[thebootstrap]

I wanted to dedicate this thread to all the things I need to do to become a better artist. From now on I will post my practice drawings and also regularly take advice and apply it to my next sketches in line.

First of all I wanted to address the advice given to me in my incubator thread. Thank you Krat for telling me more about movement and static poses. Also for the interesting line of action references, I hope I somewhat could pull those off or at least get the gist.

And thanks again J.Vandermeer for telling me more about muscle detail. I decided to study the muscles and here are my initial sketches. I intend to draw them every day from now on until I can draw the muscular structure from memory. After this I want to draw them from the outside, and I especially need to get a grasp on wrists and ankles. If you have advice for that I would be interested in hearing it.

Angieness, thank you for the coloring advice but I must say I have no interest in digital coloring. And as for copic markers, no. I've heard it costs a finger per marker. Other than that I would love to experiment with the marker and q tip coloring, but I need to first purchase thicker paper than what I have since the only thing I have is regular printer paper. I wonder if that would do in a pinch.

[(Pi)]

Looking good! Keep doing anatomy studies, it's good to know what goes on inside. When you feel ready, start putting some skin on them and working on lighting.

As for colors, if you're not going to go digital, and don't want to do copics, I'd suggest looking into colored pencils. They're cheap and widely available, so it should be good for you. I'm not sure what coloring with markers/qtips is like, you'll have to post some experiments or examples.

[Sid_Bane]

Sweet! Those poses are looking a lot better. As was said before, keep on working with the anatomical studies. When you get those anatomical studies down, try also doing figure drawings from models (life drawing classes are really helpful, but if you can't manage to get one of those there are helpful books in the art books section in book stores that are full of models in various poses).
 
As for coloring, if your daring enough, you could try to do what I did in the past... Micron ink outlines and watercolor paints for the actual colors. Microns are generally $2.00 a pop, but if you want to go cheaper any pen or thin-tipped marker with waterproof ink can do. Watercolors range in price depending on how high quality you want to go. I've gotten mine for about $5.00, but some (as I recall) can go up to $13.00 to $20.00 or more. The downside is that you do need to get specialized pads of paper specially made for watercolors. I remember these costing about $13.00 as well.   
Using watercolors, though, it's one of those mediums that many people either seem to do really well in or have a lot of difficulty handling them.
Copic markers are pretty damn nice and one of the great things about them is that they do come with refillable ink cartridges. But, there is really no denying that they are really expensive. Prismacolor markers are relatively nice (and cheaper), but they're not as nice as Copics and they don't have the advantage of being refillable. Once a Prismacolor marker is out of ink, it's totally shot. Both Copics and Prismacolors come with special blender markers as well, which are awesome.
Colored pencils are an option as well, although I don't have as much experience with colored pencils so I can't say much about them.

[J.Vandermeer]

I almost missed this thread entirely, and that would have been a crying shame.
Bootstrap, I see improvement in your work every time you post. That hand is bang on, buddy. Absolutely no critiques from me on that'un.
The foot/leg studies are fabulous, too. When you use a reference and take your time, the work you produce is really quite good.

You should be keeping these anatomical studies somewhere safe, by the way-- a year or two from now, you're gonna want to refer back to them. A file folder should do nicely.

Poses are looking better, too. Don't forget, though: when you're practicing, do your best to complete your figures (hands and feet). Not doing so just robs you of practice you'll have to make up for, later.

[thebootstrap]

I'm sorry, I accidentally quoted my first post. Nothing new yet, anatomy studies will probably be posted later today! Thanks for the advice in the meantime

Okay, now I have things to post.


For the purpose of anatomy studies I decided to practice some skeletal parts of the body. Here's the hand


Here's some more hands and a foot. I did (attempted) the colored hand from memory, combining blue as skeleton and red as the muscle.


Most of these were done from memory, not the fists


I used a mannequin and my lamp to exercise lighting up close and in reality. Also I drew a little man from some video.

I still think I want to work on wrists, ankles, the full body and the face, so intend to probably get to that in my next post. I don't think I'll do the sketch-a-day thing though. I would rather do a "As many sketches a day" instead, because I feel so trapped if I can only do one sketch every time I pick up the pencil.

