LOOKING FOR ADVICE ON HOW DRAW THINGS THAT ARE WORTH A DAMN.

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Isrieri
"My father told me this would happen."
6155
My name is Isrieri. I cannot draw.





That's the best I got.

My ability to draw has never advanced past the point of a 2-year-old and I never drew anything as a child.

I fear that I may well be forever doomed to the life of a stuffy, uninteresting, and inexpressive chartered accountant unless dire action is taken ASAP.



I've found myself with some more free-time recently than I would probably like so I want to spend it practicing something worthwhile rather than to fritter it away on chips and bean paste. So I thought I would try to improve my extremely lacking drawing ability. Being able to draw something that another person could look at and say "Yeah its okay but there's a couple of things you can do to clean it up" would be a DREAM COME TRUE.

RMN is filled with talented artists so I appeal to you for help: Do you know of any resources or programs that might help a complete amateur get his feet off the ground? Did you learn any tricks or techniques that might help the uninitiated? Are there any videos out on the web that you think are good sources to reference?

I can go looking for this stuff on my own but I thought to ask folks who are in the know regarding the ins-and-outs first.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
OK first of all let me ask, are you SURE you want to learn how to draw? Because once you develop any level of skill you will no longer be able to unsee all the shit drawings around you.

If you are OK with consigning yourself to an ever-increasing level of suffering the flaws of others, then go ahead.

I have heard very good things about the book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain." In general, the way to get better at drawing is to draw things from life, over and over and over, until you want to die. Especially things you hate drawing, like hands and feet and cars.

Then keep that up for like ten years and you're on the way to being pretty good maybe :V
I don't know a single artist on youtube who has a better art tutorial than Sycra!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piKV5nXL-C4&list=PLV2X3tgajVlEAo91iOj8w5YizC_fLULzu
(His first video is a bit slow and uninteresting to some people so you may want to start on video 2, but it's up to you!)

As you go through the beginner's playlist he'll reccommend books you can pick up too which are A+ as far as I can tell (I've gotten 2 of the cheaper many books he's reccommended across all his videos).

After you get through the beginner's tutorials, you can just look up some of his specific videos and practice! Practice is super important which Sycra will drill into you if you watch! These videos have the added bonus of being very chill/low key and obviously you can just pick up or leave off when you need to since you're watching youtube videos/reading books he suggests.

As an added bonus, I advice drawing on everything all the time~ Most of the improvement I go through happens completely on accident and the best way for an accident to happen is to do something alot. I'd also advice keeping learning very low key. If you put importance on learning to draw then it might feel like a job and be harder to get into. Making it fun is super important. So, if you have to practice something hard make sure you offset it with something you like drawing like a silly face or something.

Oh oh, and this pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/characterdesigh/ is super helpful. Try emulating some eye candy and have fun with it!

This website is helpful for getting poses down to a science: http://www.posemaniacs.com/ and I like browsing the website for reference if I want to put a character in a certain position. It's pretty cool since you can view the models in 360 degrees and zoom in etc.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
It depends on what you want to draw.

If I'm drawing a person:

If I'm drawing a person in full action pose, I'll draw a wire frame first. This is basically just skeleton with all of the necessary joint placements, kind of a glorified stick figure. This is way more advanced than you're ready for.

If I'm drawing a person's portrait:

I would start by drawing the basic shapes of the face; an oval to define the overall shape of the face, positional lines to mark the horizon of the eyes and the mouth, and the vertices of the ears and nose. This is much simpler, but probably a bit more than you'd be willing to tackle.

So, let's start with a simple still life. How about a dry martini in a stemmed glass? I like that. It is basic, simple, but has enough complexity and dimension to give a real feel for the basics of drawing. First, let's start with the basic shape of the glass.



Just two triangles, a rectangle, and a couple of circles for the olives. Already, it looks like a martini, but obviously, it's missing the basic elements that make it a martini. There's no dimension or depth, and obviously, there's no liquid in the glass. So we need to take another couple of things into consideration: eliminating extra lines, depth, dimension, and the displacement of the glass itself, but if you look at those olives, you'll see that I've already put some consideration into configuration of the glass, and the fact that there are walls defining where the liquid will be, but the olive on the bottom is probably going to have to be moved. So, with that in mind, let's move those olives, erase those extra lines and add the liquid.



Now, that's starting to look drinkable. I even added circles to the olives to show they're stuffed. But it's still missing depth. There's a few ways we can add this; light reflection from a window (which I won't be adding since this is a pixel image and reflection will take away from the effect, such as it is), slight angling to show off the curvature of the glass...oh, and we're missing the toothpick!



Now, all that's missing is the shadow, but this is supposed to be simple, and making a shadow for a clear glass with clear liquid gets into some technical detail that you're probably not ready for. So, let's leave this here for the moment.

From here, you can see what you basically need to do to draw any image. Remember that everything breaks down to shapes, even people. Just break everything down to it's basic geometry and then work your way up.
I'm still an amateur so there's very little useful I can say, but a big thing that artists deal with at every level is feeling shy about drawing from references. if you can find good references for poses, architecture, or anatomy, please allow yourself to use them! your work will benefit hugely, and it doesn't make your work inauthentic -- it isn't remotely close to tracing, no matter what your gut might try to tell you.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
It is beyond me why anyone would avoid references. If it's good enough for the pros, it's good enough for you!
Trace over other people's drawings :V

Really though, I'm not sure if I improved at all since I decided to "become better" at drawing. But I did learn quite a lot by copying other people's work; replicating their process and such (or, trying to).

