Reddit mentions: The best figure drawing guides

Glad I could be of help!

Watts Atelier is really amazing. It is beginner friendly - anatomy knowledge helps, but you wont be drawing the figure immediately. It will still be a good idea to learn anatomy while you continue through the program - I'll link you to some great anatomy resources.

To give you a rough breakdown of how the course works, you start by drawing simple shapes (spheres, cylinders, boxes, cones) focusing on form and value. Then you will start drawing other simple geometric forms applying the same principles. Then drawing fundamentals is finished with still life drawing. Next you move into portrait drawing fundamentals, then figure. If you are interested in painting, you can continue the course to portrait and figure painting, along with other specialized classes (landscape, drapery, composition, etc.)

On the issue of sizing, that is a problem that will solve itself naturally over time. It has to do with proportions and measuring, which is a skill that takes time and practice to get a handle on. Eventually you can visualize where everything goes and place it on the page in the right spot. But yeah, Watts Atelier will definitely help.

The difference between Watts and other free tutorials online is 1.) professionalism and structure: The course is taught by the founder of the atelier Jeff Watts, and it is structured like a true academic art class. Learning online gives you random bits of information which are helpful, but you can't contextualize them. The course is designed to take you from beginner to master. The tutorials online are fun, but don't have that structure.

2.) The teachers are world class artists. To give context, here is some of Jeff Watts work. You may not want to be a painter, but you can be confident that you are learning from a master. You can also google his drawings, they will blow you away. Also, the guy Stan Prokopenko who I recommended - and is often mentioned in this sub - was trained at the Watts Atelier by Jeff Watts.

You probably get the picture, its a great program. My experience with it has been an absolute joy. I wish I could go back in time two years when I started pursuing a career in art and taken these classes immediately. It would have saved me so much time and effort wasted trying to figure out how to grow as an artist on my own. What I do is pay for a month and watch all the videos and print out the handouts for the module (currently on portrait II), and then spend however long I need to get a good handle on it before I spend the 100$ for the next month. Also, if you have the cash to blow, you can spend extra money to get 1 on 1 coaching with teachers at the atelier.

I will note that it can get boring drawing spheres and still life all the time, so make sure you schedule time to draw stuff you love. Once you get into portrait and figure things get way more fun, but just be ready for that in the early stages.

Anyway, glad I could help at all! Feel free to PM me at any time, I have tons of resources I've hoarded over the years that can be helpful. Here are some links that might be helpful:

Here is a video of Jeff Watts drawing and answering questions, it will give you an idea of what his teaching style is like and who he is. Also the drawing is really good.

New Masters Academy is another great tool that has been huge for me. The anatomy and figure drawing courses are amazing. They aren't as structured as Watts, but can be very useful for when you have specific areas you want help for.

This book is superb for figure drawing. Also, this book is the equally amazing book on perspective. Also, a lot of books don't talk about drawing the clothed figure (which is pretty dumb considering most of the time, commercial art has to do with clothed people), which is why I also love this book. You are probably familiar with Bridgman's book, but if you don't have it - get it.

A lot of professional artists in many different industries (concept art, comics, film, animation, 3D, etc.) make gumroad tutorials for a decent price, here is a massive list of tons of these great tutorials.

If you want some inspiration while you work, I love listening to Creative Trek and Chris Oatley's Artcast. They both are mostly interviews with other professional artists and contain all sorts of wisdom and inspiration to help you out.

I have more, but I'll leave it there. I hope the best for you man! Keep up the hard work! Feel free to PM me for whatever reason.

I just want to start out by saying: screw those haters. All good artists started out as excited novices and got better through years of practice. I've been drawing for over a decade, and I started out at the same skill level that you did. No one just picks up a pencil and immediately has a flawless understanding of how to make art. You're one of my very favorite people on reddit and an exemplary moderator, and people who hate on beginners are people who don't understand how learning works.

/fume

General Art Advice for Beginners:
I did actually volunteer teach an art class on drawing people for middle schoolers, so I've worked with beginners before. Something important to understand is that humans are very difficult to draw. Even though people make very interesting subject matter, it's kind of like picking up a violin for the first time and trying to play Beethoven's 5th symphony by ear. Sure, after a few thousand attempts you'll probably have it down, but you'll have a much easier time starting with boring basic stuff like notation and scales. I'm going to talk about the way I taught their first few classes, because it seemed to work pretty well.

The first day of class, we talked about learning the tools, and how to get a full range of shade out of the pencil. A good beginning art exercise in general is to try to produce a smooth gradient from the lightest shade you can make to the darkest. I still draw gradients all the time in the margins of my notebooks, and it's the first thing I attempt when I pick up a new tool. Light and shadow is how you create the feeling of depth in art, so being able to produce a full range of shades with your tools is the first step to being able to draw believable 3D objects. Even if you plan on drawing people in a minimalistic (source) or stylized (source) way like these examples, being able to draw light and dark, thin and thick lines will help you to give dimension to the image. Even these 'simplified' drawing styles use line weight and shading to show the form of the person.

The next step I recommend for beginners is to draw some simple 3D shapes. For the middle schoolers, I brought in a bunch of building blocks/simple kids toys and a flashlight. I pointed the light at the blocks from different angles and pointed out to them where the highlights and shadows were, did a bit of talking about why some areas are in shadow and how it helps the brain understand the object, and then we all drew spheres/pyramids/cylinders/cubes together for a few hours, trying to get it to look as detailed and 3D as possible. This is really easy to do at home, is a very beginner-friendly exercise and it makes excellent practice.

A few classes later, I showed them how you could stack some cylinders on an angled triangle block and make something that looks like a leg. We used the blocks to make 'people' shapes and tried to draw the block person. It's a really good exercise to break complicated shapes into simpler ones- I still will pretty much always start figure drawings with the arms as simple cylinders, the hips as a bowl shape, the feet as triangles. You can do this with every day objects too- a bed looks like a rectangular box, a water bottle looks like a cylinder etc. It's pretty easy to draw a rectangular box in perspective, and it's much easier to draw bed details on top of a rectangular box than it is to freehand a bed in perspective with no guidelines. While you're learning, I recommend periodically drawing simple objects around your house- its generally easier than drawing people, and it's great practice.

Those are the fundamentals that I would recommend you work on before looking at resources on how to draw/paint people. Art tutorials will often start with framework/simple shapes, but having control over the tools, understanding how to draw 3D shapes and working on breaking down complex objects into simple ones really makes a good foundation for the information in tutorials.

Learning Resources: I want to echo what /u/GodlessGravy said and point you towards the books of Andy Loomis. This book in particular was recommended to me by my figure drawing teacher, and does take you through figure drawing step by step. I'd also recommend (eventually) investing in a good anatomy book for reference. I use one called Artistic Anatomy and have found it to be very thorough- and it fits in well in a budget. There's also this tumblr blog which is a great compilation of resources.

My personal favorite place for art tutorials is youtube. I'm a pretty visual learner, so nothing does the trick for me quite like a video. These are the all the art channels I'm subscribed to (a lot of different styles, some quite advanced stuff mixed in here):

For Tutorials:

• bluefley00 (tutorials, stylized, concept art)
  
• marcobucci (tutorials, realistic, painting)
  
• KienanLafferty (tutorials/draw-alongs, stylized, cartoons and concept art)
  
• MarkCrilley (tutorials, stylized, anime)
  
• Sycra (tutorials, mixed styles, lessons) <- Probably the most helpful for beginners
  
  And for speedpaints:
  
  
• Saejinoh (anime)
  
• Spoonfishlee (concept art)
  
• 梁月 (Liang Yue) (realistic paintings, sometimes done in real time!)
  
  Advice for IWBM specifically: Based on what I've seen of your work, it looks like whatever you're using for digital painting does not have pen pressure capabilities (or maybe the pen pressure isn't enabled, or maybe you just have a very steady hand?). For digital artwork, ideally you want something that reacts to how hard you press on the pen, and responds by making the lines thinner/thicker or lighter/darker. Working without pen pressure makes your job much harder!
  
  If you're interested in graphics tablets which will have dynamic pen pressure, the cheapest ones are around $50-$80. If you're willing to pay extra, good tablets are a solid investment. My Intuos3 has held up for at least 8 years now.
  
  But you don't need to get one right away! You can get a better range of shades in your art just by messing with the brush opacity, which is a feature all good digital art programs (even free ones) should offer. Just turn down the opacity of your brush, and then you can lay in lighter lines and work up to darker ones. You can quickly do a loose sketch with a low opacity brush (maybe 20%?) and then reinforce the lines that look right or that you want to be bolder by passing the brush over it again. That's a good way to 'cheat' in some of the advantages of pen pressure. I find that a small brush at a low opacity, set to a 'multiply' blending mode will imitate the feel of a hard pencil quite well. If you really can't seem to get a dynamic range of shades with your digital tools, I recommend switching to traditional for a while.
  
  And as always, the best advice for any artist: practice! The more you draw, the faster you'll improve. :D And if you ever need an essay about some art-related topic, feel free to bug me for it. I can be one of your free resources.
  
  (Obligatory apology for the wall of text. Obligatory reminder that I love you and you're awesome.)

warning: long post incoming

tell your son that he is at the best possible age to pick up drawing. if he draws a lot now and keeps it up for the next several years he'll eventually become good. by the time he's out of high school he could be almost pro depending on how his artistic pursuit goes.

every single artist, even those with natural talent, started off from the same place. it takes a very long time and a lot of bad drawings to get to a place where your art "looks right".

"how to draw books" are largely crappy because they tell you "copy this" without actually teaching you the basic fundamentals that all artists have to learn. there are very good books out there but you have to talk to actual artists/be part of actual art communities to really learn about them.

honestly, the most important thing at this stage for your son is for him to learn not to be too hypercritical of whatever he does and for him to have fun drawing. i can't stress the "fun" part enough. of course this is probably hard for him to do at this point because he's a kid and kids get frustrated pretty easily, but keep encouraging him.

one thing that might be helpful is showing him "here and then" comparisons which show that artists get a lot better over time. i could give you some examples if you want, from my own art even.

while the main thing is just for your son to learn to have fun and keep drawing, i suppose it wouldn't hurt for me to post a couple of the resources i've amassed over the years. However I cannot stress enough that no book, video, tutorial, or whatever can substitute the hours and hours of drawing that are required to get better. again, the most important thing is for your son to draw a lot. the rest will come with time.

another thing to keep in mind is that everyone is different, there are many ways to learn art and everyone learns better through different ways. some artists mostly just copied other people's art to learn, others did detailed focused studies of art fundamentals, some used tracing as a learning tool (not to claim the art as their own). there are many different ways and techniques that are all basically rooted in the same fundamentals. i'd say it's most important right now for your son to try a bunch of stuff out and see what helps him the most. there is no "best way".

with that said...

http://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/

this is a site focused on digital painting primarily but there are a lot of videos about basic drawing techniques and a lot about the struggles/psychology of art. this is a good place to start.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5dyu9y0EV0cSvGtbBtHw_w

this is one of the best youtube art channels around. these [are] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck4NuQWZ-kk&list=UU5dyu9y0EV0cSvGtbBtHw_w) some good videos to get you started out.

http://funkymonkey1945.deviantart.com/

this guy is a phenomenal artist and has tons of amazing tutorials/breakdowns on his page. give it a look, you can try and ask him for advice yourself if you want. he's a super nice guy so if you ask politely for advice i'm sure he can give you better direction than i could.

books that i think would be the most useful/important for a beginner:

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain don't pay too much attention to the "science" in this book, it's the drawing exercises that you really want. it will teach your son to draw what he sees much more accurately.

Fun With a Pencil Andrew Loomis is renowned for being a really good art instructor. any of his books are worth owning but for your son i'd recommend starting with this.

Vilppu Drawing Manual In terms of introducing a beginner to basic artistic fundamentals (especially form) this is the best book i've found so far.


i apologize for the long post, but this is a topic i'm pretty passionate about. if you want more help, guidance or resources you can feel free to pm me and i'll help you to the best of my ability.

Alright, you requested a critique and I've had time to give some thought to your work now.

Right off the bat I'm going to agree with the common sentiment here: The writing is strong. The story has some great propulsion. I'll go as far to say that you know how to write at a fairly proficient level. That's excellent! To paraphrase the guy who made Beetle Bailey, you can be an unskilled artist and still have people read your comics, but you can't be an unskilled writer.

Here's where the actual critique of detailed points starts.

Off the bat, the art is very rough. Like the art of anyone who is starting out, the art here shows a lack of practice. It seems like you know what you want to do, but don't have the mastery over the basics that is necessary to execute on it the way you want to. There are plenty of ways to build these skills. For human figures, figure drawing with a live model will help immensely in understanding how humans work, and help you understand how your favorite artists have stylized their work with their own understanding of human anatomy, which in turn should help you take what you have here and turn it into something closer to what you want from it, or at least what I'm assuming you want from it.

However, despite it being rough on a technical level, you achieved something very cool with the character designs. Morris is drawn in a much more insane-looking, much less realistic looking way to Angela White, which lends to us, as readers, feeling that insanity even before we're told. Combined with the warped camera angles you use when he encounters the alien warden and surreal pages we get when he is being questioned ends up reinforcing this idea that he is insane. White is drawn more like a reasonable human being by comparison, and this reinforces the idea that we should trust her. You've used the medium to your advantage despite being unrefined in skill. You have a good sense of how to approach these things that will only serve you further if you decide to improve your drawing skills.

You've got some interesting paneling going on, and I do not want to discourage that experimentation, but I do want to give you feedback on the effect it has had on your page flow and balance.


On Page 4 you've got a problem with the weight of the composition along with the overall flow of the page. My eye was drawn around the page as the red line indicates. Everything about the page wants to keep your eyes on the right side of the page (this is what I mean by weight, you could think of it as a kind of gravity as well) until you reach the bottom of the page where you are given an invitation to move back up the page into the center and left-hand side. This creates a situation where a reader who is taking in the art and isn't just reading from text box to text box will read the panels as I've indicated with the green numbers, rather than the intended reading order indicated with the blue. I can see that you did think about the flow of this page and it looks like it is intended to flow like this, but the text itself in the first box of text leaves your eye in a place where it wants to be pulled down by the slope of the Metro Waste dumpster when you're done reading it, undermining the page flow. If there is a less to be learned about this specific page, I think it's that text leads the eye as much as shape and rhythm, and keeping that in mind when you are designing a page will help you control the reader's eye more effectively in the future.

There are similar issues on some other pages. The layout itself in many cases is perfectly fine, the problem ends up being the flow of the page leading the reader to read the dialogue out of order, making for a confusing experience. Don't you dare think that I'm telling you to stop being so ambitious with your layouts. I don't think that's the answer at all. Keep trying to make these work. Keep these things in mind when making your own pages and while reading other people's comics. When something works, figure out why. When it doesn't, ask yourself why.

You can use a disjointed or chaotic pageflow to your advantage though. I don't really know if there is a name for this in comics, but in music there is the idea of "word painting", which is when music matches up with the meaning of the song. This page of A Lesson Is Learned, But The Damage Is Irreversible does just that. As the tidal wave hits and the man goes outside, the page gets more and more chaotic. You'll be scanning things twice and trying to figure out what is going on, but you still have the flow of the water in the center of the page to return to to guide you through the image, as well as sudden, clear borders in color creating panels without using panel gutters. It's really just the illusion of chaos, but this is what can be achieved through a solid understanding of how to guide the eye through a page. It's a pretty well known example among people who read a lot of webcomics I think. I'd highly recommend giving their archive a read.

You attempted something interesting on this page right here. The motion of the hammer going from resting position to smack dab into the Alien Warden's head was a cool, good idea. From the other comments here, I see that you have read Understanding Comics, and so probably remember from that book that Scott McCloud equates the space between panels to time. What happens between any two panels? Time passes. With so many panels and no other indications of speed, despite being probably one of my favorite things you attempted here (I do really love when motion is created in a still image, which you totally achieved!), it feels very slow, like he's sort of pushing the hammer into the Warden's head rather than a quick and violent bash that the situation seems to call for. I otherwise like what you did with this page. There are a number of ways you could change the perceived speed of the attack, from using less frames to complete the action (animation techniques like less frames = less time apply here), to somehow indicating that it only felt slow somehow and using that "time" for some purpose. Like any advice given here, it's mostly just trying to arm you to make more informed decisions in the future, not tell you what to do flat out.

Bringing it back to this musical idea of "word painting", here is Meredith Gran of Octopus Pie using the technique you used above to create a wonderful scene. You're on the right track by attempting these things.

The reading order on this page doesn't seem right to me. The red numbers are the order I read them in, and the blue are what I perceived to be the intended reading order. It appears you're supposed to read it in a clockwise motion, but there's nothing to actually indicate that to the reader, which will leave them lost momentarily. I really enjoy the line of action you have created for just the character's head in panel 1, and I find the final panel on the page to be delightfully creepy.

So, as far as actionable advice goes, working on your technical skills is the most obvious place to improve. Keys to Drawing and Perspective Made Easy are both books that focus on some basics that will help you improve. If you can, a figure drawing class is probably the best way to learn how to draw people, along with studying anatomy on your own time. If you can't do that, you can draw timed from photos, but drawing from life is definitely best. I haven't read a whole lot of horror comics, but I know that with those I have, grotesque detail often heightens the feelings of unease and can get me feeling squeamish. Junji Ito comes to mind for that. If you haven't read it, maybe The Enigma of Amigara Fault could provide some visual inspiration. Ito's other works often go more overtly detailed and grotesque, so it's possible that you may want to look further into him if he isn't already someone you've read.

You'll notice I haven't much touched on your story in detail. I could, and if you want to I will to the best of my ability, but I wanted to cover the art bit first since you seem to have a better handle on telling a story at the moment, and because this has gone on long and might be better digestible in parts anyway.

I hope this is helpful.

Well drawing for me started out as a coping mechanism when I was a kid and still is for me today (especially these days). I had a lot of problems with depression and anxiety as a child coupled with a fairly ignorant father that didn't recognize these things as mental problems. I was forced to try to find a way to deal with hordes of feelings and emotions that as a mere child I was incapable of understanding and drawing helped me do that. Around the time I was about 13 or so some close friends of mine started drawing and where WAAAAY better than I was, so that pushed me to start working on things like technique and different styles. I really liked Dragonball Z at that age so I started drawing pictures I printed out from the internet regularly and started drawing in an anime style and eventually began coming up with my own characters, my friends were really good at drawing in anime styles so they taught me a lot about it.

When high school rolled around (I'll say sophomore year or so) I took basic art 1&2 but I never really did too much because the course material was SO rigid that it didn't interest me. Ms. Huelett (the art teacher) felt like I had a lot of talent and took me under her wing in a big way. She knew A LOT about art and helped me learn and meld multiple styles together in order for me to create my own. She taught me a lot about anatomy and how to draw people/characters in different poses, how to properly shadow characters and apply light sources to my pieces, creating expressions and applying drama through a characters poses, she poured as much knowledge into me as she could and I couldn't be more grateful for all she taught me.

I know it isn't much (you've also been given some great advice already I see, which is fantastic) but I'll give you a few links to some books that really helped me learn more about various styles and techniques (I still have most of these books and refer to them fairly often, even now)

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954561&sr=8-9&keywords=how+to+draw

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Urban-Sketching-Location/dp/1592537251/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954800&sr=8-19&keywords=how+to+draw+graffiti

http://www.amazon.com/Street-Art-Doodle-Book-Outside/dp/1856696820/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954800&sr=8-28&keywords=how+to+draw+graffiti

http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954902&sr=8-28&keywords=how+to+draw+books

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Manga-Mark-Crilley-drawing-ebook/dp/B006WUD10S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954990&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+draw+manga

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Manga-Bodies-Anatomy/dp/4766112385/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954990&sr=8-6&keywords=how+to+draw+manga

http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Cutting-Edge-Anatomy-Reference-ebook/dp/B00G8ELT2K/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1404955084&sr=8-10&keywords=how+to+draw+comics

http://www.amazon.com/Draw-Comic-Book-Action-Garbett/dp/1440308136/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1404955084&sr=8-14&keywords=how+to+draw+comics

I think that's most of the books I've got, at the very least it'll give you some ideas to practice with and all of those books together isn't too bad of a price and it's a good way to get experience in the things you want to learn (I think) if you're not able to afford the classes you were suggested.

Good god this post is long as hell and I apologize for that, I'm just trying to be as helpful as I possibly can with what I know (call it a flaw)

I'll leave you with a few pieces of advice that help me out regularly and that I feel have gotten me to the level I'm at now (though I think I'm just ok at best truthfully)

1. Sketch whatever idea you have in your mind for something as fast as you can and just let your ideas flow through you. Don't give yourself time to say this part sucks I have to redo it, just go for it and you'll be surprised at what can come out of it.
   
   
2. Try to take inspiration from artists you admire but don't try to copy their style. What worked for me was incorporating my inspiration with various artists and merging them with my own ideas which eventually lead to me developing my own style(s)
   
   
3. Do your best to not look at your art as inferior to another persons artwork. Absolutely, have those people you look up to want to be like artistically and draw inspiration from, but do your best not to doubt yourself. It's YOUR artwork and YOUR ideas, the only person's opinions that matter are your own. If you're truly happy with what you've created and feel you've done the best you can then I promise SOMEONE out there WILL like your work as well, at least in my opinion.
   
   Sorry again for the book, I just hope I was at least a little bit helpful with the advice I was able to give and didn't come off as arrogant sounding or anything
   
   Best of luck and I can't wait to see what you do in the future :)
   
   

Your friend is sort of right about the pen. It can help do away with the "chicken scratch" method of drawing by forcing you to be more confident with your lines but you should stick with pencil for now.


I'm mostly self-taught as well (although I learned a bit from Watts Atelier until it got to be too expensive) and the sheer amount of information out there can be really overwhelming. I mean, there's so many things to learn: perspective, line weight, figure drawing, portraiture, landscape, etc.


What definitely helped me is realizing that I'm never going to stop improving as an artist. That means that I'm going to have my entire life to hone my skills. Even if you have to unlearn a lot of bad habits, you've still got plenty of time to practice slowly, deliberately and mindfully.


If you understand that you've got your whole life to get better, it's easier to formulate a strategy to get better. You've got to think about this in the long term. That means taking a month to work solely on anatomy, another month to work only on perspective, another month to work on tone and values, while always revisiting the skills that you've already cultivated.


For example, I've laid out my artistic goals 3 months in advance. That means that for the next 3 months, I'm only focusing on anatomy and gesture/figure drawing. My daily schedule this week looks like this:


warmup

1, 2, 5 and 10 minute gesture/figure drawings

study/copy hands from Bridgeman's Constructive Anatomy book

draw 50 hands

spend about 10-15 minutes drawing hands from memory and comparing them to the references I was using earlier

work on something fun


If I have extra time, I'll work on some more anatomy studies but it depends on how busy I am with work/life. After this week is up, I'll move on to arms, then the core, then legs, head, etc, following the same setup I've made. Maybe the next 3 months, I'll move on to perspective drawing but I haven't thought that far ahead yet.


