Best figure drawing guides according to redditors
We found 838 Reddit comments discussing the best figure drawing guides. We ranked the 158 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 838 Reddit comments discussing the best figure drawing guides. We ranked the 158 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Ok, now take note of what went wrong with your drawing and try again, and again, and again. Then after a few weeks go back and compare your latest drawings to this one.
The master has failed more times then the novice has tried.
If you want some resources, here are some youtube channels:
And also some books:
You should also check out http://drawabox.com/ and https://www.ctrlpaint.com/.
Edit: Labeled the links.
Edit 2: Just in case anyone saved this post, here's a couple of youtube channels I started watching recently:
I hope things are going well for you. And remember, as long as you keep moving forward you'll get to where you want to go eventually, even if your steps aren't as big as you'd like.
I coloured this photo, here's the original at Library of Congress. These are curb brokers on Broad Street, around the 1900s it was common to trade stocks on the literal street: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curbstone_broker
>The curb brokers had been kicked out of the Mills Building front by 1907, and had moved to the pavement outside the Blair Building where cabbies lined up. There they were given a "little domain of asphalt" fenced off by the police on Broad Street between Exchange Place and Beaver Street, after Police Commissioner McAddo took office.[8] As of 1907, the curb market operated starting at 10'clock in the morning, each day except Sundays, until a gong at 3 o'clock. Orders for the purchase and sale of securities were shouted down from the windows of nearby brokerages, with the execution of the sale then shouted back up to the brokerage.[8]
>The noise caused by the curb market led to a number of attempts to shut it down.[1] In August 1907, for example, a Wall Street lawyer sent an open letter to the newspapers and the police commissioner, begging for the New York Curb Market on Broad Street to be immediately abolished as a public nuisance. He argued the curb exchange served "no legitimate or beneficial purpose" and was a "gambling institution, pure and simple." He further cited laws relating to street use, arguing blocking the thoroughfare was illegal. The New York Times, reporting on the open letter, wrote that brokers informed of the letter "were not inclined to worry." The article described "their present ground on the broad asphalt in front of 40 Broad Street, south of the Exchange Place, is the first haven of which they have had anything like indisputed possession."[8]
Other streets usually weren't as crowded as this, although people seemed to walk more freely compared to today.
A quote to imagine what the noise was like:
>"...journalist Edwin C. Hill described the curb trading on lower Broad Street as "a roaring, swirling whirlpool... like nothing else under the astonishing sky that is its only roof.”
A bit about the process: Color Mode in Photoshop and choosing a colour is all guesswork - you will never get the colours 100% right but you can get pretty close by looking at color photos or videos of historical clothing and other man-made objects from museums, movie sets, paintings etc.
Over time you will get a feel for how colours for different materials (clothing, stone, wood etc) behave in different lighting. You look at what time of day and setting the photograph is taken in and adjust your colors to reflect the proper tones. You are practically a painter aiming for realistic colors so knowledge in how colors interact with the atmosphere come in handy. I'm self taught but early on I learned a lot about this in this book by James Gurney: https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719
Thanks! I highly recommend New Masters Academy, they have a free trial and also Cyber Monday sale ($11/month for 3 months). I'm not sponsored by them but they are by far the best resource for anatomy I've come across. I recommend going through Rey Bustos's Anatomy first, then Glenn Vilppu, then Steve Huston once you know your muscles.
As for books, Thieme's Anatomy is great, and Bridgman's Anatomy is also great (bridgman only if you're more advanced though otherwise it'll confuse you). All other anatomy books are pretty lackluster tbh, compared to having an instructor teach you. I've actually talked to Glenn Vilppu in person and he recommends medical anatomy books + observing the body and coming to your own conclusions, over artists' anatomy books.
Observe how the body works as a machine, for example observe how body weight is applied to the legs. Or how your thigh bone always sits at a 15 degree angle when standing. Or how there's a slight inward curve to your shinbones. Or how your inner ankle sits higher than outer. Lots of details like that add so much to believable anatomy.
Do lots of figure drawings, know your muscles and bones and where things attach, and you'll be set :)
edit: one thing NOT to do - is to spam figure drawings without knowing your muscles/attachments/bones. I did this for 1-2 years, and ended up with the before picture. Get your anatomy knowledge first then go into figure drawing KNOWING your stuff. You'll learn way quicker.
(30+ years experience as a commercial artist, animator, broadcast designer and special effects designer speaking here. Plus I got into digital graphics back in the late '70s before anyone even knew what it was.)
The best place to start is to learn to draw. Anything else is a distraction and an attractive nuisance. Software is the least of your worries for quite some time. And even then, a cheap scanner or digital camera and some simple software are all you need to do a whole lot of learning.
And by drawing, I mean drawing from life. Find a life drawing class in your community if at all possible. I can not stress this enough. This may or may not be what your daughter has in mind, but it is like learning your scales to a musician. It's certainly possible to become a cartoonist without this type of training, but if you succeed you succeed in spite of the lack not because of it. I would say it is not possible to succeed as an animator without formal training. To become good enough to do this for a living, or even for fun, is a lot of work. But very satisfying.
Some books I recommend are:
When she gets a little farther along, get a copy of _The Animator's Survival Kit_ by Richard Williams.
Edit: Your biggest expense isn't going to be software or computers, but time and paper and pencils. I recommend cheap printer paper, 8.5 x 11 and 11 x 17. Regular pencils work just fine. Get them at the office supply store. Better art supplies can make a difference when you are much farther along, but the main thing when starting out is to do lots of drawings, and make lots of mistakes. Ward Kimball, one of Disney's master animators used to joke that, "the first hundred thousand drawings are the hardest." And it's not really a joke.
This guy is a brilliant painter. One of my favorite painting books is written by him:
light and color
Thank you! Here's a quick list of the ones I can recall. :)
Figure drawing - Michael Hampton
alla prima - Richard Schmid
figure drawing for all it's worth - Andrew Loomis
drawing from life - George Bridgman
Color and light - James Gurney
As for videos, a whole lot of youtube ones, specifically from these channels;
Bugmeyer
Feng Zhu
Stylusmonkey
and a few workshop videos by Whit Brachna, Brad Rigney and Donato Giancola.
hope it helps some. thanks for the interest! :)
https://www.amazon.com/Perspective-Made-Easy-Dover-Instruction/dp/0486404730%3FSubscriptionId%3D14H876SFAKFS0EHBYQ02%26tag%3Dhubpages-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0486404730
That's a big question! I've been painting for 30 years and was an art teacher for 17. I think the secret ingredient to what I do is TIME--literally decades of practice--and a heaping dose of patience. I've recently started a channel on YouTube where I attempt to show people my techniques, if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/user/pupedd As far as books go, I don't have much to recommend for watercolor, but I received this one recently and it blew my mind as far as color and light are concerned. Wish I would have had this as a student! http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719
Ah yes, this is frustrating. The thing about ink drawing, is that you must pay extremely close attention to line weight and contour at all times. Because you do not have color or value, you must be extremely creative in how you vary the two aforementioned elements.
First, lets take a look at how the old masters tackled this with ink. Here is Durer
See how he doesn't actually draw folds on the inside of the cloth, but merely takes a fine tip and draws parallel cross contour lines?
Here is a da Vinci
Do you see how much Durer learned from da Vinci? Very similar handling of the contours. What I recommend for you, is studying drapery more, so that you can more effectively predict where the big folds are going to be.
In all drapery, there are what I like to call major and minor folds. Major folds are the ones that define the form and cast the largest shadows, and the minor folds are all the other tiny ones in between. When inking, its all about picking and choosing a few major folds to give the illusion of cloth.
I prescribe this book to you. Hogarth was an ink artist as well, and while his drawings are always exaggerated, they make a lot of sense. Spend some time copying his work out of the book, and cloth should become second nature to ya.
adobe photoshop CS6, Wacom intuos 3, this is a good book http://amzn.com/0740797719
...and your point is?
Almost all illustrators, and artist use reference material. Hell, there are books published that comprised entirely posed photographic reference for artists. And these have been in print for years.
The Fairburn system
The one that I used while at college.
It's actually a pretty good book.
If you're serious about learning and this isn't a shitpost I would suggest reading through
https://www.amazon.com.au/Drawing-Head-Hands-Andrew-Loomis/dp/0857680978
and
https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819
You could probably find them online if you can't afford to buy them. Working through those books and practicing what they teach will help you see massive improvements. As much as people will say to just keep practicing, it's important that you practice correctly lest you get into bad habits.
I've been reading this NSFW book. I sketched this lion with some of its principles in mind.
My biggest tip: take a figure drawing class, if you have the time and money. There's no substitute for a good teacher, and as a bonus you'll get the chance to draw from life (which can be very helpful). Don't be afraid to ask stupid questions!
If you're looking for theory, the best books I've seen are Jack Hamm and Andrew Loomis, both of whom offer intelligent simplifications of the figure along with breakdowns of specific anatomy if you want it.
This basic figure frame from Loomis is one of the best things you can learn (though don't place too much emphasis on meeting those measurements-- after all, they don't help for crap once you have to foreshorten).
Try this study tool. Set it to 30 second or 1 minute intervals with nude models and fill up the page with Loomis-style mannequin figures. Don't worry about getting each one perfect; move on once your time is up. Get a bunch of paper and do it for 20 minutes straight.
Think, especially about the shape of the ribcage, spine, and hips. Notice how the ribcage is kind of egg-shaped, how the spine curves, and how the hips are shaped like a wide V.
From the top of my head...
I don't know every single source out there, so this list could definitely be improved.
Proportions & placement:
Sketching, life drawing, master studies, gesture drawing, … (basically building a visual library)
Form & Construction:
Loomis Fun with A Pencil (see sidebar), Draw-through (need to know perspective first)
Perspective
Perspective Made Easy + lots of practice
Anatomy
Loomis, Vilppu, Hampton, Bridgeman, … photo reference studies, drawing yourself from a mirror
Gesture
Proko, life drawing, gesture drawing.
Composition
Don’t know the go-to source for this one, but learn about: separation of foreground, middleground, background, rule of thirds + experiment by making a lot of thumbnails + analyse master paintings/photographs/classic movies
Values
Scott Robertson How to Render
Colour
James Gurney: Book, [Blog series on Gamut Mask](james gurney color gamut)
Master studies + experiment by thumbnailing lots
A foot, chanelling my inner Burne Hogarth.
In approximate order of importance in my opinion:
Your sculpting technique is fine but your anatomy is atrocious.
The rib cage and abdominal musculature anatomy is off. You don't just have abdominal muscles on your lower trunk. Also the abdominals should have a limited width. To the nipple line would work but your nipples are set out too far. They should be in the mid clavicular line but you don't have any clavicles. The 6 pack is nice but the hole in the top one would hurt as it's not present in real life and is where the xiphoid under the bottom of the rib cage should be. So your abdominals are to high and too wide and too bulky. There should also be one long one below the navel which is way too low. The pecs attach to the sternum and manubrium and go to the inside of the arm. That's what forms the axilla (armpit). The lat in the back and the pec in the front. So along the sternum the pecs should go outward not downward. Also that deep line separating the pec from the shoulder would sever the pec muscles from the arms. That is not existent in normal anatomy. People do tend to shift there humerus foward but that is an abnormality caused by bad posture and muscle imbalances. There is no rib cage giving the upper trunk its form. The serratus muscles are just sliding downward and fading out instead of inserting onto the ribs along the lateral side under the axilla. You've created a new muscle under the arm that doesn't exist. The deltoid muscle is nonexistant in the front and top and is in the wrong place on the back. There are three heads to the deltoid. The anterior (front) middle (on top) and posterior (rear). They blend together midway down on the lateral side of the humerus at about your cutoff. The posterior one attaches to the spine of the scapula where your attaches to nothing. The anterior attaches to the lateral aspect of the clavicle (which you don't have) and the anterior acromion. The middle attaches to the lateral acromion. The upper traps also go outward from the nuchal ridge on the skull to the acromion on the top of the shoulder then down the back along the spine of the scapula to the spinus' of the vertebra. The lower trap is also on the spine of the scapula to the vertebra and the lateral aspect goes down diagonally to the 12th vertebral spinus process. So you have no lower trap. The lats sweep up from the lumbosacral fascia which starts along the upper boarder of the illium (which again does not exist) moving laterally and inserts onto the humerus in the same medial groove the pec inserts into. You con't have any lats either. You also don't have any paraspinal muscles along the spine and you have no posterior hip fold where the glut medius is. I could go on and on.
You NEED to read a book on artistic anatomy. I love Bridgeman's books. They would be great for you due to your focus on muscles.
The Human Machine (Dover Anatomy for Artists)
Constructive Anatomy (Dover Anatomy for Artists)
You MUST start with the bones. Get a GOOD inexpensive or free skeleton. Put it in a separate collection and use it as a reference so you know where the bones are and can attach the muscles appropriately. Once you know your anatomy that will be superfluous or only needed as a check. But you really REALLY need to learn anatomy if you are going to do this kind of work. It LOOKS good but anyone who knows anatomy will go "nope, it's not right". When you create art about a subject always keep in mind that somewhere in your audience there will almost always be a content expert. Like me. An an artist, I always strive to impress them. If I make a spaceship, I keep in mind as best as I can the physics involved. You con't need the math. Just like in art anatomy you don't need to know the innervation of the muscles like a doctor would need. You need to know enough that you can sell your art to an expert. Keep that in mind as you do all your art. That is one thing that will separate out the pro from the amateur. There is always artistic license ... but not with human anatomy. Even is you're doing an anime or cartoon, the best artists embed their knowledge in the subtle way they do their linework or design their mesh. That's why we buy it.
I hope that helps. Don't give up or get frustrated. Your sculpting technique is good. Your knowledge must match. One thing I learned doing art is that a good artist researches and expands their knowledge about not only their craft, but their subject matter as well. Do that and you can only get better.
Good luck.
... well I'm going to lose my geek cred here, but...
If you want 2D artistic skills, go to the store, but a box of quality pencils and a sketchbook you can take with you. Also buy this book ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486404730/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1 ) on drawing with perspective and well... draw. I recommend that book because a) I own it b) it's 6 bucks c) it works. Any other book will work to.
I honestly think drawing on pen and paper is still the best way to pick up 2D skills, at least when it comes to the basics. When you get to stuff like lighting/shading/shadowing, it makes sense to switch to a computer. The skills are 100% transferable though.
I myself have to spend a bit more time with pen and paper, but sadly, the day only has so many hours.
EDIT: Wow, I just recommended a book written in 1939 on /r/gamedev. #whodathunk
Sorry, man, your perspective is wonky, maybe focus only on perspective studies next time and ignore color/texture.
If you are serious about art, read Perspective made easy, it's a solid beginner friendly book.
Practicing human proportions using Bridgeman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life.
You need to specify which medium you're interested in learning first, since they work differently. Pick a medium, and invest in a some medium specific books and more general theory ones (example).
If you're interested in oils, check out Bob Ross. He had a tv series that ran for a while, and each episode he instructed you on how to build up different landscapes. I'm a watercolor painter, but I still looked at Ross's videos to understand the process of building a painting up (very important i believe).
Ultimately google is your friend. Just google "(your medium) techniques/tutorials/etc" and you will be pleasantly surprised. Youtube also posses a great wealth of knowledge in video form.
Order this guide to learn about facial expressions
http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm
This is widely considered to be one of the most comprehensive art tutorials anywhere.
I urge you to keep in mind; Simplicity. Flat shapes and well coordinated colors (Think about saturation, use color palette creators like Adobe's KULER thing- there are dozens of free ones around the web) A basic, but well explored understanding of artistic principles can net you fresh, competent visuals. Good art doesn't need to be complex.
Other great things:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_scheme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_elements_and_principles
http://www.amazon.com/101-Things-Learned-Architecture-School/dp/0262062666
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719
Few links for you
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525359997&sr=8-1&keywords=light+and+color+book
Moderndayjames
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI8GDFj5BQCQrSHITFebzkA
Marco Bucci
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcCJ2CU-bFw&list=PLLmXZMqb_9sbNLM83NrM005vRQHw1yTKn
Found all of the above useful :)
I just want to start out by saying: screw those haters. All good artists started out as excited novices and got better through years of practice. I've been drawing for over a decade, and I started out at the same skill level that you did. No one just picks up a pencil and immediately has a flawless understanding of how to make art. You're one of my very favorite people on reddit and an exemplary moderator, and people who hate on beginners are people who don't understand how learning works.
/fume
General Art Advice for Beginners:
I did actually volunteer teach an art class on drawing people for middle schoolers, so I've worked with beginners before. Something important to understand is that humans are very difficult to draw. Even though people make very interesting subject matter, it's kind of like picking up a violin for the first time and trying to play Beethoven's 5th symphony by ear. Sure, after a few thousand attempts you'll probably have it down, but you'll have a much easier time starting with boring basic stuff like notation and scales. I'm going to talk about the way I taught their first few classes, because it seemed to work pretty well.
The first day of class, we talked about learning the tools, and how to get a full range of shade out of the pencil. A good beginning art exercise in general is to try to produce a smooth gradient from the lightest shade you can make to the darkest. I still draw gradients all the time in the margins of my notebooks, and it's the first thing I attempt when I pick up a new tool. Light and shadow is how you create the feeling of depth in art, so being able to produce a full range of shades with your tools is the first step to being able to draw believable 3D objects. Even if you plan on drawing people in a minimalistic (source) or stylized (source) way like these examples, being able to draw light and dark, thin and thick lines will help you to give dimension to the image. Even these 'simplified' drawing styles use line weight and shading to show the form of the person.
The next step I recommend for beginners is to draw some simple 3D shapes. For the middle schoolers, I brought in a bunch of building blocks/simple kids toys and a flashlight. I pointed the light at the blocks from different angles and pointed out to them where the highlights and shadows were, did a bit of talking about why some areas are in shadow and how it helps the brain understand the object, and then we all drew spheres/pyramids/cylinders/cubes together for a few hours, trying to get it to look as detailed and 3D as possible. This is really easy to do at home, is a very beginner-friendly exercise and it makes excellent practice.
A few classes later, I showed them how you could stack some cylinders on an angled triangle block and make something that looks like a leg. We used the blocks to make 'people' shapes and tried to draw the block person. It's a really good exercise to break complicated shapes into simpler ones- I still will pretty much always start figure drawings with the arms as simple cylinders, the hips as a bowl shape, the feet as triangles. You can do this with every day objects too- a bed looks like a rectangular box, a water bottle looks like a cylinder etc. It's pretty easy to draw a rectangular box in perspective, and it's much easier to draw bed details on top of a rectangular box than it is to freehand a bed in perspective with no guidelines. While you're learning, I recommend periodically drawing simple objects around your house- its generally easier than drawing people, and it's great practice.
Those are the fundamentals that I would recommend you work on before looking at resources on how to draw/paint people. Art tutorials will often start with framework/simple shapes, but having control over the tools, understanding how to draw 3D shapes and working on breaking down complex objects into simple ones really makes a good foundation for the information in tutorials.
Learning Resources: I want to echo what /u/GodlessGravy said and point you towards the books of Andy Loomis. This book in particular was recommended to me by my figure drawing teacher, and does take you through figure drawing step by step. I'd also recommend (eventually) investing in a good anatomy book for reference. I use one called Artistic Anatomy and have found it to be very thorough- and it fits in well in a budget. There's also this tumblr blog which is a great compilation of resources.
My personal favorite place for art tutorials is youtube. I'm a pretty visual learner, so nothing does the trick for me quite like a video. These are the all the art channels I'm subscribed to (a lot of different styles, some quite advanced stuff mixed in here):
For Tutorials:
And for speedpaints:
Advice for IWBM specifically: Based on what I've seen of your work, it looks like whatever you're using for digital painting does not have pen pressure capabilities (or maybe the pen pressure isn't enabled, or maybe you just have a very steady hand?). For digital artwork, ideally you want something that reacts to how hard you press on the pen, and responds by making the lines thinner/thicker or lighter/darker. Working without pen pressure makes your job much harder!
If you're interested in graphics tablets which will have dynamic pen pressure, the cheapest ones are around $50-$80. If you're willing to pay extra, good tablets are a solid investment. My Intuos3 has held up for at least 8 years now.