It may not be the most effective way to it, but it's more fun than reading books, watching vids, or taking classes chock full of theory, at least :)

J-just don't actually trace over their stuff...
Basically what pianotm said. Don't sweat the details, first start off the basic fundamentals - try to break stuff down into bigger shapes. For a long time, I started drawing people with boxes rather than the more elaborate stick figures. I still use both (I'm by no means a great artist, I just do it a little bit on the side when I feel like it)

The foundation of proportion and shape gives you a roadmap to what to do next.
Squares, triangles, circles. Break it down, look how the proportions are. You may draw mental lines to see how it works - for the martini glass you may note the width of the bottom and top part is the same, where you grab it is in the middle of it.


I just whipped this up in a sec to demonstrate what I mean. Deal with it.

There are a couple of ways to help you - and everyone adjusts that slightly differently. I like to do a light lines as a cross so I can see where the middle is and then adjust from there. Is something more on the right side or on the left side? etc.
This allows you to see how stuff actually looks simplified, how the proportions are, and also give you routine for the sketching process. Try a few ways out and then stick to one.
Details are all filled in later on top of the sketch - adding some bumps and curves and the little stuff.
If you get the basic proportions down, of how shapes/bodyparts/parts come together, even if it is simple and without too much skill or detail, it will look right. It may not look good or great, but it will already look right.

What I suggested for my brother starting out and what he fared well with is to break poses and such down. He was interested in drawing people specifically, so he went to look at different collection of poses and broke them down into stick-figures (important - add two extra line for shoulder and hip, compared to the usual stickfigures)



I like this because you can easily identify the poses even without any meat or big skills to it. Also gives you a nice starting point.

People are more complex and generally more difficult, but if you are far more motivated to do them than anything else, I don't see why not. If anything goes for you choose something a lil simpler.
Generally - take a few pictures, or look at stuff in your room and break it down.



There is no shortcut. Only primitive.

See art you like? Copy art.
Do not trace over.
See with eye, copy on paper.

Start will be difficult. Because you compare.
But.
Body will understand training.
Brain will understand training.
Become good artist.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=Nivlacart
There is no shortcut. Only primitive.

See art you like? Copy art.
Do not trace over.
See with eye, copy on paper.

Start will be difficult. Because you compare.
But.
Body will understand training.
Brain will understand training.
Become good artist.


Truth.

Probably the biggest obstacle an aspiring artist will face is learning to actually see things you're drawing: most people don't actually see the thing itself, but a sort of symbolic representation, so when you try to draw it, your brain goes, "Hm, well, that's a tree, I know what they look like: straight trunk, branches, puffy leaves! Wait, why doesn't this look the same?"

It's a tricky process, since you're basically having to relearn what everything looks like, which is why just about every drawing class I've taken involves drawing a thing (cars, feet, hands, etc.) over and over until you're fukken sick of seeing them.
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
Keep in mind, this is a skill that develops over time through some serious dedication and practice. If you expect to be able to draw at a level other people are going to expect within the span of a single year, I hate to break it to you, but it really doesn't work that way.

Not to discourage you, mind you. Drawing is probably one of the best ways to understanding and appreciating the finer details of life imo. If you are trying to make a career shift at your point in life, however, just don't expect immediate results and you might be better off trying something else in the meantime.

(Aren't you a good level designer, at least by what I've seen in the SMBX events? Why not milk that?)
Isrieri
"My father told me this would happen."
6155
author=Ratty524
Keep in mind, this is a skill that develops over time through some serious dedication and practice. If you expect to be able to draw at a level other people are going to expect within the span of a single year, I hate to break it to you, but it really doesn't work that way.


Heck no. I have no delusions of even getting to 'decent' that's the end-goal! I just want to be able to draw at all. I've been practicing a little bit these last few weeks and it feels like I haven't gotten anywhere (I guess my hands are getting less jittery though, so that's a plus). I'm keeping at it because, in addition to the promise of getting better, practicing makes me more diligent in other aspects of life. If I can create good habits and stick to a schedule I may even finish a game one of these days.

Also THANK YOU EVERYONE I LOVE YOU ALL YOU ARE GREAT SPORTS. Such wonderful advice!
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
author=Isrieri
Heck no. I have no delusions of even getting to 'decent' that's the end-goal! I just want to be able to draw at all. I've been practicing a little bit these last few weeks and it feels like I haven't gotten anywhere (I guess my hands are getting less jittery though, so that's a plus).

"not getting anywhere" is pretty much what it's going to feel like if you haven't drawn much throughout your life. Keep trying, though!
Keep at it, I'm no real artist either but I'm much better than I was a year ago because I've been working on it.
This is a logo I made for my 2014 IGMC entry, look at the character then compare to the guy I made down below.


And this is from my 2015 IGMC entry, you can see that my at style is simmilar but I improved my characters and included a lot more detail.


So just keep at it, the more you draw, the more you'll start to see how things connect better. I good exercise I found was to jut start out small and add on to it. For instance start with a square and turn it into a box, then turn that box into a robot and then turn that into something else.
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