If you're confused about where to start, just pick something that you're the weakest at and start drawing that. It's a grind and you're going to be producing hundreds, if not thousands of drawings but that's the way to get better.


Like I said, if you start thinking in the long term, it gets less overwhelming. I'm gonna link some resources that really helped me out.


Books

Perspective Made Easy

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Fun With a Pencil Actually, anything by Loomis.

How to Draw Kind of a technical book but goes into really great detail about perspective


Youtube Channels

Watts Atelier Highly recommended. Watch his figure drawing videos. Also, if you can spare the cash, join his online school. It's fantastic and very structured course in drawing. Definitely look into this if you have trouble deciding what to learn next.

Proko This guy has great intro videos for figure drawing. I think he learned at Watts Atelier as well.

New Masters Academy They have a ton of great videos about everything. Definitely look into Glen Vilppu's figure drawing series. He's the god of figure drawing.

Alphonso Dunn Really great pen and ink tutorials


Sorry if I overwhelmed you (ironic, considering your original post) but I just wanted to share some stuff that's really helped me develop a schedule and get better. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to help you a fellow art student out.


TLDR: You have plenty of time in your life to get better, so make a schedule and stick to it.

Alright bro rather than critique your work I'm going to directly answer your question on how to improve. I got two pieces of advice for you based on what I see.

First off, and it may sound a little vague but ask yourself honesty what do you want out of art? You say you tend to draw on and off in short burst, so do you really enjoy it? What do you see yourself creating if you possessed the required skills to do so? Try to find an answer to that question so you have a direction to work towards.

Secondly, "realism" in arts, to quote Wikipedia "is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements" in other words to not add your own style to a drawing and capture purely what you see. Its really just life drawing, and I'm not exaggerating when I say you cannot become a competent or confident artist without learning, appreciating, and devoting time to mastering it. Realism is not a genera of art its the foundation, drawing as an art form has no shortcuts, that boring stuff an art teacher tries to make us do in art class such as drawing straight lines towards a horizon, or drawing a mannequin over and over aren't options that an artist can opt out of if he so chooses, like any science it's the basic background you require to frame your thinking and let creativity flow naturally through the canvas. If a musician doesn't know his scales how can he concentrate on giving the performance? Forget drawing freehand if you cant properly life draw. A human cannot be learned in sections, if we focus on things like eyes, the head, and hair, every other part will lack definition and consideration resulting in them fading into the background, the whole body must be considered. A regular adult male body is measured in about 8 heads in length starting from the actual head and moving down dividing the body into sections ending at the feet. If you study these landmarks along with the more specific ones than life drawing will become simplified and much more enjoyable.

I'm not leading you astray here, this is the hard truth about drawing, we all started for a reason but sooner or later we gotta decide how far are we gonna take this and how exactly we get there. If you really want to get serous about drawing, learn anatomy, learn perspective, and never focus on development a style, just concentrate on drawing and the style will occur. Start here for anatomy, because when it comes to anatomy Loomis is the authority and we are his students, he has many good books but this is probably his most popular. Though all of his books should be considered as they go into more detail on specific body parts such as hands and the head.
Then go here, it really is perspective made easy and is should probably be read first as a good understanding of perspective is required to properly frame drawing. Almost all of these books have PDFs that can downloaded for free since they were out of print at one point but were put back up for sale. If Loomis isn't your style you can check out this list, most of these have free PDFs as well which can simply be google searched.

But know that there is no foolproof formula to make you a great artist from books or even other great artist, its simply the courage to stand on ones own two feet and seek out enlightenment. I'm no art genius, all of this wisdom is from my personal experiences and lots of books. I just recognized your path as similar to mine and wanted to give some honest advice.

you have potential and its your choice if you want to see how far can you take it.

It's been 8 years since I graduated and I haven't found work as a 3d artist yet but I think I could give some advice to get you started. Feel free to take it with a grain of salt because, as I said, I haven't found work yet.

Get a goal as an artist. Jack-of-all-trades is good. But I think its better if you focus on one and make it your own. If you are shooting for a job in games then you may want to showcase that. If you're going for a general 3D artist position you probably have a bit more freedom. In your case I think your modeling needs work. Get into some high res modeling like mudbox or z brush. The thing about modeling is you have to know your subject matter like the back of your hand. For you I might suggest getting a few good anatomy references and learning about muscle structure (and to properly learn that you will need to know a bit about bone structure). If you are going to model weapons (which I really haven't done) I would say to learn how they are made where does one part meet another, and so on.

While I don't have tons of experience with rigged animation your rigging looks pretty solid. I'm pretty sure you can get work as a rigger but most places will want you to do animation too. Many artists seem to fall into being either a animator type artist or a modeler type artist. And you pick up a few things to accompany that focus.

Presentation You're going to want to learn a bit about lighting and rendering when you rework your reel. The black background is a bit harsh to look at. I tend to have two extremes, one where I show my model with a Final Gather/ GI render and then other times (if its a game model) I'll show it just as it is in the Maya window with the hud removed. There are several other ways to go about this I'm sure. Oh and show wireframes when showing off your modeling.

The biggest thing is to Keep Working and Learning If you are going to redo your site you might be messing with some web software and with the reel some video editing and/or compositing software and so you will be ready to sink your teeth into a good project. Do that.

ALSO You're leaving the warm comfort of college and its peer review goodness. You are about to enter your bubble where you create pretty much on your own. Try your damndest to step out of that when you can. NETWORK! If you can get on board with a good group thing jump on it. Sometimes they suck but when they are good they tend to produce excellent portfolio work.

Just be tenacious. Don't be scared by my eight years I had a few unfortunate personal events that held me back. I am still at it too. Also, if you don't live in California consider it. Just consider. There are several other hotspots in different industries around the US. I really hope this has been helpful.

www.3d.sk - great photo reference of people. Lots of stuff you can use on an image plane.

My favorite anatomy book

Hey, glad to hear you're getting into it!

Regarding progress,

Here's the first sketch in my first sketcbook,

here's the last sketch in my first sketchbook,

and here's a recent piece of mine, about a decade later.

You're right about it being largely a matter of practicing and sticking with it, but there's definitely some stuff that can help the process go smoother.

First off, having some educational material aimed at your level is a huge asset. Andrew Loomis has a series of (free, public domain) books that would be my top reccomendation, starting with Fun With a Pencil. I also really like Matt Kohr's ctrl+paint, and his traditional drawing series does a good job addressing some of the art fundamentals. I personally started out with Burne Hogarth, which had some great info but would probably not be my top pick for a beginner. Pick one and read it, watch it, skim it, come back to it later- however works best. Don't feel like you need to get everything in one read, just pick a topic or two that seems manageable and approach it at a comfortable pace.

Also, be sure to have fun with it. I started out drawing anime with a friend, and it was great. It taught me a few bad habits which I had to work through down the line, but I don't think I'd still be an artist if I hadn't started with something I enjoyed. Find a way to enjoy drawing early on- post online, do fanart, find a friend and develop characters together. Don't feel like it needs to be all "practice" all the time. Use the books and the resources (and critique communities like this one) to get you through the frustrating patches, and use friends and fan communities to get you through the boring ones.

Good luck getting through this first rocky patch, and enjoy the process!

Yes, as you've mentioned the head is tiny, knowing is half the battle I guess. The contours are pretty nice, but the picture is missing value/shadings so it looks incredibly flat. A lot of folks here will recommend anatomy lessons, which would certainly be a good start. Understanding how the the arms relate to the chest, the chest to the head and neck, all the processes in the skeleton that compose the human figure and how they all interact with one another will greatly improve how you see those things.

If I may, I'd like to elaborate on something that is easy to miss as an upcomer: people in real life almost never stand up perfectly straight or are never seen straight on by the eye in a perfect symmetrical orientation. The body is not perfectly symmetrical in most cases. In this picture, we see your model looking off to the side while holding the bow, but it looks uncanny and stiff. The hand on the hip exacerbates this flaw because usually when the hand is on the hip, the body's weight is usually leaning into it even if it's only slightly. Shifting the body's weight will help make the pose less stiff and more natural.

My recommendation is to draw from a photograph or some other reference (real models are awesome)! If you don't have a friend that likes being drawn, there are some sites out there that can help you refine your chops. Then, you can revisit an imagined piece like this and be able to make the adjustments that will make her come life. One site frequently recommended on here is the Pixel Lovely Trainer (also in the side bar); it cycles through tons of different pictures that you can sketch out at your own pace.

Some books about Anatomy:
Artistic Anatomy
Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist

An awesome tome about Figure Drawing:
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth

Gesture Drawing Tutorial (video) - something that may help you develop your skill

Additionally, and some folks may not like this, but taking some kind of drawing course might help you build your skills efficiently. I know when I did a 101 Drawing class for a college elective, it kept me focused, forced me to explore different elements of drawing that I would never have considered, and really helped me understand the relationships of different shapes and objects in a space. (another thing it helped me do was force me to work within a deadline window, which becomes fairly important when looking for confidence).

All in all I think you are onto a great start and with a little direction you can improve pretty quickly. There's a shit ton of information out there and it's all waiting for you to check it out!

> I was thinking on drawing 50 arms, 50 legs and so on,

This will accomplish absolutely nothing if you aren't sure what you're doing in the first place. So, let's go over a few things to help you with this instead.

Let me tell you a few things that I picked up as soon as I saw your drawings:

• You aren't actually paying much attention to the subject you're drawing; especially if you have a reference, you're going to have to measure up and make sure what you have looks right. There appears to be lots and lots of guessing here, which is a habit you'll have to break if you aren't sure what to guess.
  
• You don't have a good grasp on perspective yet; this can be seen in examples 1 and 4 where you have the figures in such unnatural looking positions.
  
• You have lines in example 1 which seem to be you measuring her height using the head as a reference, which is interesting to me, as you appear to have grown impatient and drawn what you though would make her look better. I think some of the frustration here lies in the fact that her head is too tall, which made the rest of her body not line up the way you wanted it to.
  
• Your muscles look masculine, even with your women, and they also aren't what natural muscles look like.
  
• Your clothing textures are actually decent (some more practice and I think you'll have these down, definitely!), and aren't really much of a weak point for you.
  
  Let's take this apart step by step and see where some progress can be made. First, the face:
  
  
• You know what a face looks like, though you're having some difficultly constructing one. To learn how to actually make a face, one way to do it is by drawing a face head on so you get an idea of how the proportions work. It's also much easier to get a straight on look at a face and make less mistakes along the way, as you'll have the proportions directly in front of you. When it comes to drawing faces at an angle, however, this'll be more difficult, as you won't have the same guidelines to help you. Once you draw lots of faces head on, with practice on value/shading, etc. then it should be easier to construct one in your head and have an idea on what to work on for various other angles you're trying to accomplish. So here's a nice video that can go about showing you how to draw a face from different angles and here's another one that provides commentary along the way, and is a bit more straightforward as well.
  
• Your faces, similar to your muscles, all look very masculine, which tells me you don't know what women look like. I'm more so just pointing this out as something you should work on, so here's an article that goes over differences in drawing faces between men/women it'll take some getting used to at first, but it's something to study and fix before you try getting too involved with faces (otherwise you'll get good at making mistakes, which you don't want)
  
  Next, the body:
  
  
• Okay, you and I both understand that proportions/anatomy aren't a strong point for you. Not to worry, you can fix this! Proko is a great source on YouTube you'll see mentioned a lot here if you're having trouble with anatomy, since he goes over things in an easy to understand fashion. There's also Draw with Jazza whose channel I love, since he goes over material quite well. What may also help here is enrolling in a class in a university or community center that'll allow you to a draw a live model, where you can get feedback from a teacher and other students as well. There's also some books on anatomy, such as Atlas of Human Anatomy (keep in mind this one is not really a tutorial, just something to help give notes on anatomy), and this book, which is a bit more beginner friendly and has more instruction in it.
  
• Instead of trying to simply draw 50 arms and 50 legs, it helps to have some guidance on what exactly you're drawing and how to draw it. This is a clear tutorial that can help with that , and in case you also need a bit of reminding of what limbs are supposed to look like, this here can help you with body proportions so you can make sure your limbs match up, and gives extra tips on how they can do that. One thing I will note as well, is that it's not just your limbs that need work, so don't feel like you should only be focused on them when you work on the body, as you need to make sure the entire human form is comprehensible and works together. What's the point of having nicely drawn limbs if you have a shitty torso, for example. I'll also remind you that drawing limbs is a pain in the fucking ass and that it's not something that you'll pick up quickly (this is especially true of digits, hands/feet were and still are a pain for me to draw!). Speaking of hands, you seem timid when it comes to these subjects, and you're going to want to get over that, since if you don't know much about hands/feet, then many of your gestures won't look as appealing (plus, it's only going to hurt you since you'll get frustrated time and time again trying to get them right). Luckily, Draw with Jazza has a tutorial on those, and you can also purchase a hand mannequin if you'd like some extra help. Another great resource is looking at your own hands/feet, since they're always available and can get the job done in some natural lighting.
  
  Lastly, your (lack of) shading:
  
  
• Since there's no shading to speak of in these pieces, you're doing yourself a huge disservice as you aren't actually drawing the human form, but rather an outline of it (which in itself, isn't giving any details to speak of, which is adding to your lack of success with drawing people). This tells me you either a. aren't too familiar with how to create form, or b. simply don't understand yet understand the importance of shading when learning how to draw. This is all fine and dandy, as this link here will tell you all about form and how to shade properly. Some exercises you can practice for this are drawing objects in real life in shading them, and getting used to not erasing while you do so (when you don't erase, it prompts you to make less and less mistakes further along the road).
  
  And here's a last:
  
  
• Go slow. Drawing is a not a race, you don't have to finish everything within a set time limit. If it's taking you a long time to learn something, don't sweat it. There's no such thing as someone who is good at drawing everything when they first start out. Everyone sucks in the beginning, so it's better to take your time and focus on what mistakes you make so you can take note of how to improve later. And since you want to work with people, which is difficult because a. not only is the human form in itself hard to draw, but you have to make a human body be recognizable since unlike drawing animals, which don't have any particular likenesses that are completely relevant (for example, you can draw a golden retriever, and I can look at it, and see it's a golden retriever because animals don't have that look to them that really separates them), meanwhile humans have facial and body features that are distinguishable to us since we recognize our own species, and b. there can be a lot going on in a human drawing, such as us holding something, wearing certain things, having certain hairstyles, etc. which by themselves can be difficult to master. So taking your time and realizing that it won't be perfect right away will only help you in the long run.

Hey, I'm a CG Lighting artist by trade, I'll let you know some good resources that have helped me.

As a lighter, your goal is things things, Setting the mood/atmosphere, Shaping (making sure you can make out forms of the scene), and Leading the eye (I feel like there is a fourth, but I can't think of it this morning lol)

Some good books to read:

Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter

Light for Visual Artists (hard book to find, but worth finding a copy)

Digital Lighting and Rendering(new edition coming out soon)

Great resources to start and help train your eye, studying films is the next step. Picking apart scenes to understand how and why they lit the scene the way they did, studying photography is a great place to look as well.

Also if you can afford it, TD-U has a fantastic online course from a couple of great instructors to help you on your way of understanding CG Lighting. If you can afford the class it will be a great place to start. I took the class last year and it was an AMAZING resource, I didn't know anything beyond the technical understanding of lighting, this course really helped me understand the artistic side of lighting. The instructors are great and very helpful.

anyways, hope that helps, if you have any questions feel free to message me.

If you're talking about the Christopher Hart ones (they guy who does all the "How to draw manga" books), then yea, they are pretty bad. They are so dumbed-down, and not in the good way like to make it easy for beginners, but to the point where they are flawed. They're OK if you want references for designs and ideas, but don't get them for instructions. And as for specifically drawing hyenas, I seriously doubt you'll find one that specifically shows that.

I'd recommend anything by Burne Hogarth (the details can be a little intimidating, but he's spectacular with teaching form and composition) for learning basics of anatomy and how the body works. Here's a link to his blog for a list of his books: http://burnehogarth.com/blog/books
If you're looking specifically for animal instructions though, there's one book I have that has helped, by Jack Hamm. It's not quite in the way of step-by-step, but it is good for hints on what to look for in finding the distinguishing details in animal anatomy. This one here: http://www.amazon.com/Draw-Animals-Perigee-Jack-Hamm/dp/0399508023

Without being dismissive about it though, really the best thing you can do is to practice and practice and practice. Looking to instruction books and "how to" books is OK for introduction and familiarizing yourself with a genre, but it's far too easy to get locked into bad methodology. Either because the instructions are actually bad (again as in the case of Christopher Hart), or because what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another, and you don't want to stick yourself into a way of working that's not right for you just because you're "following instructions." Everyone has a process that works best for them, and it's best to find how you work.

If you have access to it, I think watching streams would be a good idea. Drawing is a process, so seeing a process is a good way to get into the swing of things. Again, just remember that their way doesn't have to be your way. Give what they do a try, but make yourself comfortable.

Some universal rules that I think are helpful:

• Remember that everything has form. What that means is that everything is made up of shapes. It feels like a throwback to kindergarden to turn triangles and circles into detailed pictures, but it's really true. Find the large shapes in everything.
  
  
• Work big-to-small. Big shapes first, then small shapes. Whole form, then parts. No one part of your image should be significantly more detailed than another.
  
  
• If you're working digitally, you have the advantage of being able to easily flip your image to check for balance. If you're working with pencil and paper though, it can be a little tougher; hold up your paper backward to a light source so you can see the mirror-image of your drawing, or use a mirror. Some things look right one way, but when you reverse it will look completely wrong. If this happens, fix the reverse side to make it look good before flipping it back the right way. Keep doing this back and forth until you like both the forward and reversed versions equally. That means your image is properly balanced.
  
  
• This is probably a little advanced for this stage, but will come in useful anyhow; again if you're working digitally, check your image by lowering the saturation slider to look at the picture in black-and-white. This will show you if your color scheme is too flat (you won't be able to tell the difference between differently-colored areas), and will make sure your areas of focus are noticeable. There really isn't a way to do this if working pencil and paper, unless you take a B&W photo of the picture to check. Also important, when shading, put about 50%-60% of your image in some sort of shadow (this is more for realistic styles though, so disregard if you're doing a simple flat-color cartoony style). Doesn't have to be super dark, but having prominent shadows helps lend a 3D effect to your shapes and adds a lot of depth.
  
  
• This is something I still struggle with; don't worry about a design looking "right." What this means is, don't get too caught up in anatomy and correctness. Artists take liberties with form all the time, and not to mention you're creating a creature that doesn't actually exist, so you're going to have to wing it a little bit. Worry more about the image being what you want it to be, that you have a piece you're happy with, not one that's perfect.
  
  
• And in the same vein as the last note, make sure you know what style you want to draw in. Do you like a more cartoony style, or do you want it to be more realistic? Study and reference art in the style you're going for. And don't be afraid of trying other styles, even ones you don't like. You never know what may end up working.
  
  
• Don't force yourself. Just starting out can be a hard thing, and a quick way to make it worse is to stress about it and try to force your way past it. If you find you're having a tough time, take a break. Go do something else for a little while, let your brain recharge, take a nap, and then come back to it with fresh eyes.
  
  Most importantly, and you've heard it a million times, PRACTICE. No one becomes an expert overnight. For many of us it takes years to get into our own style and even then, it will continue to change. Don't worry about what you're doing wrong, especially at the beginning, but retain what you do that you like. Look to others for inspiration, but in the end, make it your own.

Reeves is crap paint. Try using it up as a paint you sketch with rather than finishing a whole piece with it. The reason why economy (or student) quality paints such as Reeves are not so great (even for beginners) is because if you try to do any sort of color mixing with them, you end up with mud. Reason why is because the pigment to medium ratio is poor (less pigment and more fillers/mediums in the tube than a more pricey brand). I teach art classes to beginners and I am now requiring that they purchase artist-grade acrylics, oils or watercolours for class. Here's a bit of a shopping list for you... obtain the following: Golden-brand paint in these colours: Hansa Yellow Opaque, Quinacridone Magenta, Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) or Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna, Zinc White and Titanium White. Also, pick up some Golden Acrylic Glazing Medium (Gloss) or Retarder Medium to mix into your colours instead of adding water. Adding water to acrylic polymer emulsion paints breaks down the paint, therefore resulting in a less saturated, washed-out or "dull" surface. You can mix water with watercolour paints, but try using acrylic mediums such as the glazing medium instead of water. The paints I mentioned and the medium will run you about $60-$70 depending on where you live (the stuff is cheaper in the USA). If you have any questions at all about art materials, please message me and I will answer your questions. I've worked in art supplies for a some years now and have extensive product knowledge about the stuff.

As far as composition goes, I get my students to use their own photographs only. The reason is because if you take photos off the net (even though you are giving your painting away this time around), the composition has already been solved for you, so you aren't learning much when it comes to that. Use your own photos and crop them using a viewfinder window to obtain a composition for your work. Oh, and also another good practice tip would be to sketch out at least 5-10 different compositions in thumbnail format in a sketchbook (using a pen or pencil or whatever you want). That way, you will have a nice little plan before starting on a canvas.

It is always best to draw or paint from life when you can, but when you can't get outdoors to paint, be sure to stick with your own photos (or composites even; you could do this in Photoshop and then print it out).

When mixing, do not use black. I say this because it is good to learn colour theory, and then make up your mind whether or not you'd like to use black to darken areas. Complimentaries create neutral grays, so for example: Red & Green, Blue & Orange, Yellow & Purple. Theoretically, you can mix equal parts of any two complimentaries and obtain black. Add white and you get grey. Zinc white is a good one to start with because Titanium White can be overpowering. Try mixing both whites together in order to create a "Mixing White" and then use that when tinting (tint = adding white to a color). Another little trick to obtain black (and subsequent grays) is to mix Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber. You can mix Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna to create a warmer black/grey.

And now, for some books that you simply must purchase and read through! I'm real picky when it comes to good art instruction books... so here are my recommended selections :)

Color & Light by James Gurney

Landscape Painting by Mitchell Albala

Composing Pictures by Donald Graham (Disney's art instructor for many years)

Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting by John F. Carlson - written in the 1920s, this is THE DEFINITIVE book on landscape painting. The man's writing is sharp, witty and to the point)

One more thing... failure and criticism from others (and yourself) are your friends. Failure will drive you to create better work, and criticism will help you know where you aren't doing so well. Praise is great, but it can be extremely dangerous because if too many people praise you and not many give suggestions then where are you at exactly? You won't know if you've made a mistake (especially if you are just starting out).