Also, I wanted to ask about actual comic techniques I feel I may want to start thinking of working on. I don't have any to show right now but I have some in mind. That being said I wanted to know what advice you could give in advance for perspective and environments. Possibly how to represent different viewpoints. I may try to exercise practices I had in mind for those.
 

[BornLoser]

Your art is improving, and quite fast.

There is a great perspective tutorial thread here
http://entervoid.com/board/index.php?topic=10652.0
It has several tutorials aswell as links to even more tutorials.

[Base]

Excellent work, TBS. I've met people like you, who start off strong and are willing to learn, and within a month their just amazing.

A little note: Keep your fingers proportional. They all have a unique radius to them, if you keep this radius, it'll look good even if you stylize it. Look up Andrew Loomis' books, he's got a whole section of one of his books devoted to just hands and he can teach it far better than I.

One thing I wanna see from you is more head/face studies. Those are a pain so you'll wanna get a jump on those ASAP.

Other than that, great work, badass attitude, and I can't wait to see you get something into Void!

[thebootstrap]

Sorry for being away for so long. I attempted more practices. All the things I did were various sketches meant to smooth out the mistakes I had been making, the progress seems minimal. Every time I study from references I'm confident I can do that. From memory or invented figures the outcome is less than expected. I've looked through other threads in the Go For Broke section and many people have what I call "Fun" arts where it's fan art or something, mostly invented poses, and when I try it, I don't quite reach that level of detail. I'll continue to attempt more efforts.

In any case during my hiatus here are 3 of the things I feel regular about:


I looked through my yearbook for these faces. I have to say I felt sentimental.


I have a mannequin which I thought was good reference, so I compared it to a human body in my drawing book and I'm
glad it looks like it matches up pretty well.



On my list still is Face/Head studies, full body studies (This time with poses since I suck at those) and still how wrists and ankles work, or in fact, how joints seem to work. I can barely make any limb do anything in their default position. I hope by drawing from poses or direct reference it may come easier.

What would you recommend is a "fun" excercise to do? Lots of people do fanart but the series I like are rather unrealistic. Although I decided to purchase "The Watchmen" comic a while back and I really like it. I think that's one of the more realistic things I like so I may draw from there...Everyone considers it the comic bible lol.

Let's say I tried drawing Dr.Manhattan, it didn't work out. At all. I tried translating a pose directly from my drawing book to my page, and the outcome didn't quite do justice to the original. So I may postpone that.

EDIT: Oh yes the thing that contributed most to my break was perspective. I feel unready for perspective. I'm very poor at backgrounds and I couldn't construct decent enough environments. So I skipped that and went back to bodies. However I feel like proper sequentials'll never be achieved without it, so I'll be left with less than sub par comics if I don't tackle this right now.

[(Pi)]

Keep working on the studies, practice your realism. It's tough, but it's good for you. I suggest not trying to "draw" the facial features (read: draw it in your style), but focus on representing the shape, lighting, and proportion as accurately as you can. It won't look great as you're starting out, but you'll get there in time. Something my drawing teacher just told us this week was to not focus so much on the lines and what they look like, but start with broad strokes and build on areas of light and shadow. This will develop your figures and faces more organically, rather than trying to force your style of eyes, hair, and facial features onto your model. Try that out and see how it fits for you, stick with anatomy studies for now.

As for a fun exercise, I love doing gesture studies. Quick little sketches of people around you, you shouldn't spend more than 30 seconds on each. Just enough to get the form and pose of the figure down.

Some like it blocky:
http://jonathan-rector.deviantart.com/art/30-second-Gestures-01-142266907
Some like it line-y:
http://artistic-minds.deviantart.com/art/Gesture-Sketches-137384574

Use http://posemaniacs.com, which is sort of built for exercises like this.

Did I miss anything? Keep drawing, I expect to see progress reports soon!

[thebootstrap]

Hi guys. Sorry for being away for so long. Anyway I did a little bit more and I wanna have more fun with Posemaniacs. btw thsnks pi for those examples...Examples are your friend...I'm tryin to work on making shorter, more line-y sketches...I think I over do the detail...

Pictures of myself and reference is fun


some more hands...And my little dog


Here's some posemaniac poses...


