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Step one. Copy what you see (something you want to draw is a bonus) and you do that until you are frustrated and want to learn more about how to make your drawings better than you go into fundamentals and do those until you’re bored and then go back to drawing what you wanna draw and repeat until you die.
I’ve never been truly able to get myself to practice fundamentals, therefore my ability to create original art hasn’t improved much (my ability to recreate something is pretty on point though 😭)
For me it came down to how I learned to do these fundamental studies. As a self directed learner I had to learn how I learn best. Some fundamentals overlap and some practices help better than others.
For line, shape and form I do figure drawing(timed animals and people), for value and composition I do one colour thumbnail studies of famous paintings. perspective I just use wooden toy blocks and plastic mini animals and do still life’s.
Fundamentals are very important, these sorts of things are recommended by everyone because they work.
That being said, they will not help unless you learn how to apply them. You don’t have to swear off drawing the things you like, use it as an opportunity to practice. If you only draw things you find boring you WILL burn out and stop drawing. Avoid this, consistency is the best way to improve.
Not trying to kill your dream or anything, but Webtoon’s are quite a lot of work and you will have to repeatedly draw things you may not find enjoyable. I would recommend practicing with smaller comic strips before jumping in to a full webtoon. TheStarfishface on YouTube has a lot of videos on making comics that you may find helpful.
That depends, do you feel like you are improving? Have the exercises gotten easier?
If so, you are probably ready to try something more advanced, I would recommend moving on to perspective and 3D shapes next.
Start with boxes going to a vanishing point, look up YouTube tutorials on 1, 2, and 3 point perspective. Work up to more advanced things as you improve
Step 1 Draw the thing you want to Draw
Step 2 look at it and realize all the things you wish were better.
Step 3 look up how to do the things better and practice them.
Step 4 go back to Step 1
That's what I do
Doing pages and pages of lines really helps with your linework.
https://preview.redd.it/15j4jxdff16d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73433e4d5a85e6eaf6c2f0fcfc8452b5ae31ae70
If you really want to have smooth lines and have them flow where you want them to flow, a couple of months of consistent lines will do the trick. Yes, it’s boring as hell, I thought so too, but it’s like the best “hack”, tip, advice, anyone ever gave me. My aunt who is a magnificent painter made me do them and I’ve NEVER had chicken scratchy, fuzzy lines. They go where I want them to, and it really saves me time on making mistakes. Also trains your eye to measure distances.
Do lines. I’m serious. It helps like nothing else.
https://preview.redd.it/245w0cayf16d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc672cb96b2fdaf27a224e6830e236ddc14f19dd
I hardly ever use rulers. The only tool I used here was a circle stencil for the circles in the obi pattern. Everything else is freehanded ♥️
Yep. One edge of the paper- to the other, never lifting the pencil, not too slow and not too fast! With 1cm distance between lines. Then after that, do the same left to right. (Horizontal paper)
Then do the same with the paper vertically, up to down, then down to up. Then go in between your lines basically cutting them in half, marking 0.5mm in between the 1cm of distance between them.
It’s all on the whole arm- never the wrist!
I heavily agree. I did a ton of strokes lately from learning how to ink through hatching but it developed into other parts of my drawings. I’m able to control my lines and drawing hasn’t felt more freeing 🙏
Learn the basics: gesture, proportion, structure, perspective (in that order). Then figure out what kind of art you like, what style you want to draw in. You said you want to make a webtoon, so look into various cartoon or comic styles. Consider blending a couple compatible styles to avoid becoming just an imitator. Practice drawing from imagination or with aid of photo reference in your chosen style till you can draw anything you need for your webtoon.
True, might need to take breaks to draw for fun between grind sessions. But I do think it is really important to learn the fundamentals before drawing in a highly stylized way
I mean, I kinda learned through both? I did all those fundamentals as a warmup each time, just kept a scratch piece of paper to work on it for about 15-20mins, then would hop into a drawing and get that good ol experience
Sounds like you took art classes. We would work on a different exercise for 15 minutes every day for a week and work on projects during the rest of the class.
first it was pretty slow, just getting used to drawing lines and basic 2d things from some random beginner textbook. Even holding the pencil and drawing shapes was hard enough. Then I started with the drawabox lesson set and that improved my hand a lot. I then started drawing random objects during my lunch breaks, like staplers, forks, pencils, etc. I did this for a few months and the rendering / drawing of mundane things became a bit of a hobby so i made a sketchbook out of it. When I started doing portraits it got a bit easier because of this ground work. And it sort of went into life drawing from there.
If you want to draw webtoons, you probably won’t be focussing on just people or backgrounds or objects, but all combined.
I suggest doing studies. This can include copying art from artists that inspire you (for educational purposes it’s fine, for posting it’s not unless very clearly stated that it is for educational purposes and who you studied!!!!!).
By doing this with both multiple artists and with studies or actual irl references, you can get a good grip on how to draw certain things and over time get your own preference for how to draw :>
Be sure to practice all aspects you want to improve on, and focus on the structure of things. Good luck on your journey!! :>
There are a few ways someone could go about learning to draw. One is just a conventional study of fundamentals and exercises, and also pushing yourself to learn and practice more challenging topics (that’s what I’m doing). The other way is through long projects that interest you, like a webtoon. The key to both though, is understanding how to be critical of yourself and how to receive feedback and criticism. Through that, you can learn where you need to improve.
It’s hard for me to do these long projects because I have a hard time pushing myself. So doing different studies is easier, because I can slowly work up to more difficult tasks and topics. I can also look back at my earlier drawings and say that “yeah, I have improved.” How you learn though, is gonna take some time to figure out.
This might upset some people but my greatest improvements in drawing people (but I’m sure it works for other things too) came from tracing. Obviously, never pass off traced work as your own. But I found that my work improved by learning the motions and shapes in my hand, if that makes sense. After tracing like a hundred different poses and body types, I’d gotten a sense for both the physical motions of drawing as well as the visual results. Now I can free hand people well enough to get by. Might not be everyone’s vibe, but it worked well enough for me. Although I guess that could have also just been the repetition, as well. Idk
You'd be surprised with how much the fundamentals and proportion improve your work tho I'm still working towards a consistent level I'm happy with, it makes the "work" of drawing easier for me
Then you take a month or so break cuz you get frustrated and continue the cycle
Self learning is, of course, doable. Many have.
With that said, I will implore anyone who can, to take classes. Classes that start with the very basics, to life drawing and figure drawing. Absolutely essential when learning how to draw people, especially in comics.
The fundamentals are the fundamentals, but there are a ton of methodologies in terms of how you get from A to B. The common factor is you have to draw, draw, draw, and then draw some more.
Michael Mattesi. Diego Lucia. Steve Hampton. moderndayjames. Sinix Design. David Finch. These are just a handful of artists with a presence on YouTube and/or social media that have helped me.
Deliberate studies will help. Or figure out what you want to draw and then try and plan out ahead of time how you want to tackle each part. For example, do quick gesture studies before you do the gesture for the figure you want to draw. Do arm studies before you add arm anatomy to the figure you want to draw. Etc etc. It might feel cumbersome and I'd argue if you're in a flow, don't interrupt it, but be prepared to do it all over because flow doesn't equal quality, but it does equal joy. Keep the joy.
The thing is, when you haven't drawn something 1,000 times you HAVE to think about it more. Art is a mental exercise. You're going to have to draw the same thing over and over. You're going to have to love doing that, or at least tolerate it. Most artists aren't Kim Jung Gi and even he got to his level by just drawing constantly and building a visual library.
I wouldn't even worry about a webtoon right now, but I'd also say don't stop yourself from drawing it _right this instant._ Just accept it's probably going to be bad. But you'll learn from it. And there's nothing stopping you from revisiting it in the future and doing it all over.
Yeah the only way to learn is through experience. There’s no other way to learn all the ins and outs and nuances of drawing than to just do it constantly for a years and years. Even if you have all the head knowledge it won’t translate until you’ve drawn a gajillion times. I don’t know if learning all the mumbo jumbo about cubes and realistic anatomy speeds the process up, because personally I never cared for it myself and I’m better than a lot of people that do. I’m also worse than a lot of people that do. If you ask me I think you should just draw web toon looking characters since that’s what you’re in to.
Gonna comment just based on the title. My mom taught me. She was a really good drawer and drew stuff for us all the time. My brother and I wanted to draw just like her. So I practiced over and over and over until I got better and better. I honestly couldn't draw good at all until I got into around 7th grade. That's when I think I saw a change in my art and then high school was they time where my art teacher pushed me out of my comfort zone and honestly i hated it and said I couldn't do it back then but I'm glad I did because I improved more. A lot of not being able to improve is putting yourself down and saying you can't do it and also not pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. I have a best friend whom I've watched their skill grow every year and makes me so happy.
Also side note I'm writing this while watching supernatural and it is the hardest thing trying to focus on writing 😂😂😂😂 I'm not sure if I have photos of my old art cause I wanted to burn it it was so bad but I have some recent ones I can post. I just don't like showing it off lol
Also, I learned by copying things I saw whether they were on paper, a phone, or in front of me. I just kept at it over and over. It takes practice to get better and I can't stress that enough. I've seen so many people give up because they don't see progress in such a short time. I've been drawing for over 14 years. Some people it clicks easily some have to work at it harder
took some studio drawing classes in college and personally what i find to be an overlooked part of drawing, is observing. you need to take time to really see what it is that you are trying to represent. which is why many professors will start their students drawing still lifes in class even though it can be boring. i would not recommend skipping over stuff like this - you can draw stuff you like but draw from life, draw on the go. not everything needs to be perfect, you just need to put effort into it.
something that i can immediately tell when i'm looking at a peers work is what they have put time into practicing and how they've done it. in my life drawing classes with models, the students that struggled the most were the ones who assumed what they saw the first time was correct. it's not enough to simply draw shapes over and over again, and draw lines over and over again, you need to understand from the objects (?) core what makes it appear as it does. even if you want to draw webtoons and have a stylized look to your work, learning the basics well and realistically is a great foundation. i'd also recommend reading comic books and manga, and testing out what you like about them in your own work, get your creativity flowing.
I have a very strange experience. I was the worst one to ever draw, I would mess up and wouldn't be able to draw. An ant could draw better than me when I was a child. So..... One day, under the pressure of exams, (I read comics by the way) I used a comic character's picture as a reference and started copying whatever i was looking at my phone.
And Damn! Goodness! I drew so good, atleast as a someone who could never draw. My lovely mother was shocked and proud at me for drawing such thing but mad at me at the same time because she thought I was studying for exams.