Quantity (and quality) are everything... paint paint paint! Paint one a week or even daily if you can! Create your next post on Reddit when you've completed 30 paintings. Seeing your progress would be nice. Start a blog to keep track of your progress. Also, try and enroll in a night class at your local art university/college. Take the basics like Life Drawing first.

Oh, and... paint for yourself, first and foremost. Do not give a shit about "is this going to sell?". Do not care. Just do it for yourself. And don't be afraid to create something out of your comfort zone (pure abstraction or something with shocking subject matter).

Good luck!

I think both /u/DeweyTheDecimal and /u/plolyglon are correct. Faces are really difficult to do well because we see them all of the time. Even people who have never spent a day in their life studying art will be able to tell if something is wrong, they may not be able to tell you how to fix it, but they can tell if something seems off. It is also the case though, that since you are at least working and sculpting, you are most definitely on the right track! That is the only way to get better. It could be of benefit to spend some time watching tutorials too. Zack Petroc, for example, has been a HUGE help to me, the guy is really amazing, especially when it comes to human anatomy. He actually took classes at university dissecting cadavers to study human anatomy up close.

So please please please keep sculpting, like every day if you want to get better, it takes a lot of time like others have said. Look at references, get books on human anatomy for artists, watch free videos on youtube or buy Gnomon or digital tutors videos to get yourself started. It all depends on how serious you are about it. If this is what you want to do as a job one day, you have to start learning another 3d package like maya or 3dsmax at some point to learn about good topology flow and building simple base meshes to start sculpting from (helps with getting proportions started, at least for myself, but everyone has their own way to work). Otherwise if you are doing it for fun, just keep sculpting.

Start at a really low subdivision level and get all of your proportions set up, take that as far as you possibly can before you subdivide it, and then take that new level as far as you can. Things get kind of swollen looking if you jump into high divisions too quickly. It looks to me like you added a lot to whatever it was you started from (as in built up form with the clay build up brush), but don't be afraid to really carve into your sculpt either. Don't worry about fine details like wrinkles and whatnot until the very end, focus on setting up good proportions. The neck on your sculpt feels a little weak, like its too small and too skinny. The sternocleidomastoid should be emphasized a little bit more to give the neck the girth that it needs. Same with where the trapizus inserts into the base of the skull. The neck also feels a bit too short, trying dropping down the the lowest subdiv level to pull it out a little bit more. Anatomy is all about the way these muscles interact with one another, for it too look good, everything has to look good and the gesture has to flow just right. Just keep studying anatomy and sculpting and you'll progress quicker than you may imagine.

>Reference things and add in my own inspiration that leads to understanding the idea?

This right here is exactly what I meant by "reinventing the wheel", right? So a little bit of fun history - during the Renaissance, a nice fellow by the name of Leonardo DaVinci got frustrated with his painting and how they wouldn't "come out the way he liked it". So he started to observe the world and figured out many of the rules that let us depict a three-dimensional world in the two dimensions of a canvas/paper/Photoshop file. Things like perspective didn't have may written rules before then, so he had to come up with those rules. I'm loosely paraphrasing here, but that's the gist of it.

Modern artists such as ourselves don't have to go through the trial-and-error method of the classics, we have much easier ways of doing that:

Dynamic Figure Drawing - I like this book but it's a bit more advanced. He doesn't explain much about what he's doing and how the basics work. Avoid for now.

Figure Drawing - Design and Invention - Good book. Also a bit advanced.

Figure Drawing for All It's Worth - Now this I have a PDF on Dropbox for whenever I need it. You can buy the book on Amazon, but this is the original from the 1930s. The copyright expired on it, so they can be shared.

Fun with a Pencil Same deal. Most of Loomis' books are available for free online. If you want to draw faces, start here. His method is essentially >The< go-to method for correctly doing faces of today.

I took those off a post I made last week for someone else, but it's about the same thing. If you view any of the books on anatomy for artists, for example, the authors are very good at building the body in its basic shapes and teaching you how to draw not only based on what you see, but what you know something should look like.

You can always do drawing classes, I think they're a good way to start, but they're not necessary. What you would get out of them is a personal sort of coach that will oversee what you're doing and try to steer you in the right direction and give you pointers on where you need to improve. Obviously, though, most art teachers will teach you realism (which I strongly recommend you start with to strengthen your basics). However, being self-taught myself I can't speak from experience on how much help a class could be.

Mentality wise you need to understand that, in the long run, having strong understanding of the basic rules of drawing, of drawing people especially, will save you much frustration in the future. And like I said before, if you're good at visualizing things and translating them onto paper, it's already a huge part of your work being done for you. This is a bit humorous but I think it's very accurate. If you can avoid steps 1-3, I think you'll be on the right track!

If you want to draw people:


I recently found the perfect book (for me, at least). Not too technical with anatomy (pretty much everything but), but also not too simplistic. Has a ton of helpful tips! Drawing People: How To Portray The Clothed Figure by Barbara Bradley. I've never read anything by Andrew Loomis, but I'm always seeing him being recommended so I'm just going to recommend him too lol


Books and videos aren't the only things available, though. I think you should search all over online for drawing tutorials to start out. It's free!
I personally watched DrawWithJazza a lot when I started out. Sycra is incredibly helpful. You might like Mark Crilley and Proko too.


There are little infographic-type things all over deviantart and tumblr. They usually cater towards digital artists, so you're in luck! It's inactive, but this tumblr has tons of posts, and they're all organized!

There's Ctrl Paint, which is a free video library specifically for digital artists. I love this one, it's got tons of stuff.

Really just searching "how to draw ____" will get you tons of stuff.

A few random tips:

• Draw from life and from reference. Every artist does it, there's no shame, and it will absolutely help you.
  
  
• Watch other artists while they draw/paint/whatever. Youtube has tons of speedpaints, usually fandom-specific. These can give different ideas and different methods of doing things.
  
  
• You will get discouraged, and you most likely will experience art block. It's ok. I'm in a block right now. It's absolutely fine to take breaks. Once you're ready to come back, it'll be awesome :)
  
  
• If you like anime/manga/cartoon styles, you still have to learn the basics and the "rules" first. You need to know the rules to break them! Otherwise it just looks wonky and "off".
  
  
• Flip your canvas!! Or look at it in a mirror or take a picture + flip it or something. This is easier with digital. Flipping it horizontally reveals mistakes. It's crazy. Do this a lot when you're sketching, it's much easier to fix a sketch than fiddling around with all your layers and colors and whatnot
  
  
• Inspiration can come from anywhere ;)
  
  
  Good luck + have fun!
  
  edit: formatting

You are definitely talented, and being the logical analytical type can work in your favor. Drawing technique is a science, which you can break down and learn regardless of ability. The best way to learn is formal instruction, either a class or private lessons. An instructor will be able to teach you the fundamentals, correct mistakes, and give you feedback on your progress. If taking lessons is not a practical option, I recently discovered r/ArtFundamentals They have organized lessons that teach you the fundamentals of drawing from the very beginning and you can get lots of feedback by posting your completed assignments. It's the next best thing paid instruction.

Personally, I am self taught, and did not have any real formal instruction until college. My bread and butter is character design using my own blend of manga, comic book, and realistic styles. I employed 3 main strategies to teach myself. I practiced constantly, I copied the drawings and characters of artists I liked, and I read lots of art instruction books (I particularly enjoyed learning about anatomy, my two favorite books are Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy and Dynamic Figure Drawing I like the approaches to style and technique.)

Regardless of the path you take, the most important thing is lots and lots of practice, every day. I never had issues making myself practice, for me it was fun to challenge myself and figure out how to do new things. I definitely understand the frustration of not being able to translate the image in my head to paper, or getting stuck on a detail that just won't come out right. I cannot speak for every artist, but I find that my finished pieces rarely look like what I saw in my head. The trick is to let go and allow the picture to evolve and take shape the way that looks best. It is kind of hard to explain, but I make decisions constantly on the fly on what will look best regardless of whatever I originally planned. Get comfortable with the fact that you won't recreate the image in your mind, adapt to the drawing you are creating, and you will cut down on the frustration immensely. Last little tidbit, drawing on a Wacom is harder than on paper. I have an old Intuos and while I love it and use it a ton there is a disconnect. You look up at a screen and not your hand and god forbid there is any lag between the strokes you make and what shows on screen. I REALLY recommend using pencil and paper while you bone up on your fundamentals before you convert to the tablet. I regularly will start artwork on paper, scan it, and then finish it on the computer. Good luck with your drawing. Don't forget that you will make a lot of mistakes and that's okay, we all do, no matter how good we may be. The most important thing is to enjoy it and have fun. If you stop enjoying it then you will lose your passion. Sorry this post dragged on, hope I was able to help!

Howdy there.

So positives first: I like that you're trying a moderately challenging post, that's good. The legs and feet are pretty good, got some knee action going on and the legs aren't just vague shapes, they taper well according to form. Shows you're looking, or are copying someone who was looking and you noticed. The feet are basic, but similarly well-shaped. There's a good sense of weight to the whole figure, you've shifted her torso and head forward to account for the arms sticking out back.

Now, there are some proportion issues. The head is at an angle that is notoriously hard to draw (looking up at it from below) so that's excusable, but that arm is very long. The length of the arm from shoulder to fingertip should go to mid-thigh. That arm goes to at least mid-calf. It also doesn't show the sensitivity to underlying shapes that the legs do. Arms are not tubes, they have a pretty distinct shape when they're stretched out like that.

So everyone in this thread is giving you the delightfully vague advice of 'study anatomy'. What they mean is that stylized drawings like this (especially with the Eastern influence you have going on) rely on a very weird combination of 'correct' and 'simplified' anatomy which is more or less impossible to intuit. So the best thing you can do for yourself, especially at this early sage is get a textbook that takes the body apart bit by bit and study it. My favorite anatomy book is in a box somewhere and I suddenly can't remember the author's name and all anatomy textbooks have basically the same name so I'm not finding it. Whatever, my old professor wrote a pretty good one that lots of people like. Copy some of the individual parts listed in that book and take note of how they interact together. It will kick-start your understanding of the human form and help your cartoons out immensely.

Keep it up! Good luck.

Hey Greypuppy, I just made an image laying out some of your anatomy errors and ways to fix them, Imgur, they're numbered so you can look at what I'm talking about as you read. ^ ^

1.) Placement of the shoulders; to allow for a full range of movement, they're set a little lower than you have them, and the collar bone is set lower to reflect that (and is also part of what keeps our shoulders where they are, if you set your hand on your collar bone and lift your shoulders you can feel how it changes.)

2.)How the chest, armpit, and shoulder all come together; this is a common issue that most ppl fix once they realize that all those muscles connect on the shoulder. The hollow of our arm pit is formed by the muscles bending around the arm bone to reach the outside of the shoulder. The reason our pecks bulge when we pull our shoulders in is b/c those muscles are what's doing the pulling.

3.) The s-curve of the spine; Unless you're forcing the spine flat, the spine has a natural curve from the tail-bone to the base of the skull, this don't just effect the side-view, but also how the pelvis and rib-cage position themselves. The best way I could depict the way they tilt if with the two pink cups in the drawing. I exaggerated the tilt of the hips in the example drawing, but it still gives you a good idea what they're doing, all the same.

4.) The muscles on the top of the legs; just as we have the bulges of muscles on our butt and back of the leg to pull our leg back, we also have muscle running from our pelvis to our knee that helps us lift our leg. Even if you're not very beefy, you can still see part of that curve on the top of the leg, think of it as however bold the under-leg curve line is, the top one is at least half as bold a curve line.

5.) The muscles and tendons meeting behind the knee; you're drawing wouldn't bee far off the mark on a character with a heavyer build, but with someone so skinny, the hollow behind the knee would be more apparent. This is because behind the knee there's a hollow where the muscles have pulled to either side so they can attach to the kneecap. Sometimes there is a sort of square lump that lines up with the kneecap itself (forgot to draw that version, sorry, ^ ^ ' ) but for a skinny person, usually it just dips in right behind the knee as appose to a little below it as you've drawn.

6.)Where the thumb connects; not a big issue here, more just that there's another link to the thumb, and the flesh attached half-way across the palm. Went ahead and gave you a clear drawing of the hand bulges and pads, I find it helps for the placement paw-pads.


Whew
Hope that wasn't too overwhelming, I figured I would tackle this critique with all I could think of since I'm thinking of writing a 'how-to' book on drawing figures at some point.

There's some minor issues with knee to ankle to paw placement, but since I didn't know how exactly to explain it, I couldn't add it to the drawing.

And if you ever want to really get a good feel for anatomy, the book I would recommend is Classic Human Anatomy. It's full of good drawings and a lot of technical anatomy stuff (which was a little daunting when I first looked through it,) but it's really helped me to understand not just how things look, but also why, which is great when you're having to make images in weird poses from scratch.

TL:DR - Just go look at the pretty picture, Imgur

it's hard to say without knowing your skill level so i'll point you towards a few resources i think are good for beginners. basically fundamentals means the ability to represent the physical world. even if you're drawing cartoons you need to be able to draw traditionally. there are some people who can draw in certain styles while skipping this step and people like to raise them up. most likely you are not one of these people.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain anyone interested in learning to draw should read this. it has a lot of psycho-babble but the lessons are great. a lot of drawing has to do with your perception. this book will get you started on developing the 'artists eye.' this will also give you the stripped down basics of line, value, form and stuff that i'm not going to get into.

Rad How To. blog of a Dreamworks storyboard artist. this guy knows figure construction like the back of his hand. start at the beginning. there is so much great info here it's crazy.

Andrew Loomis these out of print books are legendary. personally i like other books but the lessons in here apply to everyone.

ConceptArt.org is an amazing resource but you have to work to find anything useful. there are shitty links everywhere and the site as a whole ain't what it used to be. i suggest sorting different sub-forums by page view. the ultimate success story is easily John Hardesty, AKA MindCandyMan. this guy showed up one day, never having drawn in his life and said he would post everyday. well, just click through his story. all it takes is determination.

Dynamic Anatomy. no matter what kind of drawing you want to do, if you are going to draw people knowledge of anatomy will make it easier. if you don't learn the underlying form you'll get hung up on symbols. check the sidebar 'learning your style' for more information.

Art and Fear. everyone should read this book, not just those interested in the arts. it gets down to why people get hung up on things they love.

if you want to post a pic to get a better idea of where you stand i can give more detailed info. also post something to r/artcrit. those guys will point you where you need to go usually.

most importantly don't get frustrated. most people stop drawing because the disconnect between what you want to draw and how well you can draw is leagues apart. drawing is exceptionally difficult. we are all so in tune with our visual perception it can be heartbreaking that you hand can't keep up. as long as you focus on the process of drawing and not the finished product you'll be a lot better off.

have fun.

Skin is hard, because skin isn't actually opaque. It is translucent, so it picks up light and colors and scatters them within itself, as if it were a thin layer of wax all over your body. This is called subsurface scattering, and it gives skin a softer appearance, a reddish glow (from blood vessels), and more color and depth in the shadows.

Look at this image. It does a good job of breaking down the different elements of a face. The left image, of course, is the actual shape of the face. The second image is the flat shading; there is no scattering here, just straight up "Does the light hit this spot directly?" It also includes a "specular" map, which indicates which parts of the image are glossy and shiny; notice the area around the nose is shiny, for example. I'll get back to specularity later on.

The third image includes the coloration alongside the flat shading. A "diffuse" map shows the appearance of something when bright, diffuse light hits it from all angles. Basically, it shows the colors at the brightest and most saturated they can ever be. A computer program applies shading to a model, and then adds the color, such that the colors are their most vivid where the model is lit most brightly.

The fourth image shows flat shading with subsurface scattering added. Notice how the left side of the face--which does not get hit directly by light at all, and was previously almost black--is now rather bright and varied. That's because her skin is now transmitting light, which helps even the light out. And the fifth image just adds the diffuse map (essentially, the color map) back in.

---

Basically, this is what you want to create. And like a computer, it may help you to think about it in pieces, and then add all those different pieces together.

1. As you probably know, when you're learning art, you start by learning how to depict 3D shapes in 2D. This is very much like creating a mesh for a 3D model, except traditional artists use a much more simplified construction.
   
   
2. Artists next learn how to do flat shading. They think about where the light source is coming from, and they make the planes of the head that are facing toward that light brighter, while the planes facing away are darker. Beginner art schools make their students spend endless hours practicing stuff like this.
   
   
3. Then artists tend to start thinking about color (including pigment colors and light colors) and light scattering (including subsurface scattering and light reflection). This is the step you're stuck on--and, to be fair, this is about as complicated as shading gets. It's simply not intuitive, and even in computer graphics, it's only fairly recently that subsurface scattering has become a common thing. But without it, skin lacks luster and life. There is no rule of thumb I can offer here, sadly. The best you can do is try to draw from life or from photos as much as you can, and eventually you'll start to pick it up. You'll learn which parts of the face scatter light differently, and you'll learn how it changes as the light direction changes (e.g., backlighting is dramatically different from front lighting). Don't be afraid to open a photo in some art software and actually sample colors from it; this can help you learn how to identify colors better and avoid falling trap to this classic illusion.
   
   
4. Artists often add specularity last. This also relates to diffuse coloration, which is something I think you need help with, so I'll go into a bit of detail about that.
   
   ---
   
   When coloring and lighting an object, there are three basic sections: the part that falls into shadow, the part that is in light, and the part that receives a specular highlight. The part that falls into shadow tends to reflect light from the surrounding area, and it also tends to be cast in a different color from the part that is in light. Specifically, shadows will tend to be the opposite of the light color. However, when I say "opposite colors" here, I'm talking about light colors (in which red, green, and blue are the primary colors, and cyan, magenta, and yellow are the secondary colors). Here are the pairings of opposite colors, if it might help you:
   
   

• red - cyan
  
• blue - yellow
  
• green -magenta
  
  So, for example, if you have a reddish-blueish light (i.e., a magenta light), the shadows will tend to look greenish. They will also take on a bit of the color reflected off nearby objects (such as the ground), though.
  
  A common approach is slightly yellow (perhaps verging on red) light with slightly blue (perhaps verging on cyan) shadows, especially if sunlight is coming in from a low angle, as in this painting.
  
  The opposite (blueish light, yellowish shadows) can also look good, especially if the sunlight comes from direct above.
  
  Under moonlight, firelight, incandescent light, fluorescent light, etc., you can get different effects; for example, this painting depicts reddish light with greenish shadows.
  
  You can very effectively avoid the use of black altogether in your shadows by making dark areas the opposite color to light areas. For example, look at this picture. The part of her face that is in shade is not much darker than the part that is in light. However, it is blueish, which makes it immediately apparent that it's shaded. (Also, note that the edge of her jaw is picking up white light reflected from her T-shirt.)
  
  ---
  
  Now let's talk about the second part of an image, the part that is in light. Remember what I said earlier about diffuse maps? How they represent the object when it is in bright, diffuse light--and they, effectively, show the color at the brightest and most saturated that it will get in that image? Well, this is what you need to do. Figure out what color your character's skin is, and give him that color of skin in the parts where he is in bright light. Where parts of his face aren't as bright, tone down the saturation and brightness a bit.
  
  Going back to the photo here, you can see that her skin is pinkest where the light is bright (ignoring the shiny bits for the moment). You can see it in here hair, too. Where her hair is in bright light, it is very vividly colored.
  
  ---
  
  Now let's talk about the last section, the part that receives a specular highlight. The specular highlight is the part that is so bright that it gets washed out. There is very little (if any) color; it's usually just bright white (assuming the light source is also close to white).
  
  The shinier the object is, the smaller and sharper the specular highlight becomes, and the more it reflects the shape of the light source.
  
  The more matte the object is, the wider and duller the specular highlight becomes. It's worth noting that even objects that you wouldn't expect to have a specular highlight often still do; it's just very subtle, like on this cardboard tube.
  
  Also, the harsher the light is, the bigger and brighter the specular highlight will be. Even matte objects can get overexposed under the right conditions. But no matter how big or bright a specular highlight is, it will never occur in a place that is in shadow (assuming only a single light source; as you add more light sources, things get complicated--and keep in mind that nearby reflective surfaces do act as minor secondary light sources).
  
  When painting a face, think about the parts of the face that are the most oily or glossy. These tend to be the eyelids, the lips, the nose, the scalp (on bald people), the eyeballs, and so on. These are places you'll see smaller, brighter specular highlights. Perhaps needless to say, sweat also adds glossiness, while makeup tends to remove glossiness.
  
  ---
  
  If you want to learn more or if you want these concepts explained better, I highly recommend this book.
  
  Also, this is intended for pixel artists, but you may be interested in this tutorial, which illustrates a common method for creating a rich, harmonious color palette for matte objects.

All of these are linked to Amazon, if you have an account, you can make a wishlist to keep track of ‘em:

• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
  
  This one teaches you how to see shapes objectively, which will improve your drawing from photo or real life. I recommend getting it from the library because you’ll only need the book once. Drawing a lot of still lifes/self-portraits helps achieve the same goal even without the book, though the exercises are awesome and will speed up the process. You can ignore the author’s rambling about the brain, it’s been debunked by science~ I’ve republished the first exercise of the book on my blog here - trying to build a step-by-step guide for beginners, but I only have a few hours a week. :)
  
  
• For anatomy and portraits, after “Fun with A Pencil”, you can also read “Drawing the Head and the Hands” and “Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth” by Loomis. See sidebar. They’re all about the same material, just more in depth.
  
  
• “Perspective Made Easy” by Ernest Norling.
  Do the exercises! They’re simple yet awesome. After you finish the book, apply perspective to stuff you draw from imagination. When I finished it, I didn’t use what I learned, but once I started applying perspective to every drawing I made, my skill skyrocketed. I believe perspective is the second most important drawing skill, but it can be tedious.
  
  
• "Drawing Comics the Marvel Way"
  Teaches you a variety of solid fundamentals, like construction and composition. Useful for after you’ve got the basics down with Loomis and Perspective.
  
  
  
• Hardcore: “How to Draw" and “How to Render” by Scott Robertson. His books are intensive. Most of my friends bought them but didn’t use them because they’re so technical. You have to be prepared and comfortable with sketching before tackling these. Even I haven’t finished the books cover to cover, yet I use his techniques for every single artwork that I make (I was taught them by FZD).
  
  
  
• Here’s the most important: have FUN. You can start studying and struggling but remember why you are drawing and doodle for fun every now and then. Play some good music while sketching. If you have fun, you will keep doing it. No matter how fast or slow you learn, stick with it and you’ll be damn good someday.

Your sculpting technique is fine but your anatomy is atrocious.

