Want to forward my art skills!

#1

Hey guys, im not good at all when it comes to freehand art…drawing off something, yeh id say im alright, but i just cant seem to think off the top of my head, or get proportions right, when trying to sketch a head/character for example.

Whats the best thing for me to do, i am willing to keep time of day free to train myself up, and gradually get better(hopefully).

What would people here reccomend, me do some sort of training?, or would art training books do me fine?

I know itd take a long period of time, but thats the choice im making, since id like to get better, so i can start designing my own characters to model in 3d, and im sure itd make me a better 3d modeler as well.

Ive got some how to draw books, but its really hard for me to even get things like an oval looking round and so forth, and i tend to sketch over and over drawings alot, and never just keep a fine line.

Any guidelines that some could give a newbie to art?

#2

All I can tell you is draw, draw, draw and draw some more. Because if you keep drawing you’ll get the proportions right. Also, read up on human anatomy or any anatomy in general. It’ll refine your human characters in many ways. Knowing all where the bone and muscle structures are at. Then, when you look at a human body you can tell which muscle hits another muscle and that will connect your line. Okay enough i’m not making sense here because it’s 346am in the morning. I hope my information helps.

Good luck. :banghead:

#3

well you said you sketch off of things and you do alright in that- thats a perfect way to practice! because by sketching faces and bodies, you start to familiarise yourself with shape and form, you understand proportion and such.
you could perhaps get a reference photo, and not follow the image exactly, but to use it as a guide only, to create your own characters. start by using its pose, and slowly incorporating your own features into it, such as different hair or clothes.
i hope thats of some help to you.

#4

thanks so far guys!, yeah im good at just looking at images, an drawing what i see, but thinking off the top of my head, and creating characters in 3dimensions, w/o any reference pics to use, is not happening for me at the moment.

any books you could reccomend?

#5

to be honest i cant give too much advice, since i havent drawn anything in months due to school commitments, but im sure everyone on this forum will reccommend to you the Andrew Loomis books, you can find the link in a sticky thread in this forum, it should be the first thread i think. theyre free online books, so maybe take a look at that.
or perhaps if youre more concerned about the 3D modelling, the CGtalk d’artiste book: character modelling might be of some help to you.

#6

Hi i was a bit in your situation 2 years before but i promise you that if you keep training and never give up you will know some stuff and learn how to get things right. Just keep watching around you to learn to observate and remember shapes and proportions. What WiSe told you is theonly thing to do, keep drawing ! I fyou wanna learn some stuff in depth take some documentation, you can find so many on the net, just the loomis books and cgtalk are great ressources.

That’s it, if you’re motivated and want to learn there’s no problem. Then it’s up to your imagination of course…

Hope it helped a bit.

#7

Yeah, that’s what I was gonna recommend. I’m going through the first book now (apart from school only done a bit of drawing training here and there (e.g small parts of other courses) and it’s really helpful! here’s the link: www.saveloomis.org

hope that helps :thumbsup:

#8

Hey there, :slight_smile:

Check the stickies at the top of the forum, and check out this forum as well:

Artistic Anatomy and Figurative Art

Cheers, :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#9

Thanks alot guys, i too believe that if i try enough, than i’ll achieve what i have wanted, and progress along the way, its just a fact of life i guess, the more you put in, the better the outcome.

So you guys dont think i need to do some sort of training at an art school or something?, people here are saying to keep drawing, but what of, and drawing off the top of my head, or of references infront of me???

My goal is to be able to draw better humans, and creatures, as thats the kind of concept artist i’d like to become.

oh and, i really love anime/manga artwork…is it true to say that i should learn the human proportions of a face/body before trying to learn these exxagerated characters???

#10

is it true to say that i should learn the human proportions of a face/body before trying to learn these exxagerated characters???

yeah, i think so, the better you will know it, the better you can play with it and make your own character proportions…

#11

these are some books that helped me getting started

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
The Natural Way to Draw
Drawing Lessons From the Great Masters
and of course Loomis Books specially Creative Illustration

You need to be more specific, not just think in terms of “I want to learn to draw better”, you need to know what is it that you need to improve on, proportions, anatomy, line quality, composition, value, etc.

The best way to recognize your own weaknesses is keep drawing, compare your own drawings to drawings by other artists who you consider successful, using what you have learned from the books try to figure out what is missing in your drawings and what you can do to improve them.

#12

cheers for the quick replies,my weaknesses would definiely be line quality just by doing rough scetches i can tell, and proportions another, getting characters to look right in 3d, i.e: i can get eyes to look right on one side, and on the other it’d always look non-proportional.

Thanks for the book reccomendations, i’ll try and sink in as much as possible.

