Just did this. It's of a toy robot from my childhood.
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Just did this. It's of a toy robot from my childhood.
yes, and stick with that.
All fuckin' right!
Keep bangin' out drawings, BC!
Something I've always liked doing, draw your construction lines really really lightly, then "ink" 'em by pressing down hard on the pencil. Try to form long, fluid lines when you do this, don't chicken scratch so much. This works really well with a Very Sharp pencil or a plain ol' mechanical pencil.
Work on getting a feel for putting the pencil down and lifting it off the paper in one movement.
I'll try to give you a full on critique when I've got the time. Preview: Your perspective is a goddamn mess and you need to work on picking out the right details to make the form feel more solid. It sucks, do it again. "One Thousand Drawings" should be your mantra.
Keep drawing!
Funny enough, I almost alway sketch in ballpoint pen now. Since it's a little harder to smudge, it's easier to go back on older sketches and see the construction lines. As an added bonus, you'll get to see your "process" in each sketch and become more mindful of line placement for future drawings.
Then again, that's all just as possible with pencil. Go you!
i think some life drawing would help you out a great deal. i feel like before i took life drawings, everything i did was kinda stiff. it helps you loosen up....especially quick gesture drawings. maybe dig up some videos of dancers on youtube and do quick sketches of poses that catch your eye.
line weight and shading are super important. just using different line weights can give a whole new dimension to a drawing. most how to draw manga books touch on this.Quote:
Originally Posted by buttcheeks
shading is something i'm also trying to learn, so i've been bookmarking a lot of stuff that's seemed helpful:
shading in drawing
drawing resources and tutorials
figure drawing <- i think this especially might be really helpful
video drawing lessons
the $100,000 animation drawing course
how to draw a graduation with graphite
the figure drawing lab
i agree with rama: figure drawing is really important. it's important to learn how to create fluid drawings that show movement and personality. pixar's new wall-e movie features a robot, and the reason it works is because the robot has a lot of personality. drawing people, animals, robots, inanimate objects, whatever, with personality and movement comes from life drawing. one thing that may be bothering you about your drawings that you can't pinpoint is the lack of 'life' you see in them.
force: dynamic life drawing is one of my favorite drawing books, and i totally recommend it if you don't already have it.
None of that shit matters if you're not putting it in to practice though. Most important is just to draw.
Don't get caught up in "style" shit early out, either. At this point, you probably don't even have a comfortable way of holding the pencil down...
Buttcheeks I think the disconnect between your copied images and originals comes from not having the fundamental skills that went into making the stuff you copied. I can't say for sure because everything you posted is rough and I don't know how old the Sonic picture is, but it's what you put up and combined with some of your comments that's what I'm working from.
Anyways, If you copy a picture of spider-man swinging through a city you just need to have decent line control and the ability to not screw up proportions. If you want to draw that same picture on your own then you'll need all of the knowledge of anatomy, lighting, perspective and everything else that the person who made the drawing you originally copied had. There is a huge difference between copying and creating something on your own.
So instead of just reproducing something you need to work from the perspective of being able to understand how and why a drawing was done a certain way. It's kind of like the "teach a man to fish..." thing, but... for drawing. You said you don't know how to approach applying lighting to an object, so that's a good place to start. You could also try taking characters you like and then breaking them down so that you can draw them comfortably on your own. It'll help give you an idea of what it took for their original artists to draw them and give you an idea of what things you need to focus on to improve the way you want to. And of course these suggestions come with "draw over and over again" added to them. You don't get to apply artistic advice immediately unless it's something that's covered by a skillset you've already properly developed.
When I took art in high school, one of the most important lessons that I remember from my art teacher is to pay attention to the shadows, not the lines. Shadows are what really give an object dimension and hierarchy. A really good way to learn shadows is with a sketch of cloth. Here's what a quick search on deviantart resulted in:
Actually, you'll have to click on the link.
Compare the area of detail vs. the undetailed area on the right. See how you can start to read the cloth, and how it folds? A cloth still life is really easy to set up, shows you a lot of principles of light source, shading, etc. If you're having trouble starting, take a picture of it, desaturate it in Photoshop, and take a look at it two-dimensionally. Don't copy it; use it for reference in how to represent the shadows.
I would recommend you getting a set of sketching pencils from Michaels or any art store. It doesn't have to be anything fancy; maybe a 2H to 8B (very hard to very soft) leads.
Rezo dropped science hard in his previous post, I suggest you pay attention!
though essentially he's still saying "draw more!" but in a more eloquent fashion