The rib cage and abdominal musculature anatomy is off. You don't just have abdominal muscles on your lower trunk. Also the abdominals should have a limited width. To the nipple line would work but your nipples are set out too far. They should be in the mid clavicular line but you don't have any clavicles. The 6 pack is nice but the hole in the top one would hurt as it's not present in real life and is where the xiphoid under the bottom of the rib cage should be. So your abdominals are to high and too wide and too bulky. There should also be one long one below the navel which is way too low. The pecs attach to the sternum and manubrium and go to the inside of the arm. That's what forms the axilla (armpit). The lat in the back and the pec in the front. So along the sternum the pecs should go outward not downward. Also that deep line separating the pec from the shoulder would sever the pec muscles from the arms. That is not existent in normal anatomy. People do tend to shift there humerus foward but that is an abnormality caused by bad posture and muscle imbalances. There is no rib cage giving the upper trunk its form. The serratus muscles are just sliding downward and fading out instead of inserting onto the ribs along the lateral side under the axilla. You've created a new muscle under the arm that doesn't exist. The deltoid muscle is nonexistant in the front and top and is in the wrong place on the back. There are three heads to the deltoid. The anterior (front) middle (on top) and posterior (rear). They blend together midway down on the lateral side of the humerus at about your cutoff. The posterior one attaches to the spine of the scapula where your attaches to nothing. The anterior attaches to the lateral aspect of the clavicle (which you don't have) and the anterior acromion. The middle attaches to the lateral acromion. The upper traps also go outward from the nuchal ridge on the skull to the acromion on the top of the shoulder then down the back along the spine of the scapula to the spinus' of the vertebra. The lower trap is also on the spine of the scapula to the vertebra and the lateral aspect goes down diagonally to the 12th vertebral spinus process. So you have no lower trap. The lats sweep up from the lumbosacral fascia which starts along the upper boarder of the illium (which again does not exist) moving laterally and inserts onto the humerus in the same medial groove the pec inserts into. You con't have any lats either. You also don't have any paraspinal muscles along the spine and you have no posterior hip fold where the glut medius is. I could go on and on.

You NEED to read a book on artistic anatomy. I love Bridgeman's books. They would be great for you due to your focus on muscles.

The Human Machine (Dover Anatomy for Artists)

Constructive Anatomy (Dover Anatomy for Artists)

You MUST start with the bones. Get a GOOD inexpensive or free skeleton. Put it in a separate collection and use it as a reference so you know where the bones are and can attach the muscles appropriately. Once you know your anatomy that will be superfluous or only needed as a check. But you really REALLY need to learn anatomy if you are going to do this kind of work. It LOOKS good but anyone who knows anatomy will go "nope, it's not right". When you create art about a subject always keep in mind that somewhere in your audience there will almost always be a content expert. Like me. An an artist, I always strive to impress them. If I make a spaceship, I keep in mind as best as I can the physics involved. You con't need the math. Just like in art anatomy you don't need to know the innervation of the muscles like a doctor would need. You need to know enough that you can sell your art to an expert. Keep that in mind as you do all your art. That is one thing that will separate out the pro from the amateur. There is always artistic license ... but not with human anatomy. Even is you're doing an anime or cartoon, the best artists embed their knowledge in the subtle way they do their linework or design their mesh. That's why we buy it.

I hope that helps. Don't give up or get frustrated. Your sculpting technique is good. Your knowledge must match. One thing I learned doing art is that a good artist researches and expands their knowledge about not only their craft, but their subject matter as well. Do that and you can only get better.

Good luck.

I'm glad to hear that, though it's a shame to hear he's that sensitive about it. That's another reason I'd recommend against the gallery system (which I'm not a part of myself); many of my peers are and to be honest it's a very...unkind system.

I don't consider myself a sensitive artist but I deal with them on a regular basis so i understand your plight all too well. I might have an idea for how to help that. I recently bought this book, it's by James Gurney the author of the blog I linked to in the sub-comment of this. It could be an excellent christmas gift and at only $16 it won't break the bank. It's probably the single greatest book I've encountered about painting. It's succinct and well written and relies mostly on examples rather than big blocks of text. And if you decided to give it to him you could play it off pretty naieve like, "I know you like painting, here's a cool book about painting!" and probably not hurt his feelings.

Just an idea, might be a good way to circumvent the "sensitive artist" but still give him a good resource to improve.

In any case I salute your effort! Tell him to keep at it :D

I thought this was a pretty good book on the subject, but a lot of stuff only sinks in with practice (at least for me). Lots of environment studies and architecture and the like help. :)

Other than that, honestly the best overall resource I've found are Nathan fowkes' schoolism classes and watching the feedback he gives to other students. It covers a bit of everything, though it's not specifically about perspective.

As for brushes.. well. There's definitely a good balance to be struck. I find that having too many will slow you down and distract you, but there are definitely some great helpful ones. The problem is that everyone prefers something else. :)

This collects artist brushes that are a lot of fun to check out and play around with, but I would advise to only keep the ones you find really useful and try to avoid to get lost in shiny tools. You could do a forest just fine with a chalk brush!

(30+ years experience as a commercial artist, animator, broadcast designer and special effects designer speaking here. Plus I got into digital graphics back in the late '70s before anyone even knew what it was.)

The best place to start is to learn to draw. Anything else is a distraction and an attractive nuisance. Software is the least of your worries for quite some time. And even then, a cheap scanner or digital camera and some simple software are all you need to do a whole lot of learning.

And by drawing, I mean drawing from life. Find a life drawing class in your community if at all possible. I can not stress this enough. This may or may not be what your daughter has in mind, but it is like learning your scales to a musician. It's certainly possible to become a cartoonist without this type of training, but if you succeed you succeed in spite of the lack not because of it. I would say it is not possible to succeed as an animator without formal training. To become good enough to do this for a living, or even for fun, is a lot of work. But very satisfying.

Some books I recommend are:

• _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain_ by Betty Edwards
  
  
• _The Natural Way To Draw_ by Nicolaides
  
  
• _Figure Drawing For All It's Worth_ by Andrew Loomis (and back in print after 30 years for a very reasonable price! $25 at Amazon!)
  
  
• Animation by Preston Blair. This is a Walter Foster How-To-Draw book and it is the best introduction to cartooning for animation. It is a very fun book, and very worth while, but don't neglect the other areas of study.
  
  When she gets a little farther along, get a copy of _The Animator's Survival Kit_ by Richard Williams.
  
  Edit: Your biggest expense isn't going to be software or computers, but time and paper and pencils. I recommend cheap printer paper, 8.5 x 11 and 11 x 17. Regular pencils work just fine. Get them at the office supply store. Better art supplies can make a difference when you are much farther along, but the main thing when starting out is to do lots of drawings, and make lots of mistakes. Ward Kimball, one of Disney's master animators used to joke that, "the first hundred thousand drawings are the hardest." And it's not really a joke.

Hey, Retlih!
How awesome that you're looking to start drawing! You've gotten some good advice in the thread already(taking your time, especially) but in the event that you're looking to learn more, I've got some great books to suggest you work through.

Andrew Loomis - Figure Drawing for All Its Worth

Bridgman - Complete Guide to Drawing from Life

While they may seem very human anatomy-focused(and in a way, they are), they also describe some great general principles and advice to start your journey down pencil road. They also heavily emphasize looking - no, I mean really looking - at things in everyday life and doing your outmost to depict them, which is a great exercise of the hand, the eye and the mind. (practicing this will make you much better over time, but it will take time, much, MUCH more than a month. I'm a concept artist by trade, and I have never met a person even half-decent at drawing who wasn't already a few years or decades into drawing)

If you're serious about this, do avoid focusing too heavily on making and sharing - be it facebook or instagram - pretty portraits of celebrities or dogs or cats or fruit, or you'll be forever trapped in mediocre-pencil-portrait-land where praise comes easy and you'll always feel like an impostor and/or artistically handicapped charlatan. Learn to draw for yourself and in your own pace, making sure not to rush through the process. Think of how you would train your muscles; don't immediately go and try to pull an airliner with your teeth, start with the core and work from there - let it take time, and find ways to make the journey enjoyable.

It does get boring, it's study. It's up to you to learn to have fun with it.

Divide your time between the study and the fun, spend some time doing gesture drawings(they serve as great warmups), then some time doing figure drawing, then move on and draw something for you.
I think the key to it is focusing on what you learn while drawing from life, and learning how that translates to styles you love.

As for resources, I personally believe for character/figure work, a good anatomy book can go a long way. Figure drawing design and invention by Michael Hampton or Classic Human Anatomy by Valerie Winslow are my personal recommendations, but there are plenty of great books out there. The idea is when you get stuck on something then you reference it, and study it; work it out on the side of your drawing, or on a separate sheet/layer, but understand it as best you can before moving on.

Online recommendations, like most people mention, Proko is great, good information, and easy to understand.
For environments and design Feng Zhu's Design Cinema is a goldmine of solid tips.
I've found Kienan Laffarty to have a lot of good general information on all sorts of topics, like color, design, etc.

finally I think watching other artists work in real time(not the 400% sped up timelapses) can be indispensable in understanding how to handle the nuances of creating believable forms, or just how to progress your work from rough to finished, if you go in with the mindset to study what they're doing.

I'm late to the party, but I made a cheat sheet for my boss niece last week: here's all the ressources I can think of to kick butts at matte painting.

The sites where we pay per month

Gnomon Online School
Super school of vfx in California. They have on their site a lot of tutorials from 8 to 20 hours to learn to make your own camera projections. You can either pay (expensive but worth it) for a private class with a teacher via Skype. Or you pay (cheaper) for a bank of tutorials.

private lessons
https://www.gnomon.edu/courses/online


the bank of tutorials
https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials?tags[]=matte-painting


I recommend: All the tutorials of Dylan Cole (vol 1, 2,3), Camera Projection Techniques in Maya, Matte Painting Production techniques, etc.




Plural Sight (formerly Digital Tutors)


a site that has courses on a little everything. This site is very good when you want to learn new programs. Excellent serie on the 3D which becomes more and more present in the matte painting, and some tutorials


https://app.pluralsight.com/library/


related to 3D

Quick start to modeling in Maya (volume 1,2,3)
Professional Tips for Modeling Complex Shapes


related to matte painting

Photo manipulation and Clean Plating Fundamentals
Matte Painting Basic and the Static Camera Shot


Sites where we pay per tutorial (Gumroad, etc.)



The tutorials of Anthony Eftekhari

Good DMP tutorials that show you the latest techniques and how to do it step by step.


https://gumroad.com/anthonye

The tutorials of Eytan Zana

More concept art, but the main lines apply just as well to the DMP.

https://gumroad.com/eytanzana


Free sites and tutorials


Garrett Fry's blog

He also has a Facebook group that helps each other in DMP, it is THE technical reference for matte painting. His blog is full of technical stuff for camera projections (aka moving your matte painting). A treasure of information.
https://www.gfryart.com/blog



Other


TEXTURES! (Or can we find good textures to make DMP)


CGtexture

http://www.textures.com

Flickr (Matte Painting References)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tjframe/sets/72157605581901392/

Flickr (Matte Painting Resources)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dman3d2000/sets/72157629164518650/

Photobash.org (paying a card)

https://www.photobash.org/

Pictures of Jacek Pilarski

https://gumroad.com/jacekpilarski

Books (yes yes, it's a thing)

Digital Matte Painter Handbook

it's old, the drawings are ugly, the photoshop stuff in it is pure candy though. Full of stuff in DMP that I have never seen elsewhere but that is the basis of the trade. Still actual today. The matte painting of the castle in is also an excellent starting point if you start from scratch.

https://www.amazon.ca/Digital-Matte-Painting-Handbook/dp/0470922427/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523975893&sr=1-1&keywords=Digital+Matte+Painting+Handbook

How to draw and How to Render

Scott Robertson, a big shot of concept art, shows the basics of traditional drawings, perspective, etc. An essential.

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=GWB27RDDYF5E0JG7TTY0

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Render-fundamentals-shadow-reflectivity/dp/1933492961/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=K9W1RK5K9KVWMPY14EAE

Imaginative Realism and Color and Light

James Gurney is an illustrator who specializes in realistic fantasy artwork with traditional mediums, excellent cues on light and color

https://www.amazon.ca/Imaginative-Realism-Paint-Doesnt-Exist/dp/0740785508?th=1&psc=1&source=googleshopping&locale=en-CA&tag=googcana-20&ref=pd_sl_2y2j9az9y9_e

https://www.amazon.ca/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=YCNYYJCTNJ4405KD1S6B

Nuke 101

We can make the projection of matte painting in Nuke or Maya. An excellent book for Nuke.

https://www.amazon.ca/Nuke-101-Professional-Compositing-Effects/dp/0321984129/ref=pd_sim_14_8?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FNST5YS1F7464SZY3QZV

First off, congratulations on getting your comic book published! Your drawing is fantastic and, as a comic reader, I would pick it up for the cover alone. That's quite a feat, as I'm very picky. :)

As for the coloring, I'm not great at color personally, but I've been reading a lot about it lately and can maybe offer a useful opinion from what I've learned. It looks to me like the difference between the orange foreground and the blue background is too stark. I'm not sure if the blue flames are meant to be in the same physical area as the people in the foreground, but blue flames would cast blue light on objects, not white light (or lighter orange), and would bring the two parts of the picture together. If they aren't meant to be in the same physical space, I would maybe use a gradient on the blue pathway or create a delineation of some sort to separate where they're standing from the fire behind them.

If it's the former situation, there's a great book called Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter that covers all sorts of lighting and how it interacts with color and illustrates the idea of color transference much better than I can. I've mentioned it on here before, but I can't really recommend it enough; it completely changed my understanding of light in art. It also covers working with a (deliberately) limited color palette, which helped me a lot with actually understanding color theory instead of just picking random opposites/compliments off a color wheel in despair.

I also (and only upon closer examination...at first glance it seems fine to me) think the hands in the foreground need a different value from the figures in the midground to provide a better sense of depth and focus. If you look at the image in grayscale, I suspect the hands and the figures would be very similar. I wouldn't make a huge change, but having the hands and figures all the same color and same value makes them blend together, where a bit more contrast (light and dark) would help draw the eye to the figures. Obviously your composition does most of the work there, but color can either boost a composition or take away from it and I think it could be working harder for you here.

I hope this doesn't sound critical; honestly, the more I look at your cover, the more I like it, and these are the only issues I could find. I think your flames are great, and I'm really impressed by the coloring/shading on the hands in front. Who's your publisher, so I can pick up a copy?

So I think the previous commenters were right in telling you to use softer lines. When you keep line art in a piece you have to be rather conscientious about your line weight and where you place lines. Lines are a representation of light value.

If you’re not trying to make a character scowl it’s best not to put lines between the eye brows unless they have a prominent wrinkle there. Perhaps if it’s a slight wrinkle a lighter line would do or it could be softly painted in.

Under the nose suffers from the line weight as well it makes it appear like it may be a scar. This philtrum May have been better demarcated with paint or lighter lines.

Your drawing is extremely symmetrical giving it a stiff appearance. Almost like you drew one half and then folded it down the middle to make a carbon copy. This is especially apparent in the bridge of the nose. Average people have slight asymmetry in their face. Little imperfections make a portrait piece great vs good.

Lastly the bone structure is slightly askew. The character being an elf this may be intentional but I would strongly advise more anatomical practice. The orbital vaults in the skull typically don’t extend that far down into the maxilla. The collar bones are also askew and extremely symmetrical.

I think you’d benefit greatly from studying more anatomy, there are TONS of online resources but if you want something tangible this is a good book for like half the price I got it for 🤣

Anatomy for the Artist https://www.amazon.com/dp/078948045X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_W26hDbCFHD828

All in all it’s a good render. The color is where it shines the most. Just keep drawing and you’ll get better and better 👍 Keep up the good work

Feel free to DM me if you want to talk about it.

OHHHHHH God! I just wrote this huge thing then accidentally closed the tab. UHHHHHHGGGG, all right. Let's try again.

First of all, you are incredibly talented, especially for your age! You seem to really like emphasizing the contours of the features. This can lead to some pretty interesting areas to explore, such as William Beckman, David Hockney, or Alex Katz. One are that could really make your contours shine is to focus on the structure of the head, as opposed to the features.

Suppose I take your source photo into Photoshop and layout the Cutout Artistic Filter. As you can see it really breaks down the subtle variations of the structure of the face. It is really difficult to notice this with the naked eye and takes practice. That is why we tend to shoot straight to the individual features of the face. The features tend to have nice, sharp contrasting values that make the lines whereas the structure tends to be more subtle gradients in color and value.

Laying out the structure of the head with loose general shapes can really make the drawing go pretty easy. Here is an example I quickly threw together from your photo. You'll have to excuse some of the proportional errors of my drawing because I didn't want to dwell to much on that. But you can see that once the structure is laid in it is easy to then come in and start highlighting the contours or the values if you choose. This way your contours won't just trace around the features, but will actually work around the whole shape of the head. A good way to train yourself in this area is to try to drawing the head with only straight lines. /u/drawnlikefrenchgirls is fantastic at this, as demonstrated here and has an incredible skill of composing figure structure (a good book on this is Bridgman's "Drawing from Life").

Topographical shading can also be used to build more structure as well. Take for example this self portrait by Rembrandt. Notice how he shades according to the shape as opposed to the direction of the contour. This is key, focus on shading ACROSS the form, not along it. You started to really get that going on the cheekbones of your drawing. This will also help the lips recede into the mouth smoothly. I found it really helped when I didn't think about shading so much as cross-hatching but as a combination of cross-hatching and topographic lines.

Anyway, that's my two cents :)

Edit: Oh yeah, if you want to play around with photo's but can't invest in photoshop you can always try Gimp. It is free and open source.

I'm no pro by any means but I have a lot of fun drawing after work and certainly I'd love my SO surprised me with something like:

• Faber Castell 9000!
  
• Lumograph 100!
  
• Prismacolor Premier Verithin!
  
• Polychromo!
  
• Bristol paper!
  
  Also you can always include some nice accesories like blending stumps, different types of erasers, a good cutter/blade or sharpener.
  
  Does she like books? Andrew Loomis' books are incredible! Drawing the Head and Hands!
  
  These are (for me) good options for a present. Depending on budget you could increse/decrease the count on the color set but 24/36 is a good starting point.
  
  I hope this helps.

I bought this book years ago, when I started to get more into landscapes and colour theory. It's a good book, with solid advice.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0740797719/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Beyond that, observation and experimentation are invaluable. Don't be afraid to try different colors on things, see how they mesh and work. Don't be afraid to repaint. Knowing what works becomes natural over time, I swear. You'll instinctively know what colors to choose to enable a specific mood and how to easily mix them.

It's also not just about colour. It's about the hue, the saturation and the value. Value = dark and light. Hue = the shade. Saturation = how 'strong' or muted that color is. How close to neutral grey it is. Like, the image on the left doesn't seem to have a strong contrast in the foreground, but it does have red (okay, it's orange but orange is only red+yellow) and green shades which are complimentary colors: so it pops. The red is warm, it's inviting. The image on the right ditches a lot of the saturation in favor of strong color values, colors are muted (except for the green) and cool , there's no warmth in this image and that fence is a sharp, dark (ominous) contrast to the misty grey/neutral-ish background. Saturation and value play as much as part as just color when it comes to mood.

But this can all be learned and really easily! Youtube is also great for this kind of stuff.

As far as the art goes I want to recommend a few things- If you go to an art school or have ever taken any kind of art class Im sure youve heard about the importance of drawing from life. It's something any artist worth anything will tell you, but its not always the most fun thing to go out and draw buildings or trees. The thing is, if you can learn to enjoy it your drawing skills will improve like CRAZY. Carry a little sketchbook around with you all the time and ONLY draw from life in it until it's full. Draw people on the bus or in class or just go sit on a bench and do quick sketches of people you see. Draw buildings and trees and moving things, take life drawing classes or find an open model session and draw naked people until youre sick of it. Then keep drawing. Your characters are oddly proportioned, your backgrounds are muddled and unclear, your city at the beginning there looks like a cubist painting, and its all wonky and unclear. Draw one or two things or more from life every day and you will be BLOWN AWAY by how much your work improves in a short period of time. I'd also recommend grabbing a book like this one- http://www.amazon.com/Perspective-Drawing-Kenneth-Auvil/dp/1559346973 and reading through it. Itll break down how to draw things in perspective in a way that will help you understand it and itll make your stuff improve drastically. You can snag it used for under 5 bucks. Another great book is this one- http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333872627&sr=1-1 Its a little more pricey but its considered by pretty much any comic artist to be the best book on figure drawing that exists. Your work has potential, but it's clear that you lack some basic drawing skills that need to be honed to make your work really pop.

[Quick paintover/ color correction to help with the crit.]
(http://imgur.com/oBr6zkm)

I can see potential, but there's work to be done. If we had time I could take you through design/storytelling, perspective, and stroke technique issues, but for now I want to focus on color.

• Color choices: I kept your pink and yellow scheme to show what can be done with color and lighting. That being said they don't quite go together well. There's not a lot of cases where something is fully saturated, and you have a highly saturated yellow contrasting with a very saturated pink. You don't need highly saturated complementary colors to get the image to pop; that's mostly done in the design. The first thing I did when I color corrected the image was turn down the saturation.
  
  Also, it appears to be daytime judging by the background photo, but there's no strong shadows or bright sunlit areas. The sky is kinda dark and washed out. If it's daytime we (the viewer) need to really feel the warm sun and cool shadows.
  
  I numbered the points of critique here:
  
  

1. I fixed the hard yellow dust and made a mix to look more like the beams are hitting the surface.
   
2. When a color bounces off another color, those colors (in most cases) mix together. When yellow and pink mix they make orange. The eye will believe it looks pink when the right color is used. These are called context colors. For example, the two colors with the arrows are the same color.
   
3. Think about where the light is coming from. The yellow swamp is going to bounce yellow light up onto the structures. Also the blue sky will add a bluish hue to shadows.
   
4. You may notice in the shadows the water color is green. Again, this is because the sky is blue and when the light from the sky hits the yellow water it will mix to make green. Take a look around your images and think about how color and light will react with the colors around them.
   
5. Sky need's to be brighter in the daytime.
   
6. The sun is bright white (with a hint of yellow). When something is in the sun it should be well lit.
   
7. I used some yellow mist to push the structure on the right further into the distance.
   
8. (not numbered) I noticed you had trouble connecting your structures to the ground. They just stop at the ground. There needs to be a hand shake (of sorts) they should mingle a bit. They should be around the same value, and some of the colors should be bouncing off the ground on to the structure.
   
   My general advice: drop the photobashing for now. Save it for when you're killing it on the rendering. It's a good technique to hit those deadlines during production, but this early on it's gonna make you miss out on all those skills you'd develop painting those mountains. Also, get this book on color theory by James Gurney. It will explain color theory way better than I can.
   
   TL;DR learn how to render like a pro before you can photobash like a pro. Learn up on your color theory. Hope that helps.

The best thing you can do is get a few books/e-books or like Kissnellie suggests online guides.

I suggest Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life , I also like Anatomy: A Complete Guide for Artists by Sheppard.

