What are /r/learntodraw's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Someone got downvoted for fairly good advice, probably the brevity. Anyway good job if its your first ever, but you need to learn where things go and how to construct a face. A good place to start are places like Sycra Yasin's youtube page, Betty Edward's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and Andrew Loomis' works. I'm new at art and have improved leaps and bounds in short order with resources like these.

I saw "upside down* and knew before I saw it it had to be from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain! Still the best drawing I've ever done is the upside down knight from the same book. Your rendition here turned out pretty nice.

The basic principles that make a manga drawing good comes from the root of realistic drawing. You don't have to be a master before you make the change, you can even practice manga and realism at the same time, but I do think it'd benefit you to learn realistic drawing as well. Manga is in many areas very simplified, or at least changed. This is what a style is, but it does also mean that you run the risk of learning something wrong, or having extreme trouble learning something, because of that style.

Tracing is fine to get a feel for the lines of good manga artists. Obviously, don't claim it as your work. Don't JUST trace. Drawing from reference is fine as well. However, to make your own stuff, you must understand what it is you are drawing. In fact, the reason you can often tell something is traced is that the person tracing had no understanding of what they're drawing. To do this, you need rudimentary knowledge of anatomy. I'm not talking a full scale medical degree here, but a surface glance at musculature and bone structure. This -does- influence manga as well.

Pick up a beginner book, either "Keys to Drawing" by Bert Dodson or "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. These are not anime books, but they will help a beginner. The drawabox course on /r/ArtFundamentals is also a good idea. The first lessons might seem boring, but trust me, you will begin to see just how useful a 3D understanding of shapes is a bit down the line. Do your future self a solid and do it. :)

Hope I helped, and good luck!

If you're a real beginner: "Drawing on the right side of the brain" by Betty Edwards or "Keys to Drawing" by Bert Dodson to start out. Also check out /r/ArtFundamentals and look into Andrew Loomis' books when you're done with the above. They're freely available online.

Stylized drawing, like anime, is based on realism. Learn the rules and then you can twist and bend them, and draw anime.

I read a lot of books, but never took any classes. The drawing on the left was for an exercise from Drawing on The Right Side of The Brain by Betty Edwards. After that, Fun with a Pencil by Andrew Loomis.

Most of my drawings were really focused on the head because that's what I liked to draw. But now I'm starting to learn the rest of the figure.

I haven't made a second attempt yet, but I googled for solutions.

It seems a lot of professional pastel artists have their work immediately framed to prevent smudging and damage. If a frame can't be used, some recommend covering work with a sheet of something called glassine paper, or a non-acidic white tissue paper, instead.

Some message boards recommended this brand: https://www.amazon.com/SpectraFix-SFX-31270-12-Fixative-Spray/dp/B00367HAV6 . But the amazon reviews are very mixed.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000KNLF6A/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fab_PgTzFb93J57M9

Or

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078XB3CTG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fab_.gTzFb4SKBKJK

Homemade, i guess some kind of lid or old pen casing that is wider. That way you can slip the stub in hold it in by pressure surrounding it paper and/or adding tape to hold it in place maybe?

From the side bar: Quick & Dirty Drawing FAQ

> Fretting about the “correct” way to learn is a way of procrastination. As you go along, your questions will become more specific – and thus easier to find an answer to.

Pick one, stick with it for a while, see if you like it, then try the other for a while. What's important is just to practice a lot.

It's your perspective. The shuttle looks curved to me. It looks like you're trying to draw the whole picture at once, and that's usually how you end up with what some people call symbol drawing. That article is really helpful in teaching your brain to draw what's actually there versus what you're interpreting. Instead of trying to draw a space shuttle, you want to draw an offset rounded cone attached to a tube. Once you get the basic shape down, then add the details.

Another suggestion I have is the thumb-pencil measuring technique. It may look silly, but it really does work.

As a counterpoint to the other comments, Keys to Drawing is a book that can serve as a fantastic jumping off point into drawing, primarily focusing on observational drawing. That's what I was introduced to first, and I found it a bit more beginner friendly than Draw A Box.

ctrlpaint also has traditional lessons I believe, though I haven't used them yet myself. You can start already now.

In general, it sounds like your goal is to "learn to draw" or to "get good at drawing." That's a fine dream, but it's just that. A dream. There's nothing quantifiable about it, because you will always want to get better at some part of drawing. You get there by setting and achieving a ton of small goals. For example, completing the ArtFundamentals lessons is a goal. It'd be even better if you said "In 6 months, I want to have completed all the ArtFundamentals lessons." The timeframe is up to you, of course. But you should set quantifiable, specific goals and give yourself a timeframe. And you should remember to have fun with drawing as well. :p

If you haven't gone through one of Keys to Drawing or Drawing on the Right side of the Brain yet, I'd recommend you pick one up and go through it as well. Otherwise, as said above, identify your goals, work towards them. Bad at drawing X? Draw X 100 times. And so on. Never just sit in your comfort zone.

In the left drawing, notice how the artist drew an ellipse around the thigh. Imagine if the form was made from glass. Feel the '3Dness' of the form. A book I'd recommend for understanding the basics of this is Fun with a Pencil by Andrew Loomis, although I only understood the concept after numerous drawings. (Drawing plushies really helped.)

Hello LoseEgo!!

How's it going today?

LOVE the name: lose yourself in the music the moment, something something never let it go, YO!

Gets me pumped every time.

I have heard good things about Proko. I haven't really gone through the premium course myself but I think MarcusB93 has. His stuff looks great! Amazing! ^ahem I mean it's okay I think I fan boy-ed out for a second. I would also suggest, if you are looking for a more beginner style book, Jack Hamm Drawing the Head and Figure, Draw a Box has some good exercises as well to get you started. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Betty Edwards is also a good start point. I would also suggest Scott Robertson once you get a bit more advanced. ^is ^this ^getting ^too ^long ^again?^sigh ^every ^single ^time...