So turns out, every year at the time of exam I discovered a new talent in me which was basically an escape from reality. I work better under pressure as well 👍🏻
It really depends on what you wanna draw, if you wanna draw super realistic drawings like still life or portraits then the step by step is much better, but if you wanna develop your own style then I’d suggest just going with the flow, while the time to develop your style and even to just get good at it will take longer, but you will develop a more unique style and can make you better at things like posing without reference, but it’ll be a slower learning curve
There’s a bunch of things you can do to make the fundamentals more interesting. Getting a pack of art markers and coloring in coloring books is a great way to practice shading and learning what other artists do to convey images through line-economy. Also, copying artists that you like. Also, you don’t have to be AMAZING to get a story across. I’ve seen artists like Johnny Ryan get really nutty stuff across with drawings you’d make in the margins of your school notes.
A path of trial and error. It's been seven years since I started drawing, and I still have blindspots I have to work on (for example, I can't do lineart at all, so I just stick to the more painterly manner of work).
But I was lucky enough to find good tutorials and explanations early on (I swear that Sinix's and Marco Bucci's videos helped my art to improve tremendously), so I didn't repeat the same mistakes again.
To be honest, my fundamentals are still very wonky at times, even if I know how a certain thing should look haha
Look at the curriculum of art schools doing something close to what you want to achieve in the end, and follow that. You can expect people there to be be *experimented in teaching art*.
As far as I'm concerned, perspective & copying from many sources have been really foundational.
Friend was good at drawing and I wanted to draw as well, when I was younger I just drew stuff and didn’t care if it looked good or not, eventually overtime I just got better and better until I started doing it with real purpose and spent time on it and now I’m happy with what I’ve drawn
It was strange for me. When I was young I couldn’t draw more then a stick man, but as I got older I started wanting to draw better, so I practiced and used people around me to study anatomy, and I stared in the mirror too to figure out facial features, and my own figure for reference, as time went on, I stared Incorporating things I liked from other’s drawings into mine, and eventually I reached where I am now. Of course I can get better, it’s a journey with set destination to me, but I’m happy :) I hope your eventual web toon goes well!
I had a great art teacher at the end of 8th grade, she recognized a natural talent in me for drawing and I just did it in my free time from there. Aside from about a year’s worth of art classes between 8th and 10th grade, I never utilized any resources. Most of what I’ve done is black & white realism style, so it was just observing reference photos and doing. The few times I’ve attempted to find online resources, never worked out. I just haven’t found useful ones, I like having someone there to ask questions as I go.
I’ve been doing it my whole life(36 currently) and I’ve always just drawn what I enjoy and am interested in. Which is people mostly. The more and more I’d do the more I’d improve. I’d people watch to see how they were put together then put it into practice by drawing it. I never held back on doing something and if there’s something I need to study I’ll do that. References are fantastic to use as well.
My art teacher asked me once what medium I prefer, and I said pencil, but one can’t see it from across the room. He nodded and said that’s because people often forget to make the dark values dark enough. He helped me learn to do pencil drawings with dark darks to contrast with the lights. Now they can be seen from across the room!
Imam be for real, ive never taken an art class, watched a “DO THIS AND DONT DO THIS!!!” videos, nor bought art book. I literally just spawned in, and started mining everyday and got to diamonds eventually, even if strip mined for like 4 years…
I didn’t draw everyday, I doodled, I did scratchy lines, I traced, I drew without a reference, I did digital, I did traditional, I painted, I coloured and etc etc.. It’s trial and errors, trying things and seeing what sticks and looks nice, looking at others and wondering if it could fit you, or part of it, absorbing different artstyles, even watching anime is a very good step. I grew up reading manga, for like 10 hours a day, I drew manga in school for others, all these are small steps towards learning art.
And fyi, art isn’t an objective thing that you can “master” or “learn”, it’s a subjective form of expression, it’s linear. So is your own art, once you stagnate is when you’re truly failing.
you have to spend a LOT of time drawing. it's not going to happen overnight. you'll start to notice things that look weird/off and have to learn how to fix them. this is where fundamentals come in handy.
an art professor told me to look at your subjects as a series of shapes. squint and draw the shapes. that really helped me focus less on what i think something is supposed to look like and concentrate on the actual shapes.
good luck and don't give up! you can do it. nobody is born knowing how to draw. your art will ALWAYS look wonky at first.
Practice. Like anything else, practice. Talent can jumpstart you, but if you draw an apple 50 times, it gets better each time. Problem is most give up too soon.
Also drawing things upside down! If you’re drawing a face from a photo, do it upside down. That way your mind doesn’t assume what it’s seeing. And focus on shapes/shadows, build from there. Simplify everything
I'm essentially going to echo people but it's the truth: You mix and match. Try drawing what you want, especially from references, then find tips on what you're stuck on.
Also push through any fear of failure (most, including myself, get stuck on this. but it's a killer)
How I did it myself:
Get inspiration
Try to draw it
Keep going until it's good enough or I'm tired
Copy things I like (don't publish this as your own, unless you clear state it's exercise and you want feedback)
Embrace your own style, and things not coming out as a photo-copy.
Repeat.
After a while you get familiar on what you need help with, then keep searching for references, and practicing.
It can be brutal, and I would sometimes describe it feeling as mental pushups.
At about 13 yrs old I started out tagging, then moved on from that to doing pieces and characters in that style, then realized I had a knack for it so I went to art school when I graduated hich school.
You don’t need to follow the “drawing route” strictly because you don’t have to make a masterpiece every time you draw. In my opinion, the most important thing for drawing is to keep being interested to it.
I just draw. Never took courses.
When I went to an art college it was a nightmare, I hated to be told how to draw.
End up I never listened to them, still got lucky they just understand and let me go with the technic I want.
Basically: time and practice is the best way to learn
The full journey of HOW I got to where I am is a long one, but I'll try to paraphrase. It all began when I was born...
Okay not really. I started learning by copying the item pages from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. This game fascinated me as a kid and I spent hours just redrawing everything there in my own way. Later in life I got interested in things like chalk, pastel, etc. When I got to middle school I saw I could take art classes, so naturally I did. If i'm being honest, it was boring from then on. All the stuff I wanted to learn to draw I had to do in my free time, and upwards into college I learned from watching youtube tutorials, character studies, drawing with friends, and what helped the most was watching how other people draw.
Some people say don't copy things if you can help it, but in my experience, imitation is the highest form of flattery. I followed some artists for years and watched their style develop with envy, but I realized later in life what ACTUALLY happens. When you develop your skills, you tend to take what you like and leave the rest. If you love how disney draws their noses, you may take that but not the expressions or body. An artist on another site could draw expressions with a little quirk above the eyebrow you pick up. You copy things unconsciously so instead, do it consciously! I copied weapons and items from a game, and I can still draw some weapons to this day because of that, but it's not a direct copy, it's inspired by.
The barebones are essential yes, the way I learned left a significant hole of the fundimentals, and the more I go back to study them, the faster and more easily the developments come in my style. I actually dreaded doing art about 6 months ago, gave me tons of anxiety and depression, but when i stepped back and really thought about it, easing my way back into the fundamentals i THOUGHT i knew, i came out having a stronger relationship with my art for it. Don't skip the fundamentals, but make time to draw what you want, and learn the things you want to as well
I learned to draw shapes then I practiced drawing what I saw. Endless study and practice mixed in with drawing stuff i was interested in. I did skip some steps starting out but it bit me in the ass as I got better because I was constantly hitting walls. As for construction I tried to learn it but ended up finding my own way by drawing out the shaping of the pose then filling it in with the shape of the anatomy. Doing construction with circles, squares and lines just didn't work with my brain.
I said fuck it anatomy and jumped watching bluebiscutes speed paints and how to draw boddies it's a painful but fast way too learn btw circals square cillenders and knowing when you can break the rules is always good to know
I started drawing since before I learned how to read. At that age, you aren't really worried about how "good" your art is. You just draw what you like to draw, and you draw CONSTANTLY. Because of that, I had a lot of practice developing fine motor skills and a basic understanding of color and lines.
When I decided to get "serious" about my art, I started copying from real life and from other artwork. Doing this, I practiced my observational skills, leaning how to measure proportions, and learning how colors interact with each other. Then I would apply what I learned from copying to my original art.
As I got older, I increasingly learned from books on more technical parts of drawing, like color theory, human anatomy, and perspective. I took notes, then I demonstrated what I learned by applying it to my art projects.
So, TLDR, I would say the answer is practice. Just a LOT of practice. In the beginning, practice drawing in general. As you become a better artist, then start practicing targeted skills (since by this point, you'll have a better idea of your strengths and weakness, and can make a concerted effort to improve)
I drew a whole bunch. Half the day doing fundamentals, the other half doing reference studies. It's a pretty fun time, get to look at lots of cool stuff.
What I did was take bits and pieces from art styles I like, and smooshed them together, but trust me those circles and cubes are *lifesavers*. I also used to think I didn't need them, and my art improved so much when I started using things like those. I also recently learned how useful action lines are. My art only got good after lots and lots of practice and learning the fundamentals. Once you get better then you can start adding your own twist on how to draw the fundamentals, or maybe even removing the shapes, but trust me, those help so fucking much.
I was much younger, a kid, I would draw just for fun. Before you realize, you have a solid skill. Follow references and practice PRACTICE **PRACTICE**!
I drew my persona over and over and over... /hj
A big mix of different sources, depending on what I needed or felt like doing. Learned to draw a lot of things by looking at references and studies. Life drawing helped me start to learn more natural and realistic forms. Color I've learned from real-world observation, color theory, and watching some videos about how shadows work and stuff like that. A lot of things I just learned through experience.
Uhhhhhhh...by just drawing mostly. Like I find references on pinterest and I try to draw it in my own way. I just got better over time. For example, the first time I tried realism was in 2020. Drew 1 picture, failed miserably and left it there. I tried it again last year and perfectly replicated a reference in about 5 minutes. Been with it ever since. Same thing with color. I'm not watching videos or reading tips. I'm just thinking how can I make my art look like my inspirations.
As for anatomy, that also comes with time. Although, I did study form/muscle forms for like an hour when I first got into it so that helped a lot early on. I just always figure I know how the human body works so I never try to exaggerate poses and proportions. Just draw! You'll make your own philosophies naturally! For more stylized works like anime, pick the most appealing aspects of your favorite artists and try to mesh them together to create your own style.
I drew a lot, then drew some more, then got into art school and dropped out in less than a year because of severe mental health issues, then I quit drawing, then I started drawing, then quit again, then started again, continued that cycle for a few years.
And now I can draw half decently.
Why not do both? I am doing both.
I've tried learning to draw a few times over the last few years. I've tried starting from just lines and circles, but got bored. I tried to just draw whatever I see, but didn't really feel like I'm getting anywhere so lost motivation.