Basically just draw all of the images over and over again, they are like maps to the human body. Sure they won't be exact for every person - but getting an idea of how it looks will help you shape it better. Drawing figures (and anything) is about understanding it and yadda yadda.

Draw from life, gesture often from pixelovely, and Posemaniacs

If you practice for a while, you'll get a good understanding of the human figure pretty well :D

I might have some anatomy e-books if you're interested - drop me a message. I am currently taking a life drawing class, so it's all good fun if I can help others =3

Most art schools (not high ones, but like... your avg art schools) are happy with this:

10 realistic sketches - like figure drawings, perspective drawings, properly shaded fruit etc

10 expressive pieces - anything you want. Get creative. Expressive colorful pieces, cartoony shit, whatever.

​

If you don't know how to draw well or make anything, then you better get to work starting now. If 20 pieces of art in a portfolio is stressful to you, you're in for a rude awakening at art school.

I recommend getting a figure drawing book on amazon. Get "How to Draw the Human Figure: An Anatomical Approach" by Louise Gordon. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140464778/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) It is like $6 and is the best investment you'll ever make.

So do that, get familiar with figure drawing, and learn gesture drawing as well. Build on the fundamentals! That shit is important.

If all of this sounds daunting to you and you prefer art as a hobby, go with a more stable career like Information Techology or go to a trade school for something like electrician work - shit's good money, and you can support your lifestyle and make art on the side (that's what I did, and I sure am glad I did it.)

There are a number of color theory books out there but I'm not sure that will answer all of your questions. I have a copy of The Elements of Color that I reference often. The thing is, there isn't really one solid formula for mixing paint. It mostly comes through practice and understanding the physics of color and how colors shift in tone, saturation, and hue. There is some really good advice in this post already. I have a few other sources you might be interested in.

Wet Canvas has some great forums for people like us who need help with this kind of stuff from time to time.

The Dimensions of Color has a very thorough breakdown of color. It is extensive and a harder read than maybe you are used to. Take it slow. Read it a few times. Refer to it often.

Color and Light by James Gurney is a great resource as well. Be warned, that it isn't necessarily a "how-to" but it will give you insight into how a professional artist goes about his work. He provides insight on techniques and palettes and things like that as well as phenomena seen in nature.

Take a look at those. Best of luck.

For fantasy artists, take a look at some of the artists, and advice, on Muddy Colors: http://www.muddycolors.com/

Also, I write a blog called Lines and Colors on which I profile numerous artists. You might find some interesting artists in the "Sci-fi and Fantasy" category:

http://linesandcolors.com/category/science-fiction-and-fantasy-illustration/

​

For learning figure construction and proportions, are you aware of Andrew Loomis?

https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986

​

What I'm trying to get across about being critical of your level of ability vs. being on a path is to avoid the "I'm not good enough" mindset (which will hold you back) and replace it with "I'm making progress" (which will carry you forward).

I think it helps to understand that progress in learning a skill like drawing is not a steady upward graph, but a series of plateaus. You can work hard for a long time and think you're not making progress or even sliding back, but as you go on, there will be a point at which you'll start to draw a bit better, and you'll realize that you've moved up a notch. You'll be on another plateau at that point, but once you realize that's how it progresses, you should be less frustrated with the process.

​

Yes, fundamentals are very important, and you're wise to realize that, but so is enthusiasm. By all means, work on fundamentals, but also take time aside for experimentation and play. Doodling and sketching for fun is not wasted time for an artist, it's where creativity has free reign and sparks happen. Try doing some just-for-fun, no-goals doodling/sketching for 10 minutes as a warm up before starting your figure studies.

Finding inspiration will carry you far. Perseverance plus enthusiasm is an unbeatable combination.

Middle school art teacher here! Good job! You'd get an A for sure! One thing that I like doing with my students portrait art works is see if it can fool a computer, I take a camera phone and see if the phone recognizes the picture as a human face. (Note, this doesn't work well with dark skinned or darker images, computer AI is dumb, but I guess if Skynet takes over dark skinned people will be able to move around undetected.) Anyways, your picture passes my camera test! So that's cool!


Constructive Criticism: Is this the reference? Overall, you placed major structures of the face well in relation to each other, but you drew them to big compared to the size of the head. This raised his eyes further from the center of the face upward and shortened his forehead. It's probably easier to fix the head shape vs shrinking the eyes, nose and mouth. To fix this next time, you could move his hair upward (expand the top of his head). If it ends up going a bit off page, that's ok. Proportions are very tough to get and until you've drawn a lot you're going to have a tough time visualizing where things are supposed to be on the page. I'm not sure your training, or past experience, but I would look into the term "eye-length", or if you're using google "eye-length drawing". In my class, I use some pages out of Drawing The Head & Figure by Jack Hamm and from other sources to help students. I'd look into those older books to help because they cover the same stuff as newer books (human anatomy hasn't changed much, lol) and the older books are often cheaper.


Keep this drawing. Keep practicing and try to draw the same image in a few years to challenge yourself to do better. ♥♥♥ : )

I'd say your strongest point is your ability to convey action. The leaping on page 16 is particularly well executed. You also actually have a pretty good grasp of perspective drawing with the environments! It could use a little work, but I feel like every artist could do with more practice!!

The main suggestion I could give you is to start drawing from life. I know you are heavily influenced by Japanese comics, but trust me when I say that all professional manga artists are able to draw from life. What I mean is, take a figure drawing class, or at the very least pick up this book, or any other figure drawing book really. It will help you greatly with getting proportions correct, as well as help you with understanding the internal structure of the body. By skipping learning how to draw from life, and learning to draw from looking at Manga, you're really only taking the face value. Like, have you ever used a copy machine to make a copy of a copy? The original page looks crisp and clean, but that first copy has a few spots and scratches, and then the copy of that copy has big black splotches on it, and eventually the text is completely illegible. Not to say that your art is really bad! It's actually pretty decent for your first comics! I just believe that doing some observational studies will help your work greatly!

The next major thing you should work on is the writing. I get that his blindfold is what keeps his demons at bay, but by starting the comic off with the central character punching a guy's body in two, and then ripping another guy's arm off... it makes me not care about the character. I feel like if you would have shown the readers that he was a kind person, by like, helping the elderly, or defending his father or something, then I'd be like, "Why is this sweet kid suddenly a vicious murderer?" But since you didn't I was like, "Is this a violent comic for the sake of drawing a violent comic?" Therefore, when the dad was brought in to be killed, he started talking about how innocent the kid was, which is the exact opposite of my first impression. Also, why did they kill the dad? Why, then, did they let evil demon kid live, only to exile him? Wouldn't killing Kai solve all of their problems?

Anyway, I feel like you have potential, mainly because you were actually able to produce this much work! Do you have any idea how many people say they want to make comics but pale at the sight of how much work it is? You are a hard worker, and I know that you will be able to persevere and evolve into something so much better than you already are! On that note, buy Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. It will change your life. I'm being 100% serious here. McCloud is not only the go-to comics theorist, but he was also one of the first professional Americans to see the potential of drawing comics influenced by the Japanese! Once you have devoured this book, because you will want more, buy Making Comics, also by Scott McCloud. While Understanding dissects the medium and explains things you never would have thought about before, Making Comics applies those thoughts into a school-like setting.

tl;dr: It's good, but could be much better. Worship Scott McCloud.

> If there is literature/links/methods that you find especially effective (particularly for a newbie with 0 experience) I would be grateful. %)

Michael Hampton is my favourite anatomy artist

All of Andrew Loomis's books are available at that link, they are completely invaluable - I particularly recommend "fun with a pencil" for newbies

learn to paint with Reilly's Papers absolutely invaluable for digital painting.

Posemaniacs is my favourite site for practicing gesture drawing and poses, the pose timer is fantastic.

James Gurney is the king of imaginative realism, follow his blog and buy his books they will serve you very well.

linesandcolours is a wonderful art blog

Most importantly - read and keep a record of artists you enjoy, don't be afraid to try out their styles and techniques and copy your favourite paintings - "mastercopying" is a legitimate technique for learning how to improve your own work - as they say "all art is theft".

And the best advice I can give you - have fun with what you do. Keep multiple projects on the go, big and small. If you aren't in the mood to do a big painting, make something shitty and hilarious in MS paint. Find someone to art-trade with (hell, I'll art trade with you anytime - I'm always looking for people to collab and share with). Don't be scared to make absolute crap because being loose and free with your work at any level of complexity teaches you not be precious and will ultimately make you a more relaxed artist.

Thanks! I highly recommend New Masters Academy, they have a free trial and also Cyber Monday sale ($11/month for 3 months). I'm not sponsored by them but they are by far the best resource for anatomy I've come across. I recommend going through Rey Bustos's Anatomy first, then Glenn Vilppu, then Steve Huston once you know your muscles.

As for books, Thieme's Anatomy is great, and Bridgman's Anatomy is also great (bridgman only if you're more advanced though otherwise it'll confuse you). All other anatomy books are pretty lackluster tbh, compared to having an instructor teach you. I've actually talked to Glenn Vilppu in person and he recommends medical anatomy books + observing the body and coming to your own conclusions, over artists' anatomy books.

Observe how the body works as a machine, for example observe how body weight is applied to the legs. Or how your thigh bone always sits at a 15 degree angle when standing. Or how there's a slight inward curve to your shinbones. Or how your inner ankle sits higher than outer. Lots of details like that add so much to believable anatomy.

Do lots of figure drawings, know your muscles and bones and where things attach, and you'll be set :)

edit: one thing NOT to do - is to spam figure drawings without knowing your muscles/attachments/bones. I did this for 1-2 years, and ended up with the before picture. Get your anatomy knowledge first then go into figure drawing KNOWING your stuff. You'll learn way quicker.

The only advice you need right now is to improve your draftsmanship. You need to understand anatomy to be able to draw people, no matter what level of detail/realism you wish to achieve. Animators and cartoonists who who draw all varieties of cartoon characters are always masters of drawing the human form. Even drawing characters like Fred Flinstone requires you to understand anatomy, such as the way joints bend, or hands and fingers function. Having a grasp on anatomy will help your story telling, no matter how you choose to exercise (or disregard) the knowledge. The best place to start learning is a very well known book authored by Andrew Loomis: Figure Drawing for What its Worth (this is one of the most well known peices of instructional drawing literature) Buy this book and study. You already have ideas that you want to draw, and thats great, and improving your draftsmanship will help you be able to get your ideas out. In addition to anatomy, You will also need to learn some basics of perspective, to be able to convincingly draw your stage for example, or how to set up characters around the stage and make them appear to all be on the same plane. Scott Robertson has a great book that teaches fundamentals of perspective, worth looking in to How to Draw Good Luck!

Number one is never using paper that has lines or squares on it.

I'd recommend not drawing over the same lines again and again, make the line in one go. This'll improve overall line quality. You can search for "hairy lines" if you're not sure what I mean.

Then this book is very good, try to study anatomy before drawing a stylized person. This'll give you more control, and you'll have a better understanding of what you can play with.
https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986

Next to that you can try to play with lineweight and adjust untill you've found a comfortable weight. This video explains it pretty well. https://youtu.be/x0zl5NnEAyU
Scott Robertson also had books: https://designstudiopress.com/product/how-to-draw/

You can find more great books on the internet, design studio press has a nice selection.
I'd recommend getting;
How to draw
How to render
Framed ink
Framed perspective
Figure drawing for what it's worth

What really helped me was dropping the pencil, and using a black fineliner. That puts you in the spot that everything you do has a very direct consequence. You'll learn to draw quicker in the beginning, and noodle/work slow in the end when you're doing details.

Good luck!

Please bear in mind, that the fundamental skills of good drawing are universal and when you learn a consistent approach in how to draw the human form well, it doesn't matter what the size, shape, or skin colour of your model is. That's one of the reassuring things about human anatomy: despite differences between individuals, you can learn to find consistencies in structure that will always be there.

Having said that, allow me to share with you my 3 favourite life drawing books, each of which include references for models of various ethnicities.

A book you definitely want to check out is Sarah Simblet's "Anatomy for the Artist" Her drawings are immaculate, but what I really like is that the photos are if equally high quality.

Another example of high quality work is Henry Yan's Figure Drawing Techniques and Tips. These images will blow your mind, he has total mastery of charcoal. This book includes a good range of young and old models, male and female, white, black, and asian.

You might also like Michael Hampton's "Figure Drawing: Design and Invention. Probably the best book I know for showing a progressive approach to skill building using geometry and the best examples of gesture drawings.

Even though I'm white, I share your frustration. I'm always trying to find resources for drawing different ethnicities and find that they are lacking. The books I've recommended are the best I've found yet.

I can definitely help you with this.


How to Draw: drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination

This is the best book on perspective you can buy. Perspective is the number one thing you need to have a grasp on if you want to draw, especially from imagination. Practice this until it clicks for you.

For setting up scenes I recommend Andrew Loomis books, Creative Illustration in particular. Loomis has several books out and they're all amazing. Many artists have learned to draw from Loomis.

Burne Hogarth is another master of the craft and you can learn a lot about musculature and anatomy from his books. These are generally a step up from Loomis so you could move on to these once you have a solid grasp of the fundamentals to take your work to the next level. Dynamic Anatomy, Dynamic Figure Drawing, Drawing the Human Head.

For people and anatomy, Proko (http://www.proko.com/library/) has good free youtube videos. He uses a lot of Loomis and Hogarth methods (which are pretty much the standard) and presents them in a way that is easy to digest. He's constantly updating his channel and adding new videos.

If you can only get a few books, I would get the How to Draw perspective book first, then go through the Proko material, then move onto the Loomis and Hogarth stuff. These learning materials will take you pretty much as far as you want to go.

Also I highly recommend sticking to traditional materials (pencil and paper) while you're learning. Once you have the fundamentals down then you can move on to digital. You're going to make things much easier on yourself if you stick with traditional while you nail these fundamentals down.

I'm learning to be a professional artist atm, but I'm also eighteen so take what I say with a grain of salt!

1. Overall, I like it! However, depending on what you want your viewers to see, you might want to do more research on the proportions of the head. That is to say, if you want it to look more like a real thing, like an object or a statue, go for the more realistic approach. But if you want it to be more cartoony and more emotional, you should stray away from that a little.
   
   
2. You should try to see about getting some shadows in there, like the inside of the collar and around his goggles and under the helmet. See this picture of a snake I did once: http://imgur.com/1DuoUN3 I made the outline hella dark so that the shadows didn't just look like features; you can actually tell they're shadows. (I wouldn't recommend using outlines that thick for everything, though. Just do what you want! The blank page is a playground, so play!) Shading is pretty hard to master, but I try to use the shape of my pencil. One side is almost completely flat, so I use it for light shading over a large portion of the picture. The tip is very sharp, so I use that for hard details and outlines.
   
   
3. Back to what i said earlier about cartoons versus realism. Here's a picture I did of my band director in high school: http://imgur.com/eNBNsXW Pretty realistic; I wanted people to see Uncle Sam when they saw that picture. Now here's a picture I drew of myself dancing: http://imgur.com/X9F8eRg That one's a bit sillier because there's not much I want to communicate to my viewer other than the fact that I'm being funny and my limbs are all wobbly.
   
   Something that I do from time to time when I'm learning how to draw in a specific style or medium is that I look at what other people have drawn and I replicate their drawings as an exercise. Or sometimes when I'm on a flight or on the bus, I'll draw the people around me. I guess what I'm saying is you should just keep practicing and do what comes naturally!
   
   Note: a really, REALLY good book on drawing people can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-People-Portray-Clothed-Figure/dp/1581803591

I think it's a bit difficult and unfair for me to comment based on one painting alone. Do you have any sketches (line drawing, preferably) of this painting, or anything that showcase what you can do so far? Almost everyone will suggest we start designing anything in line sketches, especially if learning, so I'm interested to see what you got :D

Edit: Since you're looking for advice on how to start, I'll just say a few things that might be able to help you start.

(1) Drawing, imo, is the very foundation of all art. I think before you start painting, you should start drawing first! Here are a few links that may help you start with drawing:

• Art Fundamentals (Free, and pretty good)
  
• Foundation Group (Paid, but pretty good)
  
• Ctrl+Paint (Free and Paid. Both are pretty good)
  
  (2) I suggest you follow an art school's course outline so you can progress pretty well. Feng Zhu Design School has an outline that they use for their students to learn how to do concept art in 1 year (16 hours per day). You can also download a detailed version of what they offer in their course, then you can have an idea on what each component means.
  
  
• FZD Course Outline
  
  (3) There are also a few books that would be really useful to you when learning how to draw and render. These are supposedly the best on the internet (I only have two, the first two books in the list) Here they are:
  
  
• How to Draw
  
• How to Render
  
• Figure Drawing
  
• Color and Light
  
• Imaginative Realism
  
  I think those are all I have for you now. I'm not in any way a professional artist (I'm currently studying Industrial Design), but I think the above things I've mentioned should prove useful to you. If you have any questions, you can send me a PM :D Work hard and practise every day!

You don't have to go to art school to be able to sketch. When I was in high school, I became friends with Rick Bryant, Mark Pacella, Jordan Raskin, and Ray Lago, to name a few. I hung out at their studio, I learned some things, but the best advice I was given was by Rick. He said 'go pick up a copy of Bridgeman's anatomy book, get some tracing paper, and start copying.'

Every time I finished the book, I would bring him the tracings and he would show me what Bridgeman had done, which was to show the human figure, in all of its parts, as planes.

I did that 3 times, and I should have done it more, but I was able to grasp basic anatomy just from that, and was able to go out and sketch on my own.

If you're in NYC, you should take some classes at the Art Student's League. They have classes that you can just show up to, and they charge a per-class fee. Good teachers there, with good models. Well worth it, especially at 17.

Also, if you want to learn how to write comics, I'm pretty sure there are places online where you can find comic book scripts. They are unlike any other script you'll find, in a very specific format.

Good luck!

Thanks for all your feedback, I really appreciate it!

As an aside, and as one comic-creator-doing-it-for-the-love-of-it to another, if you're looking to improve your artistic skills, I've recently picked up a few Andrew Loomis books to read, including Figure Drawing For All It's Worth. I'm not sure if you're looking to improve in a specific area, or just overall, but that book seems to be pretty good for figure drawing pointers. And furthermore, in the same vein, I highly recommend studying anatomy--knowing exactly what's underneath the skin and how it moves does absolute wonders for improving the look of figures on the page.

Also, you don't have to be ridiculously proficient at drawing or anything to make successful comics. If you look at a book like Persepolis, the drawings are very simplistic, yet distinct. Nothing is highly rendered or incredibly detailed, but that in no way makes it any less successful than, say, an Alex Ross-illustrated book. It's all in what you're trying to do with the story you want to tell.

Are you sketching from reference or your imagination?
Understanding human anatomy is a long process but can have great payout if you put in the time.
I recommend going back to the very basics which involves retraining your brain.
You have to get rid of what you think a face should look like and replace it with the actual structure of the body.
You may think you know but you don't. Learn the skull, skin, lighting, then coloring in that order.
Check out these resources. I can't find the good stuff but the best will be in a book

A good simple starting point - How to draw face basic proportions
If you're serious this is the greatest database of free human photo references

Okay so those images are of an entire painting that is mostly warm and an entire painting that is mostly cool. I'm talking about the relationship between light and shadow within the same painting. Here's a better example:

https://31.media.tumblr.com/cae91e1b08a12487beeb21475df64b61/tumblr_inline_n7l409ZuZw1s86nd4.png

In a given scene, there is at least one direct light source and at least one ambient light source. The shadows aren't simply the lack of illumination from the direct light source; they're lit up by the ambient light. In a sunlit scene, the direct light source is pure white (the sun), but the ambient light source is blue (the sky) and/or the color of the ground or other surroundings (for example, in the forest it might be green). Most of the surfaces not directly illuminated by the sun are illuminated by the ambient light, which means that in most settings the shadows will actually be cool. Even though the sun's light is pure white (if it's midday), because our eyes adjust to the blue ambience its light appears slightly yellow-orange (warm). A good rule of thumb is that most of the time, the ambient color is the complement of the direct light source. So, a cool light will cast warm shadows and a warm light will cast cool shadows. At a more advanced level it can become much more complicated than that, but this is enough to get you started. The main times you'll have a cool light source as your main light are when your subject is in the shade, indoors with natural lighting, or at night. Warm light sources are far more common, both in nature and in man-made settings.

For more information and examples, I highly recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506048298&sr=8-1&keywords=james+gurney+color+and+light

For drawing faces, I highly suggest you learn to draw the human skull. I know it seems creepy, but I found it's the best foundation to which you start laying on the details of the face. When I first heard about the method, I drew a lot of skulls. I started laying the facial features we would normally see (eyeballs, nose, lips) and found that the face was structured quite well. Personally, I found the human skull provided better landmarks than the standard drawing faces tutorial.

I also have a life-size (plastic, please stop looking at me like that D:) skull to help me with certain details and figuring out other landmarks. I prefer to have a physical example of it, but that may be a remnant of the drawing courses I was made to take as part of my major. If you find pictures (even digital 3D models) aren't that helpful, then look to buy a skull. They usually sell them for medical (dental) students (I got mine at University of Toronto's bookstore, I think it was about 40 dollars).

Check out How to Draw the Human Figure. It does go beyond just faces, but they have drawings showing how the muscles lay on the skull and how the face looks once the skin is put onto it. It helped me a lot.

From that point on, I suggest you start making observations on how your muscles behave in different facial expressions. However, there is this nice large flowchart showing the different expressions (and grouped).

I hope that helped :)

I wouldn't critique this if I didn't like this-- so, disclaimer. I also realize it is a doodle, but you posted it on the internet, so I'm assuming you would like feedback.

A little more fluidity and variance in line weight would be nice. Your anatomy needs some work-- even if this is supposed to be stylized. The jaw is very square, more characteristic of a male face, and the eyes and pupils are not pointed the same directions (A good way to help with this is to look at the drawing in a mirror, ocular dominance can be a bitch). The mouth and the nose are too high up on the face and could be pulled down a little further. I don't think the lines for the clavicles were necessary-- they pull my eye away from the face. You did a really nice job shading most of the nose, but the rest of the face lacks structure and I'm not really sure where your light sources are going, especially with the reflections on the eyes. Maybe emphasize those a little more.

I did a really quick redline here to better illustrate my points.

Some good books to help with the fundamentals that are causing these issues:

• Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist by Stephen Rogers Peck
  
  
• Color and Light: A guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney
  
  Keep up the good work!

If he's wanting to get into drawing, I'd suggest picking up a book or two from Andrew Loomis. They were written back in the early-mid twentieth century, and they're still popular among artists today, and for good reason. I personally have Drawing the Head and the Hands by Andrew Loomis, and it's a wonderful reference tool for drawing/painting the human face. [Amazon]

Another great artist's reference book is Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney. [Amazon] James Gurney also has a great informational YouTube channel that's worth checking out.

