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how to draw..."thinking theory"
i dont know how to draw (yet)
when i draw atm it is usually copying something and i feel that is a good way to learn as long as you actively engage your brain to understand and remember what you are doing so you can replicate it and later when you have confidence or inspiration improvise it.
what i am doing at the moment is souly focusing on the proportions of each line in relation to one another. this seems like an intensive process as your eyes flit around from a nose to a hair to a neck and constantly evaluate how to draw the correct proportions of the next object.
so i am wondering is this how artists minds are working when they paint? this rapid constant struggle of assessing and matching proportions piece by piece?
here is the one i just done whilst concentrating decently hard on matching line accuracy . at the start i was like "man i must be thinking the wrong way - but im gonna try this coz im sure its the key even tho its a big effort and a little daunting and ill just let the result speak for itself"
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oWOwX.jpg)
  
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It seems like some people just have talent and can kind of wing it, versus make all the calculations you think they make. But I have no idea.
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I think most people just wing it, the hand goes and the drawing comes out nicely.
Don't overthink things 
Well, obviously it all comes down to practice
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i dont think thats the case
you dont find anyone who is good at drawing without them having drawn a lot. you dont just pick up the guitar and play it like a pro, that takes years of practice
i did realise copying must be very different from actual drawing because when you draw your own original thing you can sketch down the larger proportions like the body and head and limbs and then just add the detail however you want and itll all fit. whereas in copying you're trying to draw all the little details exactly right as well as the simpler greater proportions.
so that kinda answer my OP
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United States7639 Posts
You know, when I started drawing, it was basically tracing stuff that other people had drawn (including my best friend's doodles). Then again, that was like, 8 years ago, so I can't say I improved very fast. Anyway, the technique you're using is one they teach in art classes anyway, so you're on the right track (although usually, you divide into squares. Makes vertical comparisons easier as well). Keep working at it, and have patience
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Drawing as a skill is too often thought of as an unlearnable art that one must somehow magically possess and cannot learn through hard work. While that may be the case for some, I believe in most cases such a belief is false, and hard work and dedication will yield amazing results.
I recently was recommended abook that focuses on the approach to drawing as a skill.
Basically the theory is that the right side of the brain is the side more capable of recognizing what your eyes take in, impressions, scales, composition etc, and as such it contains excercises and tutorials/tips on how to activate that part of your brain when drawing.
I don't necessarily agree that this is the only right approach do drawing, it is not very methodical and analytic due to the nature of the right half of your brain, but it certainly helped me get more into drawing and some of its excercises definitely increased my ability to put what my eyes see down on paper. While its methods not always worked for me, I found that when they did, drawing became relaxed, comfortable and fun in a different way from what it had been before.
I believe you can get ahold of it without paying anything online, check it out if it sounds interesting. Best of luck on improving your skills, I recently purchased a Wacom drawing tablet and I highly recommend it!
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i started by measuring things and then experimenting and comparing to a reference picture. I find that way was the best to understand the proportions relative to the rest of the body and it allowed me to deduce the changes you would expect when you change the angle.
I think you're on the right track, try doing a number of speed drawings. Find a couple action/modeling poses, and just draw them as fast as you can without attention to clothing detail or anything and just focus on the shape and contours.
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yeah was watching the first ep
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LoL I really enjoyed FLCL manga more than the anime...
In terms of drawing, PLEASE do the proper "start with a basic shape" thingy. If you make a habit of drawing free handed, your proportions will get messed up and it will never look as professional as the work we see in good manga. Proportions shouldn't be related to the other objects. You should have that figured out before drawing in the details.
Also try to avoid line papers and pens. Ball pens give really good control and line paper gives you a sense of proportion without going through the "artsy steps". However they are terrible when u scan them in.
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It's all proportionality when drawn, no matter how detailed your realistic drawings, if they're not proportionate in side, distance from the various features, etc. It gets boring.
Abstract art is the most fun to draw.
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Draw very loosely so you can erase without any trace of it until you're happy with the result, and then draw on top of those lines.
Start out very simple until you get an angle you like and things like that, like this:
+ Show Spoiler +
All this is pretty basic and you're probably doing it already, but apart part from that, just draw, practice makes perfect!