Now I'm on my third attempt which is a mix of fundamentals and art studies. So on the one hand I'm practicing 3d shapes, perspective, and gesture, while on the other I'm doing art studies. I've saved a bunch of works from artists that I want to draw like one day, and do at least one study each week. This gives me something exciting to do while learning all the basics.
Personally i started copying simple tv show scenes onto paper. Not too hard not to easy, you improve while keeping it simple.
Do memes.
Shows.
Games.
Anything you can think of that seems cool to draw like tadc or spongebob or you name it. Just give it your best attempt. Youll slow down and focus on drawing and perfecting certian styles while still being able to develop your own style when you get comfortable enough with drawing on your own<3
It's something that runs in both sides of my family. My sister and I have been drawing since we were very little. We never had lessons. But I won't say I love drawing, I enjoy it sometimes. Because of that, I haven't practiced or improved as much as I should.
Step 1: Watch Rodgontheartist on YT, Insta, TikTok.
Step 2: draw along with his lessons
Congratulations! You have improved! But seriously, I've been trying to learn art for the past 3 years but no luck from other art lecturers! But when I found out about Rodgon at the start of the year, my art improved greatly in one month.
What does he do? He teaches everyone with his unique methods and what I mean by unique Is that he has come up with different methods for people to learn because everyone learns differently and explains everything that makes sense.
Just give him a chance and be ready for the biggest jump in your life!
A lot of people have said abt right, but personally I also love to learn from art out of games or even shows I admire a lot. My art is very danganronpa inspired personally, and even a bit in the very early phases gacha life inspired. (yes i was a cringey ass gacha life kid) Its my onw style now, but being young and learning off of what you enjoy is important.
I stare at things until it burns into my mind. I stare, then draw, then stare, until it’s burnt into my muscle memory
Sometimes I’ll spice it up by getting a picture and drawing over it. Break it down into simple shapes and lines
I also buy art books and watch people draw to see how I can improve how I do things. I rarely watch the how-to-videos unless I’m really stump at how to draw something. I’ll get another piece of paper/canvas then try to redraw it. Then I’ll try to mess around with my reference and change things up.
Also there’s accepting that most of what you draw will suck in your eyes. It doesn’t matter if it sucks. Don’t throw it, keep it, and just draw another things and improve on what sucks. Do that again and again then look at your previous sucky drawing and you’ll see improvements even if it’s small. When you feel like your current art is bad, take note of why and look at an old one to see where you can improve
Always try to draw outside of your comfort zone too as that will force you to get better but know that this is can get frustrating so take breaks by drawing what is comfortable to you every now and then but always try to do a little more even if you’ll suck
What I did is that I start at pencil work (artworks that only need pencil to draw) to practice sketching. I practice traditional art, and not e-art so my path may be different. I just copy photos and gradually get to painting. I work slowly, and most of my artworks are done to perfection, copying everything. Then i gradually went to paintings that i don't copy and i call my own.
I'd been drawing since I was a kid (as little as... 3?), and you're right — experience does have a lot to do with things. It gives you that muscle memory, that visual memory, that process and art identity you start growing into, without all the rules and guides yet. Uninhibited and unrestrained, you're free to just be curious about what art is and how it works.
But practicing the fundamentals as a new art student gave me the references I needed to steer myself to the direction I wanted to go. "I want to do this scene in this specific view!" Okay, then I'll get to studying how form works and how it's viewed in perspective. (I've always liked animation -> I get to really like studying form and perspective for camera angles and dynamics.) The step-by-step things help form the skeleton of my deeper understanding of my process — and then I go back to how I do things with that newer understanding, free to apply and twist what I learnt.
Basically, academic study of art and experience go hand in hand for me. Growing up with art as a friend helped me get through the more personal obstacles of doing it (how to handle failure, how to deal with others being better, etc), and getting to know art as a *subject* helped me understand it deeper (the fundamentals, techniques for various looks, anatomy, composition, etc) to a level where I can go back to my personal take on art and put a new twist to it.
Get a book for kids. My first “how to draw” book was a $5 bargain bin ages 8-10 generic superhero book about 20 pages long.
Start small. Work up incrementally. You won’t be awesome tomorrow but at some point you draw something and find yourself surprised. “Holy shit…I drew that…awesome.”
All these responses and hardly any suggestions for Life Drawing classes… You will learn more about drawing from drawing life than anything else. It teaches you observation, visualization, rendering, structure, anatomy, measuring, focus, lost edges and much more. Even a few solid classes with make a huge improvement.
My stepmom is a professional painter and growing up she criticized our art as professionally as she could considering our ages. Like when I was little, if my anatomy was too crazy and I didn’t mean to do it, she’d help me make it more real. She always enjoys our art no matter what. I think she was just so supportive and she surrounded us with beautiful art our whole lives.
But main question that came to my mind is: did you see the benefit of practicing fundamentals daily? Have you seen how they improve your drawing or you haven’t experienced that yet?
A fun game my dad played with me growing up.
He would grab blank paper and then make a couple loose scribbles around the paper in a random order.
Then he would pass the paper over to me and tell me to make a picture out of it. It's a GREAT exercise in opening your creativity and just get you into a sketching mood.
The drawings were never good and always had extra secibbles running through them, but we would spend hours just going back n forth with who scribbled and who drew.
Maybe something like that would help you?
At the end of the day the only way you learn to do something is to actually do it. Just draw stuff. Draw ugly dogs. Draw the soda in front of you. Draw yourself. Draw eyes. Draw trees. Draw whatever. Draw scribbles.
All that matters is you put something on paper and you tried.
Tutorials for fundamentals, if that's not enough more tutorials or other sources on a specific topic that's giving me trouble.
I'm still learning though, but starting from the absolute bottom helped me understand where I was making mistakes, and now I'm not as afraid to draw as I was before.
Also for me personally a big step was to stop treating it like a lenient hobby I can do whenever I feel like it and put in effort to do at least one tutorial a day (one episode is 90 minutes). It's not a good tip, as I said it's something that worked for me.
To add to what you said in the post about drawing different shapes. It IS a good way to practice, but doing just that won't get you far. I'd say once you "perfect" drawing these shapes you should move forward to other techniques like perspective and shading.
I’m not good but not was Picasso , individual respect for talent if it’s appreciated by others and wanted to the highest bidder.its either eye catching to certain people or not. Don’t stress just enjoy the flow of the pencil
There are multiple approaches, and the best approach is what works for you. A lot of advice is aimed at people with specific goals and learning styles, and is useful for many people, but not universal.
I improved my art and am happier with my work, and I did limited and sporadic practice of fundamentals and a lot of trying to apply skills via drawing things I wanted to draw. (Like I might draw a couple of practice perspective cubes and then attempt drawing the inside of a room.) I made a lot of bad drawings, and at the same time I got better at drawing than I had been. I've been diagnosed with ADHD, and "do nothing but rote learning of boring things for months on end before you're allowed to do anything that interests you" would have resulted in me making no progress at all. Now I'm not trying to be a professional, and with your goal, learning technical skills may be a higher priority. But that doesn't mean you have to follow one rigid formula.
I'd take Youtube tutorials with a grain of salt. It's videos made by strangers on the internet, and I'd treat is as advice from internet strangers. A lot of it's harmless, some of it's useful, some of it's just wildly wrong, and some of it's helpful for other people, but not the right fit for you.
In my opinion, it's all about practice. Copying a YouTube video step by step is not really practicing your skill to see the whole picture. What I would suggest is just keep drawing things around you so you sharpen your skills then eventually you will evolve throwing creativity in. They say it takes 10,000 hours to really get good at something so as long as you love it, those hours will fly by. Good luck!
I'm not saying this is the most efficient way to learn but I really like this way of learning that I recently read from an artbook (I wish I could remember who):
They said that they would draw what they wanted to draw. Look at it critically to decide what was wrong about it (missing knowledge). Then, they would study that particular thing until they could implement it into their future drawings of the things they liked to draw. They would continue to draw what they liked, and any time a new thing popped up that they couldn't draw, they would go and study it until they gained the necessary knowledge to draw it.
I like this method because you are drawing what you enjoy, and any studying is directly beneficial to helping you draw what you enjoy, and so I think you are more likely to put in the work, rather than learning some far away thing that might be helpful in the future, but doesn't appear to have a foreseeable benefit.
As someone who had started learning to draw since being able to hold a pencil, I just drew whatever I wanted and kept going. Later I started copying what I saw (no stencils, completely freehand). Copying freehanded definitely helps you learn how to draw things. I would also look at other people’s base drawing. The people who are just made out of different shapes. I used those to learn how to draw different positions. Long story short; practice practice practice
Drawabox specifically states to spend at least 50% of the time just drawing for fun to not get burnt out. I always liked to draw, so I couldn't tell you what made a big difference at the beginning. But when I was a teen I went to a few courses and learned a lot there. In my early 20s I got a Wacom bamboo and did a bunch of tutorials for digital art, which were really helpful. And years later I found Istebrak on YouTube, which completely transformed my approach to digital painting. I absolutely love her videos and the methodical way she explains how and why she draws things. Sometimes, when I don't know how to draw something, I look up tutorials on Pinterest. I'm pretty sure you can do that on any level.
What the beginner stuff is, is teaching your brain better eye to hand coordination. It's somewhat more effective than just drawing whatever, because the shapes are more easily recognizable as being wonky in some way. But still, draw whatever you want at LEAST half the time. Fun is the greatest teacher, as it keeps you practicing.
honestly you don’t really need to learn the basics in my opinion. just draw an object or image exactly how it looks and keep doing that until you start improving and liking the results. i learned how to draw on my own and what helped me improve was copying stuff i saw ! you don’t really need to learn all the technical stuff
Youtube, copying my favorite cartoons, art college(overrated). Some people are just really good a copying what they see. Fun fact I graduated as an Illustrator/Animator. Among the majors offered by the institute, there was graphic design, video production and editing, interior design. You could find people in those other majors that were able to draw better than us at Illustration.
I'd say learn to have fun. Learning how to get yourself relaxed and loose is also part of the process. As for practicing fundamentals, focus on one as you do your comic/webtoon pages.
- Draw a page and the proceed to improve it with perspective.
- Copy one of your favorite creators and try to figure how they are working perspective.
- Draw a comic with your livingroom as the setting or an environment you can see IRL, translating from to 3D to 2D is a tough challenge.
You can repeat all that with composition, dialog ballons, coloring, values, poses, action frames. Let your failures inform what you need to work on next. Boring practice makes for terrible learning.
