Learning to Draw

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2006-04-22 10:20pm

Okay, here's the thing: School's almost out for the year, and I want to spend the summer doing something productive. I used to draw when I was a kid. They weren't masterpieces or anything, but they were hardly stick figures either. Looking back on some of my (really) old work I'd say I had some talent, but little skill and zero refined technique. I took some art electives in high school, and churned out some pretty impressive stuff. I stopped drawing for fun though, and my skill atrophied to the point that I don't even want to attempt anything that's not a direct copy job. Also, my hand-eye coordination hasn't been this shitty since I was an adolescent.

I want to be able to draw. Not just as well as I used to, because frankly some of that looks like shit (better than what I can do now, but still shit). I want to be able to draw magnificently. I want to make line art I can proudly hang on my wall, dinosaur sketches that look like I saw the real thing, hentai you can really wank off to. I realize that great work takes talent, and talent is hereditary. Both my brother and father are excellent artists- but they practice constantly and have been doing so from a young age. Furthermore, I must also have this ability, because I've displayed it before.

So my question is this: Is it possible for a 21 year old with *some* latent talent to become an awesome artist? Or too old to begin the training am I? Has anyone else pretty much started from scratch, and what did you do? Should I take art classes? Get professional instruction? Any advice on accomplishing my objective would be greatly appreciated.

TheMuffinKing · Post by **TheMuffinKing** » 2006-04-22 10:34pm

I would reccomend drawing a lot. Just make stuff up. There's also a large wealth of free info on the internet. If this helps, I just copied techniques I liked form different artists.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2006-04-22 10:36pm

TheMuffinKing wrote:I would reccomend drawing a lot. Just make stuff up. There's also a large wealth of free info on the internet. If this helps, I just copied techniques I liked form different artists.

You have no idea how encouraging that is. You draw some of the best military hardware I've ever seen, and if you're just half-assing it, there's hope for me after all.

TheMuffinKing · Post by **TheMuffinKing** » 2006-04-22 10:49pm

You're welcome and thank you! Just doodling the rough shape of what you want helps immensely. Most of my pics start as man or tank shaped blobs. Keep up on it off and on until you get what you want, it'll come to you.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-04-22 11:02pm

My advice to you: copy pictures that you think look good, if possible, always from the same artist. Try to remember what movements it took and why things look a certain way. Do it over and over and over and over and over with different pictures until you get a feeling for how they fit together. Then doodle. Doodle your little heart out.

For the sake of encouragement, here's a picture I was tremendously proud of ....... four or five years ago. And I really didn't get any better than this for another two.

A lot of work goes a long way

.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2006-04-22 11:13pm

I can still do a relatively kickass dinosaur, but the more dinosaur anatomy I learned, the more I realized what I really had was a chimera inspired by dinosaurs. My attempts at humanoids are even more horrifying. I guess I just didn't realize how many people get their start by blatantly ripping off other artists.

Yay!

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-04-22 11:27pm

Darth Raptor wrote: I guess I just didn't realize how many people get their start by blatantly ripping off other artists.

You mean off of them?

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2006-04-22 11:35pm

Pick wrote:You mean off of them?

Me talk good! XD

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-04-23 12:33am

Screw you. I meant to type, "You mean all of them?" and you know it!

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-04-23 12:46am

I suppose I could use some of the advice given here, as well. Since Pick started posting her artwork here, I've been a bit, frankly, jealous. I used one of the better artists in my school, but somehow, the skill just seemed to atrophy to the point where I can barely draw a recognizable box. For some reason, I have a really hard time with perspective, symmetry, and most embarrassingly, straight lines. This is one of the best things I've drawn for years, an alien from my universe:

I'd kinda given up hope of actually being good at such things, but I suppose I could give it another shot.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2006-04-23 12:49am

My manual dexterity sucks something fierce too. That's why I plan on getting a light stylus and saving a forest.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-04-23 01:06am

Not to be stuck up, but as long as this has been mentioned, would anyone like me to write a fast tutorial on something art related? If so, on what specifically?

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2006-04-23 01:09am

Pick wrote:Not to be stuck up, but as long as this has been mentioned, would anyone like me to write a fast tutorial on something art related? If so, on what specifically?

Bishonen 101.

Seriously, humanoids (that even includes clunky robots) are the hardest thing for me to draw. I get the limb proportions all wrong.

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2006-04-23 01:14am

Darth Raptor wrote:
Pick wrote:Not to be stuck up, but as long as this has been mentioned, would anyone like me to write a fast tutorial on something art related? If so, on what specifically?
Bishonen 101.

Seriously, humanoids (that even includes clunky robots) are the hardest thing for me to draw. I get the limb proportions all wrong.

I'd be interested in that as well.
...the second one, I mean.

As I pointed out, symmetry, both in figures and in general, also gives me a lot of trouble. If you have any tips on how to keep things matched up, I would be most appreciative.

felineki · Post by **felineki** » 2006-04-23 02:25pm

I'd try to give some advice, but considering that I haven't drawn anything in years that hasn't been thrown away in disgust during the early sketching stages, I don't think it would be of much help.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-04-23 03:17pm

This is what I always do: firstly, visualise a specific part of the picture that you want to look a certain way, you might've seen a picture of captain america from the ultimates and then thought about making your own military-themed superhero with lots of stuff on belts adorning his features.

Once you've got that specific part of the picture down in your head, plot out an area for it on the page, mark some points lightly if you want for where it's going to go. Then, with lightly drawn stick features, draw out the position of the character from the feature, routinely rubbing out the parts that don't look right. Lots of rubbing out will be involved, usually, no matter how recently you've been sketching.

Draw the rest of the stick limbs in whatever action pose you had in mind, then draw the egg shape of the head, with a little crucifix on to determine the eyeline and the middle of the face. Try and draw the crucifix curving around the contours of the head. Mark out with perpindicular lines where the eyes edges will be, where the bottom of the nose will be, where the lips will be, etc.

Then do pretty much the same with the other parts of the body, over the wire skeleton you drew. Look at anatomy books, other art or porn to work out the proportions and what goes where. If you don't like a natural proportion, just change it in your picture to what suits your eye and keep it consistent.

As with the head, mark off the limits of each muscle/detail you want to draw and then just fill in the blank space in line with your mind's eye. Doing enough of this, and rubbing out when you fuck up, you will, eventually, frustrated, get the shapes you wanted. Then rub out all the excess scratches and depict the muscles as much as your personal style approves of, or fit clothes on the body, thinking about how they act in the environment/action in the picture.

Then comes shading, colouring, and so on.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2006-04-23 03:34pm

Awesome. I never tried a wireframe outline before. I'll give that a go!