I think I did okay above but I hate the bottom of this...It's what I get for trying to stylize


On the above of this I tried to draw realistic eyes and on the bottom more stylized. I have a lot of questions on that


Anyway before today is doe I plan to post some perspective practices...Those tutorials all looked really good. But I have a question about stylizing

I've heard that styles are just mistakes and that you should keep practicing anatomy...But I see people here doing realistic stuff and really wild and distorted stuff too. I don't know how to stylize in a way that will be acceptable enough to pass the test AND is fun and comfortable for me to draw.Will it be too cartoon or weird? Or will the style be acceptable? I want all the tips I can get on stylizing and what is accepted here.

[William_Duel]

Well this is my theory on style.  Style is like signature, you sign your name but the way you sign it is what makes it personalized.  It's your fingerprint.  But to gain style you gotta walk before you run.  I believe that style is something that evolves personally after practice and training, but that's after learning anatomy.  There are many cartoonists and artists who have a very animated style and one of the best examples who gets thrown around is chuck Jones (Looney Tunes), he had a very good art education and he had very good technical skills and perhaps because of that he could exaggerate figures but they weren't so wildly out of place that it clicked.  A classical example is Picasso who was a very realist painter before he started the whole cubist thing.  But style is also a constantly evolving thing and often enough a conscious decision.  Like you draw eyes one way and you say 'This works I'll keep doing it like this' and so on.  Well that's my two cents on the subject.  But hey it's like they say, everyone has 100,000 bad drawings in them before they can draw one good one.

[Kuro]

it's good to see you doing studies but i think you ought to focus on proportions more. there's one with the body leaned back over itself or something & you point to the torso & say it's too long, but at the same time, the legs are way short in that. observe, but also observe the scale in relation to other parts. If something looks shorter because of foreshortening, look into ways of capturing that foreshortening more effectively.

[thebootstrap]

I suggest not trying to "draw" the facial features (read: draw it in your style)

I attempted to yield on focusing on facial features and such in order to take the advice I was given.

So, to William_Duel:

But to gain style you gotta walk before you run.  I believe that style is something that evolves personally after practice and training, but that's after learning anatomy

As I was practicing I was hoping I could eventually go with style, but receiving the advice above I thought it was only appropriate to follow it and attempt to do what was expected of me. Also I'll have you know I would say I'm relatively well versed about the anatomical and realistic arts by artists such as Chuck Jones and various other animators. I also do happen to love Picasso's pre abstract/cubism style, like those cool colored pieces bathed in ennui. I would like to assert that I was doing all I could before I was given advice to derail (slightly) from my practice, while knowing a base is more important than style.

everyone has 100,000 bad drawings in them before they can draw one good one

I would actually prefer to keep my self esteem raised so I can continue to practice, keeping in mind every scribble is a valuable piece of art instead of "bad drawings"

Thank you Kuro for the advice on proportion. As I've showed in my various anatomical pieces I believe I have a slight understanding of scale. Obviously I'm not very efficient at it, but I would like to think I understand the concept. If you have any advice on proportion in the body I would like to hear it. I planned to measure my own body and figure out a system to map the centimeters onto paper so I could constantly use that as a reference, since I fear the 7-heads figure may not have been an appropriate guide thus far. But I feel that's too complicated. I'd like to ask again if you have any proportional advice I'm not aware of.

Also I'm going to look at your 3 point perspective thing, it looked good I'm working on perspective in addition to anatomy

I attempted to draw some EV characters I found interest in.



If anyone sees their character here and they like it...I appreciate it...And if they don't...I apologize for butchering their character (Trust me I am especially peeved that I put Monday's character's left leg as the right, I swear I hammered it into my head 100 times before I forgot at the last moment)