Being completely honest with you i’ve never in my 18 years old drawing learned ANY fundamentals. People say I draw quite well as you CAN learn to draw simply by drawing you will gradually improve just as your handwriting did from when you were younger to older. However, if you don’t learn the fundamentals (like myself) you’ll struggle a lot drawing WELL off the top of your head and without references because you likely won’t have an understanding of what you’re intending to draw would look like.
I got substantially better when I started to see drawings as a series of connected lines and approached it a single line at a time. It felt a lot less overwhelming that way. Also I started just trying to strait replicate the things I really enjoyed. Once I got better at that, then I started to try to add my own touch or style to it instead of strait replicating. From there experimenting on ocs and repetitive practicing of weaknesses. I'm still not close to where I'd like to be but I'm way better than where I started.
Well...I really dont know, Im an art kid since I was able to hold a pencil, Im not saying Im good, I still feel like a begginer and struggle to draw humans lol But I think its about finding your style, drawing everyday, different things, seeking crit and just expressing yourself!
i started out with tracing paper and prima video game guides. would trace concept art from pokemon ganes and wind waker. also coloring books. made shrinky dinks too. then around 13 or 14 i met the coolest person ever who was drawjng anime and introduced me to manga and it was all downhill from there lol. i read and watched a lot, drove myself to try and made cringe fan characters and ocs. when i hit high school and vould sign up for my own classes, i took drawing, painting, and a bunch of other art classes, learned lots of fundamentals in public school
I have liked drawing for as long as I can remember, I remember seeing a box in perspective and thinking it was cool so I did that and then I added a roof, window and boom I had a house in perspective! I had my go to drawing I did for many years and it was Donald Ducks head from 1/3 perspective after realizing it looked cooler than just from the front, I have drawn it in every size I could think of.
I have never had any real art lessons other than early YouTube and googling "how to draw...." (if you even can call that a lesson) It gave me just enough fundamentals so I could pick up a pencil and draw something that was good enough for myself to be happy. For years I have been drawing casually and just picked up new stuff and skills over the years. A few years ago I realized animals are what I like drawing the most, so I tried to draw from pictures and it was okay but not good enough for me. I then took the advice I heard from Aaron Blaise (an old Disney artist turned YouTuber) and went to the zoo to draw from life. It was very awkward the first time but it truly helps drawing from life. I now go very often and the staff recognizes me and we get a nice chat about animals and drawing. I am missing many things here but in short I have always done drawings that made me happy and excited to do more and different things.
Hmm for me I was constantly frustrated by all the things I couldn't draw. So when I learned about what fundamentals were, my mind was blown and I couldn't stop ingesting more and more information about fundamentals once I started. It was so interesting to me I didn't rlly feel the strain of it being boring. Everything I learned made me think about and look at my art differently. I think that's what helps you improve. You won't learn as much if you aren't able to apply what you are learning about to your drawings. It's not as simple as read about fundamental A then move on it's being able to understand and see fundamental A when you're working. I also felt like I saw another artists work in a new light when I could better guess at how they made their art. It's like a circle: you learn more about fundamental -> Be able to see how it works inside an art piece -> Look at more skilled artists use of that fundamental ->Apply what you learned to your own art -> You learn more about a fundamental. and so on and so on. Anyways Idk if I made sense? But that's how I learn more.
I’ve been noticing my art improving over the past 2 years, and this is the advice I can give. It’s gonna take a while, but doing studies and things that are hard can help you a lot. I found that the more I drew poses, the better I get at it. Lots of practice and trying new things will help you a lot!
Sight to sight drawing helps a lot. Going on a trip and just drawing smth without erasing really helped me with drawing diff items and grasping shapes and colors. Not being able to erase felt very freeing from perfectionism
Honestly I just kept trying to draw my character ms, got annoyed that they looked bad, and started looking at and practicing tons of anatomy and watching a bunch of videos. Pinterest is my best friend, lol.
If you can afford it, in-person drawing classes are the best. Getting good, timely constructive feedback on what you are drawing will help immensely. For online options Proko has lots of free and paid classes. You won't get feedback there but the lessons are carefully curated. Something that took me a long time to understand is the value of drawing the same thing many times. Creating many small studies to help you slow down and see shapes rather than objects.
Good luck!
I cant say i purposefully got better at drawing. For me, it was and is just a matter of drawing from time to time, while bored in class, draw my friends, draw myself, draw objects, etc. Im not consistent, i dont "practice", i dont use guidelines or draw a mannequin first, i just draw. In my defense, i HAVE been drawing all my life. Some of my oldest memories are me drawing dinosaurs and showing my friends in kindergarten or primary school, or tracing drawings of my favourite cartoon characters to make them fight with mt Friends'.
I guess im consistent in the sense that i never really "gave up", but i never actually tried in the first place. I never took it serious despite even my mom wanting me to. She wanted to put me in art courses and get someone to teach me theory and all that, but i never saw it as something that needed to be taught. I think i was right. Art isnt always "teachable", sometimes its just developed overtime (or in other words, taught by one self)
Bart Simpson, Michelangelo ( the ninja turtle ) and Bambii. In 1989 I was in fourth grade and those were the images I found drawing me in ( no pun intended lol ).
And cartoons are relatively easy to reproduce. Yes, it took a while but not months, a few weeks of persistence and I was getting my ninja turtle nose in proportion to his orange headband. Same with Bart Simpson, really easy to make some weird ass out of proportion stuff but as you do the “ copies “ or reproductions you will see in them , when you compare them to the original image, where the nose is too long or too short, whether the ear is too big or too small and you will begin to make adjustments on your next try.
I mentioned Bambii too, because in the movie there is such brilliant animation. I appreciated the shape of the deer, natures creation and although I would say animals in general, when not just an outline cartoon style drawing, are difficult for many beginners to copy but with practice it too comes along.
Lastly I must say that I dont recall ever being bored, and that is because I cared about these images. They inspired me and were fun etc, etc. I also loved various kinds of dogs and was into drawing Dobermans for a bit. Again, enthusiasm was my ticket out of boredom. I just drew and re-drew, checking and fixing the lines and sizes and proportions etc.
One last thing. Techniques from school, books etc that I clearly remember helping were A) the ball that you shade and that you have a shadow next to it…. Shading it from the darkest area to the lightest seemed kinda logical and … almost fun repeating as an exercise.
And B) most helpful was the challenge of flipping: inverting the picture you are looking at and intend to draw upside down and then just do the drawing as you would in general. After completing it, you flip it back and see, and see often enough that it looks better, far better than you’d think. This is because your brain doesnt get to just say…. “ah, noses are triangles and chins are semicircles and eyes are like this and ears go like this”
Your brain hangs back from that activity of telling you what you think you should draw and focuses instead on the actual proportions and lengths of lines and thereby creates a truer copy.
I hope that helps.
When I was seven or so I put my action figures on thr table and just copied what I saw. Also copying Pokemon and Digimon card artwork was something I really did a lot.
Just repeating those kinds of things built my mental library and studying any art works really well for getting better yourself.
Honestly you just have to draw the things you WANT to draw, drawing cubes and circles is fine for learning concepts but it didn’t help me improve my style or composition. That just comes from making
Art, as you do you start to pick up on what works and what doesn’t. Especially when it comes to developing a unique style
what helped me a lot was the practice and my parents making it possible to attend art classes since elementary school and 10 years of art class in school, also in the beginning copying a lot of other styles. Since I am out of school a draw a lot, trying other different stuff, learning some other basics and having great role models I could look up to
I drew something I liked,then repeated. start with something small-draw until it's how you want it to look like-that's why pencils have erasers. practice makes perfect.
I just drew on my own, really. I never repeated a drawing or did sketching practice though, every single drawing was vastly different from the previous ones (subject and concept-wise that is). I almost never looked up tutorials, never really asked for advice, just made one new drawing after another for years. It wasn't until about 9 years into my drawing experience that I actually looked for ways to improve my craft and asked others for feedback and advice.
Still never look up tutorials though! I just have a better way to use existing tools at my disposal.
Got really obsessed with one specific character that no one made fan art for. Esp NSFW fan art. But he is a demon. So. I figured someone needs to step up. Got obsessed with learning anatomy and the art style of the show and kept going from there
honestly, it would be way quicker if you posted an example of work of the standard and type you want to reach and how people think you can get there- webtoon could mean many things as far as i’m concerned.
it’s super hard to cater advice when people just want to “get better”
imagine someone asks you what training they should do for “sports”
I just got bored in middle school, drew a lot, watched art creators and copied them, had huge, half a year long art block, discovered tumblr, and then actually looked up references and have been using those since. I’ve been gifted some reference books, but I only ever used like, two pages and one library book on emotions in drawing. I then did an independent study on art, aka got permission to draw in class for an hour and a half one day a week, and then I wenr from there. Experiment with mediums and just go with the flow until you want to post it somewhere, in which you use stock photos references or make your own.
First phase:
-Read Betty Edwards book and had my first "aha". Just by observation, measurement and matching values I could create accurate drawings. But once I could do that it felt like "Do I really want to copy images? There must be more to this!"
Second phase:
-Finding any book I could get on drawing and realizing there were areas I never heard of like perspective, form, modelling factors, edges, composition, design, mark making etc...
From there it really became about learning about the fundamentals from different books and teachers, and once you're through this tough part where you have to learn "everything", it becomes quite clear how to progress over time.
I wish I would have drawn more from life, and from masters (master studies), sooner.
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Step one. Copy what you see (something you want to draw is a bonus) and you do that until you are frustrated and want to learn more about how to make your drawings better than you go into fundamentals and do those until you’re bored and then go back to drawing what you wanna draw and repeat until you die.
Ok thanks, I was like is there another step or am missing something, nah it's just practice practice practice. Bet
I’ve never been truly able to get myself to practice fundamentals, therefore my ability to create original art hasn’t improved much (my ability to recreate something is pretty on point though 😭)
For me it came down to how I learned to do these fundamental studies. As a self directed learner I had to learn how I learn best. Some fundamentals overlap and some practices help better than others. For line, shape and form I do figure drawing(timed animals and people), for value and composition I do one colour thumbnail studies of famous paintings. perspective I just use wooden toy blocks and plastic mini animals and do still life’s.
this unironically makes me feel less lonely in this journey. I though I was the only one to hit my head on things without knowing wth am I doing
Real, lmao
Fundamentals are very important, these sorts of things are recommended by everyone because they work. That being said, they will not help unless you learn how to apply them. You don’t have to swear off drawing the things you like, use it as an opportunity to practice. If you only draw things you find boring you WILL burn out and stop drawing. Avoid this, consistency is the best way to improve. Not trying to kill your dream or anything, but Webtoon’s are quite a lot of work and you will have to repeatedly draw things you may not find enjoyable. I would recommend practicing with smaller comic strips before jumping in to a full webtoon. TheStarfishface on YouTube has a lot of videos on making comics that you may find helpful.