But you don't need to get one right away! You can get a better range of shades in your art just by messing with the brush opacity, which is a feature all good digital art programs (even free ones) should offer. Just turn down the opacity of your brush, and then you can lay in lighter lines and work up to darker ones. You can quickly do a loose sketch with a low opacity brush (maybe 20%?) and then reinforce the lines that look right or that you want to be bolder by passing the brush over it again. That's a good way to 'cheat' in some of the advantages of pen pressure. I find that a small brush at a low opacity, set to a 'multiply' blending mode will imitate the feel of a hard pencil quite well. If you really can't seem to get a dynamic range of shades with your digital tools, I recommend switching to traditional for a while.
And as always, the best advice for any artist: practice! The more you draw, the faster you'll improve. :D And if you ever need an essay about some art-related topic, feel free to bug me for it. I can be one of your free resources.
(Obligatory apology for the wall of text. Obligatory reminder that I love you and you're awesome.)
The anatomy is funky. Comic books aren't a good place to go for anatomical research. Go to a library/book store (or amazon) and pick up this book. Read and draw EVERYTHING in this book. Seriously, cover to cover this book, and while you're doing that, go to coffee shops and draw everyone you see. Draw from real life while studying anatomy.
I'm gonna disagree with a lot of people and tell you to not buy Understanding Comics. I mean, you can, I don't disagree with most of what he teaches, but I disagree with his results. Perhaps it's one of those 'good in theory, terrible in practice' things. The Sculptor, his latest (?) book uses his UC technique 100% and while it makes for an easy read, it's visually boring and the story is just one unbelievable trope after another, complete garbage.
I'm also not going to tell you to copy other comic artists, that's a very common mistake in comics. When you copy other comic artists you learn their mistakes, or shortcuts, or cheats. I still find after I've drawn a page I'll go back and see where I unintentionally swiped a pose or technique from John Buscema (How to make Comics the Marvel Way had a big influence on me as a teenager, which is who it was made for).
For figure drawing you want George Bridgeman. His figure drawing techniques are the foundation for pretty much every other great illustrator in the last 100 years.
Another good source is Burne Hogarth (Dynamic Anatomy, Dynamic Figure Drawing) his stuff is more action and hero based, but his lessons are sound. He founded what became the School of Visual Arts. These were my first art books when I was a teenager, and they still hold up.
For storytelling, I go for Will Eisner's Graphic Storytelling and the Visual Narrative, Sequential Art Principles and throw in Expressive Anatomy, because, why not?
David Chelsea's Perspective for Comic Artists is great, because it teaches you exactly how to do correct perspective, then in the last chapter he tells you how to cheat at all of it.
For classes, take a look at the horribly designed website for http://comicsworkbook.com/ it's run by a guy, Frank Santoro, who's actually not one of my favorite artists, but he knows his shit, for sure, and he's a helluva nice guy who loves comics 100%. I think his full online class is $500 and he runs it twice a year, I think. Also look in your area for a college or art store that might have figure drawing classes, they are invaluable.
Example 1
Here is my red line, the legs was what I think could be improved on. I just put the legs in perspective and fixed it up.
Example 2
Here is the version showing the shapes to think about. Think about shapes and how they wrap around the body.
Another example showing the perspective.
Example 3
I would recommend is to practice drawing form. Here is a video explaining it.
The Basics: what they mean
Also read some books on animal anatomy I recommend :
Animal Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form
Science of Creature Design: understanding animal anatomy
Also here is a book about perspective:
Perspective Made Easy (Dover Art Instruction)
I hope it helps :)
Folks who are linking to the 'Save Loomis' sites: the Loomis books aren't in the public domain.
Now, at one time, they were extremely difficult to find in print - Disney Studios in California had a standing order with every bookstore on the west coast for any Loomis books that came in - and when you could find them they cost an arm and a leg. For many years, too, the Loomis family withheld reprinting rights to the books, so there was no prospect for a very, very long time of ever seeing new editions. So at that time, "Save Loomis" websites at least had a moral ground to stand on.
Titan Books has, for several years now, been releasing the Loomis books in really lovely, affordable hardbacks. There's no reason to save Loomis any longer; he's been saved. We really ought to be pointing folks to where they can buy the books legally, now, and not to download sites.
For what it's worth, I think his best is Figure Drawing For All It's Worth. If there was only one I could recommend to someone who's new to drawing, though, rather than one I'd keep for myself, it's Fun With a Pencil. Figure Drawing is the gold standard of proportions and anatomy, as far as I'm concerned, but the material in it has been covered similarly by lots of different folks. Fun With A Pencil is geared more towards folks who've never drawn before and is a great book for absolute beginners.
This looks like you just looked at a reference image of Ash and drew what you saw. The character looks distorted, as a result, because you really shouldn't draw that way.
You should frame out the body parts, using simple placeholder shapes (mostly ovals) and study other images of the character to get the details. There are parts here where it would seem that the reference was too dark and you just kind of scribbled to show shadow where detail should actually exist.
Even if you are only a hobbyist, you should grab a copy of Figure Drawing for All It's Worth and actually use the principles in that book. It will help even simple sketches to look amazing, if you get it down.
We weren't meant to be copy machines. You'll be a much better artist if you get away from that.
Last time I tried to give advice on drawings the person got upset and quit reddit, soooo, please don't do that. My suggestion if you're absolutely serious about drawing is to absolutely learn the fundamentals.
Fun With A Pencil: How Everybody Can Easily Learn to Draw https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857687603/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ijZZDbCWDFEAQ
Drawing the Head and Hands https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857680978/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_AjZZDb0B3RBPF
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857680986/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OjZZDbW37G79H
Successful Drawing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857687611/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_4jZZDb95Z0W96
Creative Illustration https://www.amazon.com/dp/1845769287/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ikZZDbFRJYAJD
And after the basics
Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist (Volume 1) (James Gurney Art) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0740785508/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_alZZDbZW0Y1P4
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (Volume 2) (James Gurney Art) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0740797719/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_DlZZDb676AWT6
It doesn't matter what medium you use, learning how to draw and understanding what you're doing will help out the most.
I'd say your strongest point is your ability to convey action. The leaping on page 16 is particularly well executed. You also actually have a pretty good grasp of perspective drawing with the environments! It could use a little work, but I feel like every artist could do with more practice!!
The main suggestion I could give you is to start drawing from life. I know you are heavily influenced by Japanese comics, but trust me when I say that all professional manga artists are able to draw from life. What I mean is, take a figure drawing class, or at the very least pick up this book, or any other figure drawing book really. It will help you greatly with getting proportions correct, as well as help you with understanding the internal structure of the body. By skipping learning how to draw from life, and learning to draw from looking at Manga, you're really only taking the face value. Like, have you ever used a copy machine to make a copy of a copy? The original page looks crisp and clean, but that first copy has a few spots and scratches, and then the copy of that copy has big black splotches on it, and eventually the text is completely illegible. Not to say that your art is really bad! It's actually pretty decent for your first comics! I just believe that doing some observational studies will help your work greatly!
The next major thing you should work on is the writing. I get that his blindfold is what keeps his demons at bay, but by starting the comic off with the central character punching a guy's body in two, and then ripping another guy's arm off... it makes me not care about the character. I feel like if you would have shown the readers that he was a kind person, by like, helping the elderly, or defending his father or something, then I'd be like, "Why is this sweet kid suddenly a vicious murderer?" But since you didn't I was like, "Is this a violent comic for the sake of drawing a violent comic?" Therefore, when the dad was brought in to be killed, he started talking about how innocent the kid was, which is the exact opposite of my first impression. Also, why did they kill the dad? Why, then, did they let evil demon kid live, only to exile him? Wouldn't killing Kai solve all of their problems?
Anyway, I feel like you have potential, mainly because you were actually able to produce this much work! Do you have any idea how many people say they want to make comics but pale at the sight of how much work it is? You are a hard worker, and I know that you will be able to persevere and evolve into something so much better than you already are! On that note, buy Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. It will change your life. I'm being 100% serious here. McCloud is not only the go-to comics theorist, but he was also one of the first professional Americans to see the potential of drawing comics influenced by the Japanese! Once you have devoured this book, because you will want more, buy Making Comics, also by Scott McCloud. While Understanding dissects the medium and explains things you never would have thought about before, Making Comics applies those thoughts into a school-like setting.
tl;dr: It's good, but could be much better. Worship Scott McCloud.
This is currently my holy bible. MikeyMM is such a nice YT channel, has a lot of good tutooorials.
Now if you want something more fundamental, i practiced proportions based on this book
It's a good book, not planning on reading it all, but has a lot of illustrations kinda like this one that make everything more easy to comprehend. Not uploading the original pics, cuz maybe it's illegal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm a big fan of George Bridgman's "Complete Guide to Drawing from Life" and Gottfried Bammes "Complete Guide to Life Drawing" is also pretty great.
Also, here are all of my figure structure drawings from college. It's a little sloppy, but it's free. :)
If he's wanting to get into drawing, I'd suggest picking up a book or two from Andrew Loomis. They were written back in the early-mid twentieth century, and they're still popular among artists today, and for good reason. I personally have Drawing the Head and the Hands by Andrew Loomis, and it's a wonderful reference tool for drawing/painting the human face. [Amazon]
Another great artist's reference book is Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney. [Amazon] James Gurney also has a great informational YouTube channel that's worth checking out.
Also, please don't start with cheapo supplies kits whether they're watercolors, acrylics, or oils. They're not well made and can be frustrating to work with for beginners and pros alike. Read or watch some reviews first (YouTube review videos are a great place to see a lot of supplies in action from real artists).
I think a fun medium to start with would be gouache (it's like a cross between acrylic and watercolors). Arteza is a good quality middle of the road brand (not cheap quality, but not pro grade either) that you can get for a relatively good price [[Gouache 24 pk on Amazon]](https://www.amazon.com/ARTEZA-Gouache-Premium-Artist-Paints/dp/B077Y6TVC8/ref=sxin_3_ac_d_rm?ac_md=0-0-YXJ0ZXphIGdvdWFjaGU%3D-ac_d_rm&crid=2JWZ3D4I54A2Z&keywords=arteza+gouache&pd_rd_i=B077Y6TVC8&pd_rd_r=942fb13e-2eb9-4ca8-b9a8-bd5e0b48cb65&pd_rd_w=a9GyB&pd_rd_wg=dNTqd&pf_rd_p=ed481207-4bea-4e19-bbad-73ed40fdc292&pf_rd_r=FKJM040T2XS3HPN4EJTA&psc=1&qid=1572883675&sprefix=arteza+gouache%2Caps%2C195), and they're fun to work with too. You'll need something to paint on too. Watercolor paper or multimedia paper/sketchbook are good to start with. A plastic or porcelain palette and some watercolor brushes will be needed too. You can pick up some of these at your local art store. Heck, I've even seen some artists using porcelain plates or deviled egg servers from a thrift store as a palette for their watercolors and gouache!
There are lots of tutorial videos on YouTube that you or he can check out. Skillshare, like some of the others mentioned, is a good learning resource too.
Skin is hard, because skin isn't actually opaque. It is translucent, so it picks up light and colors and scatters them within itself, as if it were a thin layer of wax all over your body. This is called subsurface scattering, and it gives skin a softer appearance, a reddish glow (from blood vessels), and more color and depth in the shadows.
Look at this image. It does a good job of breaking down the different elements of a face. The left image, of course, is the actual shape of the face. The second image is the flat shading; there is no scattering here, just straight up "Does the light hit this spot directly?" It also includes a "specular" map, which indicates which parts of the image are glossy and shiny; notice the area around the nose is shiny, for example. I'll get back to specularity later on.
The third image includes the coloration alongside the flat shading. A "diffuse" map shows the appearance of something when bright, diffuse light hits it from all angles. Basically, it shows the colors at the brightest and most saturated they can ever be. A computer program applies shading to a model, and then adds the color, such that the colors are their most vivid where the model is lit most brightly.
The fourth image shows flat shading with subsurface scattering added. Notice how the left side of the face--which does not get hit directly by light at all, and was previously almost black--is now rather bright and varied. That's because her skin is now transmitting light, which helps even the light out. And the fifth image just adds the diffuse map (essentially, the color map) back in.
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Basically, this is what you want to create. And like a computer, it may help you to think about it in pieces, and then add all those different pieces together.
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When coloring and lighting an object, there are three basic sections: the part that falls into shadow, the part that is in light, and the part that receives a specular highlight. The part that falls into shadow tends to reflect light from the surrounding area, and it also tends to be cast in a different color from the part that is in light. Specifically, shadows will tend to be the opposite of the light color. However, when I say "opposite colors" here, I'm talking about light colors (in which red, green, and blue are the primary colors, and cyan, magenta, and yellow are the secondary colors). Here are the pairings of opposite colors, if it might help you:
So, for example, if you have a reddish-blueish light (i.e., a magenta light), the shadows will tend to look greenish. They will also take on a bit of the color reflected off nearby objects (such as the ground), though.
A common approach is slightly yellow (perhaps verging on red) light with slightly blue (perhaps verging on cyan) shadows, especially if sunlight is coming in from a low angle, as in this painting.
The opposite (blueish light, yellowish shadows) can also look good, especially if the sunlight comes from direct above.
Under moonlight, firelight, incandescent light, fluorescent light, etc., you can get different effects; for example, this painting depicts reddish light with greenish shadows.
You can very effectively avoid the use of black altogether in your shadows by making dark areas the opposite color to light areas. For example, look at this picture. The part of her face that is in shade is not much darker than the part that is in light. However, it is blueish, which makes it immediately apparent that it's shaded. (Also, note that the edge of her jaw is picking up white light reflected from her T-shirt.)
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Now let's talk about the second part of an image, the part that is in light. Remember what I said earlier about diffuse maps? How they represent the object when it is in bright, diffuse light--and they, effectively, show the color at the brightest and most saturated that it will get in that image? Well, this is what you need to do. Figure out what color your character's skin is, and give him that color of skin in the parts where he is in bright light. Where parts of his face aren't as bright, tone down the saturation and brightness a bit.
Going back to the photo here, you can see that her skin is pinkest where the light is bright (ignoring the shiny bits for the moment). You can see it in here hair, too. Where her hair is in bright light, it is very vividly colored.
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Now let's talk about the last section, the part that receives a specular highlight. The specular highlight is the part that is so bright that it gets washed out. There is very little (if any) color; it's usually just bright white (assuming the light source is also close to white).
The shinier the object is, the smaller and sharper the specular highlight becomes, and the more it reflects the shape of the light source.
The more matte the object is, the wider and duller the specular highlight becomes. It's worth noting that even objects that you wouldn't expect to have a specular highlight often still do; it's just very subtle, like on this cardboard tube.
Also, the harsher the light is, the bigger and brighter the specular highlight will be. Even matte objects can get overexposed under the right conditions. But no matter how big or bright a specular highlight is, it will never occur in a place that is in shadow (assuming only a single light source; as you add more light sources, things get complicated--and keep in mind that nearby reflective surfaces do act as minor secondary light sources).
When painting a face, think about the parts of the face that are the most oily or glossy. These tend to be the eyelids, the lips, the nose, the scalp (on bald people), the eyeballs, and so on. These are places you'll see smaller, brighter specular highlights. Perhaps needless to say, sweat also adds glossiness, while makeup tends to remove glossiness.
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If you want to learn more or if you want these concepts explained better, I highly recommend this book.
Also, this is intended for pixel artists, but you may be interested in this tutorial, which illustrates a common method for creating a rich, harmonious color palette for matte objects.
If you want my advice, I would almost always start with realism before stylized. I made the mistake of starting with an anime/manga style when I was young and it took me years to even come close to breaking the bad habit of pointy chins and broken proportions.
This is the book I used when I started out; https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-How-Handbook/dp/0399507914. It's very beginner friendly and I still use it for reference when I'm not sure about something.
​
And yes, I did go to art school, but I would recommend against it, especially if it's a private one. I've seen a lot of friends go six figures into debt and never get the chance to put their skills to use. You can get just as much done through just hard work and practice (in my opinion).
Hope this helps!
Middle school art teacher here! Good job! You'd get an A for sure! One thing that I like doing with my students portrait art works is see if it can fool a computer, I take a camera phone and see if the phone recognizes the picture as a human face. (Note, this doesn't work well with dark skinned or darker images, computer AI is dumb, but I guess if Skynet takes over dark skinned people will be able to move around undetected.) Anyways, your picture passes my camera test! So that's cool!
Constructive Criticism: Is this the reference? Overall, you placed major structures of the face well in relation to each other, but you drew them to big compared to the size of the head. This raised his eyes further from the center of the face upward and shortened his forehead. It's probably easier to fix the head shape vs shrinking the eyes, nose and mouth. To fix this next time, you could move his hair upward (expand the top of his head). If it ends up going a bit off page, that's ok. Proportions are very tough to get and until you've drawn a lot you're going to have a tough time visualizing where things are supposed to be on the page. I'm not sure your training, or past experience, but I would look into the term "eye-length", or if you're using google "eye-length drawing". In my class, I use some pages out of Drawing The Head & Figure by Jack Hamm and from other sources to help students. I'd look into those older books to help because they cover the same stuff as newer books (human anatomy hasn't changed much, lol) and the older books are often cheaper.
Keep this drawing. Keep practicing and try to draw the same image in a few years to challenge yourself to do better. ♥♥♥ : )
While your end goal might be cartoons, you will HAVE to learn to draw realistically to some extent. No way would you be able to animate anything in perspective otherwise, understand lighting, or know how to composite complex scenes. There are fundamentals that you must understand that are key to 2D animation, regardless of art style, which should be continuously worked on alongside your stylistic development.
Books:
Simple book on perspective
My favorite anatomy book
A pretty simple book on light (More pictures/examples than in-depth detail)
Overall beginners drawing book
This covers light/shadow and materials decently for beginners
I personally think you should focus on fundamentals alone until you have a decent grasp before looking at animation. But if you want to learn concurrently, this book is pretty well-known in the industry: LINK
There's tons more, but I already think this might be too much to take in all at once. Discover for yourself the rest, it's not good to have everything handed to you with fundamentals, gotta reign it in personally.
Cool! If you like drawing buildings I recommend d picking up https://www.amazon.com/Perspective-Made-Easy-Dover-Instruction/dp/0486404730
Awesome book on prespective.
Not that I've mastered anything I'm going to tell you, but there's definitely some issues here. It appears you're drawing by contour, and not setting up your structure, gesture, and volume for the character. They are very flat, out of perspective, proportions are off, and anatomy is wobbly. There's also not a sense of weight and gravity to his punch. Forget line work and coloring for now. There's no point furnishing a house with beautiful furniture, curtains, landscaping, etc if the house itself is unstable and about ready to fall over. Basically, your fundamentals are lacking.
Books that have been recommend to me that I've been studying are:
Perspective Made Easy by Ernest Norling: http://www.amazon.com/Perspective-Made-Easy-Dover-Instruction/dp/0486404730
Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair: http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Animation-Collectors-Preston-Blair/dp/1560100842
These address all the issues that I've spoken of and believe me, it's my 2015 homework as well. This stuff isn't easy, but practice and repetition will get you the results you want. Keep drawing, and keep going. You'll get there. :D
EDIT: I'm going to give a shoutout to the artist Retehi and provide an example of what I'm talking about that is similar to your piece. The image below addresses many, if not all the issues I'm explaining so it's easier to see the results when you apply them. Notice the gesture (arch of the back), the 3d space in which he stands (volume and perspective), the proportions (structure and anatomy), and the weight / gravity as he's punching the bag. Try to disregard his coloring and production and focus on the character drawing itself. Hopefully this will help you in the future as a reference.
https://www.weasyl.com/submission/633588/fight-to-survive
Learn to draw. a book like this can help you get started.
THIS BOOK, and THIS BOOK, are damn near the gold standard for getting started and professionals alike.
u/KnivesMillions is dead on with the point on fundamentals. Start with a good foundation of drawing and color theory. Drawing and painting from life and observation are also an excellent way to get better quickly.
