(Part 2) Best products from r/learntodraw

If you want to draw characters, my advice would be to get a figure drawing and/or anatomy book, and draw people.
Draw them daily, draw them a lot, and when you're drawing, reference the parts of the body that you don't understand and/or take the pose yourself in the mirror, look up that part in your book and see how it works, understand what is causing the shape you're seeing.

Eventually, all those little pieces that make up a human figure are going to click and you'll naturally start applying that to your own characters.

There are a lot of books out there so I'll leave it to you to research a bit to find something that appeals to you, but my own recommendations would be:

Figure Drawing Design and Invention by Michael Hampton

and/or

Classic Human Anatomy by Valerie Winslow

Hampton will teach you gesture, form, and how to break the body down piece by piece and use simple shapes based on muscle groups.

Winslow will teach you more traditional artistic anatomy.

Regardless of what book you have, take it slowly, go back and review things constantly while you're drawing, anatomy isn't something you just copy out of a book, it's reference material to be used actively.

If you find yourself thinking "I can't get X right", get your book and work it out.
Break it down into small understandable pieces and shapes, and then fit them together.
If after that you still can't figure it out(and trust me that's quite common), put it down for a while come back in an hour or two, and look at it again when you've cleared your head, learn to manage the frustration that comes with art because it will always be there.
Drawing is a logical process if you let it be.

Either way, understanding the human form takes a long time, and you're learning to translate a 3d form into a 2d representation; it's not an easy task for any artist, and everyone struggles with it.
People spend weeks, or sometimes months focusing on specific body parts, drawing them meticulously, hundreds of times.

Don't get discouraged, take your time, and be consistent!

Set aside some time each day to draw, even just 30 minutes, but do it daily. Even when you don't want to, draw something, anything!

You're building a technical skill along with your knowledge, and often times your eye is way ahead of your hand, you know things don't look right because you know what a human figure is supposed to look like, but your ability to produce it aren't at that level yet.
Take every thing you've done and put it aside, at the end of the week look at it again and try to identify your mistakes, ask online, or take a figure class and ask a teacher if one is available in your area.

Everything nsio mentions in that list are things you're going to need eventually to draw great characters, even the simple basics like spheres and boxes, perspective, and design elements; there's no magic book that's going to teach you everything, and they're all equally important.
However, as they mention in the "Mastery Levels" section, they're not things you learn in an order, they are all things you need to come back to over and over again, you're never done with them, you just get a little better at them each time.

You're on a long journey, best of luck, and have fun drawing!

Drawing with the right side of your Brain by Betty Edwards is a great book. She took the time to do studies and research to figure out how the drawing process works and it will help beginners get into the mode of the drawing that you need. After that you can branch off to drawing techniques like lines, perspective, shadows and light logic, texturing, then color.

I know you say free but I started using a copy from my local library. If you do not like that resource or are lazy... then look to the right under the "subscribe" button and there are 3 links with resources there.

Note: You do not need a lot of materials that she asks you to get! I am not sure if she recommends a grid but I personally hate grids so I never use them... But I do recommend in getting a GOOD ERASER! A white one and a knead eraser! Especially the knead... I love mine to the fullest! After you have a good eraser then look towards getting 2-4 good pencils where the range is quite large. So a nice 2H pencil, maybe a 2B, 4B, and 8B or something. Doesn't matter when you start out.

And a tip! DARK LINES! Do not scared to make things nice and dark.

There's a lot of art pencil sets like this that you can find online or at art specialty stores like Michael's or Hobby Lobby that are good for beginning. Don't worry about the big pencil sets that have every grade available--you really don't need all that right away, and probably wouldn't use most of them anyway.

For pencils, I'd start with just a 2H, an HB or F, a 2B, and maybe a 4B. This gets you a decent range of light to dark. You can add in a layout or black colored pencil for when you want to go really dark.

Find yourself a white eraser or a kneaded eraser, a good sketchbook with 60 or 70lb paper (or copy paper like a printer uses is a super cheap alternative). I'd personally recommend drawing without an eraser at the ready for a while in order to train yourself to learn from any mistakes and to be more economical and thoughtful with your lines among other things.

When you get more confident using those tools, you can add in other pencil grades, blending tools (like a tortillon, stump, or chamois), or even graduate to charcoals.

I hope that helps with getting you going! Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in what we think we need in order to draw that we forget that the most important thing is to grab whatever you have at the ready along with a piece of paper and start drawing.

(Side note: I'm not selling anything and am unaffiliated with the products linked to-- they're just examples.)

Gotcha, in that case, here's a few well worth adding to any collection if it's not too late:

Bic Soft Feel Medium Easy to control when pushing softly, reliable ink flow. Great for light lines and construction. The tip does displace by about a mm when you press hard, so it makes dark lines more difficult to reliably create.


Zebra Z-Grip Max Harder to control for lighter lines as the ink flows a little too well. The tip has no displacement though, which means darker lines are much easier to create reliably compared to the bic.