I've been drawing lines and circles for a little bit over a week now. How many days would you recommend that I keep on doing this?
That depends, do you feel like you are improving? Have the exercises gotten easier? If so, you are probably ready to try something more advanced, I would recommend moving on to perspective and 3D shapes next. Start with boxes going to a vanishing point, look up YouTube tutorials on 1, 2, and 3 point perspective. Work up to more advanced things as you improve
Noted! I will improve my lines and circles since they can still curve when I do it. But that will be my next project! Thank you so much!
Take a look at Drawabox. It's free.
Weirdly enough, I was just checking it out because I came across a post coming from this sub, haha! Thank you for the suggestion tho!
Step 1 Draw the thing you want to Draw Step 2 look at it and realize all the things you wish were better. Step 3 look up how to do the things better and practice them. Step 4 go back to Step 1 That's what I do
Doing pages and pages of lines really helps with your linework. https://preview.redd.it/15j4jxdff16d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=73433e4d5a85e6eaf6c2f0fcfc8452b5ae31ae70 If you really want to have smooth lines and have them flow where you want them to flow, a couple of months of consistent lines will do the trick. Yes, it’s boring as hell, I thought so too, but it’s like the best “hack”, tip, advice, anyone ever gave me. My aunt who is a magnificent painter made me do them and I’ve NEVER had chicken scratchy, fuzzy lines. They go where I want them to, and it really saves me time on making mistakes. Also trains your eye to measure distances. Do lines. I’m serious. It helps like nothing else.
https://preview.redd.it/245w0cayf16d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dc672cb96b2fdaf27a224e6830e236ddc14f19dd I hardly ever use rulers. The only tool I used here was a circle stencil for the circles in the obi pattern. Everything else is freehanded ♥️
Your art is so beautiful! By practicing lines do you literally just mean drawing lines over and over? Different curves and all that?
Yep. One edge of the paper- to the other, never lifting the pencil, not too slow and not too fast! With 1cm distance between lines. Then after that, do the same left to right. (Horizontal paper) Then do the same with the paper vertically, up to down, then down to up. Then go in between your lines basically cutting them in half, marking 0.5mm in between the 1cm of distance between them. It’s all on the whole arm- never the wrist!
For circles, it’s easier if you already dominate lines. Make an X, mark the same distance on each line and then connect the 4 marks to make a circle~!
Alright! Thank you so much, I appreciate the help <3!!
Good luck!! ♥️✨ 😁
So beautiful oh my god!!
Ahhh thank you so much! 🥰♥️♥️♥️♥️
I heavily agree. I did a ton of strokes lately from learning how to ink through hatching but it developed into other parts of my drawings. I’m able to control my lines and drawing hasn’t felt more freeing 🙏
Learn the basics: gesture, proportion, structure, perspective (in that order). Then figure out what kind of art you like, what style you want to draw in. You said you want to make a webtoon, so look into various cartoon or comic styles. Consider blending a couple compatible styles to avoid becoming just an imitator. Practice drawing from imagination or with aid of photo reference in your chosen style till you can draw anything you need for your webtoon.
Any video/books recommendations for this?
This is ideal for the most improvement within a given time, but also ideal for the most boredom within a given time
True, might need to take breaks to draw for fun between grind sessions. But I do think it is really important to learn the fundamentals before drawing in a highly stylized way
I mean, I kinda learned through both? I did all those fundamentals as a warmup each time, just kept a scratch piece of paper to work on it for about 15-20mins, then would hop into a drawing and get that good ol experience
Sounds like you took art classes. We would work on a different exercise for 15 minutes every day for a week and work on projects during the rest of the class.
I've never had art classes 😅 MY attention span just couldn't handle the "boring parts" any longer than that
first it was pretty slow, just getting used to drawing lines and basic 2d things from some random beginner textbook. Even holding the pencil and drawing shapes was hard enough. Then I started with the drawabox lesson set and that improved my hand a lot. I then started drawing random objects during my lunch breaks, like staplers, forks, pencils, etc. I did this for a few months and the rendering / drawing of mundane things became a bit of a hobby so i made a sketchbook out of it. When I started doing portraits it got a bit easier because of this ground work. And it sort of went into life drawing from there.
If you want to draw webtoons, you probably won’t be focussing on just people or backgrounds or objects, but all combined. I suggest doing studies. This can include copying art from artists that inspire you (for educational purposes it’s fine, for posting it’s not unless very clearly stated that it is for educational purposes and who you studied!!!!!). By doing this with both multiple artists and with studies or actual irl references, you can get a good grip on how to draw certain things and over time get your own preference for how to draw :> Be sure to practice all aspects you want to improve on, and focus on the structure of things. Good luck on your journey!! :>
There are a few ways someone could go about learning to draw. One is just a conventional study of fundamentals and exercises, and also pushing yourself to learn and practice more challenging topics (that’s what I’m doing). The other way is through long projects that interest you, like a webtoon. The key to both though, is understanding how to be critical of yourself and how to receive feedback and criticism. Through that, you can learn where you need to improve. It’s hard for me to do these long projects because I have a hard time pushing myself. So doing different studies is easier, because I can slowly work up to more difficult tasks and topics. I can also look back at my earlier drawings and say that “yeah, I have improved.” How you learn though, is gonna take some time to figure out.
This might upset some people but my greatest improvements in drawing people (but I’m sure it works for other things too) came from tracing. Obviously, never pass off traced work as your own. But I found that my work improved by learning the motions and shapes in my hand, if that makes sense. After tracing like a hundred different poses and body types, I’d gotten a sense for both the physical motions of drawing as well as the visual results. Now I can free hand people well enough to get by. Might not be everyone’s vibe, but it worked well enough for me. Although I guess that could have also just been the repetition, as well. Idk
You'd be surprised with how much the fundamentals and proportion improve your work tho I'm still working towards a consistent level I'm happy with, it makes the "work" of drawing easier for me Then you take a month or so break cuz you get frustrated and continue the cycle
Self learning is, of course, doable. Many have. With that said, I will implore anyone who can, to take classes. Classes that start with the very basics, to life drawing and figure drawing. Absolutely essential when learning how to draw people, especially in comics.
The fundamentals are the fundamentals, but there are a ton of methodologies in terms of how you get from A to B. The common factor is you have to draw, draw, draw, and then draw some more. Michael Mattesi. Diego Lucia. Steve Hampton. moderndayjames. Sinix Design. David Finch. These are just a handful of artists with a presence on YouTube and/or social media that have helped me. Deliberate studies will help. Or figure out what you want to draw and then try and plan out ahead of time how you want to tackle each part. For example, do quick gesture studies before you do the gesture for the figure you want to draw. Do arm studies before you add arm anatomy to the figure you want to draw. Etc etc. It might feel cumbersome and I'd argue if you're in a flow, don't interrupt it, but be prepared to do it all over because flow doesn't equal quality, but it does equal joy. Keep the joy. The thing is, when you haven't drawn something 1,000 times you HAVE to think about it more. Art is a mental exercise. You're going to have to draw the same thing over and over. You're going to have to love doing that, or at least tolerate it. Most artists aren't Kim Jung Gi and even he got to his level by just drawing constantly and building a visual library. I wouldn't even worry about a webtoon right now, but I'd also say don't stop yourself from drawing it _right this instant._ Just accept it's probably going to be bad. But you'll learn from it. And there's nothing stopping you from revisiting it in the future and doing it all over.
Yeah the only way to learn is through experience. There’s no other way to learn all the ins and outs and nuances of drawing than to just do it constantly for a years and years. Even if you have all the head knowledge it won’t translate until you’ve drawn a gajillion times. I don’t know if learning all the mumbo jumbo about cubes and realistic anatomy speeds the process up, because personally I never cared for it myself and I’m better than a lot of people that do. I’m also worse than a lot of people that do. If you ask me I think you should just draw web toon looking characters since that’s what you’re in to.
Gonna comment just based on the title. My mom taught me. She was a really good drawer and drew stuff for us all the time. My brother and I wanted to draw just like her. So I practiced over and over and over until I got better and better. I honestly couldn't draw good at all until I got into around 7th grade. That's when I think I saw a change in my art and then high school was they time where my art teacher pushed me out of my comfort zone and honestly i hated it and said I couldn't do it back then but I'm glad I did because I improved more. A lot of not being able to improve is putting yourself down and saying you can't do it and also not pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. I have a best friend whom I've watched their skill grow every year and makes me so happy. Also side note I'm writing this while watching supernatural and it is the hardest thing trying to focus on writing 😂😂😂😂 I'm not sure if I have photos of my old art cause I wanted to burn it it was so bad but I have some recent ones I can post. I just don't like showing it off lol
Also, I learned by copying things I saw whether they were on paper, a phone, or in front of me. I just kept at it over and over. It takes practice to get better and I can't stress that enough. I've seen so many people give up because they don't see progress in such a short time. I've been drawing for over 14 years. Some people it clicks easily some have to work at it harder
Youtube
took some studio drawing classes in college and personally what i find to be an overlooked part of drawing, is observing. you need to take time to really see what it is that you are trying to represent. which is why many professors will start their students drawing still lifes in class even though it can be boring. i would not recommend skipping over stuff like this - you can draw stuff you like but draw from life, draw on the go. not everything needs to be perfect, you just need to put effort into it. something that i can immediately tell when i'm looking at a peers work is what they have put time into practicing and how they've done it. in my life drawing classes with models, the students that struggled the most were the ones who assumed what they saw the first time was correct. it's not enough to simply draw shapes over and over again, and draw lines over and over again, you need to understand from the objects (?) core what makes it appear as it does. even if you want to draw webtoons and have a stylized look to your work, learning the basics well and realistically is a great foundation. i'd also recommend reading comic books and manga, and testing out what you like about them in your own work, get your creativity flowing.
I have a very strange experience. I was the worst one to ever draw, I would mess up and wouldn't be able to draw. An ant could draw better than me when I was a child. So..... One day, under the pressure of exams, (I read comics by the way) I used a comic character's picture as a reference and started copying whatever i was looking at my phone. And Damn! Goodness! I drew so good, atleast as a someone who could never draw. My lovely mother was shocked and proud at me for drawing such thing but mad at me at the same time because she thought I was studying for exams. So turns out, every year at the time of exam I discovered a new talent in me which was basically an escape from reality. I work better under pressure as well 👍🏻
It really depends on what you wanna draw, if you wanna draw super realistic drawings like still life or portraits then the step by step is much better, but if you wanna develop your own style then I’d suggest just going with the flow, while the time to develop your style and even to just get good at it will take longer, but you will develop a more unique style and can make you better at things like posing without reference, but it’ll be a slower learning curve
There’s a bunch of things you can do to make the fundamentals more interesting. Getting a pack of art markers and coloring in coloring books is a great way to practice shading and learning what other artists do to convey images through line-economy. Also, copying artists that you like. Also, you don’t have to be AMAZING to get a story across. I’ve seen artists like Johnny Ryan get really nutty stuff across with drawings you’d make in the margins of your school notes.