I hope that helped, as far as how to practice, look into Drawing and Deliberate Practice, but I would say take things with a grain of salt. Double, Triple even, check their source so you don't swallow some snake oil and just throw up rainbows onto a canvas... ^whisper ^whisper You're right! We should do that... ^where ^is ^that ^food ^coloring? In the Immortal words of Glenn Vilppu There are No Rules, just Tools

Good Luck and Welcome to the Art Cult :D ^hehe ^We ^have ^another ^for ^the ^paint ^master!

I recommend reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, it helped me immensely to start "seeing" like an artist (that's what seems to be the issue here, you draw what you know, not what you see). Before and after examples

Loomis is linked in the sidebar. The copyright expired, they're free! Start with "Fun with a Pencil" - it starts with cartoons to teach you the building blocks of constructing faces. Then go to "Drawing the Head and the Hands". That book is more advanced so you want to finish "Fun with a Pencil" first.

If you prefer hardcopy, you can buy them off Amazon or check your library.

If you prefer video, check out Proko's channel (also linked in the sidebar).

Sure, in order

1. Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner, by Claire Watson Garcia
2. Keys to Drawing, by Bert Dodson

Both are useful for novices, and for experienced artists, like myself, who might have skipped a bit of the art fundamentals for whatever reason.

Thanks! I remember watching video sometime ago that stated the more you draw something the better you'll get at it. So, I put a lot of time into drawing the head.

For books I read

Figure Drawing for all It's Worth, Fun with a Pencil, and Drawing the Head and Hands by Andrew Loomis.

Drawing on The Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.

Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a good place to start. The science background in the book has been since disproven, but it doesn't matter because she teaches you to "see" when it comes to drawing and has very good exercises.

From this drawing you should work on your proportions (that's the most important thing and probably also where you should start from since it seems you struggle the most with), "seeing" forms correctly and shading. You also seem to struggle with controlling your forms/lines. I don't have a great recipe for this because I need to work on that as well, but I noted for example when I draw a butterfly I struggle with drawing the two sides symmetrically. And while a human face is never 100% symmetrically for example the basic shapes of the eyes should match.

You need "Keys to Drawing" by Bert Dodson. Go through that, and then move on to what you need to learn to draw what you want.

Some people recommend "Drawing on the Right side of the Brain" as well, but as I have almost no experience with it, I can't recommend it personally.

Color is something that needs studied the same as anything else really, and then practiced many, many times.

However, before worrying about coloring, tone, and value anyways I'd first concentrate on the fundamentals. Start with the basic shapes, and get them perfect. If you can't draw a sphere, cylinder, and cube that looks 3D, you won't have any luck getting a face to either. No matter how good your color work is, it can't make up for an imperfect foundation.

In addition what you're drawing is what's called symbol drawing. You're drawing what your mind thinks objects look like, but not what they actually look like. It's important to draw from reference first rather than trying to jump right into imagination. You need to learn to see how objects really look. As an example you have the features of the face way too high. The eyes should be about halfway down, the bottom of the nose (not the tip) halfway down again, the bottom of the lips halfway yet again. The ears should be somewhere in the middle third.

There are many options to help, with several linked on the right sidebar. In addition you can pick up a book to read through and follow along with like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Keys to Drawing, or similar. Fun with a Pencil is free (linked on the right, Loomis books) and good for beginners (even if the cartoon style presented is very dated) and despite being old Figure Drawing For All It's Worth is still a good reference.

Can't help with the tablet, I haven't used mine much and I have photoshop instead. I'm attempting to learn traditional before I go into digital so that I can isolate my mistakes between drawing errors or user error.

I think a lot of people start with Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (and I've only read good things about it). Speaking of the right side: here on reddit there are also links in the right margin to Loomis' art books and Proko's video tutorials, both are often used and help a lot of people.

In the end though I guess it always depends on your personal preference. Some people do better with very structured learning, some people like a free/intuitive approach a lot better. Some people might say that this or this book/tutorial is the best thing ever, others might find it either too complicated or too boring or both.

It also depends on what you already can do and what you still have to learn.

Therefore I recommend going to a book store with books on the topic and just browse through them. I'm sure some books will speak to you more than others and these will be the right ones for you.

For drawing out of mind and idea I think the most important thing is to a) have a good knowledge of the basic proportions of the stuff you want to draw (humans, animals, cars etc.) and b) draw it a lot from life, so you build a visual library. If you draw from mind you have to substitute the life model or photo reference purely from the images you have committed to memory, therefore drawing it often and paying close attention to details is the thing to do, I guess.

I think you have a bad case of symbol drawing, is all.

Taking a look at this one in particular https://www.instagram.com/p/9emtNdiDNt/?taken-by=captinhazmat The glass you're using as a reference is cone-y shaped and has dots. The glass you have drawn is a straight tube, and has no dots.

You took a look at the glass, and then drew the image that is in your mind for 'a glass', without any further reference to the actual object.

Spend some more time trying to draw exactly what you see, not what you think you see, and you'll probably find yourself improving fast :)

Also, anatomy tutorials, especially proportions and muscle placement, will probably help your human figures a lot.

As for doing it over and over, learning takes a lot of practice, but don't waste practice time ingraining bad habits like ignoring your reference object/image. Practice, and practice with care to get it right.

TIL about a new sub.

It's certainly a sympathetic drawing, I'd say your biggest problem is the so called "symbol drawing". You don't draw enough with your eyes. Look at the proportions. Find simple shapes you can draw. I recommend to take a look at this: http://hubpages.com/art/how-to-draw-learn They go in detail about symbol drawing and how to avoid it. You lines look pretty confident. Keep it up!

Season of Mists is my favorite. You can probably check it out at the library. Nice work, keep pushing!

It's one of the exercises from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to draw this Picasso picture upside down, so as to focus on the lines you see and not to draw from mental models of what something should look like.

as a beginner there aren't really any resources specific to being a concept artist that will help you. Learn the fundamentals and you can draw anything.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a good book to start with, so is drawabox.com. Drawing every day is a great way to improve as long as you're not doodling mindlessly.

Well to be honest with you that exercise is not easy. I'm willing to bet that you did a lot better than you're really giving yourself credit for.

Have you tried the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain? That's originally where that exercise is from and that book says it should take you at least an hour to do. I would recommend that book. I am a complete beginner but that book made the transition into starting to draw pretty seamless. After only three weeks of practicing every day I can draw portraits with unmistakable likeness on about 90 minutes.

May I suggest you take a look at this post and its comments?

In particular, you might want to read my replies there since I felt the same way you do for a very long time.

You can get out of that state and learn to draw. It's totally doable.

Edit: also, I think a book like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain might help you.

Order a copy of "The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". Had the same issue for a while. I used to beat my head against the wall out of frustration.

It helps you to see properly instead of drawing from memory or relying on symbols from childhood. A great deal of it transcends drawing and can be applied to everyday life. Great stuff. Couldn't recommend enough.

I'm working my way through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. This was the drawing exercise in the chapter on perspective.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the result. I could have used a ruler here but I wanted to practice lines a bit more so I decided not to. I don't think I would have thought I could draw this if you'd shown it to me a couple months ago.

My only complaint is that the right side of the drawing looks really crooked and bent towards the right side of the paper. It doesn't look that way when I'm not looking at photographs of the drawing but maybe I'm wrong.

Thank you very much! I try to draw at least an hour a day and I do my best to follow this advice: "If you waste a year, you really lose two.

One for what you should have done then, and one to what you're missing now that you're doing it." Push through that dread from drawing. I get it everyday but once I pick up the pen it vanishes.

As for the reference, here you go: https://unsplash.com/photos/YdeNI9QXCoc

> Never tried it at home for this reason, so not a lot of practice. Just the mandatory pieces in high school.

This is, really, the root of it. Practice. Being able to draw is a skill, it is something that can be learned; something that needs to be practiced, exercised. It's no different from learning a language, or to play a sport.

> I'd like to be able to draw some of my favourite comic book characters beautifully..

It will take a lot of time, effort, energy, and practice to get to this point, but having solid goals is definitely a great place to start!

> I know there's written a lot about this, but where do I start, for someone with zero experience and an apparent lack of talent?

Unfortunately I'm also just getting started learning, and haven't found too much yet that's been a great help. However, I've taken time to practice; drawing shapes, trying different things to shade them, looking at an object and trying to draw it.

I recommend taking a look at the Quick & Dirty Drawing FAQ listed in the sidebar.

My advice, as someone who is currently in the same stage of learning, is to do reference drawing via these sorts of constructions, not just trying to copy of the contours. You need to see how these shapes interact in real life before you can pose them yourself. Trace them a couple times if you have to, to get a feel for how they appear in a real model. Focus on trying to make them feel 3d (something Proko covers, who was already suggested to you).

As for your line quality, you’ll want to do line exercises.

https://www.sketchbook.com/blog/how-to-draw-from-imagination-why-is-it-so-hard/ this is a good series of tutorials, with the second part focusing on various line and shape exercises that will help if done daily.

Another good video series on figure drawing is Love Life Drawing.

Inkscape, to path → Trace Bitmap Alt+Shift+B, click the image (or else you'll get no results), use the brightness cutoff thingy to change the boldness of the line, check remove background, delete your background image after clicking "OK". There, now you have your line drawing as a vector graphic.

Note that this will end up with a somewhat sloppy-looking outline, and when you try to edit the points manutally, you'll notice that there're WAAAY more than needed for something like this. Making it hard to change shapes and stuff. But you can change color/fill with relative ease this way.

If you want something that looks cleaner and is more versatile: use the "draw bezier curves" tool, and click once on every vertex. Don't go crazy with them, or else you'll likely add too many points, and make it hard to edit. You can make a curved line by clicking and dragging. You can hold ctrl to snap to small increments. After you've done this, you can edit how bold the lines are with the "stroke style" panel. For added precision, you can add a grid with Shirft+3 (#) or view guidelines with Shift+\ (|). Better yet, you can create half your objects this way, then use ctrl-d to duplicate them and h to reflect them horizontally. Then move them all over. This'll save you the time to do all of them by hand, and ensures that your picture is symmetrical.

Measuring! When I was first learning how to draw the figure I measured it constantly. After you do it enough you'll eventually get a feel for it and you'll measure less and less until you don't have to anymore.

I suggest looking at a book like Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing. He shows you how to measure, even in more difficult poses.

For a simple explanation, the standard figure is about 8 heads high. Obviously, people can vary in height so I would look at pictures of people at different heights and measure how many heads high they are.

If the pose is curving, be sure to measure following the curve.

For arms, the distance from your shoulder to your elbow is the same as the elbow to the wrist, and the wrist (when at your side) lines up with the bottom of the pelvis.

Your legs are similar. The hip to the knee is the same as the knee to the ankle.

This might help with a visual breakdown lol but I hope that gets you started :D

If you don't mind spending a little money: How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way (Amazon Link) is an excellent resource. It suffers slightly from being "a little about a lot" but there is plenty to learn from it and it's entertaining & easy to read.

There also appears to be a Youtube video narrated by Stan Lee and John Buscema. I haven't seen this before today, but the drawings in the video are straight out of the book.

Pick one, or get em both if you think you'll use em:

• Royal & Langnickel Essentials Sketching Pencil Set, 21-Piece for $7.23

• Pro Art 18-Piece Sketch/Draw Pencil Set for $7.41

Best deals I've seen on amazon with a lot of good reviews.

I'm taking a class in college and ive really improved from basic doodles to reproducing master works(I still have a long way to go before I'm happy), id take a class or 2 for your art credit in school (if you have a requirement for it). 2 books I love and have used as a supplement to class are Drawing From Observation: An Introduction to Perceptual Drawing by Brian Curtis found on Amazon and The Art of Drawing by Bernard Chaet also on Amazon

They're textbooks but very affordable and have tons of info and works you can reproduce for practice

Edit those links may or may not work

Yeah, I’m liking how it makes everything so simple and each lesson is pretty easy to complete—less stressful and builds confidence.

A friend recommended to me “Keys to Drawing” by Burt Dodson. Might try that next. It looks more challenging so glad I started with this.

You've drawn the eye as if it were from the front, they look different from the side. As mentioned above, draw from reference! Loomis is wonderful, but I discovered him after already drawing for 15+ years and still found him to be challenging. I would say your biggest issue is in the jawline and spacing. Try to read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (or at least skimming it) and then just really studying the differences between the front of the face and the side of the face, in the individual features and everything. Best of luck to you :)

Hello MrKamranzzzzzzzzz! :D

How are you doing?

I'm liking the concept and the energy of the sketch. This looks like an awesome character. And I have a soft-spot for archers ^hehe

Everyone has thrown in good anatomy advice, head a bit too small, body a bit too long, arm on the "gorilla" side of things, oh and the weight. Jack Hamm "Drawing the Head and Figure" talks about this, you would think the weight would tilt toward it But No. You can even try it, Stand with your legs about shoulder width apart. Make sure you weight is over them and slowly shift your weight to one foot, you should see your hips tilt so that the weight side goes up and the other side goes down. SCIENCE!! ^technically ^bio-mechanics^^I_think

Aside from the proportion issues it is looking good. I would play with the pose of the arrow holding hand. I hope that helped!

Keep Up the Good Work!!

Hello Patade!

How are things going?

Well that certainly is a horse of a different color! ^crickets ^crickets That's all I got.

I think are you doing fine so far. I do enjoy "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", it has a lot of science behind it, which some people like ^like ^me And the grid drawings are great to build on top of. DRSB for learning to "see" as well as the grid drawings. I would say don't be afraid to just give yourself to the exercises. At this point in time just worry about the motions and learning to see, the drawing is secondary. (you'll hear a lot of us say this :D )

As for your lines, I would say look into line practice, there are demos online, though I recommend Scott Robertson or Draw a Box. They have some good ideas on how to practice controlling your line. I also read a tip some where, use the frame of the image to get an idea of the angle and curves (the grid drawings are basically doing this for you as well) ^a ^bit ^too ^long I hope that helped. You are just starting so don't judge yourself too harshly ^that's ^our ^job ^hehe But feel free to come back for feedback and stuff. You are off to a great start, just give yourself to the process for now and really try to understand what you are doing and what is working for you.

Keep Up the Good Work!!

Hi Quadradan!

How's it going?

Do not lose heart young one! The rabbit hole is vast and deep, like a midnight ocean on the edge of the universe of a blazing horizon of awesome! ^ahem sorry got carried away

Like Rogaine said remember what Iris said, it's just a way to get you to see. It's not about getting a perfect reproduction of the piece but to start to train your eye to really see what is in front of you. This exercise is used a lot (I did this in college as well; an art class), "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" also uses it, in that book Ms. Edwards talks about a shift from L to R (basically your logic brain to your spacial brain) to help solve the problem of drawing it "correctly". So don't worry about the results. It's like worrying about your outfit while working out. The outfit doesn't really matter as long as you are doing the exercise properly (and safely ^so ^important) In the beginning it will be less about results and more about gaining control of hand movements and knowledge of your tools both physical and mental. You are doing just fine! Full Speed Ahead!! xD

Keep Up the Good Work!! ^was ^that ^too ^long?^sigh

Hello Marshall!

How goes it? AH the babyface, Everybody wants it...nobody knows how to get it or keep... ^clean ^living ^maybe? Unholy ritual to a hummingbird? ^no ^we ^don't ^do ^that ^in ^this ^thread ^shhhhh AHEM... OH right make it look younger; got it!

Quickest way: small face, big head.

Can I say that? I'm not breaking any rules right? ^it's ^fine

Younger kids are going to have their face smaller then the overall size of the head. On a typical oval for a head under drawing you want the eyes to be below or well below the horizontal center line of the oval. The cheeks will tend to be chubby (oh look at those cheeks I just want to PINCH THEM FOR DAYS) ^alright ^back ^it ^up Grandma. Also look at photos of kids (that doesn't sound bad at all, totally innocent right) and look at their features. Their nose will tend to be smaller, eyes a bit bigger, cheeks rosy, and forehead slightly bigger. Also the chin is smaller as well. Andrew Loomis has a part in his book Fun with a Pencil that goes into this. As well as Jack Hamm Drawing the Head and Figure. Give it a shot! I hope that helps and come back and let us know how it comes out! :D

Keep Up the Good Work!!

For drawing humans, Loomis and Proko are good (sidebar). Fun with a Pencil is for beginners! You went through the basics by doing Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and drawabox.com, so without you having a specific question it's difficult to give guidance. What you could do is posting on /r/learntodraw daily & follow the critiques you get. Make sure to practice reference and imagination drawing at an about 50-50 rate. You can always tag me in the comments when you make a post and I'll check out your drawings. If things are too complex, do it in several layers. First the basic shape, then one level of details, then another, then another (you can invest in tracing paper or a tablet).

1. Details don't matter. Proportion does.
2. Learn to see. Copy faces. Copy what you see. Not what you think. Don't see an eye. See the angles and curves. Turn a face upside down and copy it and you will see what I mean. Look at tilts, negative shapes, etc. A lot of this can be read in Drawing on the right side of the brain.
3. There is a PDF of Andrew Loomis's Drawing the Head and Hands.

Definitely copy a lot of faces. After you copy a face, look at it and go like, hhmmmm? What can I fix? My eyes are messed up, so lemme YouTube how to draw eyes. Hhmmmm, my nose looks weird, lemme look that up.

Proko on YouTube is amazing. So is sycra.

1. Keep practicing and have fun!

Read the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Even if you can't draw anything, this book will have you drawing much better within a week.

The book itself teaches you how to properly perceive details that are important to making realistic drawings. Namely lines, edges, spaces, and forms. It's written for people who believe that they can never learn to draw and it's surprisingly effective.

Beyond that, you just need to start drawing. Practice drawing straight lines, squares, circles, ellipses, triangles and all of their 3-d counterparts.

I strongly recommend the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain to start with. It won't really teach you much in the way of technique, but it does teach you how to perceive edges and shapes such that it's much easier to draw exactly what you see. I started drawing at the beginning of May and I went from being unable to draw at all, to having a few decent drawings under my belt.

On top of that, go find something that you want to try to draw. Even if you can't draw it well, the attempt to draw will give you mileage with the pecil which will invariably improve you drawing. I've been doing the exercises from /r/artfundamentals too to improve my pencil control.

Yep. Youtube tutorials from Sycra are also a great start. If you're like me and prefer to read/go at your own pace instead of constantly rewinding a video, Andrew Loomis's books are in the public domain and freely available for .pdf download. His book "Fun with a Pencil" is great for beginners.

"Keys to Drawing" by Bert Dodson to help overcome symbol drawing. Learn to measure and map out proportions etc. as well (don't remember how much the book covers that, but you can just google it or also read "The Science and Practice of Drawing" by Harold Speed which is a bit more philosophical).

/r/ArtFundamentals for line quality, construction, and some perspective. Loomis is also good but mostly aimed at figure drawing.

Proko on YouTube is also really good for figure drawing, gesture, and construction.

I think drawing upside down doesn't work like that for everyone. It's a really interesting and clever thing to make people realise they should start seeing the individual shapes and lines instead of the object/person they are drawing. So in that regard I think it's certainly helpful.

But I tried drawing that horse from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain upside down (which turned out.. okay) and afterwards I drew it normally. Honestly, the normal way clearly turned out better for me imho. Yes, it was not perfect either and the space between the legs and such were not like in the reference picture, so it became more of a "free drawing" thing. But it still looked close and more importantly like a horse drawing, even with the differences. The upside down drawing however, while being okay, was much wonkier.

So I think it's a helpful tool at the beginning and it can't hurt to try it from time to time to get back the awareness for shapes, lines, etc. but I think most of the learning-to-draw process functions also the normal way.

What would you say was your biggest problem while drawing upside down?

Tbh, just skip the text and work through the exercises. The most important thing to get out of it is to snap out of symbol drawing and start drawing (however badly) what you see and not what you think is there. Your first tries won't be good but practicing every day will make you better at getting proportions and light right. I thought Keys to Drawing was a better book for starting, but they both attempt to get you to the same place.

I'd suggest getting some knowledge to go with the practice. Otherwise, you'll only continue to practice the same bad habits without much improvement.

Some resources you could consider would be the free Loomis books (they're linked on the right bar here). "Fun with a Pencil" covers a cartoon style for most of the book. They're free due to an expired copy right, so that means they're old ... but really the anatomy of a person hasn't changed ;) Just means the cartoon style he shows is very much in a 1920's to 1930's style.

There is also one for heads & hands, and Figure Drawing for All It's Worth covers the whole body.

I see a lot of people starting with the Fun with a Pencil books, and I don't think that they are very helpful. If you're looking to hit the ground running, I'd recommend Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. This book teaches you, regardless of your skill level, how to see first so that you can create the best possible drawing. I think that it could be a great help to you. Check it out from the library if you don't want to buy the book. ;)

The book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" asks you to do three drawings in the very beginning. One of your own face (look in a mirror or photo), one of someone you know from memory, and one of your hand.

The two portraits I tried were so scary they gave me nightmares. They need to be shredded, burned, dosed in holy water, and their ashes buried...

I haven't drawn a face since xD I'm working up to it though, the whole human form is intimidating!

Hey, a year ago I tried starting with Loomis as well, because alot of forums (and /ic/) advise it. And TBH, Fun with a pencil is alot, but it ain't fun. Actually, it demotivated me to do jack shit.

This year I am re-trying it and starting out with http://drawabox.com/, which is way easier than Fun with a Pencil, and I actually like the simplicity, because it doesn't instantly make me feel like a tard.

Enjoy!

Seems to be a common problem, one I have too. I try something a few times a week, I really try to do daily but get intimidated. Plus I get very little time to myself (I have kids).

Most everything I try comes out like crap, but a couple things surprised me deeply. I started a book called "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" because it is recommended so much almost everywhere. The first thing it has you do is draw your own face from a mirror (I used a picture), draw someone you know completely from memory (no reference), and to draw your non-drawing hand.

The picture of myself, and the picture of the person from memory honestly were kind of scary. Yes, that bad. But the one of my hand, I actually thought looked pretty good. Far from perfect, but I wasn't ashamed of it.

Another exercise from the book is to copy a line art drawing, but you view the drawing upside down. The purpose of the exercise is to get you to look at the lines and how they are positioned (this one is straight for a bit, then angles off to the left, etc) instead of looking at what it is you're drawing (an arm, a leg, a chair, a hand, etc). When I finished and turned what I had drawn right side up, I was amazed that I had actually done it. I did it twice more with different drawings I found online with the same result. There were errors of course, but overall they didn't look horrible (or scary).

So my point of this little story is that while a lot of times what I try to draw doesn't work out, I remember those successes and I know that it's possible.

Google "Stravinsky Picasso" and you'll find the image used in the book. It's a line drawing done by Picasso of Igor Stravinsky. Save one of the many pictures of it that comes up to your computer and rotate it upside down. Then draw it. Just make sure you focus on the direction of the line you're drawing, and not on what you're drawing.

What kind of art do you want to learn? For drawing people this book is great. Anatomy for the Artist Hardcover by Sarah Simplot. Or Drawing for the Absolute Beginner: A Clear & Easy Guide to Successful Drawing (Art for the Absolute Beginner).(I have not tried this last book but it got good reviews of amazon). I would start small. Maybe just shapes or something easy. Get your self used to your hand moving freely. It not like writing. Get a sketchbook and SAVE everything even if it you don't like it. It good to look back on. I like to glue my sketches into my sketchbook and then make notes. And practices until your sick of it and the practices more. Don't worry about other people art. Don't worry if your not good at first. It dose not matter. You will get good at it. As long as it make you feel good. :)

I glanced at the drawabox figure lessons, and they introduce drawing the human figure in a methodical and fairly gentle way, I thought. Just do those? :) As long as you have done lesson 1 and 2, you can go on to the figure lessons.

Otherwise, if you feel really uncertain, go with the books you mentioned. Personally I like Keys to Drawing the most, but it varies from person to person. Keys to Drawing, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, or Fun with a Pencil. Though the latter is a little step up from beginner.

The knowledge from studying already shines through - your proportions are generally in place. Everything is just sliiiightly off, and that's simply practice. Whenever you spend half an hour watching tuts or reading books, spend an hour actually drawing!

I get the feeling you already read Loomis/Proko but I added them anyway. Visual crit here

straight from the sidebar

Here's a nice video tut producer, i really recommend him for drawing figures, both realistic and cartoon

If you want a a free software for anime animation, I heard a lot about OpenToonz. It's the same studio Ghibli uses. Try a look, I think is one of the best free of the anime softwares I found in my researches.

If you want to be precise and stick with pencil/paper, use the Brewer Method, from Scott Robertson's How To Draw book.

If you dont mind using tools, there are also photoshop scripts that draw perspective lines for you, check out this gumroad, the $7 "Color and Light" package includes such a plugin. I dont think it works for photoshop CC though so keep that in mind.

If you dont need to be precise, just estimate it. The picture you linked doesnt seem that perspective heavy. The student probably estimated the perspective lines.

Good luck on your journey. Just make a decision to not give up and you’ll get there.

This is a great series for learning to draw from imagination:

https://www.sketchbook.com/blog/how-to-draw-from-imagination-why-is-it-so-hard/

https://www.sketchbook.com/blog/draw-imagination-part-1-precision/

I think these lessons are really good to start off with, really basic and quick exercises to get used to controlling the pen.

https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-learn-to-draw-stage-one-manual-skills--cms-23304

Its a series so start on that page and go through the 4.

This is also good.

https://www.sketchbook.com/blog/draw-imagination-part-1-precision/

Drawception is a popular telephone style art game. You receive a prompt which you have 2 - 10 minutes to complete (depends on the game creator's settings), alternatively you may receive a picture which you have to describe. Similar to 'Drawsomething'.

There are a few things i've found pretty useful for keep myself reminded to do task: https://habitica.com/ - This is a website that turns building habits into an RPG which makes it more fun to keep track of it Setting up a calendar on your phone will help to keep you reminded I also occasionally use https://todoist.com to create to do lists as well.

Also if you wanted to I could start with you and try as I want to start learning to draw and doing a little bit every day would be a great way for me to improve. I would be much easier with other people too. PM me if you're interested. I use KIK and Discord if you use them.

Marco Bucci has a couple of really good videos on this topic. Talent is not required, but you will need to know a few drawing principles though. Make sure you read up on line, perspective, light and shadow, etc. Nathan Fowkes also has a great course on landscape painting in book form.

well, the bargue plates are helpful, but it depends on what you want to do. Do you want to draw portraits and figures in a traditional sense then yes they are very helpful and are a great way to start. However, if you wanna be an animator, concept artist, or do anything like that then I would suggest on some other books. I recommend Steve Huston's book , wonderful artist, a great teacher, and taught at many studios. Loomis books are good but their look or design seems outdated, still have much valuable knowledge but I would not recommend starting out with that. Also look around for artists/ teachers on youtube, or courses. Decent guide to knowing wtf the fundamentals are

Very true! XD

Right now I'm using this one, and I haven't had any trouble with it so far.

I've also noticed that there are other ones on Amazon that are thinner and more like pencils. I'm honestly not sure if that would be better or worse, but it might be something to look into. :)

Same here. :) Specifically, I use these and this, although I don't have the .03 anymore since a customer at my day job stole it a few years back. =/

>A lot of new artists focus on details rather than the full figure way too early in the drawing

I agree with that sentiment.

If anybody reading this wants to learn more, Hampton is pretty great. He has a book about gesture drawing. If you don't want to spend money, he also has a YouTube channel. (The videos are a bit long and don't always have commentary, but they show off his method. He does a good job of simplifying anatomy.)

Watch this YouTube Chat called proko :

https://youtu.be/wAOldLWIDSM

I’m still working on his fundamentals stuff and I picked this book up as well:

https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819/ref=asc_df_0615272819/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312021428070&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14390263304824214052&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&...

I'd say those two resources are some of the best for absolute beginners. Edwards's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain teaches observational drawing and how to really see what is in front of you. Drawabox teaches construction and how to simplify complex objects. Both are essential skills if you want to draw.

Also, have you seen the "Your First Week of Drawing"-exercises in the side bar?

I got Stephen Rogers Peck's big "Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist" book and worked through it over the course of 4-5 months. I ended up doing over 100 sketches from that book. In retrospect though I would have done less copying drawings from the book and more closing the book and trying to reproduce it without references.

You can check the sidebar for Loomis and get his book "Fun with a Pencil", using cartoons he explains that technique perfectly.

Yes, for doodles you can skip them. But there's a big difference between a doodle and an attempt to improve your skills.

For hair and hands, check out the "Drawing the Head and Hands" pdf from the "Loomis: Free Art Books (pdf)" link in the sidebar.

As you look through the pdf, keep in mind that you're using a ballpoint pen, not a pencil. Don't try to mimic the pencil shaded styles in the book with a ballpoint pen. It'll just get frustrating. Stick with the simpler line drawings from the book or switch to a pencil.

You should check out the book "Drawing the Head and Figure" by Jack Hamm. It will teach you the correct proportions for the human body. Draw an upside down egg shape for the head, then divide that in half with a horizontal line, the eyes should be there, and one eye apart in distance. Divide that in half again and that's where the nose should be, divide it again and that's where the mouth sits. The ears should be level with the eyes. Pretty much everyone always makes the eyes way too high, but if you look in the mirror and really study your face, you'll realize they're almost exactly at the halfway point of your head.

I started drawing earlier this year and it was on a whim, just so I'd be doing something in common with my oldest daughter. I started by doodling and just drawing shapes and shading them in.

When I was ready to move past goofing around and actually draw something I asked the same question and after a little bit of reading I saw someone recommended the book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".

I got my hands on a copy and instantly liked it because I've never thought of myself as artistic in the slightest sense. The book deals not only in excellent exercises but also in the thing I was always missing, how to look at things.

I have developed a deep love of drawing people and even though I didn't finish the book (I may go back to it at some point) I am sad it took me 30 years to find my love for drawing.

I highly recommend the book and if you have any questions or want to talk about drawing at all, feel free to PM me.

Hi Illidari!

So I'm back to answer some of your questions and give you a few more tips.... LET'S RAVE!

ACTION LINE: If you search for gesture line or action line you should be able to find something. I think the book "Drawing the Marvel Way" may talk about this.

Friends taking pictures is good too :D

Andrew Loomis may be a bit of deep dish for people. Jack Hamm Drawing the Head and Figure is a slightly simpler version without all the theory Loomis likes to put in.

Anatomy takes work, there is no way around it. Go with Jack Hamm then maybe try Andrew Loomis "Fun with a Pencil" that will be your gateway into the more in depth stuff.

If that isn't your thing I believe Proko on Youtube (see the sidebar of this sub reddit) should give you a good starting point.

I hope that cleared up a few things :D

You got this, don't worry about being good at first. Just work on the understanding of your way of drawing/constructing things and try to do your best each time. Remember it doesn't have to be perfect, just your best effort at this point in your artist journey. Enjoy it, feel it, love it. You'll get there!!

I think it's any version but the latest (which is 4th edition). Skim over the reviews, the one to avoid is the one people complain about the missing color content, and really thin pages.

Mine is the 2nd edition (The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain 2nd Revised & enlarged Edition). I paid $4.03 for it, including shipping, but it looks to have gone up $1.50 since then.

Might not be the best method... I think it's going TOO fast. Doing a large amount is good though! Keep doing the same, but get Fun with a Pencil & make heads that are better constructed and have more features. You'll learn a lot more.

So in other words, good idea on focusing on quantity and learning from the previous sketch, but you could learn a lot more by drawing better sketches.

+1 for putting the work in :) Mileage is king.

This exercise comes from the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The instructions say to draw format lines of the paper so you know where the border is and then to compare the format lines on your paper with the border of the image you are drawing. That might help you stay on the page.

Been drawing for about a month now. I worked through the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and I'm happy with the progress I've made in a short time. First pic is my first attempt at drawing ever. I've practiced every day since then. Where do I go from here? How do I continue to improve?

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a good book to start out with, you can use any version, the local library might have it.

Since you're a game dev you will inevitably want to do digital art at some point. ctrl+paint is a good place to start, although it's easier if you put work into your traditional art first.

Do one a day and you'll be amazed at the progress you see in two weeks. You're exploring so you're gonna hit on improvement (for example in the hair I see you've attacked drawing it in three different ways).

Your eyes are too large and high up, see here](https://68.media.tumblr.com/baeae7bb0a57a3f01f6c68f1bb84faf3/tumblr_ooxwx3zTfT1tt3t2so2_500.jpg)

You could try Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Amazon link, but I recommend getting it from the library since you only need it once in your life) and Proko (linked in sidebar)

For your next drawing, try a 3/4 view!

You could read Tom's infomration while working out the basics. Fun with a Pencil by Loomis is a good starting point. He starts off easy and by the time you've finished, you've been introduced to perspective. There's a PDF online, just Google for it.

Loomis (pdf) and Proko (video tutorials). Both are free and linked in the sidebar. You can also buy Loomis' books on Amazon.

For Loomis, start with "Fun With A Pencil". That book starts of with cartoons, which feels weird. However, this is a method he uses to teach you the building blocks of the face. As you get further in the book, the anatomy and construction methods get more complex.

If you feel like you're beyond the beginner stage, you can use Loomis' book "Drawing the Head and Hands" instead.

What I did on top of studying Proko and Loomis, was paint/draw self portraits. You just need a mirror and a bit of patience. This trains you to understand the volume of a face more than when you study from text and picture sources.

The most important is always practice. Draw everyday and show us your results. :)

If you run into problems, you can always post here with your question!

Fun With a Pencil is geared towards children and covers the general basics of drawing in a simplified manner. It also focuses a bit on cartoon-y style characters, but the fundamentals are all there. That one would probably be easier for beginners, but you've already done Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, so I think it would be up to you if you want to go through Fun with a Pencil, or move on to something slightly more advanced.

Have you browsed through each of them yet? Does the content of Fun with a Pencil feel like something you would like to read over, or does it feel like things you've already done?

Hello fellow cartooner!

If you hit cntrl F and type: 'Loomis' you can find the free books by Loomis. 'Fun with a Pencil' is more than enough to get started. The style is a bit dated but the fundamentals are there: You build characters up from simpler drawings.

After that, start looking at resources at gesture drawing to create realistic figures. Gesture drawings are simple drawings of a human figure in a pose. Then you will have to learn to overlay them with a cartoon style. I'll probably be flamed for mentioning him, but Christopher Hart has a bunch of books that are full of examples appropriate for the beginner.

Let us say Proko's, Vilppu's etc programs target drawing (i.e. Representing 3D objects in 2D). Alla Prima targets "painting" (representing light as it is seen from a certain point in space (which is a bit of a narrow view of the subject on my opinion). From this perspective it seems like painting is a more complex subject, as representing light will usually mean representing 3D objects, but it's absolutely not this way. Would it be really beneficial to know how to draw in order to paint? Yes. Is drawing a preparatory phase? NOPE.

Drawing light will only turn you into a plotter, as you won't develop an understanding of what you are doing since even basic light physics and colourimetry rely on volume. This is so unefficient that it doesn't even guarantee that it will allow you to copy things your are seeing due to the fact that we often fail to leave our perception aside and fall into optical illusions. Being unaware of them will keep us from being critical with our work and make us unable of representing what we are seeing in a fairly neutral way.

On top of that, we won't be able to draw from imagination, stylize stuff, paint from a photo ref (drawing from a photo ref means having to change things because a camera doesn't capture the world as we see it), go further and enhance our paintings by manipulating light physics, paint in a non-static environment (e.g. A scene with natural light)...so "painting" (as defined above) is fairly useless and doesn't do justice to the proper term which tackles colour physics and perception and requires critical thinking as well as a good grasp of drawing and spatial reasoning.

Ps: My guess is that Richard Schmid was going for the "your mind is biased!" classic tip (which is in fact a really good tip!) discussed on books such as Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain but, ironically, trying to not be biased by being unaware will make you biased (as we are biollogically wired to be this way).

I started on the latest book by Betty Edwards: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Haven't gotten far yet, but i was amazed by the progress over just a few days. I'm not impressed but happy to see it goes the right way.. - So if anyone can help me with tips and tricks, pencils and the use of these I'd be happy. :) If anyone has any good links to where i can read about different pencils and so on I'd like that, thanks in advance everyone :)

Start with "Fun with a Pencil". It looks cartoony/easy, but it guides you into drawing real humans, so stick with it! Then, for studying the human figure in more depth, you can follow up with "Figure Drawing For All It's Worth".

Age and talent have nothing to do with learning. Passion is the main ingredient for being successful at learning anything and it sounds like you have that going for you. A great starter book to put you in the Artist's state of mind is Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. There are tons of other books and online tutorials out there. If at anytime you'd like to have your work reviewed by a professional Artist please contact me through my website http://kurtbrugel.com/ I would love to assist you in your journey to learn how to draw. Best Kurt

Keys to Drawing is a pretty great book, but I think once you've figured out how to draw what you see and stop symbol drawing, advancing is just a matter of drawing a lot from life and from reference. And a lot of books that get thrown out as useful to beginners really hinge upon you already having a good understanding of forms and shapes; for example, I fooled around with Loomis in the beginning then quit, and months later when I was much better I got a lot more out of it because I wasn't ready then. Books can be helpful, but ultimately you have everything you need and it's up to you to just do it a lot.

tldr, there are no easy answers or perfect curriculum, you just have to trust you'll get better by drawing a lot, as scary as that might be.

My recommendation is to start off with something like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It's short and to the point, and if you stay dedicated you can complete it in a week or 2. It gets you started off with the basics of what an artists needs to focus on to draw what he/she sees. Afterwards, there's a book called the Natural Way to Draw, which pretty much tackles the topic of drawing with brute force. No nifty tricks or shortcuts or anything like that. It consists of 24 schedules, each with 15 hours of various exercises. The book is supposed to take from 6-24 months to finish. The only real way to get good at drawing anyways is to just draw a lot, and the Natural Way to Draw is packed full of useful exercises and hours of work. Obvi take my advice with a grain of salt, but I still consider myself a new artist and this has helped me greatly. Good luck.

The Loomis books linked to in the Sidebar are free (copyright expired). Proko's channel is free too.

My recommendations for grinding are Perspective Made Easy and How to Draw by Scott Robertson

If they don't have the books at your library, you don't have to buy anything to get good at drawing. The most important is mileage. For example, doing a lot of still life scenes will give you a similar training as going through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. The amount of drawing you do is the number one element that will decide how good you become.

Go for it!

"I don't really see any improvement so I'm kind of worried I didn't follow the directions correctly." No way dude! When I look at your earliest figure drawing and compare it to your latest figure drawing I can see definite improvements! I am like you, in that I am currently trying to learn to draw and I have no interest in giving up. Sometimes I get really discouraged because I don't think I'm improving fast enough or I will compare myself to other artists. But becoming "good" at drawing isn't going to just happen in a month or two. It takes years! And you are doing really well! However, here are some books about drawing that someone else had suggested to me: -‘Fun With A Pencil’ by Loomis -‘Perspective Made Easy’ by Ernest Norling -‘Keys to Drawing’ by Bert Dodson -‘Figure Drawing For All It’s Worth and Drawing The Head and -Hands’ by Loomis -‘The Vilppu Drawing Manual’ -‘Figure Drawing: Design and Invention’ By Michael Hampton

Hope this helps! c:

As a beginner myself I found Betty Edwards' book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" extremely valuable.

This book focuses on perception, on the primary problem of drawing symbols for what you see (childhood drawings are a perfect example of that) instead of directly drawing what you see, and on the perceived elements (edges, light and shadow, negative spaces, relationships between objects, perspectives, etc). It's basically a guide on learning how to perceive and draw things directly as you see them without the symbolic part of the brain interfering.

I think the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book could take 40-50 hours and you'd learn a lot. I'm using a few resources including that book and https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals , and even with about a month averaging 1 hour a day I'm seeing vast improvement as a super-beginner. I think first year gains can be pretty huge, especially if you self-critique and (I'm coming to learn for me personally) draw each thing more than once after critiquing to try and improve with purpose. /u/uncomfortable will help you with deliberate practice by giving feedback on artfundamentals.

A key thing is your pace will differ from others, but you will be ahead of someone with 0 hours after 20 hours for sure.