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Moonbeam22

Help me improve my drawing technique?

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I have been an avid artist (hobbyist of course) since the age of seven. It is my passion and my goal to become as skilled as I can. So, I was wondering if you guys could help me out a bit. I am seeking critique, advice, and opinions on my work. I am looking for imputs of people with a wide range of artistic ability as well. I use only a regular lead pencil for all my work, and my fingers and cosmetic makeup wedges for smudging and shading. Thank you very much for taking your time to help me. (:

 

Here are some examples of my work:

 

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Looks like you've drawn a few things from life, like that flower and the shoe. That's a great start--drawing from life and using photo references is a great way to develop an eye for detail and light. Keep doing that and try to capture as much detail as you can! If you don't know how to draw something, don't make a guess at it--find a real photo you can use as a reference, or draw the actual subject! If you have a dog, then sit down and draw your dog! (This is easiest to do when they're sitting still, haha)

 

My biggest advice to you is to study your fundamentals: drawing shapes, applying color and shading values to make an object appear solid instead of two dimensional. Study lighting, proportions, perspective, and anatomy. Learning the basics is a must if you want to build a solid foundation for your artwork. Take classes if you can, and practice every day.

 

One of the best things you can do to improve is gesture drawing. Gesture drawing focuses on capturing the movement of the subject and helps your drawings really come to life.

 

Here are a couple of references to use:

http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/index.php

^ This is a wonderful gesture drawing tool you can use online. I don't think it compares to being able to take a real-life gesture drawing class, but it's an excellent start. Bear in mind that there are nude models on this website, however you can choose whether or not you want to see them.

 

http://www.posemaniacs.com/

^ This is another cool site with a large image bank of the human figure in a multitude of different poses. You can see how the muscles look beneath the skin and how they work together to make the body move.

 

http://artistshospital.deviantart.com/art/...Humans-24705651

^ This leads to a large number of links to different tutorials and references to help you out.

 

If you can find any art how-to books in your local art store, I recommend getting some of them and reading through. However I suggest you stay away from things like 'how to draw manga' or 'how to draw *insert cartoonized/fantasy subject here*'. Books like that only teach you to draw the way the book's illustrator does, and they often don't include the essentials of fleshing out your basic art skills.

Don't be afraid to experiment with different mediums, like colored pencils or markers! Playing with different things and finding out what you have fun working with is a key step.

 

Once you have your basics mastered, that's when you can start developing your own unique style. Have fun! Experiment! And never stop practicing!

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Oh wow, thank you very much. I will definitely check out those links and look into some of that stuff. I do want to get professional artist pencils and possibly experiment with charcoal. This will hell me out a lot, thanks again! smile.gif

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You have trouble with eyes. Yes? I would suggest, for people, to sit down and stare at a picture of a human eye and draw it as best you can. Then draw an eye on a face. Then draw the body. I find that this process helps people to develop a sense of proportion.

Sometimes tracing something helps to develop muscle memory.

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You have trouble with eyes. Yes? I would suggest, for people, to sit down and stare at a picture of a human eye and draw it as best you can. Then draw an eye on a face. Then draw the body. I find that this process helps people to develop a sense of proportion.

Sometimes tracing something helps to develop muscle memory.

Oh. My. God. Yes! Thank you for that, I absolutely hate drawing eyes! Every time one is more squinted than the other, one is larger, one is highr or lower. That, and they are so painfully detailed. I can do a single eye pretty well, but each time I stick it on a face... well bad stuff happens. Thank you very much for the crit! smile.gif

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You have trouble with eyes. Yes? I would suggest, for people, to sit down and stare at a picture of a human eye and draw it as best you can. Then draw an eye on a face. Then draw the body. I find that this process helps people to develop a sense of proportion.

Sometimes tracing something helps to develop muscle memory.

^

 

All aside, this is better than my stuff, as is normal with people here >_<

 

One thing I have to put in is to remember that quadrupeds like horses and other ungulates usually have a third joint where their 'wrist/ankle' would be, around two inches up from the hoof base.

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^

 

All aside, this is better than my stuff, as is normal with people here >_<

 

One thing I have to put in is to remember that quadrupeds like horses and other ungulates usually have a third joint where their 'wrist/ankle' would be, around two inches up from the hoof base.

Haha thank you very much. I always forget that joint, thank you saying that. ^•^

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You know, something that I found helped me a lot with drawing (mostly dragons, ha) was lurking around the dragon request section. There are a lot of really good artists that know their anatomy, and whenever they posted a picture of a dragon that really stood out in certain areas that I felt I needed improvement on, I would study their picture for a long time. Such as feet and hind legs, for instance. I would sit and look at the picture and notice how the muscle on the legs were sloped and what shapes they made in certain positions and perspectives. Then as I got better at copying that specific pose down, I'd take what I learned from their art and try to work it into an original picture of my own. I found that watching artists on these forums really helped me improve the anatomy of my dragons (and horses, even) because there is so much critique going into the sketches to make them sprite-worthy.

 

I also found that the circle and line method works rather well. Beforehand I would just draw the whole picture (usually starting from the head) and put in the detail as I went along. After I tried the circle and line method, I found that the proportions and structure of my object increased quite a lot. With the circle and lines, you pretty much make the crude shapes of each body part. So the head will be a simple circle, the chest perhaps an oval-barrel shape, etc. Then I would use lines to show the bones of the neck and the legs, and smaller circles to where the joints would be. Looking up skeletal references will help a lot with this because it'll show you where to put each circle/line.

 

^^

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For some reason, the circle and line method never worked for me. I had trouble where others succeeded, so I stopped doing that.

Anyways, I have just noticed that you have something that I call "Harsh Shading" in your pictures. They show an attempt at shading, but the colors don't blend right. Your flower picture, for example, is very pretty. However, the stem and leaves show harsh shading. See how the colors don't blend?

If you use charcoal, it'll be easier for you. Also, a sharp pencil for lines and a dull on for colors helps. For shading, you need a pencil that's sharp enough to sharply fill in colors, but dull enough to blend. Does that make sense?

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