Also, please don't start with cheapo supplies kits whether they're watercolors, acrylics, or oils. They're not well made and can be frustrating to work with for beginners and pros alike. Read or watch some reviews first (YouTube review videos are a great place to see a lot of supplies in action from real artists).

I think a fun medium to start with would be gouache (it's like a cross between acrylic and watercolors). Arteza is a good quality middle of the road brand (not cheap quality, but not pro grade either) that you can get for a relatively good price [[Gouache 24 pk on Amazon]](https://www.amazon.com/ARTEZA-Gouache-Premium-Artist-Paints/dp/B077Y6TVC8/ref=sxin_3_ac_d_rm?ac_md=0-0-YXJ0ZXphIGdvdWFjaGU%3D-ac_d_rm&crid=2JWZ3D4I54A2Z&keywords=arteza+gouache&pd_rd_i=B077Y6TVC8&pd_rd_r=942fb13e-2eb9-4ca8-b9a8-bd5e0b48cb65&pd_rd_w=a9GyB&pd_rd_wg=dNTqd&pf_rd_p=ed481207-4bea-4e19-bbad-73ed40fdc292&pf_rd_r=FKJM040T2XS3HPN4EJTA&psc=1&qid=1572883675&sprefix=arteza+gouache%2Caps%2C195), and they're fun to work with too. You'll need something to paint on too. Watercolor paper or multimedia paper/sketchbook are good to start with. A plastic or porcelain palette and some watercolor brushes will be needed too. You can pick up some of these at your local art store. Heck, I've even seen some artists using porcelain plates or deviled egg servers from a thrift store as a palette for their watercolors and gouache!

There are lots of tutorial videos on YouTube that you or he can check out. Skillshare, like some of the others mentioned, is a good learning resource too.

Holey muffins yes, without the basics you will never improve.

In order to draw something you must be able to (in an artistic sense) understand it's nature. Like how a cylinder sits in space, how to draw light, how muscles and bones sit in the body (anatomy), all that.

A good cartoonist always has learned to draw realistically first. To give a cartoon body a sense of realism you need to get how real bodies work. Basically you got to know the rules before you can break them.

You can go to a used book store and go to the art section and pick up anatomy books and life drawing books pretty easily. If you see anything by this author, grab it. When you draw from life, start with simple stuff first like just a ball, or an opaque glass like a mug, or even a box where you can see the interior. Don't smudge the graphite, and don't press too hard with it either. Learn how to create light and shadow with the graphite alone.

The more you draw realistically the better you will get. It may not be the topics that excite you, but these exercises that don't seem as much fun are the way to get you to get better at drawing the stuff that is fun.

Good luck

1-3 black and white, emphasis on shading and 3D

1. smooth simple shapes: spheres, cubes, eggs, a cup, etc [squinting will help you identify shadows more easily]
   
   
2. complex shapes: crumpled paper, an old shirt
   
   
3. textures and highlights: things made of glass, fur, and metal.
   
   
4. If you want to color, do steps 1-3, but with dry mediums like oil pastels or coloring pencil. If you want to draw harder things, go to step 5
   
   
5. animals: think about shape and muscles before attempting the whole animal.
   http://www.amazon.com/Draw-Animals-Perigee-Jack-Hamm/dp/0399508023/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259883868&sr=1-4
   
   
6. people: drawing people can be frustrating, for motivation I would actually recommend that you choose a hot celebrity and just keep drawing him/her until you're satisfied. For a sort of beginner's way of looking at people, Hamm also has a good book for people:
   http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259883868&sr=1-1
   
   
7. Apply perspective and foreshortening on all of the above (this is one of the hardest things to do in art, with every angle, the lines on any object changes). I have been taking classes and self teaching for a very long time and I still get tripped up over this.
   
   *Note, I skipped drawing landscapes because it sounded like you wanted to draw people.
   
   While you're drawing, you should take notes, things to help you remember ratios and little epiphanies that you discover along the way. Sometimes, one little revelation can completely change and improve the way you draw, so make sure you keep exploring online and talk to various other artists about how they deal with certain drawing issues like hands or objects from directly above...etc.

honestly I was half asleep when I wrote that and was kinda just rambling, but thank you.

Most often the simplest solution is the best one, if you want to make something look like its glowing then make it glow. look at this screencap, see how the yellow bits of fire bleed over onto the smoke, creating a corona or "bloom"? this mimics the way our eyes see really intense light, and the illusion is so strong it will sometimes actually make the viewer squint a bit, and it's not because it's on a glowing screen this happens even with paintings. Akira uses this all the time

But that only works if you already have a good sense of light and dark in the image, which most people struggle with because you can't trust your eyes to judge it. For example this illusion, the reason this works in because you brain doesn't care about the actual shade, it knows that that's a light tile so it interprets it as lighter the the lit dark tile, it also knows it's in a shadow so it also makes it darker then the lit light tile, so you end up seeing this inbetween tone even though A and B are actually the same shade. The same thing happens with anything, a face for example, because you know the color of the skin in the light, your brain will interpret the shadows as lighter then they actually are.

When you're drawing you need to draw what the colors actually are, not what your brain thinks they are. Very often this means the light and shadow are closer to white and black then they are to each other, no mater how much it dosen't look like it. Basically, if you think you have enough contrast then you probably don't. this is the most important thing in making light truly look "bright", and people very often under estimate how hard it actually is. here's a good example in Akira, look at how huge the difference in value from the lights to the shadows is, there's no bloom or any other effect in this picture, just contrast giving a sense of light.

another thing Akira does a lot is use "edge lighting", this is a really simple effect, all it is is just lighting an object from behind so that most of what you see is the shadow side, with only a tiny sliver of light side showing on the edge. Now the reason you would see the light side at all is because the view point is not perfectly behind the object so you see a little bit of the side, or there is a large light source, or multiple light sources behind the object so the light goes further then half way around, for example here with the wall of TVs.

In fact that last picture is a good example of all three of these concepts, here's an even more extreme example.

I hope this helps. If you really want to learn this stuff I can not recommend this book enough, Ignore that it says it's for painters, it has some stuff about how to use paint, but the author even say himself in the introduction that most of it is applicable to all visual artist.

Ah that's sweet, but you know what, light and color is a super complex subject...it's something I struggle with too every time I make a new painting, so don't be discouraged! If you haven't read Color and Light book by James Gurney, I would HIGHLY recommend it! https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1IXNICKVA7KDK


Haha I'm sure you're better than you think you are -- just keep at it! Thank you a ton! =)

Check out a book called Dynamic Anatomy.
I have the old version, but it's literally the best bit of anatomical instruction I've seen.

This is really good work. The kerning and hands could use a little work but it's off to a great start. It's always good to ask for critiques. So.. . Kudos on you.

Dynamic Anatomy: Revised and Expanded Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0823015521/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Zj22BbHYV7FTB

I'm no master, however let me share my thoughts on this.

The cartoon-like outlines are actually the base on which a lot of paintings have been built. In fact, the full-sized under-drawing that an artist does before starting a full-scale painting is itself called a Cartoon *. So there's no need to step away from that, you need to push forward through it. Don''t stop using it, after all it's crucial for planing and making sure your drawings are proportionate.Do stop thinking in 2D. When you're shifting your gears, you need to start imagining your drawings as 3D object's forms and depth. If you're able to visualize your creations in 3D, then the edge/types of edges become clear to you. Yet, when you transfer your 3D visualization to paper, you're still left with something that feels like a cartoon: flat. The remedy to this is of course, as you and /u/firesion have mentioned : Light and Shadow. Without that, we wouldn't see forms at all. So proper understanding of how Light and Shadow work / interact with various types of materials would seem to be key to painting in a realistic manner. Sycra's Foundation of light and shadow series is a very good beginner's overview of this. If you would like to push your understanding further in this subject, I would strongly suggest Gurney's Light and Color book. It is an amazing resource regarding the relationships of light/shadow/colours. Your ruminations on the edges and outlines are good. However, you're avoiding the main part. If you're to paint realistically, then you need to stop thinking in lines. Lines don't exist. You need to start thinking in forms. The interactions of various forms in your painting will make the edges that will differentiate them.

As for the don't use straight lines in your work, I would say that depends on what you're trying to paint. If you were painting something architectural, I would say by all means to use lots of straight/ angled lines. But if you're planning on painting people or other organics, then lines would make your job very difficult. Most of your points basically would be ameliorated if you began visualizing things in 3D.

For your third and last point, there are many ways to call focus to your focal point in paintings. There are drastic value changes, using a more saturated colour, using a complementary colour to the rest of the colour scheme (if you were using an Analogous+complementary scheme, this would be an excellent way to drive home what the focal point is). And like most things,there isn't one "right way" to do it. It depends on what mood you're trying to convey in your painting.

I would have to disagree with the detail being higher in the focal point of the painting. While that is certainly an option, you're not restricted to that. A very common compositional technique to add depth is to put the focal point in the midground (between the foreground and background). However, by common sense, we're aware that obviously there would be more details in the foreground (which is closest to us), but we can keep the midground as the focal point by playing with light/colour/positioning (it will still have less contrast/ less details than the foreground. But because of the other factors, the viewer will immediately read it as the focal point).

Lastly, my own suggestion for you to gain a better understanding of how to paint realistically, and lights/colours, would be for you to do some master studies. Go find some old/new masters that you look up to, see how they approach this problem. Eye out the colours, try to understand their reasons for picking said colour. Recognize their composition choices. Notice how they're handing various edges and so forth. Try recreating a part or all of a painting. These are purely for you, so you can spend as long or as little time on these as you want. These can be messy (and often are). So it's imperative to remember that these will never be finished paintings, they're studies.

Good luck. :)

Okay, speaking as a disabled person, if you're going to be around this kid a fair bit you need to completely let go of this notion that his disabilities make him less capable of honing his talents. Not because you'll necessarily interfere with the development of his skills but because that attitude is incredibly toxic. He isn't talented despite being disabled, he is both talented and disabled. Happens all the time.

I would suggest buying him some books, like maybe this one Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1402766785/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_rS5AybXHBE8CN or How to Draw Cool Stuff: A Drawing Guide for Teachers and Students https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0615991424/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_ET5Ayb7CCF5ZN - find something that matches what he likes to draw or would like to draw. Make sure he has decent materials - they don't have to be top of the line, just decent. Take him with you to get the materials, let him start learning what's out there and figuring out what he wants to try working with next. Let him interact with the shop assistants as much as possible. Let this be his thing, and he will hopefully gradually expand his own horizons.

You have some options.

If you wish to simply attain some better looking results and not have to be burdened with the long and arduous process of learning to draw intuitively, I'd recommend you look into the sight-size method of drawing. Where you set up your canvas next to your subject, whether it's a picture or a model and measure angles and distances in a "one to one" ratio kind of way. this will produce very accurate results and placement of features and works very well as a blocking in method. From there on it's just all practice. And understanding how to measure is a useful skill in and of itself.

Unfortunately I don't dabble much with sight-size anymore, although I recognize its benefits. I can't give you any good material, but from a glance, https://www.sightsize.com/ probably isn't a bad idea to start.

​

​

If time is of no concern I would recommend you start on the long and slow and painful process of understanding construction. To do so you'll need a very good grasp of forms in perspective. 1,2 and 3 point perspective being the most used. (sometimes 4, but it's not essential unless you're looking at specific effects). Understanding forms in perspective, usually starting with boxes, will lead you onto understanding how to light forms in perspective. From there you can go on to lighting forms in perspective and these kinds of methods and practice of drawing every living and non-living thing under the sun are the basics of all drawing. And from there it's a lot of practice. Years of practice. This is the past most kids try to go down these days because they want to be able to.. in their own imaginations... "draw from imagination". A term that's so overused and misunderstood that it will most likely cause my ulcer to burst and kill me on the spot one day. But it is the road to the aforementioned "intuitive" way of drawing, were you use the same method for basically everything. And you'll simply be relying on reference to guide the information you choose for your work, rather than having a need to copy what you see religiously.

​

Good material for learning perspective, are Scott Robertson's books, but they can be .. a bit heavy for beginners, so as an introduction, "Perspective made easy" is a decent grab

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perspective-Made-Easy-Dover-Instruction/dp/0486404730/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549974784&sr=8-1&keywords=perspective+made+easy

​

As for construction. I'm partial to Karl Gnass head drawing book and Michael Hampton's Figure drawing design and invention.

https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819

https://www.amazon.com/Head-Shots-Artists-Guide-Drawing/dp/0975281232

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I hope I haven't confused you too much. What I think you should do is to practice both of these methods, and if faster results to compliment your painting is your cup of tea, I would recommend sight-size. If you are simply drawing for your own enjoyment and personal progression, I would recommend looking into perspective, simple forms in perspective and then use that as a starting point for construction.

​

People will undoubtedly mention anatomy, but I tend to leave that bit out until it presents itself naturally.

​

Mind you. This is just my opinion. Others may have other and/or better ideas for your personal goals.

Big thing: learn how to draw figures in space. Right now your drawings look flat. In particular, you need to be able to show how one part of the human anatomy overlaps another part. This is actually really hard to do, because it requires you to keep a three dimensional model (of some sort) in your head. That's why these are so popular.

Jim Lee actually breaks down the human body into three dimensional shapes and places them in order from front to back. The only place to learn this sort of thing is drawing from life, but even then that doesn't quite give you a framework to use. Personally, I suggest Bridgman's works, but he puts a surprising premium on explaining rather than showing.

When you get this down you'll find that your art becomes much more dynamic. Also, it'll allow you to create believable action shots with more than once person.

Check these out, because they're great examples of figures in space and overlapping anatomy (you'll see that I love me some X-Men):

• Wolverine in the sewers- by John Byrne
  
• Cyclops and the X-Men- by Paul Smith
  
• A superb version of Storm vs. Cyclops- by Rick Leonardi
  
• More Paul Smith of Wolverine and Rogue
  
  Just for an example of how this plays out, look at these action shots of figures in space:
  
  
• Superman vs. Batman
  
• Wolverine vs. Silver Samurai
  

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0823015521 This was helpful to me and I've had classes use it as a reference. I stopped reading 'how to' manga/cartooning books a long time ago (I don't think any less of them, I just didn't really need to anymore) so I can't really give you a list of those. You don't really need to either, to be honest, because your style will show through your work no matter what.

What I recommend instead is taking a figure drawing class if you can. Having a live model is the best way to learn the body. You can see how muscles shape given tensity of a stance, how fat sits on the muscle and the softness of skin. More than you can receive from a photo..it really does make a difference. You can also try to ask a friend to model for you:) It surprised me the number of people willing to do it for art, so it doesn't hurt to try! All bodies are different, remember that ;3

Before you do that, though, you should draw the musculatory system. Why? It forces you to understand just what's going on under the skin and why these things are shaped the way they are. One of my favorite assignments was:

• Take a picture of a dynamic pose (usually an athlete, gymnasts are pretty interesting)
  
• Draw them without their skin! :D Just have a medical drawing handy.
  
  Good luck! Feel free to pm me if you need anything :3

I'm just going to copy and paste this from a response I made to a similar post a couple of days ago, because it applies here as well:

> My number one piece of advice though is to take more time up front, before you start solidifying the details, to make sure you're proportions, placement of features, and angles are all correct. It's kind of classic beginner error to get really caught up on the details, thinking that's what makes a picture work, but if the details aren't built on a solid foundation they just all fall apart. So at the start of a drawing, especially a portrait where you're trying to capture a specific likeness, draw lightly, measure carefully, and take your time to make sure you've got things exactly where and how you want them before you start rendering detail.

To expand on that a bit: You've made two errors here that are very common to beginners. (So, honestly, there's no reason to feel bad about it. Seriously, everybody does these when they start out.) The first is that you've drawn a collection of features - eyes, nose, mouth - but not taken the time up front to make sure that they're proportional to one another or placed accurately in relation to one another. There's less leeway for this when you're doing a portrait of a specific person, so when you're trying to capture a likeness it's vitally important to slow down at the start and measure carefully.

The other error is placing the features you've drawn in a sort of head-shaped space without understanding the mass and volume of the head that contains them. This is a place where learning a more constructive approach to drawing, like that taught by guys like Andrew Loomis or Glen Vilppu, really pays off. An observational approach, one where you draw what you see, is really the best way all around to practice day to day, but if you combine that with the understanding of the underlying structures that comes with a constructive approach you get the best of both worlds.

You've got a good start here, though! Keep it up!

This is only marginally related, but I want to jump in here to point out that James Gurney (the author of that article) is crazy awesome and if you like to paint you should absolutely pick up a copy of his book Color and Light. It's very well done and easy to understand, and I wish I had had it when I first started out.

Now that that's out of the way, I really like the humanization in the ways the ponies eat. It's made very clear that they're herbivores who eat flowers and things, but they make them into sandwiches etc. instead of grazing. That said, I do like the whole spectrum of anthropomorphization from "human versions" of the characters to even relatively realistic ponies.

I used to be exactly like you back in high school. You have the raw talent, now you need to pair that with an education on art fundamentals. These fundamentals exist irregardless of medium, so you can practice with just your doodles. The main fundamentals are anatomy, color and light, perspective, and composition. In your case, I recommend buying a book on proper figure drawing. You have really cool ideas, so you just need to nail the proportions. This was the first book I read on the subject, and I fount it really helpful. If you want more after that, Andrew Loomis and Bridgeman are the some of the other classic figure drawing educators. As for the other fundamentals, ctrlpaint.com is a probably one of the best free resources, and as for books, here's one I would recommend that covers all the essentials. Again, if you want to take your art to the next level, whether it be just doodles or digital art, it's all about dem fundamentals. Best of luck!

Anatomy books are the real deal, but not always inspirational starting points. The important thing to practice when drawing people, is proportions...as in why are the figure's arms too short and legs too long. You might want to look at a book that doesn't obsess over where muscles go on huge naked men. For example, http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321976718&sr=8-2


But most importantly, don't burn out on this stuff. Remember to draw what you love and have fun once and a while. With the right mindset to improve, you can only get better.

You could take up drawing, it's extremely cheap and is a very good way to spend time by yourself. I find drawing to be meditative and rewarding, you have the satisfaction of making something yourself as well as learning to see the world differently.

All you need are a set of pencils, a decent sketchbook, a kneaded eraser, and some decent instruction. I'd recommend learning first from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and then moving on to figure drawing. Try Dynamic Figure Drawing or Bridgman's Life Drawing. You can also look up the work of Andrew Loomis for more instruction, which are available as free PDFs.

Later you can experiment using vine charcoal (which can be erased easily) to get the hang of a different instrument than a pencil. Try laying charcoal on its side and making big strokes. This is the first step towards painting. You could even try painting with black and white acrylic only which really isn't much different in terms of skills or cost. If you can get good at drawing I promise you can get good at painting. It just takes a bit of dedication.

Sorry I probably didn't explain myself well. I do learn 2 musical instruments and I have no problems practicing fundamentals in them. With /r/artfundamentals it feels different. I can't bring myself to do the exercises. For some reason just thinking "alright let's fill 2 pages with lines" makes me discouraged. It would have been a bit better if I could do it with music but without it I'm more focused.

And about learning, for example in the elipses part, a lot fo things are written about elipses but honestly I don't understand what he means and what's the purpose of learning about it (of course it has a purpose but what is it?). Generally it feels like I'm doing it just so my lines and elipses could be a little better. Maybe that's what makes me discourages. Anyways it's hard for me to learn from /r/artfundamentals and I don't know why.

I've seen people recommend "How to draw". Also some people talked about this. And I just found this which is #1 best seller but I didn't see anyone talk about. Which one do you think is best?

You need to specify which medium you're interested in learning first, since they work differently. Pick a medium, and invest in a some medium specific books and more general theory ones (example).

If you're interested in oils, check out Bob Ross. He had a tv series that ran for a while, and each episode he instructed you on how to build up different landscapes. I'm a watercolor painter, but I still looked at Ross's videos to understand the process of building a painting up (very important i believe).

Ultimately google is your friend. Just google "(your medium) techniques/tutorials/etc" and you will be pleasantly surprised. Youtube also posses a great wealth of knowledge in video form.

Good start, nice job. This is basically how I learned anatomy: [Dynamic Anatomy] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0823015521/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518229124&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=dynamic+anatomy+by+burne+hogarth&dpPl=1&dpID=51IuMvcdUbL&ref=plSrch)


And really I just went through it page by page and drew everything. Everything! By the time you are done, you'll have a solid grasp of human anatomy, or at least a damn good start.

 

I learned this approach from one of my heroes, Frank Frazetta:



>When Ralph [Mayo] took over he pulled me aside and said, “Frank, you stuff is great, but you need to learn some anatomy.” When I was in school with Falanga the emphasis was on feeling, not on the nuts and bolts, so I really didn’t understand what he meant by ‘anatomy.’ So Ralph handed me an anatomy book and when I went home that night I had decided to learn anatomy. I started with page one and copied the entire book – everything in one night, from the skeleton up. I came back the next day like a dumb kid and said, “Thank you very much, I just learned my anatomy.” Of course Ralph fell over and roared with laughter. “Frankie, you silly bastard! I’ve been studying for ten years and I still don’t know anatomy, and you went home and learned it last night?!” But the thing was I had learned an awful lot. I had the ability to absorb things and he saw an improvement in my work right away. It amazed him and that meant a lot to me. From that point on I developed pretty rapidly: I started to do things with figures that made sense. I worked for Mayo and Standard for a few years, doing things like “Looie Laziebones” and all the funny animal stuff.

-Frank Frazetta



 


Here's an old WIP character I made that shows some of my anatomy work, though not perfect by any means and stylized, being just a big muscle bound brute (no armor/clothing pictured here either):
http://jpe3d.cgsociety.org/art/maya-zbrush-shezmu-musculature-sculpt-816692

ok. I don't what style you want to go for, and I'm going to assume that you want to get into the comic book style. That doesn't matter though, where you need to begin is with Andrew Loomis' Creative illustration, Figure Drawing for all its worth(the free pdf, but I would recommend getting the book, because why not), Drawing on the right side of the brain, and Drawing the hands and face. All of these resources are what you need to start out. It doesn't look like you are out of the gate "I draw stick figures" level. But you have to keep in mind, that the ultimate tutor, is time. If you really want to get better quickly, then you have to devote a lot of time to studies and just drawing in general. Good luck, I hope I helped you at least a little bit.

Hi :) ... So, the anatomy is quite off. Specifically, his face looks concave, when it should be more convex. The placement of the facial features is off. His shoulder width is too small considering the volume of his neck. The arm sticking out is too thin and too short. His torso narrows too much at the waist. Men have a more | | shape going down. The leg on the left has the knee pointing toward us, but the foot pointing sideways. The thighs could also use more volume. Anatomy/figure drawing is definitely a really tricky subject. Youtube should have some good videos that can help you. Also, this book is extremely thorough and a great start to learning how to draw people. It's probably the best figure drawing book I have (and I have a lot :P)! amazon link

Still a bit awkward to me if you don't mind me saying that. Especially her right hand.
I recommend this book. Old but still one of the best around for this kind of things.
Plus, it's a must have for anyone into drawing. Every artist friend spotting it on your bookshelf would go "aah, good old Loomis", and they'll like you a little bit more. Owning that book just makes you a better person.

