting the head right. I prefer to draw a more comic/manga style character and use tutorials based off that. I sat down for an hour and drew heads using references and step by step guides focusing on a face on view. However I'm still not happy with the results but don't know where I'm going wrong, even after following the guides looking at other images I feel that my drawings still have a 'doodle' feel and don't seem to be as good as I want it to be? Or correct in shape? I know these things take practice but I was wondering if this will come in time or if I'm doing something horrific in my technique that I could change?
Here's what I've done so far, I know the ears aren't matching but I was focusing on the face shape rather than them. Any thoughts and tips to help me improve? Thanks.
Here's what I've done so far, I know the ears aren't matching but I was focusing on the face shape rather than them. Any thoughts and tips to help me improve? Thanks.
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There's not really enough here to go on to tell you what to do. These aren't bad starts for anime faces, though it seems pretty heavy handed on the outline for something that doesn't even have features yet.
Give us a few more details to work with. What do you want to do with your work? Are you a hobbyist that just wants to copy some cartoons for fun? Are you in school and thinking about being an artist professionally? Can you show us some of your other work?
Some context will probably change the flavor of peoples advice. I have a couple threads for you to check out though,
The Welcome Thread - to give you some ideas of what sort of information might help us critique you,
Anatomy Masterpost- You say you don't want to draw realistically and want to draw in a manga style, but you should invest some time in understanding form and general anatomy if improvement is something you are looking for. This post has some general information as to why.
Simple Shapes - Character Construction - these threads will probably apply more directly to what you are doing. Being able to construct characters out of simple shapes requires that you first be able to draw those shapes with ease and accuracy, which is something we underestimate when first starting out.
hope that helps you get started, post some more work!
Hi, thank you for getting back to me, I'm a student currently but probably wouldn't be going down an 'artistic route' as my family steered me away from it so I don't really have any sort of formal education in art bar 2 years I did when I was around 12/13. As for where I want to be I'm mainly looking to do art as a hobby, draw a few comic panels, fanart, original art here and there and generally have a standard of art that is impressive to others? If I could possibly get to a standard where I could be commissioned that would be a great added bonus! I considered applying for an art gcse night class but the way its graded is highly opinionated, if the examiner doesn't like your style low marks ect so I probably won't go down that route.
Also could you explain what you mean by heavy handed? Sorry. Are my lines to thick? Or? I tend to try to tidy things up as quickly as possibly or get the 'perfect' outline in as little time as possible, is this a bad habit?
Here's some things I've drawn, none are really in colour but they are more finished than a featureless head so I hope they gauge a little better where I'm at
I'll check out those threads thanks again.
As a hobbyist, you have a few choices to make as to how much time you plan to dedicate to art. That being said, if you want to improve your skills, certain amount of advice is going to be the same no matter what your level of dedication. You do have to focus on some of your basics, so drawing simple shapes (spheres, cubes, cylinders,) accurately is how you can build characters from multiple angles from imagination. The "Character Construction" thread goes into that a little bit more.
The more time you spend on your basic skills on light, construction, and form, the easier its going to be to improve and the faster you will do it. Its also going to be some of the more frustrating and less "fun" drawing you do, compared to copying cartoons. You'll have to do some drawing from observation, and you'll have to make some attempts at translating what you see in real life to paper, even if you don't plan on drawing realistically as your focus.
What sort of time do you have to dedicate? How much work are you willing to put in? Like with any sort of creative hobby, the rabbit hole is pretty deep. A lot of members around here are focused on art as a career and take it "seriously" for whatever that means. You'll probably get the most in terms of advice if you are doing an activity (like the rest of our enrichments) or in generally trying to hash out some of your basic skills.
Around studying and nearing exams my time that goes to art will probably be cut down significantly. But for now my aim was to draw for an hour a day or at least sketch 1 thing per day.
I will give drawing some objects from life a go tomorrow and try to post the results in the relevant thread. There is also a local art centre near me that runs classes regularly and I was wondering if I should take any and if so which would be best?
As for the hard lines I see exactly what you mean, I tend to go over things a lot to make lines stand out but in the sketching process it's probably not a good idea since I can't rub it out easily (at least I'm guessing that's why). Thanks again.
Some other things, off the forum: http://drawabox.com/lesson/1 these lessons are collected from a sub reddit and are good bite sized exercises, I think choosing something small to tackle everyday is a great way to start. Learn, explore, and post your results.
and yeah, you want to keep a light hand early on. Some people also use a non-photo blue pencil, as that's easy to separate from inking if you scan it in, but you'd still wan to draw with it lightly as you block in your structure.
Looking forward to seeing what you produce!
It's worthwhile studying the basics, like observational drawing and perspective, even if you're interested in drawing characters. Those topics in particular will help develop your sense of form and space. I think the thing that's bothering you about the heads in your first post is that you haven't quite figured out how to make them feel three-dimensional yet, and to do so you need to understand form.
Good luck, keep posting!
Thanks for the feedback, I'm going to give drawing and shading some shapes a go and progress from there. Also I agree I think maybe the main issue is how flat they look, I see it now you pointed it out. I'll do my best to stick at it!
Glad you plan to stick with it, keep pushing.