[Wei Ingnan]

you need to focus less on thinking about drawing and how to draw or how you should be drawing...even how other people do it or are telling you how to do it....all of these can assist but they can't turn you into someone with talent or ability....and just draw draw draw.......this is a process......and you aren't at a point where you should be asking yourself about stylistic concerns.....this time will come much much later

this is not a science.....it is an art....you can't hope to disect and study it or verse yourself and become suddenly more talented.....the only thing that will help you improve is drawing as much as you as often as you can

you also would be better served if you dropped this contention

I would actually prefer to keep my self esteem raised so I can continue to practice, keeping in mind every scribble is a valuable piece of art instead of "bad drawings"

every scribble or attempt at drawing is only valuable as part of the process of learning and practicing how to draw.....it holds no intrinsic value for anyone else.....and guaranteed in a year or more you will hate to look at them.....the 'value' is to you and honing your understanding and ability.....you can discard or burn them after drawing them for all the good they will do you past completion

there was an awesome thread here a few years ago (long since gone the way of antiquity) where VOID'ers were disposing of thier old crappy work in a variety of ways including bonfires, food processors and consumption....thats about how valuable old work is...as a laugh...sketches and studies are only valuable in the doing of them....not in thier retention or display
 
practical advice?(past draw draw draw!).......continue with looking at the forms and shapes of the body and what shapes make up those forms....your work displays little understanding of these forms......everything is chunky and blobby......you display a decent grasp of flow....so you need to focus on constructs now

[Kuro]

Wei's right. You're overthinking this.

If you have any advice on proportion in the body I would like to hear it. I planned to measure my own body and figure out a system to map the centimeters onto paper so I could constantly use that as a reference, since I fear the 7-heads figure may not have been an appropriate guide thus far. But I feel that's too complicated. I'd like to ask again if you have any proportional advice I'm not aware of.

I thought what you were doing were studies; observations & drawing what it is you see. What other advice is there to offer? Pay closer attention to the form you're drawing? Be more observant? By proportions, I'm telling you where to focus. Look at things in comparison to other things. If you're drawing from some sort of model or reference, the figure's there for you to draw & it's up to you to get it right & file away this observations to be applied later.

One piece of advice I can offer you is this, & it's a big 'un:

STYLE IS NOT SOMETHING YOU PRACTICE OR STRIVE FOR!  AND ABOVE ALL ELSE, IT'S NEVER AN EXCUSE!
It's a misnomer those starting out find themselves in all the time. Style is the unique way you do something that differs from how others do that same thing. Mistakes figure in, but so do shortcuts & preference. Whether you're capturing the closest depiction of human anatomy ever laid on to paper or you're taking shortcuts in order to finish something quick, or even if you're trying to ape someone else's work, each have style intrinsic to them because they're all by the same artist. The problem is a lot of people copy the shortcut or the aped versions over & over & never bother to practice or apply the fundamentals themselves. And really, the only way people get better are by focusing on the fundamentals.

At the same time, just because something is wrong, it's not the fault of your style. If an artist only draws balled up fists & just says "oh, it's my style" it's really not a matter of style, the jerkoff just doesn't want to draw fingers. Because a style doesn't have rules attached. It's just there.

Now, those void characters you did don't really reflect any of the anatomy work you've been practicing. I say this because generally, bodies are what change the shape of the clothes, but with those, the clothes that form the shapes of the bodies. Also they are just kind of figures floating in space. there's no weight or balance or cohesion brought to them. Once again, practicing drawing clothes on people instead of clothes forming peoples is something you get used to by practicing your observation & thinking about what it is you're drawing.

But you see the shortcuts you took because either you didn't think about it or didn't have the time?

That's your style.

And next time when you do try it & you block out the anatomy underneath with the clothes folding & wrinkling over top?

That's going to be your style too.

It's ever changing & ever evolving. But if you want to get better as an artist, you got to just draw. Not think about drawing.

[thebootstrap]

I appreciate your advice greatly.

I suggest not trying to "draw" the facial features (read: draw it in your style)

I would however like to clarify once and for all, I was taking Pi's advice. You are not giving style advice to me, you're giving it to a me taking someone else's advice. I only wish I had made that clear before I wasted your time getting you to explain to me a concept I am already familiar with The reason I refrained from style is precisely BECAUSE I know fundamentals come first. I will never try to force style in this thread again, regardless of the advice I get.

So I'd like to start over, I realize style is to come AFTER fundamentals, and that it comes gradually. I would have thought it came gradually but again, receiving it as advice from someone more adept at me, I felt it could be practiced. Also I would like to know if there is anything I have done that would indicate I thought style was some sort of excuse for drawing, given all of my anatomical sketches. If you want to bring up my incubator thread that character was made based on what I thought were attributes that a fighter of the site would be appreciated for, none of that was my style, it was taken from other places.

