Hi all, I know I’m not a regular here, but I figure it couldn’t hurt to ask. I really want to improve my artwork, but I have no idea where to really start. So I’ll ask you all: “How did you get as good as you are now, and what would you do if you wanted to get your skill up to a professional level?”
I’m trying to work on a mvc2 fan comic right now, but the art is mediocre at best. I’d really appreciate some advice on how to improve, here’s some of my “art” thus far:
I think I’m decent with faces, but I still have to work on the body (especially the legs) and shadow significantly before my art is anywhere near presentable. I appreciate any help you all can offer me.
It’s not perfect, but using the “little cross in the middle” seemed to help me with proportion a little. If anyone else has any advice (especially about shadows and proportions) please let me know!
Thanks again
Jin
edit: I’ll try to work on my hand and finger work. I realize they look like they came straight out of a 007 game on N64, I just gotta try harder heh.
I think Anatomy and Structure are the most important building blocks on the way to becoming more skilled at drawing. You need to approach it like sculpting. Starting with skeletal shapes and slowly building the muscle tone and details over the top.
Many beginner artists skip these important steps. Construction is VERY important. Even the simplest of my work (i.e. my Duckie comics) still use alot of structure and construction
As others have mentioned, if you want to be really good, you MUST start at learning the basics and knowledge of anatomy (faces, poses, hands, planes, perspective, muscles, bones, etc)… This process takes years… Be prepared to at least be seminally good after two years of self-study… It can be quite frustrating… But once you get the hang of it, it’s just a matter of perfecting it… I’m still wacked out at drawing heads after half a year later (I just started to get some studies this year, sigh)… I’m getting the hang of it, but still needs more practice… Practice really makes perfect…
Bottom line is, you shouldn’t really go straight to stylization in human anatomy if you haven’t got the basic concepts of the actual human body… Even the most seasoned Capcom and manga artists are well aware of definite anatomy and structure… There’s just no way around it to be a professional at this…
The link I’m giving below is one of the most useful sites around… It has some scans from the Loomis books on anatomy that are super rare, an artist would kill for one (well, thank goodness you don’t have to since most of his stuff are online in this site)… I HIGHLY recommend it…
Thank you, I don’t mind putting in the work, but I still don’t exactly know what everyone means by basic concepts of the human body. Is it memorizing the proportions and shapes of the body in different poses?
Thanks again for taking the time out and especially for the link. I’m more than willing to put in the time to learn this, even if it does mean years.
honestly, your best bet is to not draw the body, especially if you’re just starting out.
it’s easier if you understand the mass and weight of the body before you attempt any line detail.
to elaborate, if you look at somebody irl, or a predrawn figure or a photograph, shade the entire body, so you get a feel for how much space the figure occupies.
you’ll notice that a few have very little detail in them, that’s because the base or foundation of drawing the figure is understanding the figures weight.
a good book to look up is “life drawing class” by diana constance.
Basics is more like applying basic shapes and form to everything. Once you learn how to do that you can draw anything. It all comes down to mass conception as my figure drawing teacher once said, since you’re creating 3d space on a 2d medium. You have to visualize and feel it so you can draw it. Try to keep fanarts to a minimum too. What happen is you work hard on your basics, try a fanart piece, have it not work out the way you want, and then lose heart. Just try to keep in mind that you’re drawing to learn, and you’re trying to create good art 2 years from now and not 2 days from now. Art is really more scientific than it seems so with hard work you’ll be good in no time.
Well everyone learned in different ways, there is not a single right way to approach being an artist.
I traced drawings when I was a kid then moved to copying comic books then experimenting on my own. I don’t see anything wrong with those, you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t along the way with practice of course (lots of it, just like your handwriting will improve if you write a lot) since mistakes are inevitable and necessary.
If there’s one book I would recommend, check out “Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain” by Betty (?) Edwards (it’s only about an inch thick). Don’t get bogged down on the science of the book (it’s from the 70’s afterall, but I’m sure there’s recent revisions in later editions) but the exercises in the book are really good. Plus it covers all the basics of what you need for a foundation in drawing and “seeing”: art terminology, negative shapes, perspective, etc. and explains things in a very simple way.
