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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 11, 2018 15:46:29 GMT -5
Git Gud Guide
The general consensus for improving at art is to "just draw a lot" which is true, but it's very lackluster information regarding what you need to do in order to improve. I'm going to dedicate this thread to going over how to improve line quality, accuracy, and overall understanding of anatomy. Of course, I'm absolute Trash at art but these methods are tried and proven to have worked. If you're interested in when this thread is finished just leave a like and I'll tag you c:
⮚ I. [ Intro & Directory ] ⮚ II. [ Improving Technical Skills ] ⮚ III. [ Gestures & Posing ] ⮚ IV. [ Anatomy ] ⮚ V. [ Donts of Art ] ⮚ VI - X. [ Saves ]
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 11, 2018 18:27:15 GMT -5
Technical Skills
BIG DISCLAIMER: I am gay and cannot draw straight lines to save my life. I am clearly not round or soft n therefore circles are also a Lie. Thank you for reading this.
So first off, there's a number of exercises that you can do everyday for a couple of minutes. Consider these your 'stretches' before doing anything else. It helps if you do these everyday but fret not if you just feel uninspired. Unless you're pursuing art as a career, this is just something you should do if you want to improve.
I. Circles So this is a little boring. I know. I agree. But it's also very useful to be able to control your tools with accuracy by building up hand eye coordination. (I must impress upon you the importance of drawing with your arm and not your hand or fingers because this can cause damage) The first exercises is circles. Draw quarter sized circles in one go trying to get it to look as circular as possible(NOT elliptical. If it starts to look oval just try to reign it in a bit). It is important you only go over each circle once. Like this: As you can see I'm terrible at this but at least they don't look like Eggs
After you get pretty good at that try diversifying the line quality of the circle as you draw it so one half is thick and one half is thin. Like this: There were some eggs, this is so sad. Alexa play despacito
II. Lines The next one is all about accuracy. Take your time with it or go super fast and spam ctrl-z until it looks decent. It's all up to you. Make two dots. Connect the dots with a straight line. Do it two more times. Make sure the lines are more or less stacked on one another. Its to improve your ability to make straight lines in a drawing and your hand eye coordination as well as your accuracy. Do this as many times as you need to but i recommend at least 6/7 times. Do both vertical and horizontal lines, they utilize different motions. Also try to have a consistent distance between the various lines. It should look better than something like this:
III. Circles in space So this is pretty cool. If you're interested in learning perspective, you probably hate drawing wheels in space. This is where you previous exercise of lines can be utilized. Its kind of like squash and stretch for my animation folks. So we're going to utilize our vertical line practice for this. From here start with an oval at the top and start to "squash" or compress it as you move down. Then start with a circle in the middle and stretch it on both sides and then start with a circle in the middle and squash it on both sides. It should look something like this: Here's a better traditional example...
IV. Line Fans Once again, we're working on accuracy and hand eye coordination with this exercise. Start with two fixed points and draw a vertical line. From here find the center of the line and draw a line outward from there. It should make a 90 degree angle. From here find the middle and draw two additional lines out on either side of the middle line to make a 45 degree angle. And in between those lines draw lines going outward making 30 degree angles. Draw each line three times and try to be accurate so they lay atop each other. It should look like a fan. Do this again but draw the lines inward towards the middle rather than outwards. Practice both lines going right and left. Now try it with a horizontal line wkyh the lines going up and down. This is how it should look: The upper image also has an example of this. As u can see I sucked in the second one but also I was drawing the lines inwards towards the center point so that's a lot harder oof
V. Triangles Now this one is more of a design aspect and line control so yay! We're just drawing triangles of various shapes and sizes and filling up space in a way that looks nice. Try to use lines you would normally avoid like instead of drawing a triangle like this Try like this Also close the triangles off! I kept them open so you could see the direction I drew the lines .o.