A fantastic convention/gallery show to attend would be Illuxcon (if you can make it to Pennsylvania), where you can meet top-tier working artists in the industry (Danato Gincola, Scott Fisher, Iris Compt, both of the Gerards, etc.), see their work in the flesh, and ask them questions (they are usually quite receptive to questions if you are professional and polite).
Also, there are no set in stone rules for what constitutes "amazing fantasy art" aside from craft. All is chaos, embrace it.
You can practice curves or arcs in the same way you practice straight lines. Make lots of them! You goal should be to make fluid, confident strokes from your shoulder. Lots of books go over this including this one from Scott Robertson or this one from Andrew Loomis. Also check out this From Foundation Patreon.
Figure Drawing for All it's Worth
incredible book
http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986 This is the best book on the figure ever written(/drawn) hands down. Loomis is a god among artists and his figure drawing and explanations of figure drawing are unmatched. This book is back in print after being out of print for forever. I have had this book recommended to me by no less than 30 professors and professional artists. Its amazing.
I have a more painterly background but I figure that this is exactly the same mindset in practically everything you draw.
> Mind the color of your background.
Everything you draw plays of the background color, it is the most important supporting character in everything you draw. So mind your hues, I love to incorporate it in my base colors.
> What is the color of the light.
Light reflecting on surfaces and bouncing into our eyes is what makes us see things. So naturally the color of the light is going to affect a surface and what hue is going to affect the shadow. Use a color wheel to find the complementary colors. I am currently subscribing to the Goethe version.
> Where is the area placed.
Further back it blends into the atmosphere, making it harder for the light to reach our eyes without being diluted on the way.
Some examples with most of that stuff.
With everything 1
With everything 2
Without background 1
without background 2
For further read I recommend Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter by James Gurney
I included an amazon link, but this is the internet. You can probably find it.
Dude you have potential for drawing. It shows in your use of shadows and the fact that you actually draw feet that don't look deformed. You have an OK usage of proportions, cheers to you.
I would recommend, humbly, getting a book on drawing human anatomy. I really like Burne Hogarth since he uses a very shadow-focused technique, with really exaggerated factions that come in real handy on comicbook type drawing.
I haven't drawn for a while now but I did when I was younger and this book did wonders for me. Also, PROTIP: If you wanna learn how to draw women, look up drawings by Milo Manara.
EDIT: this book
http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Figure-Drawing-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015777/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450897871&sr=1-8&keywords=human+figure+drawing
> I was thinking on drawing 50 arms, 50 legs and so on,
This will accomplish absolutely nothing if you aren't sure what you're doing in the first place. So, let's go over a few things to help you with this instead.
Let me tell you a few things that I picked up as soon as I saw your drawings:
Let's take this apart step by step and see where some progress can be made. First, the face:
Next, the body:
Lastly, your (lack of) shading:
And here's a last:
The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expresson by Gary Faigin
if you draw faces or anything that looks like faces this is the book that answers all of your questions.
You made his pectorals concave almost, and the neck way too thick (even accounting for a scarf). Bring them out and make them pop. Widen the shoulders and retract them a little. His lats should be visible from that position. His biceps origin should be higher than that. He wears his pants above his pelvis. His Quads/Hams/Glutes should be prominent and less flare to the pants below the knee (and he wears boots that would be that high)
His wrists look too thick to go in to the hand. His head is too puffy looking and doesn't look strong.
Work on anatomy and perspective (you shouldn't see his right external obliques from that position)
If you have a familiarity with anatomy you'll know how to draw a muscular figure. I'd suggest the three books paired together here to learn a bit more.
I'm hoping someone with some experience will chime in. As a fellow beginner, I like the following:
Figure Drawing, Design and Invention
Jack Hamm, Drawing the Head and Figure
But, with that said, the one I've had the most success with is:
Vilppu Drawing Manual. If I could only have one book, that is probably the one I would pick.
> Antarctic Press :D my 3rd most frequently purchased comics publisher after Slave Labor Graphics and Dark Horse! mainly just the odd issue of Fred Perry's Gold Digger but mainly their How to Draw Manga books.
Didn't realize they were the How to Draw Manga book guys. Have a ton of them.
I remember back in the day the guy behind "Listening to 11.975Mhz" had a page up on them. He uh... wasn't a fan. He suggested instead an actual book on Figure Drawing / Anatomy -- Jack Hamm's was specifically suggested and a book by Stan Lee on how old school, pre-diversity hire retards Marvel did comicing -- How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way.
Vamos lá. Minha experiência com desenho:
Tentei, cheguei até um pouco antes da metade. Me frustrei e desisti.
Motivo da frustração: Grande parte do livro é a moça te falando "agora você deve estar satisfeito com o que fez, olha o que meus melhores alunos fizeram para você comparar". BITCH EU NÃO ESTAVA SATISFEITO OK?!
Depois de anos, revisitei meus desenhos e pensei "Olha, até que ficaram legais sim, pqp".
Extremamente massante e arranca a tapa toda a maravilha de desenhar algo. Fiz durante uns 3 meses, não cheguei nem na lição 3 (depois de formas livres). Mas foi o que mais me manteve disciplinado, e a qualidade de alguns dos meus traços (até na escrita) melhorou um pouco.
Testei muito pouco a parte de desenho "clássico", mas o cara desenha bem. Minha crítica é que logo na primeira aula ele já recomenda comprar um lápis que não é lá muito comum.
É interessante, as primeiras lições são uma mistura das lições do Drawing on the Right Side e do ArtFundamentals. Não consegui avançar mais por falta de tempo, mas pelo que eu folheei o livro, é o que mais mostra técnicas diferentes (e por isso, aumenta o custo de materiais).
Fiz um uma vez um tempo atrás. Não suportei mais de 3 aulas porque o professor era péssimo.
Dito isso, vou de acordo com o /u/crazy_student, vá com o Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (se concentre só nas técnicas).
Recomendo também o ..For the Utter and Absolute Beginner. O livro se baseia nas mesmas técnicas da Betty Edwards no começo, tendo em vista o desenho observacional (na vida real), então um complementa o outro.
NOTA:
Eu sei que existem outros autores, livros e conteúdos. Sempre existiu e sempre existirão, mas foram esses que eu corri atrás.
My big advice to you is to take a step back and work on studies from life. It's much better looking than my first digital landscape, so props to that. But there's a lot of work that needs to be done here so I'll try to point stuff out as succinctly as possible (I wish I could do a live crit. It would be so much easier) but here goes.
That's all I got for now. If you have any questions I'll try to reply as soon as I see it. Otherwise, hope this helps and pushes you to improve. I do see potential here, if you commit your time and work hard. Cheers
Color and Light by James Gurney is one of my favorite books. It's a painter's guide, but it does provide a lot of insight in how color determines the mood and atmosphere of a picture, and how it interacts with our eyes. I have gotten a lot out of it as a digital artist, but it also proved useful for VFX, and might even be of help to a director. Even if it doesn't tell you anything new, the art depicted in the book is absolutely beautiful.
The quickest, most reliable way to humanoid character drawing (without previous knowledge in the subject) is to use Andrew Loomis' method. The best book on this subject is Figure Drawing For All It's Worth. You can find "free" copies of it online, if you don't mind that it's a scanned copy from the 1950's.
Pre-rendered landscape art demands that you know enough about perspective, and thus I would also recommend looking at Andrew Loomis' Successful Drawing.
As for putting your skills into use and transferring them into a game, it seems that everything you need is available at Digital Tutors. If you are ready to begin this stage, be sure to have the proper software, and that you know the basics on how to use it.
I can go into much greater detail, and even help you gather resources, but let's make sure you aren't overwhelmed just yet.
Check these out:
How to Draw From Life by Joe Kubert
Figure Drawing by Andrew Loomis
Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner
Your friend is sort of right about the pen. It can help do away with the "chicken scratch" method of drawing by forcing you to be more confident with your lines but you should stick with pencil for now.
I'm mostly self-taught as well (although I learned a bit from Watts Atelier until it got to be too expensive) and the sheer amount of information out there can be really overwhelming. I mean, there's so many things to learn: perspective, line weight, figure drawing, portraiture, landscape, etc.
What definitely helped me is realizing that I'm never going to stop improving as an artist. That means that I'm going to have my entire life to hone my skills. Even if you have to unlearn a lot of bad habits, you've still got plenty of time to practice slowly, deliberately and mindfully.
If you understand that you've got your whole life to get better, it's easier to formulate a strategy to get better. You've got to think about this in the long term. That means taking a month to work solely on anatomy, another month to work only on perspective, another month to work on tone and values, while always revisiting the skills that you've already cultivated.
For example, I've laid out my artistic goals 3 months in advance. That means that for the next 3 months, I'm only focusing on anatomy and gesture/figure drawing. My daily schedule this week looks like this:
warmup
1, 2, 5 and 10 minute gesture/figure drawings
study/copy hands from Bridgeman's Constructive Anatomy book
draw 50 hands
spend about 10-15 minutes drawing hands from memory and comparing them to the references I was using earlier
work on something fun
If I have extra time, I'll work on some more anatomy studies but it depends on how busy I am with work/life. After this week is up, I'll move on to arms, then the core, then legs, head, etc, following the same setup I've made. Maybe the next 3 months, I'll move on to perspective drawing but I haven't thought that far ahead yet.
If you're confused about where to start, just pick something that you're the weakest at and start drawing that. It's a grind and you're going to be producing hundreds, if not thousands of drawings but that's the way to get better.
Like I said, if you start thinking in the long term, it gets less overwhelming. I'm gonna link some resources that really helped me out.
Books
Perspective Made Easy
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
Fun With a Pencil Actually, anything by Loomis.
How to Draw Kind of a technical book but goes into really great detail about perspective
Youtube Channels
Watts Atelier Highly recommended. Watch his figure drawing videos. Also, if you can spare the cash, join his online school. It's fantastic and very structured course in drawing. Definitely look into this if you have trouble deciding what to learn next.
Proko This guy has great intro videos for figure drawing. I think he learned at Watts Atelier as well.
New Masters Academy They have a ton of great videos about everything. Definitely look into Glen Vilppu's figure drawing series. He's the god of figure drawing.
Alphonso Dunn Really great pen and ink tutorials
Sorry if I overwhelmed you (ironic, considering your original post) but I just wanted to share some stuff that's really helped me develop a schedule and get better. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to help you a fellow art student out.
TLDR: You have plenty of time in your life to get better, so make a schedule and stick to it.
I don't think I'm really qualified to give any advice... I don't have a lot of formal experience (dabbled 1 quarter as an art major and then ended up getting a CS degree, lol) and have been teaching myself very haphazardly and probably have a lot of bad habits. That said, a book that helped me greatly with anatomy is Loomis's "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth". http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986 and a way to practice it without going to an actual figure drawing session is with a tool like http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/. Concept Cookie http://cgcookie.com/concept/ has some excellent free tutorials, and I really enjoyed watching this recent video by Noah Bradley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQfF-P70V2Q It's part of his "ArtCamp" program, which I am seriously eyeing due to its very reasonable cost, but the summer session is already halfway through. Maybe next time! Here's his recommended art education: https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/dont-go-to-art-school-138c5efd45e9#b9fa
And of course the most critical part is to just practice! Draw a lot even when you feel shitty about it! (....I still need to take this to heart myself)
Holey muffins yes, without the basics you will never improve.
In order to draw something you must be able to (in an artistic sense) understand it's nature. Like how a cylinder sits in space, how to draw light, how muscles and bones sit in the body (anatomy), all that.
A good cartoonist always has learned to draw realistically first. To give a cartoon body a sense of realism you need to get how real bodies work. Basically you got to know the rules before you can break them.
You can go to a used book store and go to the art section and pick up anatomy books and life drawing books pretty easily. If you see anything by this author, grab it. When you draw from life, start with simple stuff first like just a ball, or an opaque glass like a mug, or even a box where you can see the interior. Don't smudge the graphite, and don't press too hard with it either. Learn how to create light and shadow with the graphite alone.
The more you draw realistically the better you will get. It may not be the topics that excite you, but these exercises that don't seem as much fun are the way to get you to get better at drawing the stuff that is fun.
Good luck
Theres so much you need to know to make a good piece, and I'm really only starting to get there after about 4-6 years of off and on 'serious' studying/practice. I also taught myself, used books, dvds, and online articles/tutorials.. with a little assistance from some art school friends for a short period of time.
You're really going to be accumulating a lot of books/dvds/tutorials through the years.. and they're all going to be valuable to you.
Maybe you should pick something you want to focus on.. and then move towards it by practicing everything it encompasses.
Could start with the elements and principles of design.
Composition
Value
Color Theory (Color and Light by James Gurney, Kecleon Color Theory)
Perspective
Life Drawing to understand light/values.
Figure drawing to understand the human figure. (Anatomy books, Figure Drawing For All It's Worth, Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, Force: Character Design from Life Drawing.) I love the Force books because they taught me how to SEE, INTERPRET, and EXPAND on an idea when it came to figure drawings.
The Animator's Survival Kit/Drawn to Life to understand motion, even if you don't want to be an animator.
Thegnomonworkshop.com has been an invaluable resource to me throughout the years too. (It's mostly digital stuff, but there really is no huge difference. It's all the same principles, just less preparation and knowledge about brush types/liquin. Once you understand how they work.. you're set anyway.)
And I'm constantly searching for more material to help me out. I just bought that Color and Light book because my understanding of how color works was atrocious.
I don't even know if this is going to be all the helpful.. but, uhh.. here. lol TL;DR.
Unclear without context how long you've been drawing, but, good on ya for posting! A couple of bits of crit:
Have you read Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy? (US Amazon link, but I'm sure if you sail the seven seas you can find PDFs) (Edit: after looking at that, seems like the reviewers also recommend Dynamic Figure Drawing, which apparently has less dense prose and more examples). Was very helpful to me as a teenager trying to figure out drawing bodies, even without life-drawing classes.
Your colors are all really saturated. I still have to fight this today. Part of that's a stylistic thing (your face style says "anime/comic" to me so full saturation is less of a deal?) Maybe try experimenting with slightly lower saturation though and see where that takes you?
Your colors also don't seem to be picking up any of the blue light from the water. You might want to look at some photos of underwater dance to see how the lighting is. Again, I think you're going for a more stylized manga/comic illustration look so you don't have to lean in so far to that, but it might be helpful!
Critique mode enabled...
The sense of perspective in the lower half of the work is outstanding. Really conveys a three dimensional space. The unrealistic anatomy of the shoulders in the top half pretty much throws everything off.
Placing your hand over the top half will give the impression that you're looking at a full 3D render from a mid-level game engine or something. Moving your hand to the bottom starts a weird session of chanting "Liefeld" over and over should you expose the image to a comic-book fan.
Think of how his collarbones would have to be positioned for us to see the patch on his right (our left). Look at how close that right shoulder is to his chin. It's not totally physically impossible for someone to get into such an extreme pose, but Teal'c is no contortionist. I'd recommend picking up a copy of Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth. It is the bible of drawing heroic figures in great poses.
Overall score: http://i.imgur.com/NdKExr6.gifv
[edit: typos]
It does get boring, it's study. It's up to you to learn to have fun with it.
Divide your time between the study and the fun, spend some time doing gesture drawings(they serve as great warmups), then some time doing figure drawing, then move on and draw something for you.
I think the key to it is focusing on what you learn while drawing from life, and learning how that translates to styles you love.
As for resources, I personally believe for character/figure work, a good anatomy book can go a long way. Figure drawing design and invention by Michael Hampton or Classic Human Anatomy by Valerie Winslow are my personal recommendations, but there are plenty of great books out there. The idea is when you get stuck on something then you reference it, and study it; work it out on the side of your drawing, or on a separate sheet/layer, but understand it as best you can before moving on.
Online recommendations, like most people mention, Proko is great, good information, and easy to understand.
For environments and design Feng Zhu's Design Cinema is a goldmine of solid tips.
I've found Kienan Laffarty to have a lot of good general information on all sorts of topics, like color, design, etc.
finally I think watching other artists work in real time(not the 400% sped up timelapses) can be indispensable in understanding how to handle the nuances of creating believable forms, or just how to progress your work from rough to finished, if you go in with the mindset to study what they're doing.
First of all I would say you need to study how light falls on forms and how to make them look 3d. Like iamnikolatesla said, a good way to learn this is by doing still life paintings of simple objects.
Some tips for stuff to look out for when painting an apple:
To critique your actual painting I would say your proportions are off, I recommend this book, Drawing The Head And Hands by Andrew Loomis. Also when you want to make something darker don't just add black, it makes the painting look muddy. Skin tends to be more saturated in colour in the shadows. Try not to make the whites of the eyes so bright, if you look in a mirror your eyes will not be so bright that they stand out. Lastly, try and think of hair as bigger shapes and don't render it so much, if you keep it simpler it ends up looking much more realistic. Good luck and have fun, faces really are a very difficult subject to paint.
couple of things.
One, with the watercolors. Suggest things. Don't outline them. Things in real life don't have outlines. They have shadows behind them, or darker colors.
Two, take your phone number off your site. Unless you feel comfortable with it up there, and it's a throwaway number.
Three, keep drawing. Every day. And if you're really interested in portraits or the human figure, get an anatomy book. Bridgeman has a huge one called Constructive Anatomy. Get some tracing paper and trace the book 3 or 4 times. You'll see a difference almost immediately.
Good luck!
Alright, you requested a critique and I've had time to give some thought to your work now.
Right off the bat I'm going to agree with the common sentiment here: The writing is strong. The story has some great propulsion. I'll go as far to say that you know how to write at a fairly proficient level. That's excellent! To paraphrase the guy who made Beetle Bailey, you can be an unskilled artist and still have people read your comics, but you can't be an unskilled writer.
Here's where the actual critique of detailed points starts.
Off the bat, the art is very rough. Like the art of anyone who is starting out, the art here shows a lack of practice. It seems like you know what you want to do, but don't have the mastery over the basics that is necessary to execute on it the way you want to. There are plenty of ways to build these skills. For human figures, figure drawing with a live model will help immensely in understanding how humans work, and help you understand how your favorite artists have stylized their work with their own understanding of human anatomy, which in turn should help you take what you have here and turn it into something closer to what you want from it, or at least what I'm assuming you want from it.
However, despite it being rough on a technical level, you achieved something very cool with the character designs. Morris is drawn in a much more insane-looking, much less realistic looking way to Angela White, which lends to us, as readers, feeling that insanity even before we're told. Combined with the warped camera angles you use when he encounters the alien warden and surreal pages we get when he is being questioned ends up reinforcing this idea that he is insane. White is drawn more like a reasonable human being by comparison, and this reinforces the idea that we should trust her. You've used the medium to your advantage despite being unrefined in skill. You have a good sense of how to approach these things that will only serve you further if you decide to improve your drawing skills.
You've got some interesting paneling going on, and I do not want to discourage that experimentation, but I do want to give you feedback on the effect it has had on your page flow and balance.
On Page 4 you've got a problem with the weight of the composition along with the overall flow of the page. My eye was drawn around the page as the red line indicates. Everything about the page wants to keep your eyes on the right side of the page (this is what I mean by weight, you could think of it as a kind of gravity as well) until you reach the bottom of the page where you are given an invitation to move back up the page into the center and left-hand side. This creates a situation where a reader who is taking in the art and isn't just reading from text box to text box will read the panels as I've indicated with the green numbers, rather than the intended reading order indicated with the blue. I can see that you did think about the flow of this page and it looks like it is intended to flow like this, but the text itself in the first box of text leaves your eye in a place where it wants to be pulled down by the slope of the Metro Waste dumpster when you're done reading it, undermining the page flow. If there is a less to be learned about this specific page, I think it's that text leads the eye as much as shape and rhythm, and keeping that in mind when you are designing a page will help you control the reader's eye more effectively in the future.
There are similar issues on some other pages. The layout itself in many cases is perfectly fine, the problem ends up being the flow of the page leading the reader to read the dialogue out of order, making for a confusing experience. Don't you dare think that I'm telling you to stop being so ambitious with your layouts. I don't think that's the answer at all. Keep trying to make these work. Keep these things in mind when making your own pages and while reading other people's comics. When something works, figure out why. When it doesn't, ask yourself why.