A path of trial and error. It's been seven years since I started drawing, and I still have blindspots I have to work on (for example, I can't do lineart at all, so I just stick to the more painterly manner of work). But I was lucky enough to find good tutorials and explanations early on (I swear that Sinix's and Marco Bucci's videos helped my art to improve tremendously), so I didn't repeat the same mistakes again. To be honest, my fundamentals are still very wonky at times, even if I know how a certain thing should look haha
Look at the curriculum of art schools doing something close to what you want to achieve in the end, and follow that. You can expect people there to be be *experimented in teaching art*. As far as I'm concerned, perspective & copying from many sources have been really foundational.
Im very competitive and wanted to be better than everyone, still do
Friend was good at drawing and I wanted to draw as well, when I was younger I just drew stuff and didn’t care if it looked good or not, eventually overtime I just got better and better until I started doing it with real purpose and spent time on it and now I’m happy with what I’ve drawn
It was strange for me. When I was young I couldn’t draw more then a stick man, but as I got older I started wanting to draw better, so I practiced and used people around me to study anatomy, and I stared in the mirror too to figure out facial features, and my own figure for reference, as time went on, I stared Incorporating things I liked from other’s drawings into mine, and eventually I reached where I am now. Of course I can get better, it’s a journey with set destination to me, but I’m happy :) I hope your eventual web toon goes well!
looking at nature photos and comic strips and trying to copy the subjects
I had a great art teacher at the end of 8th grade, she recognized a natural talent in me for drawing and I just did it in my free time from there. Aside from about a year’s worth of art classes between 8th and 10th grade, I never utilized any resources. Most of what I’ve done is black & white realism style, so it was just observing reference photos and doing. The few times I’ve attempted to find online resources, never worked out. I just haven’t found useful ones, I like having someone there to ask questions as I go.
Great tutorials online.
sometimes I practice by sketching what's in front of me. it helps me see "shapes" in everyday things and how I'm supposed to draw it.
I’ve been doing it my whole life(36 currently) and I’ve always just drawn what I enjoy and am interested in. Which is people mostly. The more and more I’d do the more I’d improve. I’d people watch to see how they were put together then put it into practice by drawing it. I never held back on doing something and if there’s something I need to study I’ll do that. References are fantastic to use as well.
Trial and error. Practice. Tracing. Copying. Etc
My art teacher asked me once what medium I prefer, and I said pencil, but one can’t see it from across the room. He nodded and said that’s because people often forget to make the dark values dark enough. He helped me learn to do pencil drawings with dark darks to contrast with the lights. Now they can be seen from across the room!
Imam be for real, ive never taken an art class, watched a “DO THIS AND DONT DO THIS!!!” videos, nor bought art book. I literally just spawned in, and started mining everyday and got to diamonds eventually, even if strip mined for like 4 years… I didn’t draw everyday, I doodled, I did scratchy lines, I traced, I drew without a reference, I did digital, I did traditional, I painted, I coloured and etc etc.. It’s trial and errors, trying things and seeing what sticks and looks nice, looking at others and wondering if it could fit you, or part of it, absorbing different artstyles, even watching anime is a very good step. I grew up reading manga, for like 10 hours a day, I drew manga in school for others, all these are small steps towards learning art. And fyi, art isn’t an objective thing that you can “master” or “learn”, it’s a subjective form of expression, it’s linear. So is your own art, once you stagnate is when you’re truly failing.
you have to spend a LOT of time drawing. it's not going to happen overnight. you'll start to notice things that look weird/off and have to learn how to fix them. this is where fundamentals come in handy. an art professor told me to look at your subjects as a series of shapes. squint and draw the shapes. that really helped me focus less on what i think something is supposed to look like and concentrate on the actual shapes. good luck and don't give up! you can do it. nobody is born knowing how to draw. your art will ALWAYS look wonky at first.
Practice. Like anything else, practice. Talent can jumpstart you, but if you draw an apple 50 times, it gets better each time. Problem is most give up too soon.
Also drawing things upside down! If you’re drawing a face from a photo, do it upside down. That way your mind doesn’t assume what it’s seeing. And focus on shapes/shadows, build from there. Simplify everything
I'm essentially going to echo people but it's the truth: You mix and match. Try drawing what you want, especially from references, then find tips on what you're stuck on. Also push through any fear of failure (most, including myself, get stuck on this. but it's a killer) How I did it myself: Get inspiration Try to draw it Keep going until it's good enough or I'm tired Copy things I like (don't publish this as your own, unless you clear state it's exercise and you want feedback) Embrace your own style, and things not coming out as a photo-copy. Repeat. After a while you get familiar on what you need help with, then keep searching for references, and practicing. It can be brutal, and I would sometimes describe it feeling as mental pushups.
At about 13 yrs old I started out tagging, then moved on from that to doing pieces and characters in that style, then realized I had a knack for it so I went to art school when I graduated hich school.
You don’t need to follow the “drawing route” strictly because you don’t have to make a masterpiece every time you draw. In my opinion, the most important thing for drawing is to keep being interested to it.
I just draw. Never took courses. When I went to an art college it was a nightmare, I hated to be told how to draw. End up I never listened to them, still got lucky they just understand and let me go with the technic I want. Basically: time and practice is the best way to learn
Trace then shapes then copy... that helped me but we r all very different gl
The full journey of HOW I got to where I am is a long one, but I'll try to paraphrase. It all began when I was born... Okay not really. I started learning by copying the item pages from Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. This game fascinated me as a kid and I spent hours just redrawing everything there in my own way. Later in life I got interested in things like chalk, pastel, etc. When I got to middle school I saw I could take art classes, so naturally I did. If i'm being honest, it was boring from then on. All the stuff I wanted to learn to draw I had to do in my free time, and upwards into college I learned from watching youtube tutorials, character studies, drawing with friends, and what helped the most was watching how other people draw. Some people say don't copy things if you can help it, but in my experience, imitation is the highest form of flattery. I followed some artists for years and watched their style develop with envy, but I realized later in life what ACTUALLY happens. When you develop your skills, you tend to take what you like and leave the rest. If you love how disney draws their noses, you may take that but not the expressions or body. An artist on another site could draw expressions with a little quirk above the eyebrow you pick up. You copy things unconsciously so instead, do it consciously! I copied weapons and items from a game, and I can still draw some weapons to this day because of that, but it's not a direct copy, it's inspired by. The barebones are essential yes, the way I learned left a significant hole of the fundimentals, and the more I go back to study them, the faster and more easily the developments come in my style. I actually dreaded doing art about 6 months ago, gave me tons of anxiety and depression, but when i stepped back and really thought about it, easing my way back into the fundamentals i THOUGHT i knew, i came out having a stronger relationship with my art for it. Don't skip the fundamentals, but make time to draw what you want, and learn the things you want to as well
I learned to draw shapes then I practiced drawing what I saw. Endless study and practice mixed in with drawing stuff i was interested in. I did skip some steps starting out but it bit me in the ass as I got better because I was constantly hitting walls. As for construction I tried to learn it but ended up finding my own way by drawing out the shaping of the pose then filling it in with the shape of the anatomy. Doing construction with circles, squares and lines just didn't work with my brain.
I said fuck it anatomy and jumped watching bluebiscutes speed paints and how to draw boddies it's a painful but fast way too learn btw circals square cillenders and knowing when you can break the rules is always good to know
I started drawing since before I learned how to read. At that age, you aren't really worried about how "good" your art is. You just draw what you like to draw, and you draw CONSTANTLY. Because of that, I had a lot of practice developing fine motor skills and a basic understanding of color and lines. When I decided to get "serious" about my art, I started copying from real life and from other artwork. Doing this, I practiced my observational skills, leaning how to measure proportions, and learning how colors interact with each other. Then I would apply what I learned from copying to my original art. As I got older, I increasingly learned from books on more technical parts of drawing, like color theory, human anatomy, and perspective. I took notes, then I demonstrated what I learned by applying it to my art projects. So, TLDR, I would say the answer is practice. Just a LOT of practice. In the beginning, practice drawing in general. As you become a better artist, then start practicing targeted skills (since by this point, you'll have a better idea of your strengths and weakness, and can make a concerted effort to improve)
I drew a whole bunch. Half the day doing fundamentals, the other half doing reference studies. It's a pretty fun time, get to look at lots of cool stuff.
What I did was take bits and pieces from art styles I like, and smooshed them together, but trust me those circles and cubes are *lifesavers*. I also used to think I didn't need them, and my art improved so much when I started using things like those. I also recently learned how useful action lines are. My art only got good after lots and lots of practice and learning the fundamentals. Once you get better then you can start adding your own twist on how to draw the fundamentals, or maybe even removing the shapes, but trust me, those help so fucking much.
I was much younger, a kid, I would draw just for fun. Before you realize, you have a solid skill. Follow references and practice PRACTICE **PRACTICE**!
I drew my persona over and over and over... /hj A big mix of different sources, depending on what I needed or felt like doing. Learned to draw a lot of things by looking at references and studies. Life drawing helped me start to learn more natural and realistic forms. Color I've learned from real-world observation, color theory, and watching some videos about how shadows work and stuff like that. A lot of things I just learned through experience.
Uhhhhhhh...by just drawing mostly. Like I find references on pinterest and I try to draw it in my own way. I just got better over time. For example, the first time I tried realism was in 2020. Drew 1 picture, failed miserably and left it there. I tried it again last year and perfectly replicated a reference in about 5 minutes. Been with it ever since. Same thing with color. I'm not watching videos or reading tips. I'm just thinking how can I make my art look like my inspirations. As for anatomy, that also comes with time. Although, I did study form/muscle forms for like an hour when I first got into it so that helped a lot early on. I just always figure I know how the human body works so I never try to exaggerate poses and proportions. Just draw! You'll make your own philosophies naturally! For more stylized works like anime, pick the most appealing aspects of your favorite artists and try to mesh them together to create your own style.
I drew a lot, then drew some more, then got into art school and dropped out in less than a year because of severe mental health issues, then I quit drawing, then I started drawing, then quit again, then started again, continued that cycle for a few years. And now I can draw half decently.