Zebra Z-Grip Flight aka Z-Grip Smooth in the UK. Similar to the Max, no nib displacement, but the ink flows so freely, this is not something to be used for light construction. Very smooth if you like that sort of thing.

The cheap crystal and disposable ballpoints you find all around are OK, but the ink flow is unreliable. On rough paper, they generally have stable nibs and can produce almost pencil-like lines, but they stop and start working so often, it can be annoying.


Non-Ballpoint honorable mentions:

Pilot Hi-Tec C 0.3 - Free flowing hybrid pen. No variation in line-weight, and no going back. Unforgiving but fun when you're searching for ideas and not caring about the final quality.


Pilot G-Tec C4 0.4 - As above, but the 0.1mm difference is significant. Usually used to add line weight to sketches done in the 0.3.


Staedler Pigment Liners - Unfortunately mistaken to be 'markers' because people keep calling them that. Smooth and reliable ink flow with the hard nib. Much thicker and less scratchy than the Hi-Tecs, and far less forgiving. Worth getting a whole set as preferences will vary and the size difference between each is significant. Restrictive as they don't work well at shallow angles, but on the plus side, you can marker over them.

Most importantly, if you're going to be drawing using ballpoints, make sure to accompany it with toothy/rough paper. The paper is 80% of it imo. Smooth stuff just doesn't cut it with ballpoints if you want a consistently high level of control over line weights.

There are lots more of course, but these are my experiences so far.

Good luck!

Hello! Would love good resources for Disney-style art, if you could spare those.


Here are some of the best things I've found for comic art

How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way A classic. Can be bought used for next to nothing. My only gripe is that it moves very fast and superficially

Incredible Comics with Tom Nguyen: He has a really clean style. Communicates a lot with very few lines. Excellent resource.


How to Draw: Heroic Anatomy More advanced resource. Uses a lot more lines and shading.


Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels How to construct the actual comic panels and books

I'm not really sure why you want to work digitally if youre opposed to computers/internet being part of the process, that's kind of a big part of 'digital'. The cheaper tablets are not going to have a screen, they're going to function basically like a mouse connected to your PC and move the cursor around with the pen. Even the best of the best Cintiq level tablets basically act like an extra monitor you can draw on. There are cheaper tablets similar to cintiqs but they still need a PC running Photoshop or some other art program.

Something like an iPad or other tablet doesn't have to connect to a PC but it basically is a self-contained computer itself. I use a Samsung galaxy note, it's an Android tablet that works without being connected to a PC. You would need WiFi to install art programs from the app store but other than that you don't have to use internet on it. It lets you draw directly on the screen which was my main priority. Investing $200+ might be a big ask if you're just starting out though. If youre interested in this make sure you do your research. Samsung has tablets with the 'S Pen', which have more levels of pressure sensitivity than a normal touch screen and works much better for digital art. You want to find the most sensitivity within your price range.

I used an Intuos 3 for...a decade or so? It's a solid tablet but requires a PC to use and doesn't let you draw directly on the screen. I guess the modern day version of that would be something like this, which seems like a pretty affordable pick for getting your foot in the door with digital art.

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

you can get these big thick spiral bound sketchbooks at dollarama, load tf up on those, they're great. aside from that, you can generally go cheap on most comic supplies. steadler HB pencils are fine, a nice gum eraser, and some sharpies of various widths. If you're feeling ambitious and have an arts store near-by you can get some inexpensive faber-castelle felt tip pens for fine lines, .5mm should be fine. And This! this pen is awesome and super versatile.

Many figure drawing classes will recommend 18"x24" pad. I like Canson because it is pretty cheap for 100 sheets. You can also use both sides.

I prefer to stand when drawing. Yes, you can even stand while looking at your computer for drawing. US Art Supply makes a pretty cheap stand that is good enough for me. I also bought a cheap sketchboard.

Finally, YouTube has lots of free figure drawing videos. Check out the New Masters Academy and Croquis Cafe stuff.

It's really good I actually recommend a pen for you to use for inking, it's actually considered a calligraphy pen but it's the TomBow brush tip set, one is softer than the other but still firm enough to make really thin strokes or broad strokes here's a link below but these are cheap and perfect for illustration and lettering, archival ink, lettering styles and composition, these are all things you have to be interested in to get further in being a comic book artist. I've had similar aspirations pm me if you got any questions I might be able to help.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M71S9DU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_fmB-BbWGZMN8Z.

Done in Procreate. Reference below. I feel like this is the best rendering I’ve done so far. Likeness seems close but not quite there? A huge help was a book I just bought by Justin Maas. Not a book for beginners but helped me level up my portrait drawing and I learned some new things.

I’d love any feedback!

Reference:
https://imgur.com/gallery/V5UKQDd

Book:
Drawing Realistic Pencil Portraits Step by Step: Basic Techniques for the Head and Face https://www.amazon.com/dp/1440354618/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_9sBGDbYZVMM84