You can use a disjointed or chaotic pageflow to your advantage though. I don't really know if there is a name for this in comics, but in music there is the idea of "word painting", which is when music matches up with the meaning of the song. This page of A Lesson Is Learned, But The Damage Is Irreversible does just that. As the tidal wave hits and the man goes outside, the page gets more and more chaotic. You'll be scanning things twice and trying to figure out what is going on, but you still have the flow of the water in the center of the page to return to to guide you through the image, as well as sudden, clear borders in color creating panels without using panel gutters. It's really just the illusion of chaos, but this is what can be achieved through a solid understanding of how to guide the eye through a page. It's a pretty well known example among people who read a lot of webcomics I think. I'd highly recommend giving their archive a read.
You attempted something interesting on this page right here. The motion of the hammer going from resting position to smack dab into the Alien Warden's head was a cool, good idea. From the other comments here, I see that you have read Understanding Comics, and so probably remember from that book that Scott McCloud equates the space between panels to time. What happens between any two panels? Time passes. With so many panels and no other indications of speed, despite being probably one of my favorite things you attempted here (I do really love when motion is created in a still image, which you totally achieved!), it feels very slow, like he's sort of pushing the hammer into the Warden's head rather than a quick and violent bash that the situation seems to call for. I otherwise like what you did with this page. There are a number of ways you could change the perceived speed of the attack, from using less frames to complete the action (animation techniques like less frames = less time apply here), to somehow indicating that it only felt slow somehow and using that "time" for some purpose. Like any advice given here, it's mostly just trying to arm you to make more informed decisions in the future, not tell you what to do flat out.
Bringing it back to this musical idea of "word painting", here is Meredith Gran of Octopus Pie using the technique you used above to create a wonderful scene. You're on the right track by attempting these things.
The reading order on this page doesn't seem right to me. The red numbers are the order I read them in, and the blue are what I perceived to be the intended reading order. It appears you're supposed to read it in a clockwise motion, but there's nothing to actually indicate that to the reader, which will leave them lost momentarily. I really enjoy the line of action you have created for just the character's head in panel 1, and I find the final panel on the page to be delightfully creepy.
So, as far as actionable advice goes, working on your technical skills is the most obvious place to improve. Keys to Drawing and Perspective Made Easy are both books that focus on some basics that will help you improve. If you can, a figure drawing class is probably the best way to learn how to draw people, along with studying anatomy on your own time. If you can't do that, you can draw timed from photos, but drawing from life is definitely best. I haven't read a whole lot of horror comics, but I know that with those I have, grotesque detail often heightens the feelings of unease and can get me feeling squeamish. Junji Ito comes to mind for that. If you haven't read it, maybe The Enigma of Amigara Fault could provide some visual inspiration. Ito's other works often go more overtly detailed and grotesque, so it's possible that you may want to look further into him if he isn't already someone you've read.
You'll notice I haven't much touched on your story in detail. I could, and if you want to I will to the best of my ability, but I wanted to cover the art bit first since you seem to have a better handle on telling a story at the moment, and because this has gone on long and might be better digestible in parts anyway.
I hope this is helpful.
i just started with "You can draw in 30 days" http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415
only 10 days in and already i'm seeing an improvement!
day1: http://imgur.com/vqnEDgg
day9: http://imgur.com/tbwyGbc
You can draw in 30 days by Mark Kistler:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Can-Draw-Days-Landscapes/dp/0738212415
Hello!
Thanks, you are very kind and I'm pleased my colour images have inspired you to do your own. Whilst I have my own way of doing things which have just come out of practice, as a general rule of thumb, I offer the following advice:
And lastly...
Cheers!
You might find this book helpful. It's more a reference manual than a tutorial, but it provides very excellent information on color.
It's not focused on pixel art, but most of the principles can be carried into pixel art (and any other art style that makes use of color or lighting).
Let's start with the basics, when you draw people, there are average ratios for a person's face and body. I would recommend picking up Jack Hamm's books: https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-How-Handbook/dp/0399507914/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
it's great for beginners.
Here's an excerpt to give you an idea of what I'm talking about: People are around 7 1/2 heads, idealized people are around 8 heads (https://witness2fashion.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/8-head-figure-jack-hamm-drawing-the-head-and-figure.jpg)
Faces, notice the width of the nose, the angle between the eyes and the bottom of the nose, etc... this should give you an approximation of getting closer to a correct face (http://loyalkng.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/jack-hamms-drawing-the-head-figure-eyes-sketchbook-pervy.jpg)
Once you've achieved satisfactory ratios for face and body, and you're quite close to getting it right every time. Then move onto doing Bargue plates.
Start with Figure Drawing For All Its Worth. It's worth its weight in gold. Those Loomis books are available in softcover at Amazon again, which is good.
Also pick up Drawing the Head and Figure by Jack Hamm.
Both those books are a fantastic way to get started! Not only do they show you anatomy, but also composition, perspective, and all the other fundamentals you'll need to get started.
Anatomy books are the real deal, but not always inspirational starting points. The important thing to practice when drawing people, is proportions...as in why are the figure's arms too short and legs too long. You might want to look at a book that doesn't obsess over where muscles go on huge naked men. For example, http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321976718&sr=8-2
But most importantly, don't burn out on this stuff. Remember to draw what you love and have fun once and a while. With the right mindset to improve, you can only get better.
If you're talking about the Christopher Hart ones (they guy who does all the "How to draw manga" books), then yea, they are pretty bad. They are so dumbed-down, and not in the good way like to make it easy for beginners, but to the point where they are flawed. They're OK if you want references for designs and ideas, but don't get them for instructions. And as for specifically drawing hyenas, I seriously doubt you'll find one that specifically shows that.
I'd recommend anything by Burne Hogarth (the details can be a little intimidating, but he's spectacular with teaching form and composition) for learning basics of anatomy and how the body works. Here's a link to his blog for a list of his books: http://burnehogarth.com/blog/books
If you're looking specifically for animal instructions though, there's one book I have that has helped, by Jack Hamm. It's not quite in the way of step-by-step, but it is good for hints on what to look for in finding the distinguishing details in animal anatomy. This one here: http://www.amazon.com/Draw-Animals-Perigee-Jack-Hamm/dp/0399508023
Without being dismissive about it though, really the best thing you can do is to practice and practice and practice. Looking to instruction books and "how to" books is OK for introduction and familiarizing yourself with a genre, but it's far too easy to get locked into bad methodology. Either because the instructions are actually bad (again as in the case of Christopher Hart), or because what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another, and you don't want to stick yourself into a way of working that's not right for you just because you're "following instructions." Everyone has a process that works best for them, and it's best to find how you work.
If you have access to it, I think watching streams would be a good idea. Drawing is a process, so seeing a process is a good way to get into the swing of things. Again, just remember that their way doesn't have to be your way. Give what they do a try, but make yourself comfortable.
Some universal rules that I think are helpful:
Most importantly, and you've heard it a million times, PRACTICE. No one becomes an expert overnight. For many of us it takes years to get into our own style and even then, it will continue to change. Don't worry about what you're doing wrong, especially at the beginning, but retain what you do that you like. Look to others for inspiration, but in the end, make it your own.
Keep one thing in mind, talent is something you work on. Those people that play guitar had bleeding finger tips for a while before they could finally play Wonderwall around the bonfire.
I suggest drawing. If you like animals, that book is pretty good.
And maybe check with your doc if you can't concentrate or if you feel down.
In the meantime, draw everything. Everything. EVERYTHING.
Keep a sketch book with you always! Draw people waiting for the bus, cars parked outside, city blocks, landscapes, trees, ideas, concepts, doodles, nonsense.
Take pictures of things and use them for reference. Constantly! Can't figure out how an arm looks like in a certain pose, get someone to pose the same way and take a shot with your phone. Its not "cheating" and most artists worth their salt will stare at you like you're insane if you told them to do a large scale project with no live or photo references.
Go to figure drawing meetups. There's usually some at art schools or in any big city. You will be terrible at first but drawing people is a good way to train your eye.
Copy your favorite artist. Not just draw from, but try to copy a whole piece of art, from start to finish, line for line, as closely as possible. Do this a lot! It will help you understand why they put this thing there, and put that thing here, and drew that thing like this.
Its the same reason musicians practice other people's work before they start composing their own!
Figure out who their influence are, and do the same thing with them.
If you're looking for books to get you started, here are some good ones.
IMO go lower in resolution. Focus on form first before you do any detailing. I would also highly suggest diving into this book and making it everything you think about:
https://www.amazon.com/Constructive-Anatomy-Dover-Artists/dp/0486211045
edit: another great one: https://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Anatomy-Expanded-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015521
Looks pretty good!
In the future, I'd suggest that you try to think structurally, building up basic forms before you try to solidify your contours. A professor I had in school used to repeat to us, "Earn your edges." What that means is that you should understand the forms that are in your image, and then define your contours based on those. What's a sphere? A cube? A cylinder? A combination of any of those? A distortion of those? Where is the cheekbone? The eye sockets? What can you break the shape of the bridge of the nose down to?
Obviously, you're not really going to know any of that just by default! That's when you bring in reference as you need it! Whenever you attempt to draw something, look references up for it. If you're drawing an ocelot, try looking at photos of them from various angles. See if you can discern what forms make up their heads. If you're not squeamish, you might even consider finding pictures of their skulls to really understand the underlying structure. Draw them as close to the references as you can! Start your sketch lightly and decide "This is a cube. I can take this cube and remove chunks to make the head shape. Here's a wedge shape. It fits here." After you've got this lightly drawn in, move on to darker pencils and start refining your edges. You can use those forms you defined to start deciding where light will go and how it'll behave on your drawing!
If you haven't already, I suggest you pick up copies of George Bridgman's Constructive Anatomy and Louise Gordon's How to Draw The Human Figure: An Anatomical Approach. Both of these books are chock full of information about breaking things down into simpler shapes and understanding what goes on under the skin of a figure, which is very applicable to anthro art!
Proko is probably the best for this on Youtube. His website is good too. Constructive Anatomy is a nice cheap book. I have Figure Drawing: Design and Invention which I really like, but it's a bit more expensive. The author also has a good website
Keep it up! I want to recommend two books to you. The first was used as the curriculum in my Figure Drawing class: The Natural Way to Draw - Nicolaides
The other is called Constructive Anatomy and takes the mystery out of those trouble spots like hands and faces.
Water in my experience is a lot trickier. Again, you've got a great start by using thinner lines on the stems to show they're behind a transparent object. Since the thickness of the stems is similar below and above the water level, you could make the line even thinner (like, super thin implied baby lines) when it's underwater. Or, you could forego linework completely and rely on colour to show the form (which I think looks super cool with watercolours).
I think using a thin line for the water surface worked well. A way to push the depth further would be to use perspective. Continue the water line around the back of the vase to show the surface of the water as a flat circle, instead of a curved 2D line - image searching 'cylinder in perspective' can show I mean. If you do this, it's best to be consistent and do the same with the vase as well, otherwise it looks kinda weird.
Another theory about line weight applies to objects in perspective - the further an object is from the viewer, the less detail the viewer sees, so the line work should be thinner as the object moves back.
You've got the right idea about using colours to show some reflection on the surface of the water. I think by using perspective to turn it into a flat plane instead of a line, it'll also make it easier for you to visualize when you try to add those reflections.
As for colouring underwater, that's... something I'm still learning myself lol
There's lots of information out there on the internet about perspective and colour theory that goes into way more depth (hah) than I can, but if you're looking for books check out Color and Light by James Gurney and Perspective Made Easy by Ernest Norling.
You have some options.
If you wish to simply attain some better looking results and not have to be burdened with the long and arduous process of learning to draw intuitively, I'd recommend you look into the sight-size method of drawing. Where you set up your canvas next to your subject, whether it's a picture or a model and measure angles and distances in a "one to one" ratio kind of way. this will produce very accurate results and placement of features and works very well as a blocking in method. From there on it's just all practice. And understanding how to measure is a useful skill in and of itself.
Unfortunately I don't dabble much with sight-size anymore, although I recognize its benefits. I can't give you any good material, but from a glance, https://www.sightsize.com/ probably isn't a bad idea to start.
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If time is of no concern I would recommend you start on the long and slow and painful process of understanding construction. To do so you'll need a very good grasp of forms in perspective. 1,2 and 3 point perspective being the most used. (sometimes 4, but it's not essential unless you're looking at specific effects). Understanding forms in perspective, usually starting with boxes, will lead you onto understanding how to light forms in perspective. From there you can go on to lighting forms in perspective and these kinds of methods and practice of drawing every living and non-living thing under the sun are the basics of all drawing. And from there it's a lot of practice. Years of practice. This is the past most kids try to go down these days because they want to be able to.. in their own imaginations... "draw from imagination". A term that's so overused and misunderstood that it will most likely cause my ulcer to burst and kill me on the spot one day. But it is the road to the aforementioned "intuitive" way of drawing, were you use the same method for basically everything. And you'll simply be relying on reference to guide the information you choose for your work, rather than having a need to copy what you see religiously.
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Good material for learning perspective, are Scott Robertson's books, but they can be .. a bit heavy for beginners, so as an introduction, "Perspective made easy" is a decent grab
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perspective-Made-Easy-Dover-Instruction/dp/0486404730/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549974784&sr=8-1&keywords=perspective+made+easy
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As for construction. I'm partial to Karl Gnass head drawing book and Michael Hampton's Figure drawing design and invention.
https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819
https://www.amazon.com/Head-Shots-Artists-Guide-Drawing/dp/0975281232
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I hope I haven't confused you too much. What I think you should do is to practice both of these methods, and if faster results to compliment your painting is your cup of tea, I would recommend sight-size. If you are simply drawing for your own enjoyment and personal progression, I would recommend looking into perspective, simple forms in perspective and then use that as a starting point for construction.
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People will undoubtedly mention anatomy, but I tend to leave that bit out until it presents itself naturally.
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Mind you. This is just my opinion. Others may have other and/or better ideas for your personal goals.
http://www.penciljack.com - Level up through the forums. Loston Wallace + Smitty (The Legendary Paul Smith) are frequenters. Get tips from people that know what the fuck they're talking about.
I suck at drawing, but I know the good books, and they'll likely recommend them too:
http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377364025&sr=1-1&keywords=andrew+loomis
Anything by Loomis. Steve Rude, Alex Ross, and many more see his books as integral to their artistic education.
http://www.amazon.com/Perspective-Made-Easy-Dover-Instruction/dp/0486404730/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377364049&sr=1-1&keywords=norling+perspective+made+easy
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377364114&sr=1-1&keywords=drawing+on+the+right+side+of+the+brain
Good luck!
There is a book I used named Perspective Made Easy by Ernest Cline. It takes about a day to read and has exercises to follow along. It has helped me incredibly and is a great tool to learn the basics.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0486404730/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487822251&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=perspective+made+easy
I will to bet after you get this book you will be more then amazed of what you are capable of- https://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510439433&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=you+cna+sraw+in+30+days. Its seriously one of the best books to learn how to draw, and lots of fun.
http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415?sa-no-redirect=1
This is a great book for those wanting to develop a few drawing skills and some confidence. I highly recommend it to begin with. I've found myself revisiting parts of it when I feel like I need a refresher.
Mark Kistler's You Can Draw in 30 Days will teach you the fundamentals of drawing with a slight comic/cartoon bent. It is also a lot of fun as far as intro instructional books go.
I think your foreground needs more depth. Your background and tree are great, but the foreground doesn't match.
This is an excellent guide on creating depth with only contrast, atmospheric fading, and light. Parts one and three are also good, but rely on objects and lines to create the illusion of depth, which you may not want to add.
There's also a really useful book called Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter, by James Gurney. I can't paint to save my life, but my understanding of how color and light work grew exponentially just from reading this. I can only imagine that it would help a real painter more. :)
No, although the further you recede, the less saturated everything is, including the shadows, but also the highlights. Atmospheric perspective indicates that they start to fade into the color of the sky...but what I meant was (and this happens to everyone starting out) you picked the colors of the sky, mountain, road, as colors that you think each of those elements are. So, grass is green, right? okay I'll pick a shade of green. The road is grey, right? Okay so pick grey for the road...when in reality light is a little more complicated than that, and a pleasant composition requires a cohesive color scheme. It means picking a different color for the road even though you think of it as 'grey' you simulate grey by choosing a less saturated green for example, or blue or whatever you have in your color palette.
This book is a wonderful reference and talks more about it if you're interested. The author made this video that explains a couple exercises you can do that will help.
From the Library I've taken out
I would suggest picking up Gurney's Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter.
Color theory is a technical subject, it can be taught, and Gurney does an excellent job of teaching it. To touch briefly on the example question you brought up, the temperature and color of your highlights and shadows (and even midtones) will depend on your lighting conditions. For example, a sunny outdoor scene will have warm highlights and cool shadows.
That amazon link has a preview, I encourage you to poke through the table of contents. I think the book does a good job of showing how to put the abstract color relationships you already know into practice.
Color theory is such a monster. That's why I haven't really tackled it yet, because others have done it better than I ever could.
I would say this is required reading for colorists: http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719
It's a painting book, but most of it applies to both.
And if you haven't seen Sycra's YouTube videos on light, shadow, and choosing colors, go watch it... TONIGHT! It's so good.
I just updated the sidebar with that book and Sycra's video links.
I've got a new video coming on Thursday that talks a little about using gradient maps to come up with color palettes, but it's really just a short cut to get you a good starting point.
I will do a video on palettes soon. It keeps coming up. I recently added a bonus video that talks about it in my coloring course, but I can throw a little something on YouTube too.
I want to make it into a website, but I haven't done that part yet. Right now, it is just standalone, so you can only run it if you have the code.
I do digital art, watercolor and acrylic. No one knows though lol. Can't get myself to go to local clubs for that stuff.
You should read : https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719
It is a very good book for color theory.
An artist gave me a list of books to read at a convention after I showed him my work.
Figure drawing for all its worth
Perspective! For Comic Book Artists
Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative
The Classic How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way
http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325347779&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Hands-Andrew-Loomis/dp/0857680978/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1325347779&sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986
http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Human-Anatomy-Motion-Dynamics/dp/0770434142
https://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV
Only good anatomy book i know of
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Always I look at anatomy and proportions first, coloring shading etc... are built from that.
I am new to modding and helping you all, aka teaching, so I will do all I can to assist, and these is the best I can think of.
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Watch the spine, think of the spine, no Rob Liefield!
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https://imgur.com/g9ySVHJ
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With that being said, look at this weeks "challenge" thread for a good penis reference, and her backside is a bit of broken spine syndrome.
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Keep going at it, never give up, draw draw draw!
Both of these books are excellent.
1
2
If you can't aford them, here are the PDFs.
Big thing: learn how to draw figures in space. Right now your drawings look flat. In particular, you need to be able to show how one part of the human anatomy overlaps another part. This is actually really hard to do, because it requires you to keep a three dimensional model (of some sort) in your head. That's why these are so popular.
Jim Lee actually breaks down the human body into three dimensional shapes and places them in order from front to back. The only place to learn this sort of thing is drawing from life, but even then that doesn't quite give you a framework to use. Personally, I suggest Bridgman's works, but he puts a surprising premium on explaining rather than showing.
When you get this down you'll find that your art becomes much more dynamic. Also, it'll allow you to create believable action shots with more than once person.
Check these out, because they're great examples of figures in space and overlapping anatomy (you'll see that I love me some X-Men):
Just for an example of how this plays out, look at these action shots of figures in space:
Apple Notes is great for sketching, if you want to go further then yes definitely Procreate, best bang for your buck and my personal favourite.
I can't recommend any apps for learning how to draw, but I can recommend these books to get you started, that is if you'll be interested in designing characters or drawing people etc;
Bridgmans Complete Guide Drawing From Life
Force by Mike Mattesi
The Silver Way by Stephen Silver
Amazing list! All of these are essential. These are also my favorites for animation:
Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators (Force Drawing Series)
Timing for Animation
Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life
Bridgman's was a must for me when it came to learning anatomy.