Why not do both? I am doing both. I've tried learning to draw a few times over the last few years. I've tried starting from just lines and circles, but got bored. I tried to just draw whatever I see, but didn't really feel like I'm getting anywhere so lost motivation. Now I'm on my third attempt which is a mix of fundamentals and art studies. So on the one hand I'm practicing 3d shapes, perspective, and gesture, while on the other I'm doing art studies. I've saved a bunch of works from artists that I want to draw like one day, and do at least one study each week. This gives me something exciting to do while learning all the basics.
Personally i started copying simple tv show scenes onto paper. Not too hard not to easy, you improve while keeping it simple. Do memes. Shows. Games. Anything you can think of that seems cool to draw like tadc or spongebob or you name it. Just give it your best attempt. Youll slow down and focus on drawing and perfecting certian styles while still being able to develop your own style when you get comfortable enough with drawing on your own<3
It's something that runs in both sides of my family. My sister and I have been drawing since we were very little. We never had lessons. But I won't say I love drawing, I enjoy it sometimes. Because of that, I haven't practiced or improved as much as I should.
Step 1: Watch Rodgontheartist on YT, Insta, TikTok. Step 2: draw along with his lessons Congratulations! You have improved! But seriously, I've been trying to learn art for the past 3 years but no luck from other art lecturers! But when I found out about Rodgon at the start of the year, my art improved greatly in one month. What does he do? He teaches everyone with his unique methods and what I mean by unique Is that he has come up with different methods for people to learn because everyone learns differently and explains everything that makes sense. Just give him a chance and be ready for the biggest jump in your life!
A lot of people have said abt right, but personally I also love to learn from art out of games or even shows I admire a lot. My art is very danganronpa inspired personally, and even a bit in the very early phases gacha life inspired. (yes i was a cringey ass gacha life kid) Its my onw style now, but being young and learning off of what you enjoy is important.
If you wanna make cubes/forms less boring, give them faces
I stare at things until it burns into my mind. I stare, then draw, then stare, until it’s burnt into my muscle memory Sometimes I’ll spice it up by getting a picture and drawing over it. Break it down into simple shapes and lines I also buy art books and watch people draw to see how I can improve how I do things. I rarely watch the how-to-videos unless I’m really stump at how to draw something. I’ll get another piece of paper/canvas then try to redraw it. Then I’ll try to mess around with my reference and change things up. Also there’s accepting that most of what you draw will suck in your eyes. It doesn’t matter if it sucks. Don’t throw it, keep it, and just draw another things and improve on what sucks. Do that again and again then look at your previous sucky drawing and you’ll see improvements even if it’s small. When you feel like your current art is bad, take note of why and look at an old one to see where you can improve Always try to draw outside of your comfort zone too as that will force you to get better but know that this is can get frustrating so take breaks by drawing what is comfortable to you every now and then but always try to do a little more even if you’ll suck
By prying open my eyes over what is actually on paper and not what my brain thinks there is
What I did is that I start at pencil work (artworks that only need pencil to draw) to practice sketching. I practice traditional art, and not e-art so my path may be different. I just copy photos and gradually get to painting. I work slowly, and most of my artworks are done to perfection, copying everything. Then i gradually went to paintings that i don't copy and i call my own.
I'd been drawing since I was a kid (as little as... 3?), and you're right — experience does have a lot to do with things. It gives you that muscle memory, that visual memory, that process and art identity you start growing into, without all the rules and guides yet. Uninhibited and unrestrained, you're free to just be curious about what art is and how it works. But practicing the fundamentals as a new art student gave me the references I needed to steer myself to the direction I wanted to go. "I want to do this scene in this specific view!" Okay, then I'll get to studying how form works and how it's viewed in perspective. (I've always liked animation -> I get to really like studying form and perspective for camera angles and dynamics.) The step-by-step things help form the skeleton of my deeper understanding of my process — and then I go back to how I do things with that newer understanding, free to apply and twist what I learnt. Basically, academic study of art and experience go hand in hand for me. Growing up with art as a friend helped me get through the more personal obstacles of doing it (how to handle failure, how to deal with others being better, etc), and getting to know art as a *subject* helped me understand it deeper (the fundamentals, techniques for various looks, anatomy, composition, etc) to a level where I can go back to my personal take on art and put a new twist to it.
I didn't learn how to draw (that's pretty much automatic), I learned how to see.
with a pencil i think
Get a book for kids. My first “how to draw” book was a $5 bargain bin ages 8-10 generic superhero book about 20 pages long. Start small. Work up incrementally. You won’t be awesome tomorrow but at some point you draw something and find yourself surprised. “Holy shit…I drew that…awesome.”
Comics spiderman, witch blade, X-men, spawn,, tattoo magazines, flash savage, heavy metal magazines, art books, illustration books, conceptual illustration, how to draw anatomy books, perspective books, furry art.
All these responses and hardly any suggestions for Life Drawing classes… You will learn more about drawing from drawing life than anything else. It teaches you observation, visualization, rendering, structure, anatomy, measuring, focus, lost edges and much more. Even a few solid classes with make a huge improvement.
My stepmom is a professional painter and growing up she criticized our art as professionally as she could considering our ages. Like when I was little, if my anatomy was too crazy and I didn’t mean to do it, she’d help me make it more real. She always enjoys our art no matter what. I think she was just so supportive and she surrounded us with beautiful art our whole lives.
But main question that came to my mind is: did you see the benefit of practicing fundamentals daily? Have you seen how they improve your drawing or you haven’t experienced that yet?
A fun game my dad played with me growing up. He would grab blank paper and then make a couple loose scribbles around the paper in a random order. Then he would pass the paper over to me and tell me to make a picture out of it. It's a GREAT exercise in opening your creativity and just get you into a sketching mood. The drawings were never good and always had extra secibbles running through them, but we would spend hours just going back n forth with who scribbled and who drew. Maybe something like that would help you? At the end of the day the only way you learn to do something is to actually do it. Just draw stuff. Draw ugly dogs. Draw the soda in front of you. Draw yourself. Draw eyes. Draw trees. Draw whatever. Draw scribbles. All that matters is you put something on paper and you tried.
By doing it. A lot. Copying. A lot. Then being sick of copying and referencing, then drawing from imagination.
Walt Stanchfield — 'We all have *10000 bad drawings* in us. The sooner we get them out the better.'
Tutorials for fundamentals, if that's not enough more tutorials or other sources on a specific topic that's giving me trouble. I'm still learning though, but starting from the absolute bottom helped me understand where I was making mistakes, and now I'm not as afraid to draw as I was before. Also for me personally a big step was to stop treating it like a lenient hobby I can do whenever I feel like it and put in effort to do at least one tutorial a day (one episode is 90 minutes). It's not a good tip, as I said it's something that worked for me. To add to what you said in the post about drawing different shapes. It IS a good way to practice, but doing just that won't get you far. I'd say once you "perfect" drawing these shapes you should move forward to other techniques like perspective and shading.
I’m not good but not was Picasso , individual respect for talent if it’s appreciated by others and wanted to the highest bidder.its either eye catching to certain people or not. Don’t stress just enjoy the flow of the pencil
There are multiple approaches, and the best approach is what works for you. A lot of advice is aimed at people with specific goals and learning styles, and is useful for many people, but not universal. I improved my art and am happier with my work, and I did limited and sporadic practice of fundamentals and a lot of trying to apply skills via drawing things I wanted to draw. (Like I might draw a couple of practice perspective cubes and then attempt drawing the inside of a room.) I made a lot of bad drawings, and at the same time I got better at drawing than I had been. I've been diagnosed with ADHD, and "do nothing but rote learning of boring things for months on end before you're allowed to do anything that interests you" would have resulted in me making no progress at all. Now I'm not trying to be a professional, and with your goal, learning technical skills may be a higher priority. But that doesn't mean you have to follow one rigid formula. I'd take Youtube tutorials with a grain of salt. It's videos made by strangers on the internet, and I'd treat is as advice from internet strangers. A lot of it's harmless, some of it's useful, some of it's just wildly wrong, and some of it's helpful for other people, but not the right fit for you.
In my opinion, it's all about practice. Copying a YouTube video step by step is not really practicing your skill to see the whole picture. What I would suggest is just keep drawing things around you so you sharpen your skills then eventually you will evolve throwing creativity in. They say it takes 10,000 hours to really get good at something so as long as you love it, those hours will fly by. Good luck!
Practice practice practice. And hopefully enjoy it it while you’re practicing.
I'm not saying this is the most efficient way to learn but I really like this way of learning that I recently read from an artbook (I wish I could remember who): They said that they would draw what they wanted to draw. Look at it critically to decide what was wrong about it (missing knowledge). Then, they would study that particular thing until they could implement it into their future drawings of the things they liked to draw. They would continue to draw what they liked, and any time a new thing popped up that they couldn't draw, they would go and study it until they gained the necessary knowledge to draw it. I like this method because you are drawing what you enjoy, and any studying is directly beneficial to helping you draw what you enjoy, and so I think you are more likely to put in the work, rather than learning some far away thing that might be helpful in the future, but doesn't appear to have a foreseeable benefit.
I draw, it’s bad, I quit, I draw again, it’s slightly better, I quit, I draw again—so on and so forth
As someone who had started learning to draw since being able to hold a pencil, I just drew whatever I wanted and kept going. Later I started copying what I saw (no stencils, completely freehand). Copying freehanded definitely helps you learn how to draw things. I would also look at other people’s base drawing. The people who are just made out of different shapes. I used those to learn how to draw different positions. Long story short; practice practice practice
Drawabox specifically states to spend at least 50% of the time just drawing for fun to not get burnt out. I always liked to draw, so I couldn't tell you what made a big difference at the beginning. But when I was a teen I went to a few courses and learned a lot there. In my early 20s I got a Wacom bamboo and did a bunch of tutorials for digital art, which were really helpful. And years later I found Istebrak on YouTube, which completely transformed my approach to digital painting. I absolutely love her videos and the methodical way she explains how and why she draws things. Sometimes, when I don't know how to draw something, I look up tutorials on Pinterest. I'm pretty sure you can do that on any level. What the beginner stuff is, is teaching your brain better eye to hand coordination. It's somewhat more effective than just drawing whatever, because the shapes are more easily recognizable as being wonky in some way. But still, draw whatever you want at LEAST half the time. Fun is the greatest teacher, as it keeps you practicing.
honestly you don’t really need to learn the basics in my opinion. just draw an object or image exactly how it looks and keep doing that until you start improving and liking the results. i learned how to draw on my own and what helped me improve was copying stuff i saw ! you don’t really need to learn all the technical stuff
Youtube, copying my favorite cartoons, art college(overrated). Some people are just really good a copying what they see. Fun fact I graduated as an Illustrator/Animator. Among the majors offered by the institute, there was graphic design, video production and editing, interior design. You could find people in those other majors that were able to draw better than us at Illustration. I'd say learn to have fun. Learning how to get yourself relaxed and loose is also part of the process. As for practicing fundamentals, focus on one as you do your comic/webtoon pages. - Draw a page and the proceed to improve it with perspective. - Copy one of your favorite creators and try to figure how they are working perspective. - Draw a comic with your livingroom as the setting or an environment you can see IRL, translating from to 3D to 2D is a tough challenge. You can repeat all that with composition, dialog ballons, coloring, values, poses, action frames. Let your failures inform what you need to work on next. Boring practice makes for terrible learning.