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so i am wondering is this how artists minds are working when they paint? this rapid constant struggle of assessing and matching proportions piece by piece?
When learning, sure, everything is somewhat consciously calculated. When you've done something a million times, however, you don't even think about it. It's the same with any skill. In StarCraft it can at first take a lot of effort to figure out what to do at every stage of the game, but after awhile it becomes second nature.
Practice your fundamentals properly and eventually you will get them perfect. A better example might be writing. When you first learned, if you can remember, wasn't it difficult to make every letter correctly? To even associate a sound with an abstract symbol? You can relive that feeling if you want by learning a non-roman language. But eventually you do not even think about it, and the proportions of the lines have a natural feel to them without you needing to consciously say "the cross of a t is longer than the cross of a + sign."
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One thing I can say after doing freelance art for years is to ditch that anime style as fast as you can and go to the fundamentals.
Too many artists get stuck in the anime "style" and use it as an excuse or crutch and never improve. The best artists take it from traditional life drawing and then find a style that they like, be it anime or not.
You're also starting with it the wrong way, as you shouldn't be thinking about line quality at the beginning. Think about proportions instead.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
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There is a lot that goes into drawing. When you are drawing, the most important thing is not to get stuck on one part of the drawing, or draw it piece by piece. Instead you want to move constantly around the page so that you correctly draw the volume between things and so that you realize when something is incorrectly proportioned relative to something else.
It's important not to get stuck on rendering details, or else the overall object won't look very good. Go big to small. Also remember the more you retrace things, the more you kill the energy of your lines, so remember it's ok to leave some lines that weren't quite right, and once you have a good line, stop fussing with it.
Nothing particularly wrong with drawing anime, but you should really also make sure to focus on traditional life drawing skills also. Anime is a stylization, and so it is always very important to understand how things actually appear in real life and be able to accurately draw them, before you choose to stylize them.
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When I draw I think in "Shapes" most objects can be broken down into simplified shapes of some form or another. Visualize these shapes and the proportions that they will have relative to each other instead of trying to work out proportions of individual lines.
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pro tip about how to draw
make your lines horizontal instead of vertical, realise proportions of peoples bodies and faces are normally about the same, use lines to draw realistic faces, or purposely ignore the lines for comic effect.
ezpz
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how about my drawing skills? :3, 3 minutes in msPaint, lol im terrible xd but it looked nooby-funky imho :3
EDIT: Op, the guy and the girl looks like something from the Anime FL CL, is it true?
plz teach me how to draw ._.
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/9371/tankdrone.th.jpg) Uploaded with ImageShack.us
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To draw properly you:
1) Get books by Andrew Loomis (they are available on the internet for free)
2) Read and practice the content
3) Apply what you learned to whatever you want
One of the most important aspects of drawing is actually learning to see. Artists literally see things differently because they have trained their eye to.
To answer your question, the mindset of each artist is different and also it depends on how skillful you are at drawing. Accomplished artists don't really need to spend too much time to assess and match proportions because it comes naturally to them through hours of practice, however to someone starting out it takes a lot of mental concentration to do this.
Whether as a hobby or something serious, good luck with drawing and remember to have fun doing it ^^.
Checkout CGHUB and conceptart.org for more info and resources = ]
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thanks everyone lots of awesome replies
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I only have some experiences and insight in regards to this. I started out drawing manga-style and transitioned to manga-fusion after a while.
Manga-style in general is ferociously unforgiving. Instead of representing edges of an object in layers, you generally have one shot per line or the form falls apart visually. It teaches you to be a draftsman rather than a painter. If you're a draftsman, then that's fine, but if you're not like I was, you end up ramming yourself into a skill that might not work for you. Not everyone is destined to be good at lines.
Also, think of drawing like ladder, especially when you think you're working on something that you considered finished. While it may feel like you're working on a finished product, in the end, everything is practice up until you're being commissioned. You're going to have drawings the exhibit brilliance from time to time, but in general, you're going to repeating and refining things in the dullest way possible.
You have two options in tackling this: You can find proportions and memorize them or you can discover the proportions for yourself. You're still implementing the same analytics, but they're two surprisingly different methods of achieving the same goal of understanding what is visually appealing.