Gurney is a great resource for beginning painters. He goes really in depth about how colours work, how to use them, how to pick a palette, etc. This book by Richard Yot takes it a step further and teaches you why colour (and light more specifically) behaves the way it does, and will help you learn to properly observe colour from real life. Those are my go to resources. They are both enjoyable reads too, not overly verbose with many clear examples.
However, all the books in the world won't help you unless you actually take the time to put it all into practice. What you need is to learn about colour, yes, but also start making some paintings where you apply some of those concepts. A simple still life is a good place to start. Once you can do that, you might look into painting outdoor landscapes for a more dynamic lighting situation. Even if your paintings suck at first, the act of observing, analyzing, and trying to conceptualize light/colour from observation will gradually build up your familiarity with colour. It's no different from drawing, really. You just have to do the thing to get better at it.
Unfortunately there's no definitive guide for that kind of stuff, and it comes to different artists in different ways. "No-outline art" encompasses an awful lot, and it's kind of hard to know where the difference begins. There's no one step-by-step tutorial that's better than any others, just a basic set of rules that, when applied by different artists, create a lot of different results!
For general painterly-looking stuff, I would recommend this book. I've found it really helpful, since I struggle with color and a painterly look in particular.
Reddit has some gems hidden in the rough as well. There are several art subreddits. Some of them are pretty dead, but they'll usually have some links in their sidebar to resources! This one's alright, and you can look around their related subs to go from sub to sub! I found this user mulling around /r/redditgetsdrawn. There's tons of speed-paint videos out there, but his are faster and looser while still coming together really nicely in the end. It's a good example of simplified painterly style, although that doesn't mean he's any less talented!
Sorry to not be more help, that's a very big question! There are resources all over, half the trouble is knowing how and where to look.
When the surface of a body of water is not still, like this, it will refract light onto objects below that will looks something like this or this. You could try appying that sort of light pattern on your sea floor, but I think it would be challenging.
The further (or deeper) light travels through water, the more it is affected by the water molecules. This scatters the light, making more ambient, or coming from all directions.
Color is also important in an underwater scene. James Gurney explains this in his book, Color and Light.
> Water selectively filters out colors of light passing through it. Red is mostly absorbed at ten feet, Orange and yellow wavelenths are gone by twenty feet, leaving a blue cast.
So, I would recommend toning down your reds, oranges, and yellows, to give it a more underwater quality.
Also, keep in mind that even blue light gets absorbed, given enough distance, making far-away objects difficult to see. You might consider fading out some of the background sharks and terrain.
I took the liberty of doing a quick paintover to show what I mean with the colors and fading.
But in terms of the light and shadow itself, I think you could still have a weak light source from above (the sun), combined with an ambient bluish light. Your illustration is quite strong as is, and I don't know if the lighting need to get super-realistic.
If you're looking a book that's about color overall, definitely look at James Gurney's Color and Light.
It is THE resource every artist should own regardless of skill. As for mixing colors and paints, I can't provide too much there, but try Jeff Miracola. He's a fantasy painter who does mostly acrylic work, but he's got a lot of tutorials and walkthroughs that may be of assistance.
Color theory and application can be difficult to master, and hopefully these resources can get you on a path to other resources that may be valuable.
I bought this book years ago, when I started to get more into landscapes and colour theory. It's a good book, with solid advice.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0740797719/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Beyond that, observation and experimentation are invaluable. Don't be afraid to try different colors on things, see how they mesh and work. Don't be afraid to repaint. Knowing what works becomes natural over time, I swear. You'll instinctively know what colors to choose to enable a specific mood and how to easily mix them.
It's also not just about colour. It's about the hue, the saturation and the value. Value = dark and light. Hue = the shade. Saturation = how 'strong' or muted that color is. How close to neutral grey it is. Like, the image on the left doesn't seem to have a strong contrast in the foreground, but it does have red (okay, it's orange but orange is only red+yellow) and green shades which are complimentary colors: so it pops. The red is warm, it's inviting. The image on the right ditches a lot of the saturation in favor of strong color values, colors are muted (except for the green) and cool , there's no warmth in this image and that fence is a sharp, dark (ominous) contrast to the misty grey/neutral-ish background. Saturation and value play as much as part as just color when it comes to mood.
But this can all be learned and really easily! Youtube is also great for this kind of stuff.
Here is the mobile version of your link
> If there is literature/links/methods that you find especially effective (particularly for a newbie with 0 experience) I would be grateful. %)
Michael Hampton is my favourite anatomy artist
All of Andrew Loomis's books are available at that link, they are completely invaluable - I particularly recommend "fun with a pencil" for newbies
learn to paint with Reilly's Papers absolutely invaluable for digital painting.
Posemaniacs is my favourite site for practicing gesture drawing and poses, the pose timer is fantastic.
James Gurney is the king of imaginative realism, follow his blog and buy his books they will serve you very well.
linesandcolours is a wonderful art blog
Most importantly - read and keep a record of artists you enjoy, don't be afraid to try out their styles and techniques and copy your favourite paintings - "mastercopying" is a legitimate technique for learning how to improve your own work - as they say "all art is theft".
And the best advice I can give you - have fun with what you do. Keep multiple projects on the go, big and small. If you aren't in the mood to do a big painting, make something shitty and hilarious in MS paint. Find someone to art-trade with (hell, I'll art trade with you anytime - I'm always looking for people to collab and share with). Don't be scared to make absolute crap because being loose and free with your work at any level of complexity teaches you not be precious and will ultimately make you a more relaxed artist.
Maybe the James Gurney books, Imaginative Realism and Color and Light
Color and Light by James Gurney.
How to Draw by Scott Robertson.
Figure Drawing by Michael Hampton.
And for perspectice specifically, this $12 video series by Marshall Vandruff.
Hey, I'm a CG Lighting artist by trade, I'll let you know some good resources that have helped me.
As a lighter, your goal is things things, Setting the mood/atmosphere, Shaping (making sure you can make out forms of the scene), and Leading the eye (I feel like there is a fourth, but I can't think of it this morning lol)
Some good books to read:
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter
Light for Visual Artists (hard book to find, but worth finding a copy)
Digital Lighting and Rendering(new edition coming out soon)
Great resources to start and help train your eye, studying films is the next step. Picking apart scenes to understand how and why they lit the scene the way they did, studying photography is a great place to look as well.
Also if you can afford it, TD-U has a fantastic online course from a couple of great instructors to help you on your way of understanding CG Lighting. If you can afford the class it will be a great place to start. I took the class last year and it was an AMAZING resource, I didn't know anything beyond the technical understanding of lighting, this course really helped me understand the artistic side of lighting. The instructors are great and very helpful.
anyways, hope that helps, if you have any questions feel free to message me.
Please bear in mind, that the fundamental skills of good drawing are universal and when you learn a consistent approach in how to draw the human form well, it doesn't matter what the size, shape, or skin colour of your model is. That's one of the reassuring things about human anatomy: despite differences between individuals, you can learn to find consistencies in structure that will always be there.
Having said that, allow me to share with you my 3 favourite life drawing books, each of which include references for models of various ethnicities.
A book you definitely want to check out is Sarah Simblet's "Anatomy for the Artist" Her drawings are immaculate, but what I really like is that the photos are if equally high quality.
Another example of high quality work is Henry Yan's Figure Drawing Techniques and Tips. These images will blow your mind, he has total mastery of charcoal. This book includes a good range of young and old models, male and female, white, black, and asian.
You might also like Michael Hampton's "Figure Drawing: Design and Invention. Probably the best book I know for showing a progressive approach to skill building using geometry and the best examples of gesture drawings.
Even though I'm white, I share your frustration. I'm always trying to find resources for drawing different ethnicities and find that they are lacking. The books I've recommended are the best I've found yet.
Artistic Anatomy by Dr.Paul Richer is what I learned from :)
That first link is a great kind of superficial guide.
I'm curious as to which book you prefer, I hope you update us when you have the chance. On the topic, I've always been partial to artistic anatomy
So many of those things aren't really anything you can change here and I understand that. These are things to think about in the future or if you intend to continue with this painting. I just thought it would be more helpful to have a formal critique than to have someone else say "It's not bad but it is a little boring". ;D
Perspective can be pretty difficult, so that's understandable. If you're interested, Burne Hogarth made a pretty good book about foreshortening - it's mainly for figure drawing, but I figured it could come in handy.
If you are into figure drawing, this book by Burne Hogarth has been my bible.
The way you drew it, the skull doesn't continue underneath his hair. I see the faint lines of your figure work, which is good. Now you have to learn how facial features morph in relation to each other.
For example, the flattened portion of the bottom of his eye indicates a fairly raised cheek, however his mouth is only slightly tilted. So either he's squinting (in which case add stress lines around his eyes) or you need to raise the corners of his mouth/show them interacting with his cheek.
The jaw line ends where the ear meets the face and hair sprouts, so try to draw it, or at least think of it, growing from the scalp/back-center of the head. A neck connects under the chin in a dramatic swoop, not just a straight line. This is why Ichigo's head is wrongly positioned in your picture.
If you're going to include light reflection in the eyes, you should at least add shading to the rest of the picture so it looks organic.
All in all, not bad. You're on the right track with those structural lines and just need to study and practice a bit more. I suggest practicing with 30 second drawings on Posemaniacs. This is an excellent book
P.S. As someone who practiced by copying pages from Bleach, it's really easy to make noses (and therefore faces) too long and mouths really boring when you practice Kubo's style too much. Keep at it!
First thing, stop insulting your art. Especially if you want to do this as a profession and not a hobby. I know it's hard when you're first learning and especially when your eye develops over your ability to make things.
To quote Joseph Fink,
> Hey, if you're submitting anything to anyone for any reason, never preface it with "It's not very good, but here goes" or similar. Because here's the thing: If you don't think it's good, why are you asking anyone else to bother with it? Either stand behind it or don't. You may think it sounds endearingly humble. But if someone has hundreds of submissions and they see "this is not very good" from the artist then they'll say "oh, ok" and delete it. The artist should know, after all. Either stand behind your art enough to say "this is worth your time" or don't ask anyone to put any time into it.
It isn't humble and it doesn't come off that way to others, it comes off in lacking self confidence and being self pitying and it will really hurt you as an artist career wise and growth wise. I'm serious. Destroy this habit before it takes root right now.
Also, there is plenty you can ask for in tips on this. Study clothing folds and how it moves before jumping into the full outfit. Here is a free chapter on more realistic clothing and folds for free and if you have some money to spend Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery is my personal favorite book on clothing. Don't work off mannequins on clothing because clothes will often lay on them somewhat unnaturally and stiff. When I was back in early drawing classes one of our first assignments was to draw clothes balled up on the floor to practice organic shapes and folds. Then we moved onto clothes on people, especially people in movement of some sort. Keep practicing on it, especially if you feel you need to improve.
I hope you feel better and your practice goes well this week. :)
Nice! I totally planned to come here and be like "Criticism welcome? Well your friends think you talk too much" but this is too dope of a painting to be a jerk. Overall I think you've done a tremendous job, if you're looking for some constructive criticism, I would take a closer look at how fabric moves - there are some great resources online you can reference (https://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Wrinkles-Drapery-Solutions-Drawing/dp/0823015874). But really stellar job overall!
I should study wrinkles. I have a book about that, for Pete's sake, but never came around reading it.
I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful than this.
This is one of my favorite books for things like this.
How to Draw What You See is arguably a better book than the other popular book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain... Especially since all that "right brain/left brain" stuff is mostly nonsense.
Hey Greypuppy, I just made an image laying out some of your anatomy errors and ways to fix them, Imgur, they're numbered so you can look at what I'm talking about as you read. ^ ^
1.) Placement of the shoulders; to allow for a full range of movement, they're set a little lower than you have them, and the collar bone is set lower to reflect that (and is also part of what keeps our shoulders where they are, if you set your hand on your collar bone and lift your shoulders you can feel how it changes.)
2.)How the chest, armpit, and shoulder all come together; this is a common issue that most ppl fix once they realize that all those muscles connect on the shoulder. The hollow of our arm pit is formed by the muscles bending around the arm bone to reach the outside of the shoulder. The reason our pecks bulge when we pull our shoulders in is b/c those muscles are what's doing the pulling.
3.) The s-curve of the spine; Unless you're forcing the spine flat, the spine has a natural curve from the tail-bone to the base of the skull, this don't just effect the side-view, but also how the pelvis and rib-cage position themselves. The best way I could depict the way they tilt if with the two pink cups in the drawing. I exaggerated the tilt of the hips in the example drawing, but it still gives you a good idea what they're doing, all the same.
4.) The muscles on the top of the legs; just as we have the bulges of muscles on our butt and back of the leg to pull our leg back, we also have muscle running from our pelvis to our knee that helps us lift our leg. Even if you're not very beefy, you can still see part of that curve on the top of the leg, think of it as however bold the under-leg curve line is, the top one is at least half as bold a curve line.
5.) The muscles and tendons meeting behind the knee; you're drawing wouldn't bee far off the mark on a character with a heavyer build, but with someone so skinny, the hollow behind the knee would be more apparent. This is because behind the knee there's a hollow where the muscles have pulled to either side so they can attach to the kneecap. Sometimes there is a sort of square lump that lines up with the kneecap itself (forgot to draw that version, sorry, ^ ^ ' ) but for a skinny person, usually it just dips in right behind the knee as appose to a little below it as you've drawn.
6.)Where the thumb connects; not a big issue here, more just that there's another link to the thumb, and the flesh attached half-way across the palm. Went ahead and gave you a clear drawing of the hand bulges and pads, I find it helps for the placement paw-pads.
Whew
Hope that wasn't too overwhelming, I figured I would tackle this critique with all I could think of since I'm thinking of writing a 'how-to' book on drawing figures at some point.
There's some minor issues with knee to ankle to paw placement, but since I didn't know how exactly to explain it, I couldn't add it to the drawing.
And if you ever want to really get a good feel for anatomy, the book I would recommend is Classic Human Anatomy. It's full of good drawings and a lot of technical anatomy stuff (which was a little daunting when I first looked through it,) but it's really helped me to understand not just how things look, but also why, which is great when you're having to make images in weird poses from scratch.
TL:DR - Just go look at the pretty picture, Imgur
Neck too long, shoulders too narrow, lips too large, skull too small. I refer you to this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Classic-Human-Anatomy-Function-Movement/dp/0823024156/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347889568&sr=8-2
Also, you know how a lot of artists have those wooden figures that sort of move? Yeah, they're good for learning proportion.
The only advice you need right now is to improve your draftsmanship. You need to understand anatomy to be able to draw people, no matter what level of detail/realism you wish to achieve. Animators and cartoonists who who draw all varieties of cartoon characters are always masters of drawing the human form. Even drawing characters like Fred Flinstone requires you to understand anatomy, such as the way joints bend, or hands and fingers function. Having a grasp on anatomy will help your story telling, no matter how you choose to exercise (or disregard) the knowledge. The best place to start learning is a very well known book authored by Andrew Loomis: Figure Drawing for What its Worth (this is one of the most well known peices of instructional drawing literature) Buy this book and study. You already have ideas that you want to draw, and thats great, and improving your draftsmanship will help you be able to get your ideas out. In addition to anatomy, You will also need to learn some basics of perspective, to be able to convincingly draw your stage for example, or how to set up characters around the stage and make them appear to all be on the same plane. Scott Robertson has a great book that teaches fundamentals of perspective, worth looking in to How to Draw Good Luck!
This is the one I have and I can't recommend it enough.
This book was created for painters, but this book is spectacular for learning how to mix color and use it well.
This is only marginally related, but I want to jump in here to point out that James Gurney (the author of that article) is crazy awesome and if you like to paint you should absolutely pick up a copy of his book Color and Light. It's very well done and easy to understand, and I wish I had had it when I first started out.
Now that that's out of the way, I really like the humanization in the ways the ponies eat. It's made very clear that they're herbivores who eat flowers and things, but they make them into sandwiches etc. instead of grazing. That said, I do like the whole spectrum of anthropomorphization from "human versions" of the characters to even relatively realistic ponies.
I wouldn't critique this if I didn't like this-- so, disclaimer. I also realize it is a doodle, but you posted it on the internet, so I'm assuming you would like feedback.
A little more fluidity and variance in line weight would be nice. Your anatomy needs some work-- even if this is supposed to be stylized. The jaw is very square, more characteristic of a male face, and the eyes and pupils are not pointed the same directions (A good way to help with this is to look at the drawing in a mirror, ocular dominance can be a bitch). The mouth and the nose are too high up on the face and could be pulled down a little further. I don't think the lines for the clavicles were necessary-- they pull my eye away from the face. You did a really nice job shading most of the nose, but the rest of the face lacks structure and I'm not really sure where your light sources are going, especially with the reflections on the eyes. Maybe emphasize those a little more.
I did a really quick redline here to better illustrate my points.
Some good books to help with the fundamentals that are causing these issues:
Keep up the good work!
>I still don't understand how to make something "look trippy."
I suppose that was an oddish thing to ask of. I think it ganders an explanation. First step to working with colour is reading up on it. Purplekeckleon has a good guide on this subject. Or you could read some books on them. Colour is a difficult thing to cover. (and should be spelled colour)
Going back to keckleon, she plays around with colour a lot. example 1 [textures and colour] (http://purplekecleon.deviantart.com/art/He-s-back-313119557?q=gallery%3Apurplekecleon%2F308451&qo=17). 2: more colour
I don't really have an exact explanation, about how you should use colour, but I suppose the best way to learn is to play around with it and see what works for you. As for texture, I can't say I understand it well enough to explain it. [](/ppnervous "Throw me a line here, viw!") What I understand is texture is the simulation of the feel of a surface, ie. grass, rock, wood. In your case it would likely mean the fur of on celestia or the shine on her tiara/horn. Basically getting the tiny details down.
>Am I making sense with all this?
No worries, you're making yourself pretty clear.
Okay so those images are of an entire painting that is mostly warm and an entire painting that is mostly cool. I'm talking about the relationship between light and shadow within the same painting. Here's a better example:
https://31.media.tumblr.com/cae91e1b08a12487beeb21475df64b61/tumblr_inline_n7l409ZuZw1s86nd4.png
In a given scene, there is at least one direct light source and at least one ambient light source. The shadows aren't simply the lack of illumination from the direct light source; they're lit up by the ambient light. In a sunlit scene, the direct light source is pure white (the sun), but the ambient light source is blue (the sky) and/or the color of the ground or other surroundings (for example, in the forest it might be green). Most of the surfaces not directly illuminated by the sun are illuminated by the ambient light, which means that in most settings the shadows will actually be cool. Even though the sun's light is pure white (if it's midday), because our eyes adjust to the blue ambience its light appears slightly yellow-orange (warm). A good rule of thumb is that most of the time, the ambient color is the complement of the direct light source. So, a cool light will cast warm shadows and a warm light will cast cool shadows. At a more advanced level it can become much more complicated than that, but this is enough to get you started. The main times you'll have a cool light source as your main light are when your subject is in the shade, indoors with natural lighting, or at night. Warm light sources are far more common, both in nature and in man-made settings.
For more information and examples, I highly recommend this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506048298&sr=8-1&keywords=james+gurney+color+and+light
Hey just was thinking if you're learning
http://www.amazon.ca/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719
Is a fantastic book!
edit: fixed link that was posted on my phone
You need to pick up an anatomy book because right now you're inventing muscles and applying too many shadows until the whole drawing becomes visual noise and it doesn't read clearly.
First off, I'd recommend you study Figure drawing for all it's worth by Andrew Loomis. You can probably find a PDF of it online for free and it's not overly complicated for a kid to understand. Then, if you feel you want to stick with drawing in the long run convince your parents to invest in these books:
Atlas of human anatomy for the artist
Human anatomy for artists : The elements of form
Classic human anatomy: The artist's guide to form, function, and movement
Figure drawing: Design and invention
How to draw: Drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination
How to render: The fundamentals of light, shadow and reflectivity
Color and light: A guide for the realist painter
Only 5~ months ago did I decide to get serious about improving my art in my free time. For most of my life I only doodled occasionally. So I thought I would describe my plan of action with books and resources that I will likely be using. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
My process will be basics of construction-> perspective -> figure drawing -> digital art and rendering. Approximately 45% will be improving, 45% will be doing what I want for fun and 10% will be a daily sketch(this subreddit) that takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour to complete. for fun I will be doing anything from digital to water color.