VI. Take a Line for a Walk You remember those big 'ol scribble pages you used to do when you were like 3 or something? This is what you need to do. Loosen up those lines. Work on line weight variation. Just mess around with a consistent line trying to get differing line quality as you fill up the page. For maximum benefit, do not lift your pen at all. It should look something like this:
Also: it's OKAY if it looks bad at first! This is practice! You do it to get better! Anyways, this is not fun but it's a great way to build up hand eye coordination and control! This is just some exercises. Don't take too long on them and don't stress too much over them! Warm ups aren't supposed to stress you out!
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 11, 2018 18:27:33 GMT -5
Intro to Gestures - wipCONTENT WARNING: Here are some amazing websites to check out in order to practice your gestures. Be aware that there are nude models on these sites but they also allow you the option to filter out nude/clothed models if that makes you uncomfortable. I don't recall which of the two have repeating images/cut off poses often so please tell me if you do decide to check them out. They can be found here and here.
Alright gesture drawing or life drawing is the way to keep your skills sharp as far as I'm aware. It's the best way to grow as an artist and it's actually really quick. Gestures shouldn't take longer than a few seconds at most but if you're given more time to capture the essence of a pose, then fire away. They're not time consuming at all which makes them a great and easy way to practice for a bit then moving onto funner things like drawing your ocs or whatever. I know that feeling too.
The benefits of gestures is just? Well, honestly everything. They allow you to capture poses really quickly, to learn and master basic proportions, and become really really darn good at anatomy. So spice memes. No reason not to do gestures right? And it's not just for humans! You can use these techniques for animals too! If you're planning on pursuing art, I absolutely recommend going to life drawing/figure drawing classes! It's also a lot more effective if you draw from life like while you're on a bus or in class or at a cafe, just draw the people around you. There's something Organic about their forms and the quality of line you produce when you're under a time restraint and the figure is constantly in motion.
I. Scribble Gestures. Scribble gestures are your best friend. This is how you loosen up your drawings and how you work on capturing the dynamic energy of poses. It isn't about proportions or anatomy. It's about capturing the essence of a pose in as few [or many] lines as possible. I would recommend anywhere from 10 - 30 seconds per a scribble gesture. The second you start thinking about them that's the moment everything goes wrong. These are done very much like how the name implies. You scribble out the pose. Don't worry about kind of lines you're drawing or anything else. You remember those quick doodles where you'd draw nonsensical lines as a kid? Yeah? Use them. Here. This is your moment. Let that Inner Child Reign. This is what mines look like:
II. Armatures. If you've ever worked with claymation or sculpting figures, then you probably know what this is. Armatures are the framework, they're amazing for capturing poses quickly and with little to no effort. They're essentially like stick figures except now you map out the head, the ribcage, and the hips. Once again, these shouldn't take very long, just a couple of seconds. Kinda like this:
I have better ones but I'm too lazy to find them and I'm too lazy to make a new one even though it'll take a few seconds so have this old bad one. I will draw some nice ones tomorrow <3
III. Circles text
IV. Interchanging Curves text
V. Gestures text
VI. Sequential Studies text
VII. Studies from Life text
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 11, 2018 18:27:58 GMT -5
Studying Anatomy - wip
THE TAKEAWAY: This entire section is about application. The first one was repetition of activities in order to build muscle memory. The second one was duplication of images to capture form and figure. Anatomy is all about application. Learning the skeletal structure doesn't really do you much unless you understand how it functions in practice and not in theory.
I. Skeletal structure text
II. Muscle structure text
III. Faces text
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 11, 2018 18:34:03 GMT -5
The Donts of Art
ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: Art showcased here are examples and not made by me. The proper credits for the actual artists are beneath the image.