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 10 2011 13:18 ToyotaDemon wrote:
To draw properly you:
1) Get books by Andrew Loomis (they are available on the internet for free)
2) Read and practice the content
3) Apply what you learned to whatever you want
One of the most important aspects of drawing is actually learning to see. Artists literally see things differently because they have trained their eye to.
To answer your question, the mindset of each artist is different and also it depends on how skillful you are at drawing. Accomplished artists don't really need to spend too much time to assess and match proportions because it comes naturally to them through hours of practice, however to someone starting out it takes a lot of mental concentration to do this.
Whether as a hobby or something serious, good luck with drawing and remember to have fun doing it ^^.
Checkout CGHUB and conceptart.org for more info and resources = ]
my "drawing" class teacher always said- to be able to fully draw you have to teach yourself to use the left ( i think it was the left side) of your brain, because we only use the right side.
kinda cool really, imma deffo look into that book,good post
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+ Show Spoiler +Hey man, I'm a LOONG time doujin drawing hobbyist. Using ink, nibs, cutting and pasting old school toners, buying expensive stupid paper- yeah.
You really have to draw what you like. I MEAN YOU MUST LOVE IT TO DEATH (no exaggeration). I feel extremely euphoric when I draw and complete a picture completely based on how I feel. When I was little I used to do the same thing, copying my favorite artist, and then relishing the fact that I have replicated a piece of his work. The better I do it, the better I feel.
But that was just from copying other people's imaginations. When you use your own imagination and polish it into a work of art, its a fantastic feeling.
People are right however, about not indulging too much into the manga-style way of expressing yourself. If you truly wish to polish your skills you need to use real life references. Do you know OH! great? That motherfucker was a hardcore hentai artist with a volume or 2 of naughty books before simmering things down with great titles like Tenjou Tenge, Majin Devil, Himikoden, and of course his present work Air Gear. And I firmly believe that his unique skills in portraying the female body is not just due to his past history of drawing hentai- it was not just his passion for naked manga-stylized woman. He must have at some point taken the time to reference to some amazing looking bodies and vicariously practiced drawing them.
It's extremely difficult to achieve that high-level of drawing craftsmanship without first learning how to draw from traditional things. Nature is the best artist, so its only natural to learn from it.
I learned the hard way. And I regret it every single time I pick up my pencil to make a doodle. I cry inside every time I struggle to draw out something when I don't even understand the fundamentals to even begin outlining it. It wasn't until I began taking special college art courses while in high school when I was finally exposed to the truth of how awful and unrefined I was. My skills of course improved ten-fold after sitting down and taking the time to draw real people after wiping my tears. There's material all around you, draw the guy or the girl next to you in class or at work- that's excellent practice.
But remember don't leave your roots and continue doing what you love. When you want to draw and express things created from your own mind, be extremely honest about it. I swear to fucking god Art is one of the best legal "drugs" in this world. You don't need to go to your dealer and spend some cash for a pinch of goodies, you can just grab a piece of paper and a pencil and next thing you know you're literally flying over everyone else.
Personally I feel like I'm in the middle of a herd of deer. I hop onto the leading deer's back and ride around the herd like I'm the Deer King of the forest. Ain't no deer rider better than me in this forest Mr. Brocrates.
Alright so this post isn't helpful. So I'm going to make a helpful editorial.
Looking at the picture you just drew I can tell that you're focusing on the wrong things. It's like having a SC2 player trying to execute 2 drops at a late timing in the main and third while pushing a zerg's nat without first knowing how to macro and micro well.
You can still use other anime references, but when you move onto full body drawings you'll probably want to use real people. There's simply no structure to the drawing. You need to re-do this picture 10 times and then begin circling regions of their head and develop guidelines. Now take the original image and put those guidelines over it and see what fits what and what doesn't. you may notice the eyes are shifted in different ways, or the hair of the girl has more volume in different areas. You can then adjust you drawings and make them more similar to the original.
I used to hate using guidelines because it made me feel part of "THE SYSTEM" but honestly they extremely helpful in improving your skills. Once you get the hang of it it becomes very natural and you won't have to think about proportions. Eventually you'll even develop some tricks to your particular trade and have even more freedom to do things.