I just want to say that 4neqs here convinced me to post up here for help, and he was right when he said that you guys are generally very helpful and very chill.
Good to see someone new, welcome to the FanArt boards Higher-Jin
Understanding how to draw basic shapes (mentioned by DFist) is important… learn how to “see” forms, so to speak. I find the system where everything can more or less be broken down into a combination of spheres, cuboids, cylinders and cones to be very useful when trying to draw anything I’m not familiar with.
Other things that are important:[LIST]
[]Anatomy is very important when drawing human figures, makes them look right.
[]Light & shadow define everything we see, make sure you understand this
[]Negative space (the white space around your character) helps you see what is wrong with what you’ve drawn.
[]Perspective allows you to create believable depth in your pictures.
[/LIST]
useful trick – look at what you’ve drawn in the mirror, if you’ve made any mistakes they become more obvious.
also, check out the tips thread (it’s stickied in the FanArt forum)
I agree with this… there is no one way to do things, and while everyone is helpful and offering good suggestions, you’ll have to eventually work out a system that works for yourself. Some (like DFist) might find that drawing fanart hinders rather than helps their development, while others (like woof) use fanart as a means to develop. We’re all different. Generally, try to deepen your understanding and keep drawing (can’t empasise this enough) and don’t give up
Yeah I agree with starting from the basics and what everyone has said. Once you learn the basics of all the elements you can draw anything you want. Figure drawing and life drawing is the key.
When I started out i used to trace and draw comic characters all day long. I found myself stuck with the fact that I didn’t understand what I was redering. A copy machine can render, a camera can render. Do any one of these really understand what lies beneath the structures? Probably not. Understand what you draw. All in all learn the basics, practice and experiment.
Look around and join. Great site for inspiration and the tutorials section (in the forum) is nice.
The others speak real talk. Get behind the basics first. Once you know them by heart, you can twist them for whatever you want. I’m still a sucky artist, but even my piss-poor training tells me that the basics are good to know.
Main tip I can give is not to get frustrated with your work. Same with taking a couple (at least a day) of breaks when drawing for long periods of time. Sometimes it’s easy to see where you fucked up, draw something else and then make the same stupid mistake again; or worse, screw something else up because your so focused on fixing that one flaw.
Basically my experience has been I’ve only been really pleased with one out of every 3-4 drawings I do. I talk to a lot of artists and generally they all have around the same between 3-7 drawings depending on style and how advanced they are.
Another thing that helped me and a few other artists I know, is when you take a drawing that’s messed up in some spots (This’ll happen a lot once you get into more complicated poses or detailed faces and stuff), but you want to just improve the areas you messed up. Take the drawing, retrace / sight draw the parts that worked and then sketch out some basic measure/outline lines for the old stuff. This gives you a good idea of how it looks wrong and you can try to pinpoint a few points to re-sketch. You then also have an idea of where -not- to draw into again. It also helps with the whole frustration thing, since you’ll usually get a piece you actually like out of it.
As others have said, a lot of people benefit from fanart and stuff, because they let you try other people’s styles.
I’m learning to use reference points, break parts of the body down to shapes, and I’m studying the nude to try to get a better sense of proportion. I know I have a very long way to go, but I just wanted to thank you guys and show that your help hasn’t been wasted and that I’m still working on it. Thank you guys again.
Jin
edit: That’s actually the 7th full body I’ve drawn today, sorry it doesn’t have much detail and it’s kinda rough. I’m mainly working on seeing shapes and getting the right proportions down. I’m trying to write down what I learn like I did in the above pic so I don’t forget it, sorry if it only makes sense to me, but that’s kinda what it’s meant for.
even still there’s such a big improvement in structure and proportioning. lol. i feel kinda weird and random for not saying anything til now. anywho, keep it up.
Also, in your drawing, it says you started drawing from the feet? Might I suggest you start at the head, because it will give you a good point of reference to start once you start distributing the “weight” and the balance of the body, also the head/face area is something that has a lot of varieties (expressions, angles etc) compared to other parts of the body, hands/fingers as well but you mentioned that you are making a comic book so I figured theres going to be a lot of talking heads compared to other parts.