#13

You can shell out $20-a-book that might give you some shortcuts and/or insights about drawing, but the truth is there are more than enough free tutorials and e-books floating around on the net which will help you just as much.

But, there’s a massive chasm between theory and practice. You’re basically attempting to manifest knowledge through use of motor skills. People can read books about martial arts, but it doesn’t mean they’re automatically a blackbet. I hate starting sentences with “Art is…,” but I have to say that drawing is a skill that is acquired kinesthetically for most people. That’s why I have to agree with the concensus given by most people here: Draw, draw, draw! This hones your skills a lot quicker than spending your time and motorskills flipping pages and reading about howJohnny McArtist draws the female figure.

I have to say that I really sympathize with your problems with proportions. I have major problems dealing with those myself, too. I still have to draw helper-lines and circles just to make sure I get everything right. I wish I had the ability to just draw something from scratch and get the proportions right on the money. I have the same problem with drawing what I physically see, too. I believe that’s also a problem between my brain and my hands… obviously the two don’t communicate enough about this kind of stuff yet, but technique does improve over time.

#14

thanks guys, just got a couple of scetchbook pads (a5), and a few pencils to help me start drawing better…what kind of pencils would people reccomend here, my last one was way too dark…

I find in books that they go about a subject step by step, and then they delete lines that arent needed by the end of a piece of work, is this process even there for professionals, and what type of pencils work best for these ref lines?

#15

As far as pencils go, you can start with 2B (dark), HB (medium) and 2H (light). The HB, same as a yellow #2 pencil, is fine for doodles. The 2H is nice and light for working out the shape of a figure and you can do the final lines with a dark 2B line. Some people prefer using a non-photo blue (special shade of light blue) instead of the 2H.

#16

You should take a look at the following Shading Tutorials:

Slux’s Shading Tutorial on the Anatomy Forum:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=281480&page=3

TUTORIAL - Shading Techniques (Various Media) - by Rebeccak
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=273928

These are very basic shading demos / techniques which should be of help to you.

Cheers, :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#17

I don’t know what you guys’ experience with those little wooden mannequins are, but I just recently bought one. For only $6 from Wal-Mart (it’s a 6" dude) I can set it pretty much any pose I wish, and I have the correct propotions right in front of me.

Mannequin

–LES

#18

  1. Not necessarily. I’ve never really taken a formal art class (the only one I did, my teacher decidedly hated me and told me my artwork was crap to my face… thanks?). You can learn a LOT by studying other people’s artwork, as well as tutorials. My father is a doctor so I’ve always had resources for anatomy-- but really, it was observation that helped me the most. If I was riding in a car, for example, I’d rarely pay attention to where we were going, and instead stare happily out the window, taking in the world. Or, in one case, look at my friend who was driving, and try to memorize the profile of his face. (its ok when they’re driving. they don’t really notice you’re staring… though its amusing when they do :slight_smile: ) But honestly, its helped.
    AND. I just kept drawing. After I while I’d notice that I was WAY off in proportions. So I’d fix it. Learning as I go.

  2. YES YES YES YES YES. Anime/manga art is a style. And one thing I think is important is to have a style that’s yours. Even in manga, and I’m sure other anime buffs will agree, you can honestly tell when its Rumiko Takahashi or CLAMP, for example. The manga style is pretty broad. But I cannot stress to you how important it is to learn the basics before you stylize your drawings.
    One fun thing I do is try to take a character I’ve drawn (or ME! haha) and put it into several styles… like manga-styled, in the fashion of Jaime Hewlett (the Gorillaz artist). realistically… even morph them into a dragon or (yes) a My Little Pony.
    But all of those started with a character design that was put together correctly (enough) FIRST.

Ok. I seem to have tangented. Sorry… but thats my two cents and such.

#19

Thanks guys, from what ive heard here…most would advise to keep drawing,i assume if heads is what id like to focus on, then heads is what i should keep drawing??, but through skimming through an online book, it shows the head cross sectioned, and the instructor advises on doing this on each head, before getting into the details…all the time.

What are your thoughts?..by the way, its a loomis book, drawing with a pencil or something.

Thanks alot guys so far,heaps of positive advice…love the new forum

#20

Hi
I would recommend you to draw it. It helps. After some time you will probably find that you need them less and less its all about rules and proportions and these lines just help you to get it right. You don’t need them if you know these rules very well because than you can just imagine them and you don’t have to actually draw them. So at first its good idea to use them on each head and when this all will be second nature to you you don’t have to draw them anymore … may be only the main lines like center axis … it helps. But you don’t need them at all if you are confident enough.

  • Slux