I. It's not "just your style" This is regarding the problem of many young artists claiming that their mistakes and lack of knowledge regarding proportions and anatomy stems from "their style". Don't do that. It's bad for your growth as an artist. Even in cartoons where they stretch and squash proportions there are multiple elements of anatomy being maintained. Trust me, professional artists look at 'it's my style' comments regarding bad proportions and anatomy and just o o f. They do not have nice reactions. Of course, if you draw for fun don't take to heart mean critics because you're doing great! If you want to improve or pursue art though, please refrain from this! You won't learn like that. Here's a quick example as to this being respected and utilized in different artwork of various styles:
As you can see the art styles vary. Whether it be western cartoons, manga and anime, or comic book styles there are proportions to each and every of the characters. Even though SU exaggerates the form of the characters, the general proportions and anatomy can be referenced back to real life. So yeah.
II. Mastering rendering before basics Look, I'll be honest I'm trash at rendering and there's nothing wrong with enjoying the fun parts of art before learning the basics. However if you focus more on rendering than the basics it will just take longer for you to be where you want to be. This is honestly up to you though.
III. Bad Mentality All right. This is literally kettle calling the pot black but y'know this is a major component of failure. Respect not only others but also yourself. Your art might not be where you want it to be but each work is progress. It's the start for you to move from one work to the next and grow. You shouldn't put yourself down and don't be scared to mess up! You're all going to do great! With practice comes improvement!
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 11, 2018 18:34:14 GMT -5
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 11, 2018 18:34:25 GMT -5
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 11, 2018 18:34:58 GMT -5
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 12, 2018 3:05:45 GMT -5
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 12, 2018 3:11:58 GMT -5
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 12, 2018 3:16:59 GMT -5
Alrighty, let me know once I finish the first three practical ways if y'all would also like to see additional guides to things like perspective, etc. Just tell me what you'd like to see and I'll see if I know enough about it to go through simplistic ways for the information to be more user friendly because oof I wished I knew a lot of these stuff
--cato phoenix Maplestone360 pannikin it's still a wip but the warmup exercises are up and idm/idc if y'all want to post now. I think I have enough saves for me and my family. That said, would you guys like a 'watching' list where I ping you guys if I add/update things? Would that be helpful? And would a cohesive list of videos/tutorials/links also be something you're interested in because I can put that together as well.
This is so much typing I am dying
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Post by Maplestone360 on Sept 12, 2018 6:49:55 GMT -5
I'm pretty good with hand eye coordination on paper but when using my drawing tablet I'm tERRIBLE
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 12, 2018 6:54:20 GMT -5
yeah that's a common consensus. I think its mostly familiarizing yourself with the digital tools and building muscle memory without looking down at your hand. It's all about that gucci gaymer hand eye coordination
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Post by Maplestone360 on Sept 12, 2018 14:31:11 GMT -5
And the physical paper can be multiple sizes but with the tablet you can only zoom in and work like that. So it's harder sometimes if you're drawing something big but a small tablet is your only option. If you know what I mean. cx'
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 12, 2018 21:50:38 GMT -5
And the physical paper can be multiple sizes but with the tablet you can only zoom in and work like that. So it's harder sometimes if you're drawing something big but a small tablet is your only option. If you know what I mean. cx' I mean it'll work if you zoom out, draw the basic sketch and then zoom in for the linework once you have the sketch looking how you want it, y'know? zooming in is for detailing work. just draw on a bigger canvas and crop it, that usually works for me. But yeah, I know how jarring the transition from traditional to digital is at first like Big Oof
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Post by Maplestone360 on Sept 13, 2018 6:25:03 GMT -5
And the physical paper can be multiple sizes but with the tablet you can only zoom in and work like that. So it's harder sometimes if you're drawing something big but a small tablet is your only option. If you know what I mean. cx' I mean it'll work if you zoom out, draw the basic sketch and then zoom in for the linework once you have the sketch looking how you want it, y'know? zooming in is for detailing work. just draw on a bigger canvas and crop it, that usually works for me. But yeah, I know how jarring the transition from traditional to digital is at first like Big Oof
Exactly Big Oof
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Post by L’Éᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ on Sept 13, 2018 7:01:00 GMT -5
You got this man. Just keep working them lines, you'll start to find a rhythm and flow
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