The best way (I've found) is to start big then work your way down to the minutiae.

Proportions and gesture are the two most important fundamentals of figure drawing. Start with those. Even if you don't want to draw realistic people, say if you prefer cartoons or comics, learning proportions will still help you to exaggerate features in an appealing way. When you've gotten a good feel for creating dynamic poses with gesture and figures with proper proportions, then you can move to anatomy to learn how the muscles interact; where they lock and fold into each other. Although anatomy is a very complex science, once you have it - you have it. Everyone have the same muscle structure.

The head and hands are something completely different. I've found that the head and facial features are as hard and as valuable to get right as the figure is. In some cases it's even harder. Don't worry about the head at the beginning, get the figure right first. The face should be it's own study.

I wouldn't suggest mastering each body part individually. If you learn to draw all the body parts one at a time then piece them together, you won't get a feel for how they all play and work with each other.

Things like rendering, color, composition; they are all different fundamentals completely. Should you learn them separately? Maybe. Or maybe not. It depends on you. I'd say to slowly start adding more and more fundamentals to your figure drawings as you improve. Add a bit of shading to the muscles, play with some colors in the skin, see how the pose will affect the composition of an art piece. Just don't lose sight of what it is that you want to improve on and don't fall back to your comfort zone when things are getting difficult.

If you want an in-depth, comprehensive look, I recommend both "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth" and "Drawing the Head and Hands" by Andrew Loomis. Those are the books that helped me. They really go in depth on not just proportions, but rendering and clothing as well. Here they are if your interested:

https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3UIR07P1BNGJT&keywords=figure+drawing+for+all+its+worth&qid=1567575739&s=gateway&sprefix=figure+dra%2Caps%2C133&sr=8-1

https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Hands-Andrew-Loomis/dp/0857680978/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3UIR07P1BNGJT&keywords=figure+drawing+for+all+its+worth&qid=1567575739&s=gateway&sprefix=figure+dra%2Caps%2C133&sr=8-2

tl;dr

Gesture -> proportions -> bone structure (manikin) -> anatomy -> face & hands

In approximate order of importance in my opinion:

1. Paint a little bit every day you possibly can, even if it's only half an hour. The goal is to keep painting on the mind, half the learning happens when you don't even have a brush in your hand.
   
   
2. Don't worry about not having perfect equipment right from the off or at least don't let it stop you painting. If you're rich, this doesn't apply - just buy top end stuff from the start. For mortals, don't worry so much about that just follow point 1. That said proper miniature paint and at least one good brush goes a very long way and should be first on the list of upgrades if you're not already starting with them. Anyway, the point is go and re-read point 1 and do that even if you have to use a stick and different coloured mud.
   
   
3. Don't panic so much if the mini you paint looks rubbish. You will almost always think your mini looks rubbish; your ability to spot flaws increases at the same time as your skill at painting and this is not an accident. Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Go read point 1.
   
   
4. Always try to paint a better mini than your last. This may sound obvious but I think a lot of people, me included, sometimes get stuck in a rut. Think you've painted the same or similar for the last few minis? Try a new technique. Came out looking rubbish? See point 3. You're learning, get used to thinking you're a bit rubbish.
   
   
5. Watch videos and read tutorials. I'm a bit odd here in that I'd suggest trying to watch high end painters from the very start. If you really want to learn how to paint you don't want to learn the low end cheats that form bad habits. There are so many things that didn't even occur to me before I watched some pros that I wish I'd done this part far earlier. Your mileage may vary on this one but while a lot of beginners find they get decent results by, for example, dousing the model in wash I guarantee once you get good you will not do this at all. Hence, if you're going to good painting then skip the quick hacks and look at the proper techniques. Just want to spit out a load of troops quickly rather than focus on quality? Ignore this bit, wash away.
   
   
6. Go and learn a bit of colour theory and/or some appreciating of art in general. Some colours go together better than others and picking the correct colours can make a mini look so much better even if the technical skill isn't perfect. Similarly positioning highlights better helps a great deal. There's even mini specific books on his sort of thing, as well as traditional art books. Knowing a little bit about why you're painting this colour or that is half the battle.
   
   
7. Go to 1)

As the Warframes are near-human-looking constructs, start your drawing by learning how to draw a correct human form first, especially the body musculature. You should not need to invest in learning a proper rendering of human facial structure if it bothers you since it won't be used for a Warframe concept anyway (and to tell you the truth, a rendering of human facial expression is one of the hardest subject to master).


This book is one of the very good source for that. I highly recommend it if you have that inkling of desire to start learning to draw human anatomy for artistic purposes.



There are also a lot of online courses for human figure drawing. Free tutorials on Youtube and sites like DA are mostly fine too. Just remember that at the beginning you don't want to delve too much into the artistic aspect of drawing; get your basic / technicalities firm first then you can start being creative on your own.



Draw a naked human figure in a neutral or T-Pose as the base and put a lot of emphasis on the correct musculature (since the Warframes are usually lean and muscular). Do it three times each on a different camera shot: one for the frontal shot, profile shot, and rear shot. If it's done, start adding the skin or armor of your Warframe concept on that figure.


You could draw additional, a more detailed (close up) shot on complex things you need to explain more such as the details on the fingers, the gauntlet armors, the head armors, etc; but get the overall shot of your Warframe concept clear and right first before dwelling too much on the individual parts details.


One of the good rule of thumb of character design is if you could identify the character in a silhouette, it is a good design. Think about Mario in his signature jump pose, Megaman X while shooting his X-Buster, Ryu while doing Shoryuken, Superman in his flight pose, or other signature characters, and then think whether you could easily identify them even if they were just a silhouette.

I'm gonna disagree with a lot of people and tell you to not buy Understanding Comics. I mean, you can, I don't disagree with most of what he teaches, but I disagree with his results. Perhaps it's one of those 'good in theory, terrible in practice' things. The Sculptor, his latest (?) book uses his UC technique 100% and while it makes for an easy read, it's visually boring and the story is just one unbelievable trope after another, complete garbage.

I'm also not going to tell you to copy other comic artists, that's a very common mistake in comics. When you copy other comic artists you learn their mistakes, or shortcuts, or cheats. I still find after I've drawn a page I'll go back and see where I unintentionally swiped a pose or technique from John Buscema (How to make Comics the Marvel Way had a big influence on me as a teenager, which is who it was made for).

For figure drawing you want George Bridgeman. His figure drawing techniques are the foundation for pretty much every other great illustrator in the last 100 years.

Another good source is Burne Hogarth (Dynamic Anatomy, Dynamic Figure Drawing) his stuff is more action and hero based, but his lessons are sound. He founded what became the School of Visual Arts. These were my first art books when I was a teenager, and they still hold up.

For storytelling, I go for Will Eisner's Graphic Storytelling and the Visual Narrative, Sequential Art Principles and throw in Expressive Anatomy, because, why not?

David Chelsea's Perspective for Comic Artists is great, because it teaches you exactly how to do correct perspective, then in the last chapter he tells you how to cheat at all of it.

For classes, take a look at the horribly designed website for http://comicsworkbook.com/ it's run by a guy, Frank Santoro, who's actually not one of my favorite artists, but he knows his shit, for sure, and he's a helluva nice guy who loves comics 100%. I think his full online class is $500 and he runs it twice a year, I think. Also look in your area for a college or art store that might have figure drawing classes, they are invaluable.

Great work. As others mentioned, the next step is getting her some anatomy art books Andrew Loomis' Drawing the Head and Hands and Figure Drawing for All It's Worth are great ones I've used myself and found very valuable. The best thing a budding comics illustrator can do is draw from life and not just from other comics/cartoons, that way their own style develops organically. Thanks for sharing!

My biggest tip: take a figure drawing class, if you have the time and money. There's no substitute for a good teacher, and as a bonus you'll get the chance to draw from life (which can be very helpful). Don't be afraid to ask stupid questions!

If you're looking for theory, the best books I've seen are Jack Hamm and Andrew Loomis, both of whom offer intelligent simplifications of the figure along with breakdowns of specific anatomy if you want it.
This basic figure frame from Loomis is one of the best things you can learn (though don't place too much emphasis on meeting those measurements-- after all, they don't help for crap once you have to foreshorten).

Try this study tool. Set it to 30 second or 1 minute intervals with nude models and fill up the page with Loomis-style mannequin figures. Don't worry about getting each one perfect; move on once your time is up. Get a bunch of paper and do it for 20 minutes straight.

Think, especially about the shape of the ribcage, spine, and hips. Notice how the ribcage is kind of egg-shaped, how the spine curves, and how the hips are shaped like a wide V.

> my 'gram

That's great, I love it. You're drawing is just about as adorable as that little fence lizard.

I was just looking through your other work and noticed all of your hand studies. You might want to check out this book. It was my bible when I was studying the fundamentals of figure drawing. I still consult my old charcoal dust covered copy. Note: I don't work for the book company or anything, just a friendly tip from one artist to another.

Anyways, great work. Keep it up.

No, although the further you recede, the less saturated everything is, including the shadows, but also the highlights. Atmospheric perspective indicates that they start to fade into the color of the sky...but what I meant was (and this happens to everyone starting out) you picked the colors of the sky, mountain, road, as colors that you think each of those elements are. So, grass is green, right? okay I'll pick a shade of green. The road is grey, right? Okay so pick grey for the road...when in reality light is a little more complicated than that, and a pleasant composition requires a cohesive color scheme. It means picking a different color for the road even though you think of it as 'grey' you simulate grey by choosing a less saturated green for example, or blue or whatever you have in your color palette.

This book is a wonderful reference and talks more about it if you're interested. The author made this video that explains a couple exercises you can do that will help.

http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm

This is widely considered to be one of the most comprehensive art tutorials anywhere.

I urge you to keep in mind; Simplicity. Flat shapes and well coordinated colors (Think about saturation, use color palette creators like Adobe's KULER thing- there are dozens of free ones around the web) A basic, but well explored understanding of artistic principles can net you fresh, competent visuals. Good art doesn't need to be complex.

Other great things:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_scheme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_elements_and_principles
http://www.amazon.com/101-Things-Learned-Architecture-School/dp/0262062666
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719

This is looking really good! Keep it up!

I highly recommend you check out these books... they are something I wish I had read (or been available) when I was your age.

1)Color and Light: A guide for the realist painter

2)Imaginative Realism

These two books do a really good job of explaining some practical 'rules' for painting. You do not always have to follow them, but you should for sure know them and learn them.

3)Dynamic Light and Shade
This is just a book that is full of really great black and white drawings that that show how much can be expressed without any color. It is a great book to study from and to try copying images from.

Only 5~ months ago did I decide to get serious about improving my art in my free time. For most of my life I only doodled occasionally. So I thought I would describe my plan of action with books and resources that I will likely be using. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

My process will be basics of construction-> perspective -> figure drawing -> digital art and rendering. Approximately 45% will be improving, 45% will be doing what I want for fun and 10% will be a daily sketch(this subreddit) that takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour to complete. for fun I will be doing anything from digital to water color.

Construction and perspective: First I am starting my art journey by completing draw a box . Next I will go through Marshall Vandruff's Linear Perspective Videos and Perspective Made Easy simultaneously while referencing with how to draw by Scott Robertson. Briefly I will gloss at Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain or keys to drawing pulling ideas of where I might find weakness.

Figure drawing: Once those are finished, I will begin my figure drawing phase. I will move onto free proko subsided with loomis books such as this, other photo references sites like http://reference.sketchdaily.net/en and Figure Drawing: Design and Invention. I will also reference Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist and maybe more depending on my budget.

digital art and rendering: For the final stage of my journey, I will venture into ctrlpaint. Simultaneously I will be reading How to Render, Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist and Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter

After that.... I don't know. We will see were I am in a year.

>I still don't understand how to make something "look trippy."

I suppose that was an oddish thing to ask of. I think it ganders an explanation. First step to working with colour is reading up on it. Purplekeckleon has a good guide on this subject. Or you could read some books on them. Colour is a difficult thing to cover. (and should be spelled colour)

Going back to keckleon, she plays around with colour a lot. example 1 [textures and colour] (http://purplekecleon.deviantart.com/art/He-s-back-313119557?q=gallery%3Apurplekecleon%2F308451&qo=17). 2: more colour

I don't really have an exact explanation, about how you should use colour, but I suppose the best way to learn is to play around with it and see what works for you. As for texture, I can't say I understand it well enough to explain it. [](/ppnervous "Throw me a line here, viw!") What I understand is texture is the simulation of the feel of a surface, ie. grass, rock, wood. In your case it would likely mean the fur of on celestia or the shine on her tiara/horn. Basically getting the tiny details down.


>Am I making sense with all this?

No worries, you're making yourself pretty clear.

Thank you! Here's a quick list of the ones I can recall. :)

Figure drawing - Michael Hampton

alla prima - Richard Schmid

figure drawing for all it's worth - Andrew Loomis

drawing from life - George Bridgman

Color and light - James Gurney

As for videos, a whole lot of youtube ones, specifically from these channels;

Bugmeyer

Feng Zhu

Stylusmonkey

and a few workshop videos by Whit Brachna, Brad Rigney and Donato Giancola.

hope it helps some. thanks for the interest! :)

Hello!

Thanks, you are very kind and I'm pleased my colour images have inspired you to do your own. Whilst I have my own way of doing things which have just come out of practice, as a general rule of thumb, I offer the following advice:

• Don't be afraid to add plenty of saturation - this is important because I see a lot of work that is really devoid of saturated colour, as a sort of strange cognitive reaction to seeing images with too much.
  
  
• More layers increase the perception of realism. For a face, I average about 14 layers of colour. Not the most efficient way of doing things, but the layering up is important, even on a near imperceptible level.
  
  
• It's worth exploring two areas beyond doing your research: the first is trying to understand how light affects colour on different surfaces, and the second is trying to understand how film emulsions affect the final luminosity - I see very little adjustments at the end to correct a washed out blue or a deeply saturated red. /u/mygrapefruit recommended me James Gurney's Color & Light a long time ago, and it's worth buying.
  
  
• Observe how cameras record colour nowadays and try to match it.
  
  
• Practice doing differently lit subjects, and different kinds of images. It really helps.
  
  
• Practice, and do it a lot. Apart from commissions, I have loads of unfinished or incomplete images where I was planning on just exploring a certain technique.
  
  And lastly...
  
  
• Have patience. This is your biggest asset and there is a temptation to rush on the background details, but it's ignoring those details that give it away.
  
  Cheers!

There are three things I would recommend to you. :)

• This GIGANTIC page of info on color and light
  
• Scott Robertson's How to Render
  
• James Gurney's Color and Light
  
  You'll find that a lot of information on color out there is almost strictly theory oriented (not a big surprise considering it's called color theory), and there isn't much practical help on how to apply that information. Each of the things I just suggested are all very practical sources of information for learning how to work with color.
  
  Some things you should note, though...the Scott Robertson book is designed to build on top of his book How to Draw. That book teaches you perspective and how to create proper 3d forms in 2d space. How to Render builds on that by teaching you how light will interact realistically with those forms you now know how to create. If you don't want to work through How to Draw, that's fine (though I highly suggest that book as well)...but you'll probably be losing out on a fuller understanding of the concepts.
  
  Make sure that before you move too much into painting and color working that you can make well constructed drawings and can handle value properly. Those two are the most important. Why? Because if you don't have a proper looking drawing then no matter how well you can render and lay color over it...that won't save it...it will still look wrong. And if you can draw well constructed things but you're weak in values, then you're really in trouble. If, when you lay down color, the values of those colors are wrong, then your well constructed forms that you drew will no longer read as the forms that they're supposed to because the "light" that's interacting with the form isn't interacting like it would in real life so your eye reads it as a different form than you intended.
  
  I understand that they style you're going after isn't at all realistic. On some of them the color that's there isn't even being used to render...it's simply there as a graphic element. Which is fine! Really awesome style. But you will be well served if you put in the time to learn the technical application of light and color. That way, since you know the "rules", you'll have control over the color...when to use it realistically and how and when to use it graphically...rather than the color having control over you. :)
  
  Hope this helps! :)

They exist, but they're not particularly common anymore. I have Scale 75's Steampunk in Miniature, which has some good stuff in it, but it clearly wasn't proofread by a native English speaker so you have to work out what the author's actually mean here and there. I would assume the rest of their line is of comparable quality, but I currently only own the one.

James Gurney's Color and Light is a really good reference. While it's not about miniature painting specifically, it covers how shadows work in different lighting situations in a way I haven't seen in other references and the section on color theory seems pretty good (I'm only halfway through the book at the moment).

If you've got the time and resources to spare, try making maquettes. You can get modeling clay fairly cheap, and it can be incredibly helpful to throw together a quick maquette, chuck it under a lamp, and see what happens with the light.

If you want a great pair of books on light and form by a master painter, check out James Gurney's Color and Light and Imaginative Realism. His blog is worth a read as well, it's always informative and interesting.

If you want a more technical approach to lighting, How to Render is a fantastic technical examination of how light behaves on various surfaces. The associated How to Draw is an excellent technical book on perspective. Both are a bit dry and clinical, but quite excellent.

Anything by Andrew Loomis is also well worth picking up.

I have a more painterly background but I figure that this is exactly the same mindset in practically everything you draw.

> Mind the color of your background.

Everything you draw plays of the background color, it is the most important supporting character in everything you draw. So mind your hues, I love to incorporate it in my base colors.

> What is the color of the light.

Light reflecting on surfaces and bouncing into our eyes is what makes us see things. So naturally the color of the light is going to affect a surface and what hue is going to affect the shadow. Use a color wheel to find the complementary colors. I am currently subscribing to the Goethe version.

> Where is the area placed.


Further back it blends into the atmosphere, making it harder for the light to reach our eyes without being diluted on the way.

Some examples with most of that stuff.
With everything 1
With everything 2
Without background 1
without background 2

For further read I recommend Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney

I included an amazon link, but this is the internet. You can probably find it.

I learnt to draw fundamentals of anatomical structure in humans and animals from Jack Hamm http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914
But the best advice is to get a pad of paper. Don't make it some fancy, super expensive art-store stuff. Then you'll never want to draw on it for fear of 'ruining it' (or atleast thats my compulsion). Just a pad of paper. Draw everything. Notice everything. Look at light, look at shadows, look at the basics of shapes and curves and how basic structures work. And draw. It'll look like crap. But keep drawing. The more you draw, the more you train your draw for neuroplastic reorganization that will, eventually, allow you to accomplish better and better drawings.

And don't draw with a damned mechanical pencil either. One of my art teacher gave me that advice and it's liberating. You get too caught up in the details.

Drawing is like building a house, build a good solid foundation, then add the fine details.

... well I'm going to lose my geek cred here, but...


If you want 2D artistic skills, go to the store, but a box of quality pencils and a sketchbook you can take with you. Also buy this book ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486404730/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1 ) on drawing with perspective and well... draw. I recommend that book because a) I own it b) it's 6 bucks c) it works. Any other book will work to.


I honestly think drawing on pen and paper is still the best way to pick up 2D skills, at least when it comes to the basics. When you get to stuff like lighting/shading/shadowing, it makes sense to switch to a computer. The skills are 100% transferable though.

I myself have to spend a bit more time with pen and paper, but sadly, the day only has so many hours.

EDIT: Wow, I just recommended a book written in 1939 on /r/gamedev. #whodathunk

Critique mode enabled...

The sense of perspective in the lower half of the work is outstanding. Really conveys a three dimensional space. The unrealistic anatomy of the shoulders in the top half pretty much throws everything off.

Placing your hand over the top half will give the impression that you're looking at a full 3D render from a mid-level game engine or something. Moving your hand to the bottom starts a weird session of chanting "Liefeld" over and over should you expose the image to a comic-book fan.

Think of how his collarbones would have to be positioned for us to see the patch on his right (our left). Look at how close that right shoulder is to his chin. It's not totally physically impossible for someone to get into such an extreme pose, but Teal'c is no contortionist. I'd recommend picking up a copy of Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth. It is the bible of drawing heroic figures in great poses.

Overall score: http://i.imgur.com/NdKExr6.gifv

[edit: typos]

You do not need a textbook for a drawing course the only text i would even consider would be Anatomy for the Artist but be aware that there are many nudes in this text. Typically i will photocopy important pages from this text that are safe for school and create packets for my students. meaning you would only need to purchase 1 copy of this book and be golden. As far as materials for a typical into to drawing course you would need:

multiple sets of drawing pencils. 4h, 2h, hb, 2b, 4b, 6b and i prefer prismacolor's Ebony jet black pencils.
Compressed and vine charcoal (you could also go with charcoal pencils)
Kneaded Erasers
Gum Erasers
India ink (you can buy this in large bottles which last quite a while)
Cheap watercolor sets
18x24 drawing paper with decent weight (i go through 1 ream a year with my classes)
11x14 watercolor paper (cheap canson pads can be purchased at walmart)
18x24 Newsprint

The teacher will also surely need a paper cutter if they do not have on already and perhaps drawing boards (a class set) if they intend on doing any drawings on site.

Get in touch with Sax or Blick art supply companies and shop around for good pricing.

Hope this helps

Color and Light by James Gurney has a great section on understanding the importance of color theory with some very nice examples and it is easy to read/understand, as well as a lot of information on how to understand light/shadows. Not exclusive to watercolor but I think it is still a great resource. I haven't found a watercolor technique book I love yet, usually my go to for that is YouTube.

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453174518&sr=8-1&keywords=james+gurney

Read the pinned post:https://www.reddit.com/r/learntodraw/comments/adyijo/welcome_to_rlearntodraw_heres_the_sidebar_and/

The day 1, day 2 and day 3 links are down, you can find them in the first comment in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/learntodraw/comments/c8wqwh/about_how_some_of_the_sidebar_links_are_down/

I'm not good yet, been drawing for only 6 months, but the best advice I can give is to not forget to have fun.

There is no point if you start doing lots of boring exercises if you end up getting bored and stop drawing, just focus on trying to do some drawing everyday, and have fun.

This is the book I started with: https://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=learn+to+draw+30+days&qid=1564793025&s=gateway&sr=8-1

It helped me a lot to stop getting nervous about getting nice drawings and to just have fun drawing.