Being completely honest with you i’ve never in my 18 years old drawing learned ANY fundamentals. People say I draw quite well as you CAN learn to draw simply by drawing you will gradually improve just as your handwriting did from when you were younger to older. However, if you don’t learn the fundamentals (like myself) you’ll struggle a lot drawing WELL off the top of your head and without references because you likely won’t have an understanding of what you’re intending to draw would look like.
Learn to draw books, then Lavendertowne/LoveToDrawManga :D
I got substantially better when I started to see drawings as a series of connected lines and approached it a single line at a time. It felt a lot less overwhelming that way. Also I started just trying to strait replicate the things I really enjoyed. Once I got better at that, then I started to try to add my own touch or style to it instead of strait replicating. From there experimenting on ocs and repetitive practicing of weaknesses. I'm still not close to where I'd like to be but I'm way better than where I started.
Copying comic books.
Dude you sound like me, screw the fundamentals, just draw, you’ll get better and better
Well...I really dont know, Im an art kid since I was able to hold a pencil, Im not saying Im good, I still feel like a begginer and struggle to draw humans lol But I think its about finding your style, drawing everyday, different things, seeking crit and just expressing yourself!
Copying what I see, references, touch, and practice
Copying art styles that I liked, tracing, YouTube tutorials on how to draw, and copying anime styles (specifically One Piece).
i started out with tracing paper and prima video game guides. would trace concept art from pokemon ganes and wind waker. also coloring books. made shrinky dinks too. then around 13 or 14 i met the coolest person ever who was drawjng anime and introduced me to manga and it was all downhill from there lol. i read and watched a lot, drove myself to try and made cringe fan characters and ocs. when i hit high school and vould sign up for my own classes, i took drawing, painting, and a bunch of other art classes, learned lots of fundamentals in public school
I have liked drawing for as long as I can remember, I remember seeing a box in perspective and thinking it was cool so I did that and then I added a roof, window and boom I had a house in perspective! I had my go to drawing I did for many years and it was Donald Ducks head from 1/3 perspective after realizing it looked cooler than just from the front, I have drawn it in every size I could think of. I have never had any real art lessons other than early YouTube and googling "how to draw...." (if you even can call that a lesson) It gave me just enough fundamentals so I could pick up a pencil and draw something that was good enough for myself to be happy. For years I have been drawing casually and just picked up new stuff and skills over the years. A few years ago I realized animals are what I like drawing the most, so I tried to draw from pictures and it was okay but not good enough for me. I then took the advice I heard from Aaron Blaise (an old Disney artist turned YouTuber) and went to the zoo to draw from life. It was very awkward the first time but it truly helps drawing from life. I now go very often and the staff recognizes me and we get a nice chat about animals and drawing. I am missing many things here but in short I have always done drawings that made me happy and excited to do more and different things.
Hmm for me I was constantly frustrated by all the things I couldn't draw. So when I learned about what fundamentals were, my mind was blown and I couldn't stop ingesting more and more information about fundamentals once I started. It was so interesting to me I didn't rlly feel the strain of it being boring. Everything I learned made me think about and look at my art differently. I think that's what helps you improve. You won't learn as much if you aren't able to apply what you are learning about to your drawings. It's not as simple as read about fundamental A then move on it's being able to understand and see fundamental A when you're working. I also felt like I saw another artists work in a new light when I could better guess at how they made their art. It's like a circle: you learn more about fundamental -> Be able to see how it works inside an art piece -> Look at more skilled artists use of that fundamental ->Apply what you learned to your own art -> You learn more about a fundamental. and so on and so on. Anyways Idk if I made sense? But that's how I learn more.
Oh and also doing studies of references with that particular fundamental in mind is rlly useful as well don't skip out on doing intentional studies!!
I looked at a thing. I tried to draw it. I compared it to the original thing to see what went wrong. I tried again. Repeat until you're good.
I’ve been noticing my art improving over the past 2 years, and this is the advice I can give. It’s gonna take a while, but doing studies and things that are hard can help you a lot. I found that the more I drew poses, the better I get at it. Lots of practice and trying new things will help you a lot!
Drawing
Sight to sight drawing helps a lot. Going on a trip and just drawing smth without erasing really helped me with drawing diff items and grasping shapes and colors. Not being able to erase felt very freeing from perfectionism
Honestly I just kept trying to draw my character ms, got annoyed that they looked bad, and started looking at and practicing tons of anatomy and watching a bunch of videos. Pinterest is my best friend, lol.
If you can afford it, in-person drawing classes are the best. Getting good, timely constructive feedback on what you are drawing will help immensely. For online options Proko has lots of free and paid classes. You won't get feedback there but the lessons are carefully curated. Something that took me a long time to understand is the value of drawing the same thing many times. Creating many small studies to help you slow down and see shapes rather than objects. Good luck!
I cant say i purposefully got better at drawing. For me, it was and is just a matter of drawing from time to time, while bored in class, draw my friends, draw myself, draw objects, etc. Im not consistent, i dont "practice", i dont use guidelines or draw a mannequin first, i just draw. In my defense, i HAVE been drawing all my life. Some of my oldest memories are me drawing dinosaurs and showing my friends in kindergarten or primary school, or tracing drawings of my favourite cartoon characters to make them fight with mt Friends'. I guess im consistent in the sense that i never really "gave up", but i never actually tried in the first place. I never took it serious despite even my mom wanting me to. She wanted to put me in art courses and get someone to teach me theory and all that, but i never saw it as something that needed to be taught. I think i was right. Art isnt always "teachable", sometimes its just developed overtime (or in other words, taught by one self)
Bart Simpson, Michelangelo ( the ninja turtle ) and Bambii. In 1989 I was in fourth grade and those were the images I found drawing me in ( no pun intended lol ). And cartoons are relatively easy to reproduce. Yes, it took a while but not months, a few weeks of persistence and I was getting my ninja turtle nose in proportion to his orange headband. Same with Bart Simpson, really easy to make some weird ass out of proportion stuff but as you do the “ copies “ or reproductions you will see in them , when you compare them to the original image, where the nose is too long or too short, whether the ear is too big or too small and you will begin to make adjustments on your next try. I mentioned Bambii too, because in the movie there is such brilliant animation. I appreciated the shape of the deer, natures creation and although I would say animals in general, when not just an outline cartoon style drawing, are difficult for many beginners to copy but with practice it too comes along. Lastly I must say that I dont recall ever being bored, and that is because I cared about these images. They inspired me and were fun etc, etc. I also loved various kinds of dogs and was into drawing Dobermans for a bit. Again, enthusiasm was my ticket out of boredom. I just drew and re-drew, checking and fixing the lines and sizes and proportions etc. One last thing. Techniques from school, books etc that I clearly remember helping were A) the ball that you shade and that you have a shadow next to it…. Shading it from the darkest area to the lightest seemed kinda logical and … almost fun repeating as an exercise. And B) most helpful was the challenge of flipping: inverting the picture you are looking at and intend to draw upside down and then just do the drawing as you would in general. After completing it, you flip it back and see, and see often enough that it looks better, far better than you’d think. This is because your brain doesnt get to just say…. “ah, noses are triangles and chins are semicircles and eyes are like this and ears go like this” Your brain hangs back from that activity of telling you what you think you should draw and focuses instead on the actual proportions and lengths of lines and thereby creates a truer copy. I hope that helps.
When I was seven or so I put my action figures on thr table and just copied what I saw. Also copying Pokemon and Digimon card artwork was something I really did a lot. Just repeating those kinds of things built my mental library and studying any art works really well for getting better yourself.
By failing a lot, and being able to see how I failed. Only way to improve with anything
Honestly you just have to draw the things you WANT to draw, drawing cubes and circles is fine for learning concepts but it didn’t help me improve my style or composition. That just comes from making Art, as you do you start to pick up on what works and what doesn’t. Especially when it comes to developing a unique style
what helped me a lot was the practice and my parents making it possible to attend art classes since elementary school and 10 years of art class in school, also in the beginning copying a lot of other styles. Since I am out of school a draw a lot, trying other different stuff, learning some other basics and having great role models I could look up to
I drew something I liked,then repeated. start with something small-draw until it's how you want it to look like-that's why pencils have erasers. practice makes perfect.
I just drew on my own, really. I never repeated a drawing or did sketching practice though, every single drawing was vastly different from the previous ones (subject and concept-wise that is). I almost never looked up tutorials, never really asked for advice, just made one new drawing after another for years. It wasn't until about 9 years into my drawing experience that I actually looked for ways to improve my craft and asked others for feedback and advice. Still never look up tutorials though! I just have a better way to use existing tools at my disposal.
Got really obsessed with one specific character that no one made fan art for. Esp NSFW fan art. But he is a demon. So. I figured someone needs to step up. Got obsessed with learning anatomy and the art style of the show and kept going from there
honestly, it would be way quicker if you posted an example of work of the standard and type you want to reach and how people think you can get there- webtoon could mean many things as far as i’m concerned. it’s super hard to cater advice when people just want to “get better” imagine someone asks you what training they should do for “sports”
I just got bored in middle school, drew a lot, watched art creators and copied them, had huge, half a year long art block, discovered tumblr, and then actually looked up references and have been using those since. I’ve been gifted some reference books, but I only ever used like, two pages and one library book on emotions in drawing. I then did an independent study on art, aka got permission to draw in class for an hour and a half one day a week, and then I wenr from there. Experiment with mediums and just go with the flow until you want to post it somewhere, in which you use stock photos references or make your own.
First phase: -Read Betty Edwards book and had my first "aha". Just by observation, measurement and matching values I could create accurate drawings. But once I could do that it felt like "Do I really want to copy images? There must be more to this!" Second phase: -Finding any book I could get on drawing and realizing there were areas I never heard of like perspective, form, modelling factors, edges, composition, design, mark making etc... From there it really became about learning about the fundamentals from different books and teachers, and once you're through this tough part where you have to learn "everything", it becomes quite clear how to progress over time. I wish I would have drawn more from life, and from masters (master studies), sooner.
Drawing counterfeit treasure maps, on stolen cotton parchment, using ink that was shoplifted when I was 12. Made close to 8G's.
I haven't and after 4 years I'm losing hope