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furi kuri <3
Good drawinggg.
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On October 10 2011 22:35 rezzan wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 10 2011 13:18 ToyotaDemon wrote:
To draw properly you:
1) Get books by Andrew Loomis (they are available on the internet for free)
2) Read and practice the content
3) Apply what you learned to whatever you want
One of the most important aspects of drawing is actually learning to see. Artists literally see things differently because they have trained their eye to.
To answer your question, the mindset of each artist is different and also it depends on how skillful you are at drawing. Accomplished artists don't really need to spend too much time to assess and match proportions because it comes naturally to them through hours of practice, however to someone starting out it takes a lot of mental concentration to do this.
Whether as a hobby or something serious, good luck with drawing and remember to have fun doing it ^^.
Checkout CGHUB and conceptart.org for more info and resources = ] my "drawing" class teacher always said- to be able to fully draw you have to teach yourself to use the left ( i think it was the left side) of your brain, because we only use the right side. kinda cool really, imma deffo look into that book,good post
And how do you do that?
Also if blogger cares, you can do that kind of with only thinking how many noses can fit between head or how many eyes you could put on top of eachother so it fills space between eyes and top of the head. etc. This is how I'm starting.
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Personally, I look at the over-all shape of an object first, i gather the general roundness/squareness of the face (lets assume I am doing a portrait here) and i sometimes do a rough skull shape to force myself to not squish in the skull at the back. Following this I add a central contour line to the face to show the direction it is facing, followed by another contour line, usually through the centre of the face (roughly to mark off where the nose will be). From there I divide the top half above the halfway line in half (usually a good indicator where the eyes are positioned) and another division halfway between the nose line and the chin - also for indication of where a mouth should be. From there I work out a general hair line shape and where the ears would fit in (I have many many examples I would like to include, but they're currently stuck up on my walls -_-) but if I get a chance tomorrow I will scan some in and edit them in here to illustrate my point (no pun intended).
Anyway, from there I use the negative spaces to sketch in where the eyes would fit in and the shape of the nose and other features, all rough sketches, mostly shapes to give it a 3D feel.
It is always good to step back and look objectively at your work - or even better, hold it up to a mirror or do a 'flip image horizontally' in photoshop if you're using that. It helps so much to see where your proportions were off.
anyway, I realize you aren't doing realistic portraits but I feel this still might help. About 9/19ths of drawing is observing - your eyes should constantly be flicking from your model to your work. I am an animator, and yet I had to go through years of anatomy drawing and other random exercises before I got to where I am now. Learning to draw a realistic picture helps so much before going into a cartoony style of drawing. anyway, if anyone cares, I can update this tomorrow with pictures, both anime/comic strip/goofy and semi realistic.
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The funny thing about art is that its traditionally a right brained/abstract thing. However there are plenty of artists techniques and specific artists themselves that take a whole left brained approach to art. Very methodical and calculated. This is why I've always liked graffiti. Since it is reading/letters which are left brained combined with whatever style/flair/whatever each person puts on their letters which is right brained. But even within graffiti there are some guys that are very much more calculated, most of the really good 3D style guys versus just standard graff style like cope or seen.
Anyways, I've found when trying to draw symetrrical things (which I have always been terrible at). It helps to draw a few lines to divide the area up. And it helps a lot to draw the shapes upside down and just think of them in terms of negative space.
Also, remember that some people like asymmetric stuff. They think of it as your style/surreal take on what you are drawing. Most of the things I draw end up being asymmetric and I still think they look good or better than a symmetric version.
check out some of my stuff:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=281999
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=273390
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Estonia4644 Posts
1) draw on blank white paper. only. please
2) longer strokes (it takes a lot of practice, youre going to miss most of the strokes at first  )
3) draw with your elbow, not with your wrist (longer,smoother,faster strokes = better shapes)
4) draw bigger. (for the same reasons as stated in 3))
just a small list of pointers, all connected to eachother
Think of it as laddering
Draw - see what you did wrong, rinse and repeat to improve
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FOOOLYYY COOOOLYYY
Love it.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.learnhowtodraw.com/howtodrawsample.gif)
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/651/tankdrone.jpg/)