Good luck!

it's definitely not a natural thing, it is a learned skill. the problem is that most people don't know enough to understand and notice it, how it behaves and how it can be affected by everything around it.

this book is also incredible https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719

even if you are not aiming to be a realistic painter, the excerpts are easy to understand and explains some very basic fundamentals in interesting ways.

check this free resource out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3WmrWUEIJo

lighting studies. understanding how light works really helps me imagine it on the fly.so i did this exercise for 2 weeks.

once you have watched the above video and memorize its contents, pick a simple cube with some good lighting, and try to complete an almost completed study in 30 minutes, at best as possible.

once you can do an accurate 30 min study accurately, move onto something more complex, like a sphere or a another subject. apply the same 30 min study rule, if you can do it accurately in 30 mins move on to other subjects.

rinse and repeat, and eventually you will gain an understanding of how light acts, so you can improvise with the knowledge.

Maybe she likes or would be interested in knitting? You could buy her some magazinines with knitting tutorials. Also does she know how to use computer and internet? If no maybe there are some courses nearby that could teach her. That would open a new world to her, she could try new things, watch tutorials, learn etc.

Does she have a pet? Maybe you could gift her one for christmas, if she's not allergic.

Also there's this book: http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415
Its not complicated and rather easy to follow, + it actually teaches you how to draw, atleast basics. So this could be a great wait for her to learn a new skill + drawing is like therapy, so that would help her too.

Theres so much you need to know to make a good piece, and I'm really only starting to get there after about 4-6 years of off and on 'serious' studying/practice. I also taught myself, used books, dvds, and online articles/tutorials.. with a little assistance from some art school friends for a short period of time.

You're really going to be accumulating a lot of books/dvds/tutorials through the years.. and they're all going to be valuable to you.

Maybe you should pick something you want to focus on.. and then move towards it by practicing everything it encompasses.

Could start with the elements and principles of design.

Composition

Value

Color Theory (Color and Light by James Gurney, Kecleon Color Theory)

Perspective

Life Drawing to understand light/values.

Figure drawing to understand the human figure. (Anatomy books, Figure Drawing For All It's Worth, Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, Force: Character Design from Life Drawing.) I love the Force books because they taught me how to SEE, INTERPRET, and EXPAND on an idea when it came to figure drawings.


The Animator's Survival Kit/Drawn to Life to understand motion, even if you don't want to be an animator.

Thegnomonworkshop.com has been an invaluable resource to me throughout the years too. (It's mostly digital stuff, but there really is no huge difference. It's all the same principles, just less preparation and knowledge about brush types/liquin. Once you understand how they work.. you're set anyway.)

And I'm constantly searching for more material to help me out. I just bought that Color and Light book because my understanding of how color works was atrocious.

I don't even know if this is going to be all the helpful.. but, uhh.. here. lol TL;DR.

Unclear without context how long you've been drawing, but, good on ya for posting! A couple of bits of crit:

Have you read Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy? (US Amazon link, but I'm sure if you sail the seven seas you can find PDFs) (Edit: after looking at that, seems like the reviewers also recommend Dynamic Figure Drawing, which apparently has less dense prose and more examples). Was very helpful to me as a teenager trying to figure out drawing bodies, even without life-drawing classes.

Your colors are all really saturated. I still have to fight this today. Part of that's a stylistic thing (your face style says "anime/comic" to me so full saturation is less of a deal?) Maybe try experimenting with slightly lower saturation though and see where that takes you?

Your colors also don't seem to be picking up any of the blue light from the water. You might want to look at some photos of underwater dance to see how the lighting is. Again, I think you're going for a more stylized manga/comic illustration look so you don't have to lean in so far to that, but it might be helpful!

I think you should get yourself either this adorable little pikachu coin pouch, or this book to help you with your drawing. OR, you could get this adorable Up funko (not on your list, but I thought you might like it). Happy birthday! :)

swaggybananas

Example 1

Here is my red line, the legs was what I think could be improved on. I just put the legs in perspective and fixed it up.

Example 2

Here is the version showing the shapes to think about. Think about shapes and how they wrap around the body.

Another example showing the perspective.

Example 3

I would recommend is to practice drawing form. Here is a video explaining it.

The Basics: what they mean

Also read some books on animal anatomy I recommend :

Animal Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form

Science of Creature Design: understanding animal anatomy

Also here is a book about perspective:

Perspective Made Easy (Dover Art Instruction)

I hope it helps :)

These are flash movies, so granted, you'll need software that can imitate, or an actual flash program. You'll need to learn basics of animation, so looking up books like these would really help you, also listen to djm19. He's got good advice there.

It would also help to learn basic drawing, so anatomy lessons are go so books like Human Anatomy by Eliot Goldfinger, as well as learning how to use audio programs like Audacity (It's open source, and I'm sure you'll be able to find better types) for the sound part of flash shorts.

Drawing on the right side of the brain is a good start, there's a reason people keep on recommending it for you!



Andrew Loomis's books is also good (all free there in digital form)

Constructive Anatomy by George Bridgeman

Imaginative realism by James Gurney more about painting and finishing, better for more advanced stuff.


Other than that, just draw things! Just anything and everything, it will help!

Books, books and more books. Or courses.

I like to draw anime and I spent a few years just photocopying.
https://www.instagram.com/chrissyatsea/
The problem with that is that it made me better at copying not composing. Also I didnt like to get off my comfortable areas. I didnt know why the artist drew it like or how they did it. I just copied it. Like if you are copying a math problem you dont know what it means at all. So you need to be taught why it works like that. Unless of course you are gifted.<br /> <br /> So there is a good handful of books out there to help you with such things.<br /> <br /> The whole case on books is that if you arent a talented or gifted artist youre gonna have to do what we normies do best. Learn the fundamentals. Gifted people are gifted with the ability to just do and not know. Since we arent we start here.

Another thing to ask yourself if you arent willing to commit atleast an hour or more a day or atleast a good amount of hours a week on drawing is this: &quot;Does this just sound good or do I really want it?&quot;<br /> <br /> Here is a few books<br /> <br /> http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201<br /> http://www.amazon.com/Keys-Drawing-Bert-Dodson/dp/0891343377/ref=pd_sim_14_5/189-6540426-4014231?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;dpID=51BQ2AW%2BCWL&amp;amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;amp;preST=_AC_UL160_SR124%2C160_&amp;amp;refRID=181BN40T9TTX026F0EBF<br /> <br /> I am currently working with anatomy on George Bridgman Books.<br /> <br /> http://www.amazon.com/Constructive-Anatomy-Dover-Artists/dp/0486211045/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;dpID=51vQXcL6ZyL&amp;amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;amp;preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&amp;amp;refRID=13K2R2Y1Y6FZD3BJCBKK<br /> <br /> (Oh yeah try to find all the PDFS to these if you can`t afford them. I know that sounds wrong but these books are bestsellers if that makes you feel any better..)

Ah, thanks, I've fixed the link. Which is a great start; grab the book he refers to and start doing his exercises based on drawing out of it, or freeze-frame classic WB and MGM cartoons and draw off of those the same way.

Also take some life drawing classes! Apply what you learn about construction from John K to drawing humans; it's possible to get to a point where you can get down the essentials of a pose in less than 30 seconds and reconstruct a lot of it from basic drawing principles later on. If you can find a life drawing teacher who works out of the Glen Vilppu curriculum that would be great, his methods are pretty well-loved among teachers of life drawing for animation, and will equip you with some serious skillz.

James Gurney's books on drawing are also pretty awesome and inspirational, he approaches the problem of drawing stuff out of his head in a much more realistic way.

I am also a fan of Bridgeman's Constrictive Anatomy and Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing for All It's Worth, both of these could be found (along with the Preston Blair animation books) in the library of every single person I knew in animation school.

If you can afford it, consider taking some art classes, online or off. A degree in art is stupidly over-expensive, but having the obligation of A Class that you are Paying For can be a good kick in the ass to draw draw draw draw. I don't have any recommendations for those offhand, my schooling was back in 1995 at a place that no longer exists.

In general: if there is art you like, try ripping it off! Don't just trace it though, reconstruct it from first principles using basic construction methods, and think about why and how the artist applied their stylizations.

ALSO. Carry a sketchbook. Draw in it. Change your habits: instead of taking out your phone to check Twitter or Reddit or whatever, take out your sketchbook and draw something. Maybe something in view, maybe something out of your head. It doesn't matter what, just keep working at it. And ask yourself what's wrong with drawings after you do them; try to not make the same mistakes twice.

Also here is a serious PRO TIP that I picked up from my time in animation: put that mechanical pencil you probably use to write and draw with away, grab a wooden #2 pencil and hold it so that the side of the point touches the paper, instead of the very tip. This will force you to draw with your arm rather than your wrist, which will (a) result in much more fluid strokes once you get the hang of it (b) make it far easier to do your initial rough blocking in of shapes lightly, then switch to the tip of the point to nail things down, and (c) vastly reduce the risk of being visited by the Carpal Tunnel Fairy.

The biggest thing is to DRAW. Make it the thing you do when you're bored. If you don't have any ideas for things to draw, draw some cubes. Or draw your hand, hands are HARD to draw and also super expressive, and almost everyone has one available to use as a model. Put it in some pose and reduce it to boxes/tubes/whatever, then build detail, keep doing until you have to do something else, or get an actual idea for a thing you wanna draw.

The second biggest thing is to CRIT YOURSELF, and get others at about the same level as you to crit you. Let go of your ego; if people say your drawing is terrible that doesn't mean anything about you, it just means you have things to learn. Listen to what they say and try to not make the same mistakes again. Yes, I know I said that already. It's important. Tell your ego to sit down and shut up.

Hope that helps!

Well that's a bit of a complex question. It all comes down to understanding how light works which is a thing you learn as you learn how to draw. If you pick up any decent book on drawing it is sure to cover this. One I can definitely recommend is Color and Light by James Gurney. Though it is geared towards painters, the principles are very much the same!

Here is a collection of quick tutorials as well. Please note some of these contain nude models as examples :P

Anyway I hope that helps!

In the meantime, draw everything. Everything. EVERYTHING.

Keep a sketch book with you always! Draw people waiting for the bus, cars parked outside, city blocks, landscapes, trees, ideas, concepts, doodles, nonsense.

Take pictures of things and use them for reference. Constantly! Can't figure out how an arm looks like in a certain pose, get someone to pose the same way and take a shot with your phone. Its not "cheating" and most artists worth their salt will stare at you like you're insane if you told them to do a large scale project with no live or photo references.

Go to figure drawing meetups. There's usually some at art schools or in any big city. You will be terrible at first but drawing people is a good way to train your eye.

Copy your favorite artist. Not just draw from, but try to copy a whole piece of art, from start to finish, line for line, as closely as possible. Do this a lot! It will help you understand why they put this thing there, and put that thing here, and drew that thing like this.

Its the same reason musicians practice other people's work before they start composing their own!

Figure out who their influence are, and do the same thing with them.

If you're looking for books to get you started, here are some good ones.

The style you are using, with no outline, looks nice.

You need to work on your anatomy. For example, look at his right hand, and look at where your thumb is on your own right hand when you are holding it like that.
I would recommend getting a good book on understanding and drawing anatomy and muscles, like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Anatomy-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0823015521

Color and Light by James Gurney is one of my favorite books. It's a painter's guide, but it does provide a lot of insight in how color determines the mood and atmosphere of a picture, and how it interacts with our eyes. I have gotten a lot out of it as a digital artist, but it also proved useful for VFX, and might even be of help to a director. Even if it doesn't tell you anything new, the art depicted in the book is absolutely beautiful.

All I want for X-mas is youuuuuu ... ♫

Wait. .it isn't X-mas yet? Um.. oops...
Well, maybe this would be a great help.
See, I know how to draw. Here are some examples of what I can do and while pretty I want to broaden my drawing skills.
Not everyone likes the japanese anime style and even some people go as bad as to frowning it and saying it's stupid due to it's popularity, the stereotypes, etc and I can't blame them, it is rather popular and it might work with what they want.
So as somebody who who wants to make epic stories, I want to draw epicly, this can also open me doors for better jobs (instead of the one I have which I barely get enough money to spend;; ) and simply raise the bar in my skill.

So, if you'd help me on this quest, I'd appreciate it very much.

Not that I've mastered anything I'm going to tell you, but there's definitely some issues here. It appears you're drawing by contour, and not setting up your structure, gesture, and volume for the character. They are very flat, out of perspective, proportions are off, and anatomy is wobbly. There's also not a sense of weight and gravity to his punch. Forget line work and coloring for now. There's no point furnishing a house with beautiful furniture, curtains, landscaping, etc if the house itself is unstable and about ready to fall over. Basically, your fundamentals are lacking.

Books that have been recommend to me that I've been studying are:

Perspective Made Easy by Ernest Norling: http://www.amazon.com/Perspective-Made-Easy-Dover-Instruction/dp/0486404730

Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair: http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Animation-Collectors-Preston-Blair/dp/1560100842

These address all the issues that I've spoken of and believe me, it's my 2015 homework as well. This stuff isn't easy, but practice and repetition will get you the results you want. Keep drawing, and keep going. You'll get there. :D

EDIT: I'm going to give a shoutout to the artist Retehi and provide an example of what I'm talking about that is similar to your piece. The image below addresses many, if not all the issues I'm explaining so it's easier to see the results when you apply them. Notice the gesture (arch of the back), the 3d space in which he stands (volume and perspective), the proportions (structure and anatomy), and the weight / gravity as he's punching the bag. Try to disregard his coloring and production and focus on the character drawing itself. Hopefully this will help you in the future as a reference.

https://www.weasyl.com/submission/633588/fight-to-survive

Fun With A Pencil: How Everybody Can Easily Learn to Draw https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857687603/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_NKDYDb41Z5N7G

Figure Drawing for All It's Worth https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857680986/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_7KDYDbJ3HG990

Drawing the Head and Hands https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857680978/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_kLDYDbGRHYFM8


I'd suggest you learn the fundamentals, here's a great start, read these and you'll see a huge improvement very quickly.

First you must realize that whatever camera you buy now, will 99.9% not be the last camera you buy. Your wants and needs WILL change as you take more pictures. ANY camera(P&S, DSLR, rangefinder, etc) will work. Go and take pictures. Post pictures in websites that revolve around photography and ask for critique. People will help you with composition and model posing(if you're into portraiture). Stay away from sites whose url or homepage revolve around cameras(ie dpreview.com).

Try to ask yourself "What am I taking a picture of?" Go to interesting places and find things you want to take pictures of. Again try to ask yourself "Why do I want to take a picture"? Take pictures at sun up and sun down. Midday pictures are technically difficult to pull off whereas EVERYTHING looks nice during dawn and dusk.

For the technical side of things, go over your pictures and find out what you didn't like about them. Is it the color? Did the camera take too long to focus? Did the you or the camera just not set up fast enough tho catch the subject moving around? Is it the picture too dark? Did you get the subject in the frame perfect but feel that the background is too busy and detracts? Learning how to fix these problems will get you acquainted with the basic controls of any camera.

I'm pretty sure people didn't invent a hammer and then go around looking for nails to bang. Someone probably realized attaching a stick to a rock did a better job at jamming things into other things than just using a rock. Why then worry yourself about things like "3D matrix metering" or "1/500s flash sync" or "1:1 reproduction" ratio if said things solve problems you haven't seen yet?

Read up on composition and color from painting/drawing websites/books. Too many photo sites focus on technical aspects and camera features rather than the analyzing the resultant photo. I learned more about composition from this book than any photo website.

Finally, try to get advice from people whose pictures you like. Here are a few pictures I've taken so you can judge whether or not to take my advice!

I've been trying to strengthen my anatomy and proportions over the last 6 months or so and the only advice I can give to this is draw draw draw. Don't worry about it looking wonky but if it does, find out why and see what you can do to improve it.

There seems to be a point when a light bulb just goes off and all of a sudden you understand how to get consistent results of how you want things to look and translating it to the paper/screen.

Check out these, I've found them pretty useful:

http://www.amazon.com/Bridgmans-Drawing-Dover-Anatomy-Artists/dp/0486227103

http://www.amazon.com/Constructive-Anatomy-Dover-Artists/dp/0486211045/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418314804&sr=1-1&keywords=Constructive+Anatomy

you have a lot of potential but you need a lot of work on your fundamentals like proportions, how shadows are cast, and contour. the fundamentals are your building blocks for any form of art. i'm guessing your a young artist and over time your skills will slowly improve and you will figure things out but i recommend formal art classes or reading a few books like;

how to draw the human figure an anatomical approach:
http://www.amazon.com/Gordon-Louise-Figure-PenguinHandbooks/dp/0140464778

Exploring The Basics of Drawing:
http://www.textbooks.com/BooksDescription.php?BKN=652343&SBC=HII&network=GoogleShopping&tracking_id=9781401815738U&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=9781401815738U&utm_source=googleshopping&kenshu=3d418da2-0ea4-7069-1335-000064a7d4c8&adtype=pla&kw={keyword}&gclid=CNuws4y4m7gCFRCe4Aod5gMAYw

after you get through the grind of drawing still life and shapes you can carry these skills over to comics and animation. drawing is just collecting a set of skills and knowledge and applying them to the problem of "how do i make this look good?"

hope this helps, good luck.

Source: drop out art student.

Keep one thing in mind, talent is something you work on. Those people that play guitar had bleeding finger tips for a while before they could finally play Wonderwall around the bonfire.

I suggest drawing. If you like animals, that book is pretty good.

And maybe check with your doc if you can't concentrate or if you feel down.

First of all I would say you need to study how light falls on forms and how to make them look 3d. Like iamnikolatesla said, a good way to learn this is by doing still life paintings of simple objects.

Some tips for stuff to look out for when painting an apple:

• try and get the values as close as possible to what you actually see.
  
• pay attention to where the darkest part of the shadow is. (it will not be at the very bottom of the apple because light will reflect off the surface the apple is sitting on)
  
• Look at the edges of the apple and the shadow it creates. Some edges should appear softer and some should be sharper.
  
  To critique your actual painting I would say your proportions are off, I recommend this book, Drawing The Head And Hands by Andrew Loomis. Also when you want to make something darker don't just add black, it makes the painting look muddy. Skin tends to be more saturated in colour in the shadows. Try not to make the whites of the eyes so bright, if you look in a mirror your eyes will not be so bright that they stand out. Lastly, try and think of hair as bigger shapes and don't render it so much, if you keep it simpler it ends up looking much more realistic. Good luck and have fun, faces really are a very difficult subject to paint.

Yep remember when PC geeks and most IT didn't know about virtualization? It holds my ligit copy of windows XP pro. I don't know how ligit as it was OEM and the "hardware" it was bundled with is a piece of software that's been replaced by newer software. That whole section of the shelf has some old software. Final Cut Pro 3 -just 3 not studio 3- is really old. It was an educational copy and when I wanted to sell it to some other student Apple totally blocked me from doing so on Ebay. So I don't really use that version but couldn't sell it when it was worth anything because of "anti-piracy" bots. I don't even want to talk about the Adobe box sitting next to it.

Crammed in behind the old software is a good older book. Drawing the head and hands with Andrew Loomis is a re-issue of an antique. Wife wanted to buy a "how to draw" book for my daughter, I wanted to show her someone with talent. Unfortunately sneaking in with the incredible dedication and stunning talent are some antique gender and race notions. Not so bad in this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Anatomy-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0823015521/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1345442071&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=dynamic+anatomy

Worth it if you're serious about studying anatomy. Or just check out some books on drawing anatomy from your library. More detailed information and references will help! I would actually copy some figures from an anatomy book before trying posemaniacs, it's much easier to draw from a solid copy than a computer screen.

It was several years after I started anatomical studies that I had the sense to study the body from the inside out, skeleton, muscles, everything. Worth every minute.

Good luck!

Here are some good how-to-draw books which help me a lot
this one is [by Mark Linley] (https://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Anything-Linley/dp/1567315372)
A very popular book by [Mark Kistler] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0738212415/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498851864&sr=1-1&refinements=p_27%3AMark+Kistler&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&dpPl=1&dpID=51Dz4esfWnL&ref=plSrch)
[Drawing in 3-D by Mark Kistler] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0684833727/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1498851864&sr=1-4&refinements=p_27%3AMark+Kistler&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&dpPl=1&dpID=61d9g1OF2mL&ref=plSrch)

And to keep you going and practicing every day I highly recommend r/SketchDaily :)

Two resources you need to read on color: http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719 and http://www.amazon.com/Light-Visual-Artists-Understanding-Design/dp/185669660X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419319385&sr=1-1&keywords=light+for+visual+artists

Lots of illustrations and examples, very easy to understand and yet both are no more than 250 pages. I have both of these books and they are great! I would also look at Cubebrush and Ctrl+paint. You need to definitely focus on color theory as well.

Along with learning these, also check out Andrew Loomis' books (Google Save Loomis to find pdf of his books for free). And this one -- > http://www.amazon.com/Human-Anatomy-Artists-Andr%C3%81s-Szunyoghy/dp/3833162562/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419319599&sr=1-4&keywords=andras+szunyoghy

But once your learn color theory and look at the resources I suggested, you will definitely improve on your coloring skills. Gurney's may be aimed at painters, but it's for everyone really. I can't give much advice since I'm learning color theory but these results have been very helpful.

Get this book.

What makes a good comic artist is what makes anyone good at anything. The basics. You need to learn anatomy, its the most important part of drawing people. Read every page of that book, and draw EVERY page from top to bottom at least 5 times. And when you've done that, do it again, and keep it with your sketchbook as a reference. And when you've drawn that book, start drawing people you see in real life. Draw them eating at a cafe, walking in the park, draw your family, your pets, your TV, ETC. The stronger you are at drawing real life things, the farther you get from being Rob Leifeld (very important to be better than him).

Also, don't worry about color for the time being. Color is tough as hell, and requires a lot more information and knowledge than you think. When you want to start coloring, get a set of Copics or Fabre-Castells. Sharpies or Crayolas aren't high enough quality to give you anything decent until you are competent enough to handle inferior products.

On a more positive note: Keep working, the more you draw while studying why things look like they do, they quicker you will become better.

Hey dude! Byrne Hogarth's "Dynamic Figure Drawing" is a good resource for this. https://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Anatomy-Expanded-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015521/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=burne+hogarth+dynamic+anatomy&qid=1570068434&s=gateway&sr=8-1

- Nice drawing! Hands need work ..fingers look two dimensional and flat. The book covers this; simplifying the human form into shapes for foreshortening.

- You did an awesome job with the right arm! The left arm is not foreshortened and doesn't appear to be extended parallel with the torso since it is smaller; this makes it appear disfigured.

Keep drawing man lots of potential here!

awesome! It's a great resource. I should read it again, for a while I was reading it like once a year or so. This is another good one for composition https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Scenery-Landscapes-Jack-Hamm/dp/0399508066

I highly recommend learning to draw real people before learning to draw anime. The skills you learn to draw from life will transfer over to anime style, but not the other way around.

I don't know of any resources to learn since I taught myself, but I think Sycra's videos are probably pretty good.

Oh, I also recommend the books Dynamic Anatomy and Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth.