Hey guy's... I've been trying to draw things, and thought I'd post some thing's i've been drawing here, and see if I can get some help in improving what I'm doing.
My piece of advice is all about holding the pencil. Hold it higher up than you would normally hold it when you're writing - think of it more like a chopstick or a paint brush.
Don't press too hard, or too lightly. Find a nice middle ground. And having sketchy lines is okay, just make sure you run over them again to make one solid line.
Make long, swift strokes with the pencil. Don't spend too much time going over and over an area, making little marks. Just a smooth sweep to get the line you want.
Go to a bookstore or your local library and pick up a drawing book - any kind of drawing book! Depending on the style you want, you might opt for a master-class type of book, with classical styles. Or you might find cartooning and caricature books helpful. I know I do.
Keep at it. Draw anything that pops into your head, or anything that catches your eye!
One of the hardest jumps for all most all artists is getting past what your drawing has to what it actually looks like.
For example when I say to someone that does not draw, draw a face, what do they do? They say to themselves what does a face have? Eyes, hair, a circle, a nose, and so on... But they usually draw each part by itself and arrange them on the face where they should be. They don't ever thing of the whole, or more importantly what the face should look like with shadows, what is hidden, implied lines, and so on...
Asok's suggestion on getting an instructional book is great for just having something to reference for ideas. Cartooning books are great as well for tips on how to proportion things and creating an awesome composition.
It looks great Xan! Keep it up, and I look forward to more!
Is that pencil work? It looks dark enough to be charcoal, but then that might be just after scanning it.
All I'll say is that HANDS ARE HARD. Lots of really good artists still flubb up the hands. If you don't want to get discouraged easily, you may want to improve your style with other parts of the anatomy first. When you are starting to get a bit more confidence, then go for hands.
Something to help in the early stages: COPY! Yes, that's right. COPY COPY COPY
(Not the same thing as tracing.)
We're conditioned from a young age to think that copying is bad. But what have artists been doing for countless years?
Life drawing, still life, portraits, landscape artists...they are copying what they see. It's the vital first thing to learn before you start learning how to draw things from your imagination.
Now if its something you can't see for real...like a spaceship then how can you practice if you aren't good at drawing from your imagination (yet). The answer is to look at other people's spaceships and copy it wholesale or in pieces. Now this is practice only...you can't go and say it's yours, obviously.
But you can sure as hell show people the original drawing and your copy of it, and you can see the improvement over time. Drawing from memory will eventually lead to drawing from imagination. When I was in grade school I used to draw the thundercats so much, specifically the thundertank that I could draw it by rote. I used to do thundertank doodles in all my school notebooks. I had pages in my scrap book filled with the thundertank. How did i get to know that thing so intimately?
I had episodes recorded on VHS, and I used the pause button and I drew the thundertank from every angle that it appeared. Eventually i could draw it from memory in any position...which is a short hop from being able to draw it in any way I imagined.
My piece of advice is all about holding the pencil. Hold it higher up than you would normally hold it when you're writing - think of it more like a chopstick or a paint brush.
Don't press too hard, or too lightly. Find a nice middle ground. And having sketchy lines is okay, just make sure you run over them again to make one solid line.
Make long, swift strokes with the pencil. Don't spend too much time going over and over an area, making little marks. Just a smooth sweep to get the line you want.
Go to a bookstore or your local library and pick up a drawing book - any kind of drawing book! Depending on the style you want, you might opt for a master-class type of book, with classical styles. Or you might find cartooning and caricature books helpful. I know I do.
Keep at it. Draw anything that pops into your head, or anything that catches your eye!
Boshuda
One of the hardest jumps for all most all artists is getting past what your drawing has to what it actually looks like.
For example when I say to someone that does not draw, draw a face, what do they do? They say to themselves what does a face have? Eyes, hair, a circle, a nose, and so on... But they usually draw each part by itself and arrange them on the face where they should be. They don't ever thing of the whole, or more importantly what the face should look like with shadows, what is hidden, implied lines, and so on...
Asok's suggestion on getting an instructional book is great for just having something to reference for ideas. Cartooning books are great as well for tips on how to proportion things and creating an awesome composition.
It looks great Xan! Keep it up, and I look forward to more!
Is that pencil work? It looks dark enough to be charcoal, but then that might be just after scanning it.
All I'll say is that HANDS ARE HARD. Lots of really good artists still flubb up the hands. If you don't want to get discouraged easily, you may want to improve your style with other parts of the anatomy first. When you are starting to get a bit more confidence, then go for hands.
Something to help in the early stages: COPY! Yes, that's right. COPY COPY COPY
(Not the same thing as tracing.)
We're conditioned from a young age to think that copying is bad. But what have artists been doing for countless years?
Life drawing, still life, portraits, landscape artists...they are copying what they see. It's the vital first thing to learn before you start learning how to draw things from your imagination.
Now if its something you can't see for real...like a spaceship then how can you practice if you aren't good at drawing from your imagination (yet). The answer is to look at other people's spaceships and copy it wholesale or in pieces. Now this is practice only...you can't go and say it's yours, obviously.
But you can sure as hell show people the original drawing and your copy of it, and you can see the improvement over time. Drawing from memory will eventually lead to drawing from imagination. When I was in grade school I used to draw the thundercats so much, specifically the thundertank that I could draw it by rote. I used to do thundertank doodles in all my school notebooks. I had pages in my scrap book filled with the thundertank. How did i get to know that thing so intimately?
I had episodes recorded on VHS, and I used the pause button and I drew the thundertank from every angle that it appeared. Eventually i could draw it from memory in any position...which is a short hop from being able to draw it in any way I imagined.
Hope it all makes sense.
its pencil.. I used my phone to take a pic.. dont' have a scanner :( ... anyway thanks for the tips... I appreciate all of them :)