Construction and perspective: First I am starting my art journey by completing draw a box . Next I will go through Marshall Vandruff's Linear Perspective Videos and Perspective Made Easy simultaneously while referencing with how to draw by Scott Robertson. Briefly I will gloss at Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain or keys to drawing pulling ideas of where I might find weakness.
Figure drawing: Once those are finished, I will begin my figure drawing phase. I will move onto free proko subsided with loomis books such as this, other photo references sites like http://reference.sketchdaily.net/en and Figure Drawing: Design and Invention. I will also reference Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist and maybe more depending on my budget.
digital art and rendering: For the final stage of my journey, I will venture into ctrlpaint. Simultaneously I will be reading How to Render, Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn't Exist and Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter
After that.... I don't know. We will see were I am in a year.
Color and Light, a Guide for the Realist Painter is a good book to start with. And any art history books at your local library or local university library. Studying the works of masters can show you new ways of tackling abstract art.
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1370015276&sr=8-8&keywords=color+theory
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Theory-Watson-Guptill-Artists-Library/dp/0823007553/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1370015276&sr=8-4&keywords=color+theory
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Color-An-Introduction-Designers/dp/0470381353/ref=pd_sim_b_12
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0740797719/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1449100517&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=james+gurney&dpPl=1&dpID=51cGHRQjifL&ref=plSrch
anatomy for the artist
Anatomy for the Artist by Sarah Simblet. Helps you better understand how the body is constructed = better drawings
http://www.amazon.ca/Anatomy-Artist-Sarah-Simblet/dp/078948045X
You do not need a textbook for a drawing course the only text i would even consider would be Anatomy for the Artist but be aware that there are many nudes in this text. Typically i will photocopy important pages from this text that are safe for school and create packets for my students. meaning you would only need to purchase 1 copy of this book and be golden. As far as materials for a typical into to drawing course you would need:
multiple sets of drawing pencils. 4h, 2h, hb, 2b, 4b, 6b and i prefer prismacolor's Ebony jet black pencils.
Compressed and vine charcoal (you could also go with charcoal pencils)
Kneaded Erasers
Gum Erasers
India ink (you can buy this in large bottles which last quite a while)
Cheap watercolor sets
18x24 drawing paper with decent weight (i go through 1 ream a year with my classes)
11x14 watercolor paper (cheap canson pads can be purchased at walmart)
18x24 Newsprint
The teacher will also surely need a paper cutter if they do not have on already and perhaps drawing boards (a class set) if they intend on doing any drawings on site.
Get in touch with Sax or Blick art supply companies and shop around for good pricing.
Hope this helps
A book called anatomy for the artist
http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Artist-Sarah-Simblet/dp/078948045X
I had it at my college library and it was pretty good.
http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Artist-Sarah-Simblet/dp/078948045X something like this?
You'd have to toss in a little more money but this book is amazing. They have it listed for $27.19, but it is worth it. Now it is anatomy, but if you apply that with some exaggerated elements you have it knocked out.
Paul Richer's Artistic Anatomy is effin amazing, and what my anatomy classes in school used.
I also like Hogarth's work as well, although it's a bit more stylistic, and doesn't go as well into the muscular system IMO. Anatomy book+figure drawing+yes, Loomis is also awesome= learning. Drawing from life in everyday situations helps as well.
I would say, if you really want to make fast progress, yes, art classes would help you tremendously! But of course, you could also very much manage on your own via resources like books (Artistic Anatomy helped me a bunch with male torsos)and online tutorials. The problem with that is that, sometimes it can be difficult to figure out what you’re doing wrong when you don’t have someone who knows art more than you to tell you what to fix.
I can also recommend one artist on YouTube who is both an online art teacher and does extremely in-depth tutorials; I learned so much from her it’s honestly ridiculous. She’s not a furry artist in the slightest; however, she specializes in character design and portraiture so a lot of concepts she’s taught in her videos I have applied to my own furry drawings. She, (Instebrak) does do online private tutoring though I’ve never participated.
It's been 8 years since I graduated and I haven't found work as a 3d artist yet but I think I could give some advice to get you started. Feel free to take it with a grain of salt because, as I said, I haven't found work yet.
Get a goal as an artist. Jack-of-all-trades is good. But I think its better if you focus on one and make it your own. If you are shooting for a job in games then you may want to showcase that. If you're going for a general 3D artist position you probably have a bit more freedom. In your case I think your modeling needs work. Get into some high res modeling like mudbox or z brush. The thing about modeling is you have to know your subject matter like the back of your hand. For you I might suggest getting a few good anatomy references and learning about muscle structure (and to properly learn that you will need to know a bit about bone structure). If you are going to model weapons (which I really haven't done) I would say to learn how they are made where does one part meet another, and so on.
While I don't have tons of experience with rigged animation your rigging looks pretty solid. I'm pretty sure you can get work as a rigger but most places will want you to do animation too. Many artists seem to fall into being either a animator type artist or a modeler type artist. And you pick up a few things to accompany that focus.
Presentation You're going to want to learn a bit about lighting and rendering when you rework your reel. The black background is a bit harsh to look at. I tend to have two extremes, one where I show my model with a Final Gather/ GI render and then other times (if its a game model) I'll show it just as it is in the Maya window with the hud removed. There are several other ways to go about this I'm sure. Oh and show wireframes when showing off your modeling.
The biggest thing is to Keep Working and Learning If you are going to redo your site you might be messing with some web software and with the reel some video editing and/or compositing software and so you will be ready to sink your teeth into a good project. Do that.
ALSO You're leaving the warm comfort of college and its peer review goodness. You are about to enter your bubble where you create pretty much on your own. Try your damndest to step out of that when you can. NETWORK! If you can get on board with a good group thing jump on it. Sometimes they suck but when they are good they tend to produce excellent portfolio work.
Just be tenacious. Don't be scared by my eight years I had a few unfortunate personal events that held me back. I am still at it too. Also, if you don't live in California consider it. Just consider. There are several other hotspots in different industries around the US. I really hope this has been helpful.
www.3d.sk - great photo reference of people. Lots of stuff you can use on an image plane.
My favorite anatomy book
I can definitely help you with this.
How to Draw: drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination
This is the best book on perspective you can buy. Perspective is the number one thing you need to have a grasp on if you want to draw, especially from imagination. Practice this until it clicks for you.
For setting up scenes I recommend Andrew Loomis books, Creative Illustration in particular. Loomis has several books out and they're all amazing. Many artists have learned to draw from Loomis.
Burne Hogarth is another master of the craft and you can learn a lot about musculature and anatomy from his books. These are generally a step up from Loomis so you could move on to these once you have a solid grasp of the fundamentals to take your work to the next level. Dynamic Anatomy, Dynamic Figure Drawing, Drawing the Human Head.
For people and anatomy, Proko (http://www.proko.com/library/) has good free youtube videos. He uses a lot of Loomis and Hogarth methods (which are pretty much the standard) and presents them in a way that is easy to digest. He's constantly updating his channel and adding new videos.
If you can only get a few books, I would get the How to Draw perspective book first, then go through the Proko material, then move onto the Loomis and Hogarth stuff. These learning materials will take you pretty much as far as you want to go.
Also I highly recommend sticking to traditional materials (pencil and paper) while you're learning. Once you have the fundamentals down then you can move on to digital. You're going to make things much easier on yourself if you stick with traditional while you nail these fundamentals down.
>It's a great balance between technical information and illustrative information for artists. Even if an artist isn't going full-on photo-realistic, knowing where bones, muscles and other structures under the skin lay and fill out what goes on top will help.
I Also suggest checking out Dynamic Anatomy by Burne Hogarth!
Check out a book called Dynamic Anatomy.
I have the old version, but it's literally the best bit of anatomical instruction I've seen.
This is really good work. The kerning and hands could use a little work but it's off to a great start. It's always good to ask for critiques. So.. . Kudos on you.
Dynamic Anatomy: Revised and Expanded Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0823015521/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Zj22BbHYV7FTB
The style you are using, with no outline, looks nice.
You need to work on your anatomy. For example, look at his right hand, and look at where your thumb is on your own right hand when you are holding it like that.
I would recommend getting a good book on understanding and drawing anatomy and muscles, like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Anatomy-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0823015521
I highly recommend learning to draw real people before learning to draw anime. The skills you learn to draw from life will transfer over to anime style, but not the other way around.
I don't know of any resources to learn since I taught myself, but I think Sycra's videos are probably pretty good.
Oh, I also recommend the books Dynamic Anatomy and Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth.
Hey dude! Byrne Hogarth's "Dynamic Figure Drawing" is a good resource for this. https://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Anatomy-Expanded-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015521/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=burne+hogarth+dynamic+anatomy&qid=1570068434&s=gateway&sr=8-1
- Nice drawing! Hands need work ..fingers look two dimensional and flat. The book covers this; simplifying the human form into shapes for foreshortening.
- You did an awesome job with the right arm! The left arm is not foreshortened and doesn't appear to be extended parallel with the torso since it is smaller; this makes it appear disfigured.
Keep drawing man lots of potential here!
Definitely check out Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy
it gets into the thought and theory behind figure and form, and helped me through some major roadblocks
http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0823015521 This was helpful to me and I've had classes use it as a reference. I stopped reading 'how to' manga/cartooning books a long time ago (I don't think any less of them, I just didn't really need to anymore) so I can't really give you a list of those. You don't really need to either, to be honest, because your style will show through your work no matter what.
What I recommend instead is taking a figure drawing class if you can. Having a live model is the best way to learn the body. You can see how muscles shape given tensity of a stance, how fat sits on the muscle and the softness of skin. More than you can receive from a photo..it really does make a difference. You can also try to ask a friend to model for you:) It surprised me the number of people willing to do it for art, so it doesn't hurt to try! All bodies are different, remember that ;3
Before you do that, though, you should draw the musculatory system. Why? It forces you to understand just what's going on under the skin and why these things are shaped the way they are. One of my favorite assignments was:
Good luck! Feel free to pm me if you need anything :3
I really like having these around.
How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0671530771/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_PXkBybWE11WY9
Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/1402766785/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_34kBybDYR7KZT
Dynamic Figure Drawing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0823015777/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_O5kByb1YEC48K
How to Draw Animals (Perigee) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399508023/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_b7kBybRM8D7RC
Check out Burne Hogarth books, if you haven't already. Obviously not the best for T poses etc, but very handy
https://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Figure-Drawing-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015777
You could take up drawing, it's extremely cheap and is a very good way to spend time by yourself. I find drawing to be meditative and rewarding, you have the satisfaction of making something yourself as well as learning to see the world differently.
All you need are a set of pencils, a decent sketchbook, a kneaded eraser, and some decent instruction. I'd recommend learning first from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and then moving on to figure drawing. Try Dynamic Figure Drawing or Bridgman's Life Drawing. You can also look up the work of Andrew Loomis for more instruction, which are available as free PDFs.
Later you can experiment using vine charcoal (which can be erased easily) to get the hang of a different instrument than a pencil. Try laying charcoal on its side and making big strokes. This is the first step towards painting. You could even try painting with black and white acrylic only which really isn't much different in terms of skills or cost. If you can get good at drawing I promise you can get good at painting. It just takes a bit of dedication.
Draw torsos, lots of them. The movements of the limbs originate in the torso.
>Reference things and add in my own inspiration that leads to understanding the idea?
This right here is exactly what I meant by "reinventing the wheel", right? So a little bit of fun history - during the Renaissance, a nice fellow by the name of Leonardo DaVinci got frustrated with his painting and how they wouldn't "come out the way he liked it". So he started to observe the world and figured out many of the rules that let us depict a three-dimensional world in the two dimensions of a canvas/paper/Photoshop file. Things like perspective didn't have may written rules before then, so he had to come up with those rules. I'm loosely paraphrasing here, but that's the gist of it.
Modern artists such as ourselves don't have to go through the trial-and-error method of the classics, we have much easier ways of doing that:
Dynamic Figure Drawing - I like this book but it's a bit more advanced. He doesn't explain much about what he's doing and how the basics work. Avoid for now.
Figure Drawing - Design and Invention - Good book. Also a bit advanced.
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth - Now this I have a PDF on Dropbox for whenever I need it. You can buy the book on Amazon, but this is the original from the 1930s. The copyright expired on it, so they can be shared.
Fun with a Pencil Same deal. Most of Loomis' books are available for free online. If you want to draw faces, start here. His method is essentially >The< go-to method for correctly doing faces of today.
I took those off a post I made last week for someone else, but it's about the same thing. If you view any of the books on anatomy for artists, for example, the authors are very good at building the body in its basic shapes and teaching you how to draw not only based on what you see, but what you know something should look like.
You can always do drawing classes, I think they're a good way to start, but they're not necessary. What you would get out of them is a personal sort of coach that will oversee what you're doing and try to steer you in the right direction and give you pointers on where you need to improve. Obviously, though, most art teachers will teach you realism (which I strongly recommend you start with to strengthen your basics). However, being self-taught myself I can't speak from experience on how much help a class could be.
Mentality wise you need to understand that, in the long run, having strong understanding of the basic rules of drawing, of drawing people especially, will save you much frustration in the future. And like I said before, if you're good at visualizing things and translating them onto paper, it's already a huge part of your work being done for you. This is a bit humorous but I think it's very accurate. If you can avoid steps 1-3, I think you'll be on the right track!
Burne Hogarth's book Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery is a good book on it. He explains the underlying concepts so you understand how fabric folds and creates wrinkles.
Ah - on the mascara? It does look thick and clumpy.
Now that I'm comparing the original out of camera to your finished version, I'm also noticing a lot of funny issues with the way you've 'volumized' things, like the eyelids. The way you painted in highlights doesn't follow the actual contour and makes the eye look a little oddly shaped, for example.
If that's something you want to improve on, you might want to turn to life drawing techniques. The book How to Draw What You See may help you.
Practice Practice and more Practice, plus most of Drawing, and Painting is Seeing. So to kick start, try this book. How to draw what you see. its been around forever and you can probubly pick up a used copy cheap in a second hand book store.
Well to actually construct the head shape I used the Loomis Method, then I implemented my style by making the outlines solid and adding more line weight to lines near more heavily shaded areas. To shade the piece I used cross hatching, but in this case, I put the lines so close together to create the smoothness that you might see here.
I misread this thread title but paradoxically now I think that my misreading was still relevant: Get through an art book.
I've been slowly going through "Drawing the Head and Hands" by Loomis and "Figure Drawing - Design and Invention" by Hampton.
No matter how "blocked" you may be, with a book you only need to pick your pen and tablet/paper and start replicating its drawings and doing its exercises.
Not everything you draw has to be a final/perfectly rendered piece. In my case I would say that I only upload to my dA and Pixiv page a tenth of what I actually draw.
Yep remember when PC geeks and most IT didn't know about virtualization? It holds my ligit copy of windows XP pro. I don't know how ligit as it was OEM and the "hardware" it was bundled with is a piece of software that's been replaced by newer software. That whole section of the shelf has some old software. Final Cut Pro 3 -just 3 not studio 3- is really old. It was an educational copy and when I wanted to sell it to some other student Apple totally blocked me from doing so on Ebay. So I don't really use that version but couldn't sell it when it was worth anything because of "anti-piracy" bots. I don't even want to talk about the Adobe box sitting next to it.
Crammed in behind the old software is a good older book. Drawing the head and hands with Andrew Loomis is a re-issue of an antique. Wife wanted to buy a "how to draw" book for my daughter, I wanted to show her someone with talent. Unfortunately sneaking in with the incredible dedication and stunning talent are some antique gender and race notions. Not so bad in this book.
Check if you can do it at other schools. Otherwise there's a lot of tutorials around, check youtube and conceptart.org
edit: Oh, and the Andrew Loomis books have been getting re-released, well worth a look along with Bridgeman's stuff (think both are still available online too, they were out of print for years and there was a whole movement to try and get them re-printed, or at least preserve them)
http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1319139330&amp;sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Hands-Andrew-Loomis/dp/0857680978/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1319139330&amp;sr=8-2
Also, look into gesture drawing and do it in places like cafes and pubs, just drawing the people around you. Free life drawing classes :p
ok. I don't what style you want to go for, and I'm going to assume that you want to get into the comic book style. That doesn't matter though, where you need to begin is with Andrew Loomis' Creative illustration, Figure Drawing for all its worth(the free pdf, but I would recommend getting the book, because why not), Drawing on the right side of the brain, and Drawing the hands and face. All of these resources are what you need to start out. It doesn't look like you are out of the gate "I draw stick figures" level. But you have to keep in mind, that the ultimate tutor, is time. If you really want to get better quickly, then you have to devote a lot of time to studies and just drawing in general. Good luck, I hope I helped you at least a little bit.
A couple of good reference books (that you may be able to find in your library):
https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Hands-Andrew-Loomis/dp/0857680978/
https://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Hands-Dover-Anatomy-Artists/dp/048622709X/
I'm no pro by any means but I have a lot of fun drawing after work and certainly I'd love my SO surprised me with something like:
Also you can always include some nice accesories like blending stumps, different types of erasers, a good cutter/blade or sharpener.
Does she like books? Andrew Loomis' books are incredible! Drawing the Head and Hands!
These are (for me) good options for a present. Depending on budget you could increse/decrease the count on the color set but 24/36 is a good starting point.
I hope this helps.
Really nice work. Just a little tip tho. Try to pick up the Loomis anatomy books. This will help you with sculpting faces. You are really missing some major planes in there. Which makes it a less bit realistic then what i think you were going for.
Loomis really helped me learning to sculpt faces and build proper anatomy. It's a subject we artist will probably never master but it is something that helps us improve our work for the audience.
Proof: http://imgur.com/fjPU3oc
Book recommendation:
Figure Drawing For All It's Worth
Drawing The Head And Hands
Sorry if this was unwanted advice!
Still a bit awkward to me if you don't mind me saying that. Especially her right hand.
I recommend this book. Old but still one of the best around for this kind of things.
Plus, it's a must have for anyone into drawing. Every artist friend spotting it on your bookshelf would go "aah, good old Loomis", and they'll like you a little bit more. Owning that book just makes you a better person.
Great work. As others mentioned, the next step is getting her some anatomy art books Andrew Loomis' Drawing the Head and Hands and Figure Drawing for All It's Worth are great ones I've used myself and found very valuable. The best thing a budding comics illustrator can do is draw from life and not just from other comics/cartoons, that way their own style develops organically. Thanks for sharing!
Life drawing. If you're looking for good books though, Human Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form is a pretty good start.
I think both /u/DeweyTheDecimal and /u/plolyglon are correct. Faces are really difficult to do well because we see them all of the time. Even people who have never spent a day in their life studying art will be able to tell if something is wrong, they may not be able to tell you how to fix it, but they can tell if something seems off. It is also the case though, that since you are at least working and sculpting, you are most definitely on the right track! That is the only way to get better. It could be of benefit to spend some time watching tutorials too. Zack Petroc, for example, has been a HUGE help to me, the guy is really amazing, especially when it comes to human anatomy. He actually took classes at university dissecting cadavers to study human anatomy up close.
So please please please keep sculpting, like every day if you want to get better, it takes a lot of time like others have said. Look at references, get books on human anatomy for artists, watch free videos on youtube or buy Gnomon or digital tutors videos to get yourself started. It all depends on how serious you are about it. If this is what you want to do as a job one day, you have to start learning another 3d package like maya or 3dsmax at some point to learn about good topology flow and building simple base meshes to start sculpting from (helps with getting proportions started, at least for myself, but everyone has their own way to work). Otherwise if you are doing it for fun, just keep sculpting.