I apologize for having no art for this thread, but I wanted to set some things straight before I get rolling again. I do not practice style. I do not use style as an excuse. I realize style comes gradually. I realize style comes after fundamentals. Styles are deviations from perfect anatomy, they are mistakes.

I will also refrain from drawing characters in this thread anymore, lest I get attached to my own drawings and feel romantic about defending them.

again, just making it clear, I got your advice loud and clear, and I thank you. Just know I don't ever want to base drawings off of style, and I sincerely apologize for making it seem so.

[Kuro]

if you already knew all of this, why didn't pi's advice just reinforce that? he said don't just draw something from scratch, study it. he used style to mean just off the top of your head, but he's saying work on the fundamentals. that's his main point.

like it's been said, you're seriously overthinking & not just simply doing! prime example:

I've heard that styles are just mistakes and that you should keep practicing anatomy...But I see people here doing realistic stuff and really wild and distorted stuff too. I don't know how to stylize in a way that will be acceptable enough to pass the test AND is fun and comfortable for me to draw.Will it be too cartoon or weird? Or will the style be acceptable? I want all the tips I can get on stylizing and what is accepted here.

you're concerning yourself too much with it. that's why i explained what i explained. and since i was spelling out style, i figured i'd toss in the excuse part. no part of that was accusatory, so don't get your panties in a bunch & all defensive about it. but given the fact that it seems you are prone to this overthinking, i wanted to preemptively say don't ever blame anything on it either, as it's a cop out.

but if you knew all this, why are we all wasting time typing novels? just post some more art already.

[luniara]

Very nice hand sketches! My father always used to tell me, for some reason, that if you could draw hands it showed you had some form of talent. Something like that... He always made me draw many hands.

My only suggestion for your entire thread is to loosen up. ^^ What I mean by that is, your figures and faces seem a bit stuff.

[thebootstrap]

Hi guys. I decided to practice more at the awesome site of posemaniacs: http://posemaniacs.com/








actually I used one of those things you use to hold wigs for these, I think it's great practice




actually I kinda just did random stuff here lol




negative practice is kind of fun

Also I wanted to thank Luniara for the advice...I appreciate your complimenting my hand sketches, and I only regret I didn't do more, I think my hands have started to suck lol and now I wanna take your grandfather's advice more. I think I wanna draw a lot more hands until they become easy, sounds cool hehe

[Charlie]

I think the biggest thing I am noticing here before all else is that you seem to be lacking construction in your figures. Drawing out a good solid construction before completing the form is a good habit to get into. You've got the form of the body being drawn before the actual construction, as I see little to no construction lines in those sketches at all ^^;. For the faces too a couple drawings seem to have the guidelines on them for the eyes and such, but the actual drawing isn't following them it seems. If that makes any sense, I'm a terrible explainer of things

[Kuro]

these aren't studies anymore, largely they're silhouettes. how are you going to practice things like foreshortening & proper proportions if you're ONLY going to draw the outline?

and you're rushing these. it's more like you're drawing what you think we want to see from you than really focusing on getting better. slow down & draw what you see.

[Jack]

You seem to be attempting to do contour drawings. Try doing those outline drawings without lifting your pencil from the page.

Which is a general thing you need to start doing. Why are you making dozens of lines to draw one line? It's ugly and a really terrible habit. Slow down when you draw and pay attention to what you're drawing and how you're drawing. There's nothing magic about this, it's an abstract mental process that you need to lock down tight. You're converting 3 dimensional objects into 2 dimensional images, pay attention to it and make sure you're aware of what you're drawing while you're drawing it. Buckle down and work at it, make 50 drawings of everything you want to draw, and if you're not good at drawing it after that make 50 more.

That said, your whole figures are getting pretty solid, but your faces are still really weak. Don't stylize the faces at all. You'll notice how you draw facial features at some point, and be better for it.



and not to discourage you or anything but...