Start at a really low subdivision level and get all of your proportions set up, take that as far as you possibly can before you subdivide it, and then take that new level as far as you can. Things get kind of swollen looking if you jump into high divisions too quickly. It looks to me like you added a lot to whatever it was you started from (as in built up form with the clay build up brush), but don't be afraid to really carve into your sculpt either. Don't worry about fine details like wrinkles and whatnot until the very end, focus on setting up good proportions. The neck on your sculpt feels a little weak, like its too small and too skinny. The sternocleidomastoid should be emphasized a little bit more to give the neck the girth that it needs. Same with where the trapizus inserts into the base of the skull. The neck also feels a bit too short, trying dropping down the the lowest subdiv level to pull it out a little bit more. Anatomy is all about the way these muscles interact with one another, for it too look good, everything has to look good and the gesture has to flow just right. Just keep studying anatomy and sculpting and you'll progress quicker than you may imagine.
Thats funny... BUT - that is some terrible proportional reference. What the heck?!
Please please please pick up Drawing the Head & Figure - By Jack Hamm. Thats an Amazon link, though this book is very common. Not only is this book dirt cheap, it's a great place to get started on simplified but correct proportion, basic anatomy and life drawing skills. Whatever reference you're using there is gonna seriously fuck you up in the long run (sorry).
Also: How to draw comics the Marvel Way is another great place to start drawing people (and even cheaper!).
All I want for X-mas is youuuuuu ... ♫
Wait. .it isn't X-mas yet? Um.. oops...
Well, maybe this would be a great help.
See, I know how to draw. Here are some examples of what I can do and while pretty I want to broaden my drawing skills.
Not everyone likes the japanese anime style and even some people go as bad as to frowning it and saying it's stupid due to it's popularity, the stereotypes, etc and I can't blame them, it is rather popular and it might work with what they want.
So as somebody who who wants to make epic stories, I want to draw epicly, this can also open me doors for better jobs (instead of the one I have which I barely get enough money to spend;; ) and simply raise the bar in my skill.
So, if you'd help me on this quest, I'd appreciate it very much.
When it comes to drawing made-up creatures, practice drawing the anatomy of real animals first. It will help make your creatures make more "sense". One of my favorite books growing up was How to Draw Animals by Jack Hamm. Once you kind of understand muscle and bone structure, you'll be able to build on that knowledge and go crazy with it. Just keep drawing! That's just my two cents.
Try the link below.
https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Scenery-Landscapes-Jack-Hamm/dp/0399508066
I'm curious too, I ordered this because it was so cheap(43 cents for a used copy) and had good reviews but it hasn't come in yet.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0399508066/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
As a complete beginner myself, I very much enjoy Jack Hamm's Drawing Scenery: Landscapes and Seascapes. It really spends more time explaining how certain effects are accomplished, in more detail than most art instruction books do.
But, really, just draw, draw, draw.
Probably Bridgman. George Brant Bridgman. Heard great things about his books, though I can't say I've added them to my collection yet. Here are some links to them on amazon.
Box set of three books(Bridgman's Life Drawing | The Book of a Hundred Hands | Heads, Features and Faces)
Constructive Anatomy
The Human Machine(Has quite a few bad reviews concerning the print quality, I'm afraid.)
Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life(This one is kind of a combination of all his other books, taking the best from each of them, though leaving some bits out.)
Ah, thanks, I've fixed the link. Which is a great start; grab the book he refers to and start doing his exercises based on drawing out of it, or freeze-frame classic WB and MGM cartoons and draw off of those the same way.
Also take some life drawing classes! Apply what you learn about construction from John K to drawing humans; it's possible to get to a point where you can get down the essentials of a pose in less than 30 seconds and reconstruct a lot of it from basic drawing principles later on. If you can find a life drawing teacher who works out of the Glen Vilppu curriculum that would be great, his methods are pretty well-loved among teachers of life drawing for animation, and will equip you with some serious skillz.
James Gurney's books on drawing are also pretty awesome and inspirational, he approaches the problem of drawing stuff out of his head in a much more realistic way.
I am also a fan of Bridgeman's Constrictive Anatomy and Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing for All It's Worth, both of these could be found (along with the Preston Blair animation books) in the library of every single person I knew in animation school.
If you can afford it, consider taking some art classes, online or off. A degree in art is stupidly over-expensive, but having the obligation of A Class that you are Paying For can be a good kick in the ass to draw draw draw draw. I don't have any recommendations for those offhand, my schooling was back in 1995 at a place that no longer exists.
In general: if there is art you like, try ripping it off! Don't just trace it though, reconstruct it from first principles using basic construction methods, and think about why and how the artist applied their stylizations.
ALSO. Carry a sketchbook. Draw in it. Change your habits: instead of taking out your phone to check Twitter or Reddit or whatever, take out your sketchbook and draw something. Maybe something in view, maybe something out of your head. It doesn't matter what, just keep working at it. And ask yourself what's wrong with drawings after you do them; try to not make the same mistakes twice.
Also here is a serious PRO TIP that I picked up from my time in animation: put that mechanical pencil you probably use to write and draw with away, grab a wooden #2 pencil and hold it so that the side of the point touches the paper, instead of the very tip. This will force you to draw with your arm rather than your wrist, which will (a) result in much more fluid strokes once you get the hang of it (b) make it far easier to do your initial rough blocking in of shapes lightly, then switch to the tip of the point to nail things down, and (c) vastly reduce the risk of being visited by the Carpal Tunnel Fairy.
The biggest thing is to DRAW. Make it the thing you do when you're bored. If you don't have any ideas for things to draw, draw some cubes. Or draw your hand, hands are HARD to draw and also super expressive, and almost everyone has one available to use as a model. Put it in some pose and reduce it to boxes/tubes/whatever, then build detail, keep doing until you have to do something else, or get an actual idea for a thing you wanna draw.
The second biggest thing is to CRIT YOURSELF, and get others at about the same level as you to crit you. Let go of your ego; if people say your drawing is terrible that doesn't mean anything about you, it just means you have things to learn. Listen to what they say and try to not make the same mistakes again. Yes, I know I said that already. It's important. Tell your ego to sit down and shut up.
Hope that helps!
Books, books and more books. Or courses.
I like to draw anime and I spent a few years just photocopying.
https://www.instagram.com/chrissyatsea/
The problem with that is that it made me better at copying not composing. Also I didn
t like to get off my comfortable areas. I didnt know why the artist drew it like or how they did it. I just copied it. Like if you are copying a math problem you dont know what it means at all. So you need to be taught why it works like that. Unless of course you are gifted.<br /> <br /> So there is a good handful of books out there to help you with such things.<br /> <br /> The whole case on books is that if you arent a talented or gifted artist youre gonna have to do what we normies do best. Learn the fundamentals. Gifted people are gifted with the ability to just do and not know. Since we arent we start here.Another thing to ask yourself if you aren
t willing to commit atleast an hour or more a day or atleast a good amount of hours a week on drawing is this: "Does this just sound good or do I really want it?"<br /> <br /> Here is a few books<br /> <br /> http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201<br /> http://www.amazon.com/Keys-Drawing-Bert-Dodson/dp/0891343377/ref=pd_sim_14_5/189-6540426-4014231?ie=UTF8&amp;dpID=51BQ2AW%2BCWL&amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;preST=_AC_UL160_SR124%2C160_&amp;refRID=181BN40T9TTX026F0EBF<br /> <br /> I am currently working with anatomy on George Bridgman Books.<br /> <br /> http://www.amazon.com/Constructive-Anatomy-Dover-Artists/dp/0486211045/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&amp;dpID=51vQXcL6ZyL&amp;dpSrc=sims&amp;preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&amp;refRID=13K2R2Y1Y6FZD3BJCBKK<br /> <br /> (Oh yeah try to find all the PDFS to these if you can`t afford them. I know that sounds wrong but these books are bestsellers if that makes you feel any better..)Alright bro rather than critique your work I'm going to directly answer your question on how to improve. I got two pieces of advice for you based on what I see.
First off, and it may sound a little vague but ask yourself honesty what do you want out of art? You say you tend to draw on and off in short burst, so do you really enjoy it? What do you see yourself creating if you possessed the required skills to do so? Try to find an answer to that question so you have a direction to work towards.
Secondly, "realism" in arts, to quote Wikipedia "is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements" in other words to not add your own style to a drawing and capture purely what you see. Its really just life drawing, and I'm not exaggerating when I say you cannot become a competent or confident artist without learning, appreciating, and devoting time to mastering it. Realism is not a genera of art its the foundation, drawing as an art form has no shortcuts, that boring stuff an art teacher tries to make us do in art class such as drawing straight lines towards a horizon, or drawing a mannequin over and over aren't options that an artist can opt out of if he so chooses, like any science it's the basic background you require to frame your thinking and let creativity flow naturally through the canvas. If a musician doesn't know his scales how can he concentrate on giving the performance? Forget drawing freehand if you cant properly life draw. A human cannot be learned in sections, if we focus on things like eyes, the head, and hair, every other part will lack definition and consideration resulting in them fading into the background, the whole body must be considered. A regular adult male body is measured in about 8 heads in length starting from the actual head and moving down dividing the body into sections ending at the feet. If you study these landmarks along with the more specific ones than life drawing will become simplified and much more enjoyable.
I'm not leading you astray here, this is the hard truth about drawing, we all started for a reason but sooner or later we gotta decide how far are we gonna take this and how exactly we get there. If you really want to get serous about drawing, learn anatomy, learn perspective, and never focus on development a style, just concentrate on drawing and the style will occur. Start here for anatomy, because when it comes to anatomy Loomis is the authority and we are his students, he has many good books but this is probably his most popular. Though all of his books should be considered as they go into more detail on specific body parts such as hands and the head.
Then go here, it really is perspective made easy and is should probably be read first as a good understanding of perspective is required to properly frame drawing. Almost all of these books have PDFs that can downloaded for free since they were out of print at one point but were put back up for sale. If Loomis isn't your style you can check out this list, most of these have free PDFs as well which can simply be google searched.
But know that there is no foolproof formula to make you a great artist from books or even other great artist, its simply the courage to stand on ones own two feet and seek out enlightenment. I'm no art genius, all of this wisdom is from my personal experiences and lots of books. I just recognized your path as similar to mine and wanted to give some honest advice.
you have potential and its your choice if you want to see how far can you take it.
Nice job!
When I started to teach myself to draw I bought Mark Kistler’s You Can Draw In 30 Days. I love that book. It taught me a lot.
Not any online guide, but I bet you won't be disappointed.
http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415
It's funny you say that. I just printed out a bunch of sheet music of songs that I figured out parts of but never committed to playing 100% accurately.
I also got You Can Draw in 30 Days in an effort to beef up my skills. I'm up to about lesson 12 and am digging it so far.
Here are some good how-to-draw books which help me a lot
this one is [by Mark Linley] (https://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Anything-Linley/dp/1567315372)
A very popular book by [Mark Kistler] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0738212415/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1498851864&amp;sr=1-1&amp;refinements=p_27%3AMark+Kistler&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=51Dz4esfWnL&amp;ref=plSrch)
[Drawing in 3-D by Mark Kistler] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0684833727/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1498851864&amp;sr=1-4&amp;refinements=p_27%3AMark+Kistler&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=61d9g1OF2mL&amp;ref=plSrch)
And to keep you going and practicing every day I highly recommend r/SketchDaily :)
I've looked around online and never found anything satisfying. Just decided to go old school and bought You Can Draw in 30 Days (a physical book!) and it's been awesome so far. Can't recommend it enough.
I'm not OP, but this comes from the book You Can Draw in 30 Days. https://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415
I recognize the pictures. The book is a great motivation to try and follow along, but if it's not your cup of tea, you can learn a lot from a combination of youtube and just trial and error.
"Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid" - Jules Feiffer
I think I am understanding your question wrong. What do you mean by "systematic categorization knowledge-base"?
Not sure if this could help but this is a great book on color and light. From the artist behind Dinotopia. And his blog is filled with some amazing information and art links too.
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
Every artist should spend a little time on his blog.
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
Thank you. The biggest help for me has been Color and Light by James Gurney
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719
For the tech aspects of how to use photoshop, I used ctrlpaint.com
To learn to draw, I used https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/
This artist is color blind: http://www.bonnieauten.com/gallery/pages/01-labino-glass.html
My suggestion would be to purchase http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719 Color and Light by James Gurney. Study it and then practice it.
Then do color studies. If you have photoshop, then try to reproduce a painting (something by the masters is preferable) by 'eye' and then once you're done, use the color picker on your painting and the original master painting and figure out the differences between the color you chose and the colors in the original. Don't get discouraged --- color is difficult for non-color-blind people as well!
Go and get the hue (H), values (B), and saturation (S) right in the color picker. Do this daily with different paintings and I guarantee that you'll improve a lot! :)
Ah that's sweet, but you know what, light and color is a super complex subject...it's something I struggle with too every time I make a new painting, so don't be discouraged! If you haven't read Color and Light book by James Gurney, I would HIGHLY recommend it! https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1IXNICKVA7KDK
Haha I'm sure you're better than you think you are -- just keep at it! Thank you a ton! =)
Well that's a bit of a complex question. It all comes down to understanding how light works which is a thing you learn as you learn how to draw. If you pick up any decent book on drawing it is sure to cover this. One I can definitely recommend is Color and Light by James Gurney. Though it is geared towards painters, the principles are very much the same!
Here is a collection of quick tutorials as well. Please note some of these contain nude models as examples :P
Anyway I hope that helps!
They exist, but they're not particularly common anymore. I have Scale 75's Steampunk in Miniature, which has some good stuff in it, but it clearly wasn't proofread by a native English speaker so you have to work out what the author's actually mean here and there. I would assume the rest of their line is of comparable quality, but I currently only own the one.
James Gurney's Color and Light is a really good reference. While it's not about miniature painting specifically, it covers how shadows work in different lighting situations in a way I haven't seen in other references and the section on color theory seems pretty good (I'm only halfway through the book at the moment).
it's definitely not a natural thing, it is a learned skill. the problem is that most people don't know enough to understand and notice it, how it behaves and how it can be affected by everything around it.
this book is also incredible https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719
even if you are not aiming to be a realistic painter, the excerpts are easy to understand and explains some very basic fundamentals in interesting ways.
check this free resource out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3WmrWUEIJo
lighting studies. understanding how light works really helps me imagine it on the fly.so i did this exercise for 2 weeks.
once you have watched the above video and memorize its contents, pick a simple cube with some good lighting, and try to complete an almost completed study in 30 minutes, at best as possible.
once you can do an accurate 30 min study accurately, move onto something more complex, like a sphere or a another subject. apply the same 30 min study rule, if you can do it accurately in 30 mins move on to other subjects.
rinse and repeat, and eventually you will gain an understanding of how light acts, so you can improvise with the knowledge.
Juliette Aristides has two books on painting from WG: 'Classical Painting Atelier' is a good overview (and has a really good section of good artists in the back) and 'Lessons in Classical Painting' is sort of an expansion. Aristides teaches at NMA, for reference.
Also from the same WG series is 'Elements of Landscape Oil Painting' which is really good, and 'Portrait Painting Atelier' by Suzanne Brooker, also good.
Also I don't care who you are, if you don't already own 'Color and Light' by James Gurney, you are doing yourself a massive disservice.
(๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و!!
I have a degree in graphic design so it wasn't a huge career change for me. There's lots of overlap in terms of software/skills for both design and illustration.
As for tips, I would recommend learning about light and color. Even if you're doing pen drawings, knowing how to look at an object is just as important as anything else. [This was a fantastic book by James Gurney I always recommend.] (https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719)
It's a great start! An underpainting is a really good way to bring out depth and variance in your colors and painting.
If you want a really good book on painting and color, check out this:
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1499313656&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=color+and+light
Even master artists feel like they don't know what they're doing. The more you learn, the more you realize is left to learn. There is no point where you go from someone who can't draw to someone who can. It's just something you keep getting better at the more you practice and study. Copying from reference is a great place to start, keep at it. and don't be afraid to ask for critique if you really get stuck.
Just do what you can now, and as you improve it will get more fun and less frustrating.
If you want some resources, here's some youtube channels that have helped me:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5dyu9y0EV0cSvGtbBtHw_w
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQTqWAaSzhAKRanOpes1nA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvM8sIthAK1KOQ4nq5mYCTw
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwJheV30gHVOjBps2DU7k9A
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCno-YPZ8BiLrN0Wbl8qICFA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIGRhqYssT6IGPYOnZBFYKw
https://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV
And also some books:
https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719
https://www.amazon.com/Framed-Ink-Drawing-Composition-Storytellers/dp/1933492953
https://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Principles-Classical/dp/086547897X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=ZNC6E0ET0QNFQAPH01WB
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X
You could also check out http://drawabox.com/ and https://www.ctrlpaint.com/ which both offer a more ridged lesson by lesson approach to learning to draw.
[This?] (http://www.amazon.ca/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719)
Two resources you need to read on color: http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719 and http://www.amazon.com/Light-Visual-Artists-Understanding-Design/dp/185669660X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419319385&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=light+for+visual+artists
Lots of illustrations and examples, very easy to understand and yet both are no more than 250 pages. I have both of these books and they are great! I would also look at Cubebrush and Ctrl+paint. You need to definitely focus on color theory as well.
Along with learning these, also check out Andrew Loomis' books (Google Save Loomis to find pdf of his books for free). And this one -- > http://www.amazon.com/Human-Anatomy-Artists-Andr%C3%81s-Szunyoghy/dp/3833162562/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419319599&amp;sr=1-4&amp;keywords=andras+szunyoghy
But once your learn color theory and look at the resources I suggested, you will definitely improve on your coloring skills. Gurney's may be aimed at painters, but it's for everyone really. I can't give much advice since I'm learning color theory but these results have been very helpful.
Oh cool, you'll have fun with color theory then. I recommend you check out James Gurney's book Color & Light. You should also study up on perspective. This is the only book I can recommend that won't make your life hell.
I think it's a bit difficult and unfair for me to comment based on one painting alone. Do you have any sketches (line drawing, preferably) of this painting, or anything that showcase what you can do so far? Almost everyone will suggest we start designing anything in line sketches, especially if learning, so I'm interested to see what you got :D
Edit: Since you're looking for advice on how to start, I'll just say a few things that might be able to help you start.
(1) Drawing, imo, is the very foundation of all art. I think before you start painting, you should start drawing first! Here are a few links that may help you start with drawing:
(2) I suggest you follow an art school's course outline so you can progress pretty well. Feng Zhu Design School has an outline that they use for their students to learn how to do concept art in 1 year (16 hours per day). You can also download a detailed version of what they offer in their course, then you can have an idea on what each component means.
(3) There are also a few books that would be really useful to you when learning how to draw and render. These are supposedly the best on the internet (I only have two, the first two books in the list) Here they are:
I think those are all I have for you now. I'm not in any way a professional artist (I'm currently studying Industrial Design), but I think the above things I've mentioned should prove useful to you. If you have any questions, you can send me a PM :D Work hard and practise every day!
I would recommend Color And Light by James Gurney. This one is a really good book to just understand the principles of color and light used by traditional painters. You can extract lot of information from it to apply on digital environment painting.
If you'd like to check out art books, along with review and some images of the pages, check out Parka Blogs. This website has an extensive list of art books ('art-of' and instructional).
I would even recommend checking out some websites like
Ctrl-Paint.com
Enlighten
It's hard to tell without seing your work and current skill level. Some of it you'll have to figure out yourself, some of it a teacher or mentor can help you with. Usually, popular authors such as Loomis, Hampton and Scott Robertson won't teach you anything that you "don't need", so they can be a good start.
This book does a fairly good job at explaining how to make pictures look like they're "in motion" but assumes you already have a pretty good grasp of drawing the human form.
This book will, with practice, get you that grasp.
Start with gesture drawing. Watch Proko and Reiq first, to see what it's all about, then go to Quickposes. Do the 30 second timed gestures until you've reached level 1. Concentrate on the line of action. Don't get stuck on details. It will be impossible to do at first, but your skills will increase rapidly. Your hand will loosen up, and you will find something of a personal style. After that, read Andrew Loomis. It will be a revelation.
Figure Drawing for All it's Worth has some good info on the subject. If you google it, you can find the pdf for free online.
Hey, Retlih!
How awesome that you're looking to start drawing! You've gotten some good advice in the thread already(taking your time, especially) but in the event that you're looking to learn more, I've got some great books to suggest you work through.