If you go around saying every doodle you do is a valuable piece of art you're going to continue sounding like a pretentious cunt. Your doodles aren't worth anything to anybody but you, and you should be glad of that. You have free reign to fuck up when you're doodling. Mess around, make mistakes, do shit wrong, strive to do shit right, learn how to draw and learn how to draw well so that when the time comes to actually produce a product of value you have the skills and capacity to do so. If you start thinking your every little bit of chicken scratch doodling is worth something to anybody you're going to set yourself up for disappointment when someone shoots down a really well made and well conceived piece.  How badly do you want to be good if you need bullshit bathroom wall philosophy to keep you in the game? Draw to draw, work to improve, have fun.



Good luck.

[thebootstrap]

these aren't studies anymore, largely they're silhouettes. how are you going to practice things like foreshortening & proper proportions if you're ONLY going to draw the outline?

I believe you are mistaken. On the website posemaniacs.com, there's an program that lets you draw off of models in negative space. If silhouettes are not what negative space practices are, I must be missing a definition. I am concentrating on something else at the moment. I would like to see proof of how negtative space studies should be done better.

and you're rushing these. it's more like you're drawing what you think we want to see from you than really focusing on getting better. slow down & draw what you see.

again, if a negative pose study isn't drawing what I see and not what I think I'm seeing, I must be missing something. In order to help me to improve, I request you prove to me I wasn't really drawing what I was seeing. I still contest I was, and that I was improving.

To Jack...I simply meant I would not put myself down over my sketches that turn out less than excellent. This is not pretentious. This is CONFIDENT. I don't want you to misinterpret what I say and absolutely claim on your misinterpretations that I am something or not. Call me defensive. I'm trying to improve, plain and simple, and you can't tell me what I'm going to sound like. I'll just say you've hurt my feelings greatly and that I WILL listen to further critique...I just want to say please don't be rude next time! I know this isn't in proper terms! But It's what I want to say! And I will end that there.

Here is all I have to show in my Hiatus.








I was concentrating on forms. Not details this time. Forms. I believe I achieved my goal. Do you agree, and what would you suggest next?

Also I issue a challenge

in addition to critique, may I suggest validation as well? While I appreciate pointing out flaws in my craft, I also want to know what is working correctly. Without your validation, I only know that everything I produce is a collection of flaws, like a piece of armor substituted by a fishnet.

[(Pi)]

Hey Bootstrap,

So things are a little different here than what you're used to, I take it. That's okay, but I want you to know that this is normal here. Validation isn't something that's given out freely, as nice as it would be. For most people, it's a lot easier to help you by pointing out the flaws they see, rather than taking the time to look for what you're doing right, since doing the right things are to be expected here. Right or wrong, I'm just saying that I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for people to validate me here.

That said, I really like that you're taking the time to improve your work. I think the point that Kuro was making was that it would be much more helpful for your progress to be doing real anatomy studies, rather than the negative space studies on Posemaniacs. Sure, it's harder, but it's ultimately much more important to render realistic shapes and proportions, something that isn't as beneficial with only silhouettes. Do more of the actual pose practices on the site, or start drawing from nude stock photos on deviantArt. You need to draw bodies as they are, I cannot stress how vital this is. If it's possible to take a life drawing class at your local community college or something, absolutely take it.

Your recent post looks pretty good, but I think you're cheating yourself by going for "forms" over details. The flowers at the end and the hands at the beginning are good starts, but you need to take it to the next level. It's easy and fun to do something like conture practice, sure, but to really improve at illustrating or drawing (not the same thing), it's imperative to draw stuff you don't like drawing. You need to start pushing for realism and detail in your work, especially if that's the stuff you like the least.

Feel free to PM me if you wanna chat more, in the meantime keep up the practice! You're looking good, it's just time to take it to the next level.

[thebootstrap]

Thanks Pi maybe I'll take your PM offer up sometime. College or classes of the sort long story short aren't an option right now. But as soon as it is I'm going to sign up for a life drawing class.

I've just been taking pictures of myself and then drawing them (except for the naked guy in the first sketch), I'm gonna keep doing this for a bit, hope this is helping me improve somehow...





I don't think this one came out well at all though. except maybe the guy's head at top right





Also something inked, ya happy?

I know I need more anatomical things but since hands are tricky and also needed in pretty much any comic/drawing/whatever I thought that they would be really good warmups of drawing from reference while also helping me understand hands more. Taking Luniara's Uncle's advice also so next time I should have more body stuff...And then I'll do more after that...And just doing more and more and more