Andrew Loomis - Figure Drawing for All Its Worth
Bridgman - Complete Guide to Drawing from Life
While they may seem very human anatomy-focused(and in a way, they are), they also describe some great general principles and advice to start your journey down pencil road. They also heavily emphasize looking - no, I mean really looking - at things in everyday life and doing your outmost to depict them, which is a great exercise of the hand, the eye and the mind. (practicing this will make you much better over time, but it will take time, much, MUCH more than a month. I'm a concept artist by trade, and I have never met a person even half-decent at drawing who wasn't already a few years or decades into drawing)
If you're serious about this, do avoid focusing too heavily on making and sharing - be it facebook or instagram - pretty portraits of celebrities or dogs or cats or fruit, or you'll be forever trapped in mediocre-pencil-portrait-land where praise comes easy and you'll always feel like an impostor and/or artistically handicapped charlatan. Learn to draw for yourself and in your own pace, making sure not to rush through the process. Think of how you would train your muscles; don't immediately go and try to pull an airliner with your teeth, start with the core and work from there - let it take time, and find ways to make the journey enjoyable.
To tag do u/(inserttheirnamehere) and the human body is a lot to learn I’ve been doing a ton of study here lately and I would suggest Andrew loomis’s figure drawing for all its worth https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986 and also I have had some success with using Skillshare and taking figure drawing classes on there for starting out.
Practice drawing figure studies. Bridgeman and Loomis are a good start. https://www.amazon.com/Bridgmans-Drawing-Dover-Anatomy-Artists/dp/0486227103/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0486227103&amp;pd_rd_r=PJ5P4VBN6H69FDNRDEH0&amp;pd_rd_w=ouHhb&amp;pd_rd_wg=mb9wa&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=PJ5P4VBN6H69FDNRDEH0
https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986/ref=pd_sim_14_9?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0857680986&amp;pd_rd_r=2TNK24K8G9ZB7WTW7TG0&amp;pd_rd_w=R7NbF&amp;pd_rd_wg=Wmx8W&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=2TNK24K8G9ZB7WTW7TG0
You have an eye for detail! Study anatomy, it will really breathe life into your work. I recommend Andrew Loomis' book on figure drawing. You can also get an ebook of it on Google Play for dirt cheap.
The illustration is from Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing for All It's Worth, if anyone's interested.
Totally worth purchasing:
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth https://www.amazon.com/dp/0857680986/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_7tnODbS3A9XZ1
I think your figures great. I like the way your draw their expressions.
I've only been drawing for a short while but I found the book ['Figure Drawing for All it's Worth'] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Figure-Drawing-All-its-Worth/dp/0857680986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1453510308&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=andrew+loomis) to be really helpful. It's all about anatomy, drawing figures in proportion, perspective and shadows/planes. It's a bit pricey but I thought it was worth it.
I hope this helps.
Thanks for all your feedback, I really appreciate it!
As an aside, and as one comic-creator-doing-it-for-the-love-of-it to another, if you're looking to improve your artistic skills, I've recently picked up a few Andrew Loomis books to read, including Figure Drawing For All It's Worth. I'm not sure if you're looking to improve in a specific area, or just overall, but that book seems to be pretty good for figure drawing pointers. And furthermore, in the same vein, I highly recommend studying anatomy--knowing exactly what's underneath the skin and how it moves does absolute wonders for improving the look of figures on the page.
Also, you don't have to be ridiculously proficient at drawing or anything to make successful comics. If you look at a book like Persepolis, the drawings are very simplistic, yet distinct. Nothing is highly rendered or incredibly detailed, but that in no way makes it any less successful than, say, an Alex Ross-illustrated book. It's all in what you're trying to do with the story you want to tell.
Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing for all it's worth
has some excellent breakdown of drawing the figure in perspective.
Michael Hampton [Figure Drawing: Design and Invention] (http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819) demonstrates an excellent constructive approach to anatomy of the human figure.
Preston Blairs Cartoon Animation isn't so much a book on figure drawing or anatomy, but a book on the process of drawing for animation. While a lot of the work might be outdated, the process can be an indispensable foundation for artists.
warning: long post incoming
tell your son that he is at the best possible age to pick up drawing. if he draws a lot now and keeps it up for the next several years he'll eventually become good. by the time he's out of high school he could be almost pro depending on how his artistic pursuit goes.
every single artist, even those with natural talent, started off from the same place. it takes a very long time and a lot of bad drawings to get to a place where your art "looks right".
"how to draw books" are largely crappy because they tell you "copy this" without actually teaching you the basic fundamentals that all artists have to learn. there are very good books out there but you have to talk to actual artists/be part of actual art communities to really learn about them.
honestly, the most important thing at this stage for your son is for him to learn not to be too hypercritical of whatever he does and for him to have fun drawing. i can't stress the "fun" part enough. of course this is probably hard for him to do at this point because he's a kid and kids get frustrated pretty easily, but keep encouraging him.
one thing that might be helpful is showing him "here and then" comparisons which show that artists get a lot better over time. i could give you some examples if you want, from my own art even.
while the main thing is just for your son to learn to have fun and keep drawing, i suppose it wouldn't hurt for me to post a couple of the resources i've amassed over the years. However I cannot stress enough that no book, video, tutorial, or whatever can substitute the hours and hours of drawing that are required to get better. again, the most important thing is for your son to draw a lot. the rest will come with time.
another thing to keep in mind is that everyone is different, there are many ways to learn art and everyone learns better through different ways. some artists mostly just copied other people's art to learn, others did detailed focused studies of art fundamentals, some used tracing as a learning tool (not to claim the art as their own). there are many different ways and techniques that are all basically rooted in the same fundamentals. i'd say it's most important right now for your son to try a bunch of stuff out and see what helps him the most. there is no "best way".
with that said...
http://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/
this is a site focused on digital painting primarily but there are a lot of videos about basic drawing techniques and a lot about the struggles/psychology of art. this is a good place to start.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5dyu9y0EV0cSvGtbBtHw_w
this is one of the best youtube art channels around. these [are] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck4NuQWZ-kk&amp;list=UU5dyu9y0EV0cSvGtbBtHw_w) some good videos to get you started out.
http://funkymonkey1945.deviantart.com/
this guy is a phenomenal artist and has tons of amazing tutorials/breakdowns on his page. give it a look, you can try and ask him for advice yourself if you want. he's a super nice guy so if you ask politely for advice i'm sure he can give you better direction than i could.
books that i think would be the most useful/important for a beginner:
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain don't pay too much attention to the "science" in this book, it's the drawing exercises that you really want. it will teach your son to draw what he sees much more accurately.
Fun With a Pencil Andrew Loomis is renowned for being a really good art instructor. any of his books are worth owning but for your son i'd recommend starting with this.
Vilppu Drawing Manual In terms of introducing a beginner to basic artistic fundamentals (especially form) this is the best book i've found so far.
i apologize for the long post, but this is a topic i'm pretty passionate about. if you want more help, guidance or resources you can feel free to pm me and i'll help you to the best of my ability.
If you're at all interested in drawing more cartoons, I'd recommend this book by Andrew Loomis. It's an oldie, but a goodie. It focuses on cartoon/comic style, but really teaching a good foundation of technique and structure. It helps teach you how to draw, instead of how to copy drawings of one specific thing in one specific pose.
Not really.
In an adult male with normal proportions the distance between the top of the head and the groin is the same as the distance between the groin and the feet. The original player model has these proportions. In your mock-up the torso is too short.
http://www.foundation3d.com/uploads/instruction/2008/10/17-10-622362.jpg
You'll also notice in this proportion chart that distance between the navel (which is in line with the elbow) and the knee is roughly the same as the distance between the shoulder and the groin. Once again the original model has these proportions and your altered image does not.
I think there is a bit of over-saturation with games that use exaggerated character models. You get used to it so when you see something that has correct anatomy it feels different. That doesn't make it wrong. I think what's "off" about the model that people are noticing is the rigging might need some work and the animations are a bit stiff. As far as I'm aware they're already reanimating the walk and run cycles.
Source: I studied Animation Arts and Design, been working as a CG artist for over 10 years.
Edit: These two books are excellent resources for anyone who is interested proportions and figure construction
Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life
http://www.amazon.com/Bridgmans-Complete-Guide-Drawing-Life/dp/1402766785/ref=sr_1_32?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1410012003&amp;sr=8-32&amp;keywords=figure+drawing
and
Vilppu Drawing Manual
http://www.amazon.com/Vilppu-Drawing-Manual-Vol-Drawings-ebook/dp/B00A0ZU4BA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1410012025&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=vilppu
Okay, speaking as a disabled person, if you're going to be around this kid a fair bit you need to completely let go of this notion that his disabilities make him less capable of honing his talents. Not because you'll necessarily interfere with the development of his skills but because that attitude is incredibly toxic. He isn't talented despite being disabled, he is both talented and disabled. Happens all the time.
I would suggest buying him some books, like maybe this one Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1402766785/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_rS5AybXHBE8CN or How to Draw Cool Stuff: A Drawing Guide for Teachers and Students https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0615991424/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_ET5Ayb7CCF5ZN - find something that matches what he likes to draw or would like to draw. Make sure he has decent materials - they don't have to be top of the line, just decent. Take him with you to get the materials, let him start learning what's out there and figuring out what he wants to try working with next. Let him interact with the shop assistants as much as possible. Let this be his thing, and he will hopefully gradually expand his own horizons.
If you're looking for some books to help you with figures or comics in general, I'd highly recommend the following:
This: https://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/
This: https://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240811070/
This: https://www.amazon.com/FORCE-Dynamic-Drawing-Anniversary-Force/dp/1138919578/
And this: https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986/
Just to let the Loomis fans know, there is going to be a re-issue of
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth
and
Drawing the Head and Hands.
The best way (I've found) is to start big then work your way down to the minutiae.
Proportions and gesture are the two most important fundamentals of figure drawing. Start with those. Even if you don't want to draw realistic people, say if you prefer cartoons or comics, learning proportions will still help you to exaggerate features in an appealing way. When you've gotten a good feel for creating dynamic poses with gesture and figures with proper proportions, then you can move to anatomy to learn how the muscles interact; where they lock and fold into each other. Although anatomy is a very complex science, once you have it - you have it. Everyone have the same muscle structure.
The head and hands are something completely different. I've found that the head and facial features are as hard and as valuable to get right as the figure is. In some cases it's even harder. Don't worry about the head at the beginning, get the figure right first. The face should be it's own study.
I wouldn't suggest mastering each body part individually. If you learn to draw all the body parts one at a time then piece them together, you won't get a feel for how they all play and work with each other.
Things like rendering, color, composition; they are all different fundamentals completely. Should you learn them separately? Maybe. Or maybe not. It depends on you. I'd say to slowly start adding more and more fundamentals to your figure drawings as you improve. Add a bit of shading to the muscles, play with some colors in the skin, see how the pose will affect the composition of an art piece. Just don't lose sight of what it is that you want to improve on and don't fall back to your comfort zone when things are getting difficult.
If you want an in-depth, comprehensive look, I recommend both "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth" and "Drawing the Head and Hands" by Andrew Loomis. Those are the books that helped me. They really go in depth on not just proportions, but rendering and clothing as well. Here they are if your interested:
https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3UIR07P1BNGJT&keywords=figure+drawing+for+all+its+worth&qid=1567575739&s=gateway&sprefix=figure+dra%2Caps%2C133&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Hands-Andrew-Loomis/dp/0857680978/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3UIR07P1BNGJT&keywords=figure+drawing+for+all+its+worth&qid=1567575739&s=gateway&sprefix=figure+dra%2Caps%2C133&sr=8-2
tl;dr
Gesture -> proportions -> bone structure (manikin) -> anatomy -> face & hands
colour and light
Figure drawing
IMO these 2 books should be in any artists collection
Figure Drawing for alls it's Worth is pretty much my bible. I'm also pretty fond of Dynamic Figure Drawing by Burne Hogarth. I've learned quite a bit from opening either book to a random page a just drawing what I see.
Yes, as you've mentioned the head is tiny, knowing is half the battle I guess. The contours are pretty nice, but the picture is missing value/shadings so it looks incredibly flat. A lot of folks here will recommend anatomy lessons, which would certainly be a good start. Understanding how the the arms relate to the chest, the chest to the head and neck, all the processes in the skeleton that compose the human figure and how they all interact with one another will greatly improve how you see those things.
If I may, I'd like to elaborate on something that is easy to miss as an upcomer: people in real life almost never stand up perfectly straight or are never seen straight on by the eye in a perfect symmetrical orientation. The body is not perfectly symmetrical in most cases. In this picture, we see your model looking off to the side while holding the bow, but it looks uncanny and stiff. The hand on the hip exacerbates this flaw because usually when the hand is on the hip, the body's weight is usually leaning into it even if it's only slightly. Shifting the body's weight will help make the pose less stiff and more natural.
My recommendation is to draw from a photograph or some other reference (real models are awesome)! If you don't have a friend that likes being drawn, there are some sites out there that can help you refine your chops. Then, you can revisit an imagined piece like this and be able to make the adjustments that will make her come life. One site frequently recommended on here is the Pixel Lovely Trainer (also in the side bar); it cycles through tons of different pictures that you can sketch out at your own pace.
Some books about Anatomy:
Artistic Anatomy
Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist
An awesome tome about Figure Drawing:
Figure Drawing for All It's Worth
Gesture Drawing Tutorial (video) - something that may help you develop your skill
Additionally, and some folks may not like this, but taking some kind of drawing course might help you build your skills efficiently. I know when I did a 101 Drawing class for a college elective, it kept me focused, forced me to explore different elements of drawing that I would never have considered, and really helped me understand the relationships of different shapes and objects in a space. (another thing it helped me do was force me to work within a deadline window, which becomes fairly important when looking for confidence).
All in all I think you are onto a great start and with a little direction you can improve pretty quickly. There's a shit ton of information out there and it's all waiting for you to check it out!
Number one is never using paper that has lines or squares on it.
I'd recommend not drawing over the same lines again and again, make the line in one go. This'll improve overall line quality. You can search for "hairy lines" if you're not sure what I mean.
Then this book is very good, try to study anatomy before drawing a stylized person. This'll give you more control, and you'll have a better understanding of what you can play with.
https://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing-All-Its-Worth/dp/0857680986
Next to that you can try to play with lineweight and adjust untill you've found a comfortable weight. This video explains it pretty well. https://youtu.be/x0zl5NnEAyU
Scott Robertson also had books: https://designstudiopress.com/product/how-to-draw/
You can find more great books on the internet, design studio press has a nice selection.
I'd recommend getting;
How to draw
How to render
Framed ink
Framed perspective
Figure drawing for what it's worth
What really helped me was dropping the pencil, and using a black fineliner. That puts you in the spot that everything you do has a very direct consequence. You'll learn to draw quicker in the beginning, and noodle/work slow in the end when you're doing details.
Good luck!
For a cheap start that'll serve as a fine reference, if you're in the US and near a Barnes & Noble, look for this book in the bargain section. It's about $10 or so.
If you have a little more cash, this is the classic book.
Also: practice figure drawing daily. Start with quick gestures (I'm still on this phase myself, and I still kind of suck, but not nearly as much as I sucked when I started it several weeks back) and, as you get a feel for the figure, you'll be able to add more. Practice hands and heads.
Seriously, if you keep at it every day, you'll see improvements in a couple of weeks.
I mainly switch between Andrew Loomis and George Bridgman.
A friend put together a list of books (animation stuff on top, and the drawing list starts about a third of the way down the page) awhile back, and I'm working my way through it. She's a damn good artist, and she's surrounded by other artists 40-60 hours a week, so I trust she knows what she's talking about.
I also second the comment about material by Andrew Loomis. If you have absolutely no experience, I specifically recommend Fun With A Pencil.
well, I don't really understand what's going on in the neck region, it kind of looks like a pyramid with the head balancing on top. Just for a reference, here's a photo of a boy. Necks usually don't slope to so severe of a point, and the eyes you've drawn are very flat. Those are the two problems that jump out at me, but there are many others. Might I recommend buying a book on drawing, for example fun with a pencil?
I understand what you're saying and I own a couple of Mr. Loomis's books from Titan Books but I have been able to find complete pdfs of his work online like Fun With a Pencil If you can afford to buy them I think they're an invaluable addition to your bookshelf and they can be found on Amazon.com for close to $30.00 but if that is beyond your financial means then the pdf is good.
Were you meaning to say that it is unethical to use the pdf since it isn't public domain?
I'd strongly recommend picking up his book Fun With a Pencil which takes you all the way from super-easy cartoon drawing all the way through perspective and realistic drawing styles. There are dozens of pages of examples, so you don't have to sit there drawing the same example 50-100 times like you do with some books. The first 20-30 pages are just on drawing the head. You can actually find the answer to your question in the Amazon image preview, but I still recommend buying the book.
LOOMIS
Definitely classes. If you're not doing classes for whatever reason. I suggest making these three books your bible.
How to draw - Scott Robertson
Color and light
And finally
Bridgman's Drawing from life
No need to get them all at once. But these three books are chock full of lessons that you will revisit over and over as you progress in your art. Strongly recommended.
Glad I could be of help!
Watts Atelier is really amazing. It is beginner friendly - anatomy knowledge helps, but you wont be drawing the figure immediately. It will still be a good idea to learn anatomy while you continue through the program - I'll link you to some great anatomy resources.
To give you a rough breakdown of how the course works, you start by drawing simple shapes (spheres, cylinders, boxes, cones) focusing on form and value. Then you will start drawing other simple geometric forms applying the same principles. Then drawing fundamentals is finished with still life drawing. Next you move into portrait drawing fundamentals, then figure. If you are interested in painting, you can continue the course to portrait and figure painting, along with other specialized classes (landscape, drapery, composition, etc.)
On the issue of sizing, that is a problem that will solve itself naturally over time. It has to do with proportions and measuring, which is a skill that takes time and practice to get a handle on. Eventually you can visualize where everything goes and place it on the page in the right spot. But yeah, Watts Atelier will definitely help.
The difference between Watts and other free tutorials online is 1.) professionalism and structure: The course is taught by the founder of the atelier Jeff Watts, and it is structured like a true academic art class. Learning online gives you random bits of information which are helpful, but you can't contextualize them. The course is designed to take you from beginner to master. The tutorials online are fun, but don't have that structure.
2.) The teachers are world class artists. To give context, here is some of Jeff Watts work. You may not want to be a painter, but you can be confident that you are learning from a master. You can also google his drawings, they will blow you away. Also, the guy Stan Prokopenko who I recommended - and is often mentioned in this sub - was trained at the Watts Atelier by Jeff Watts.
You probably get the picture, its a great program. My experience with it has been an absolute joy. I wish I could go back in time two years when I started pursuing a career in art and taken these classes immediately. It would have saved me so much time and effort wasted trying to figure out how to grow as an artist on my own. What I do is pay for a month and watch all the videos and print out the handouts for the module (currently on portrait II), and then spend however long I need to get a good handle on it before I spend the 100$ for the next month. Also, if you have the cash to blow, you can spend extra money to get 1 on 1 coaching with teachers at the atelier.
I will note that it can get boring drawing spheres and still life all the time, so make sure you schedule time to draw stuff you love. Once you get into portrait and figure things get way more fun, but just be ready for that in the early stages.
Anyway, glad I could help at all! Feel free to PM me at any time, I have tons of resources I've hoarded over the years that can be helpful. Here are some links that might be helpful:
Here is a video of Jeff Watts drawing and answering questions, it will give you an idea of what his teaching style is like and who he is. Also the drawing is really good.
New Masters Academy is another great tool that has been huge for me. The anatomy and figure drawing courses are amazing. They aren't as structured as Watts, but can be very useful for when you have specific areas you want help for.
This book is superb for figure drawing. Also, this book is the equally amazing book on perspective. Also, a lot of books don't talk about drawing the clothed figure (which is pretty dumb considering most of the time, commercial art has to do with clothed people), which is why I also love this book. You are probably familiar with Bridgman's book, but if you don't have it - get it.
A lot of professional artists in many different industries (concept art, comics, film, animation, 3D, etc.) make gumroad tutorials for a decent price, here is a massive list of tons of these great tutorials.
If you want some inspiration while you work, I love listening to Creative Trek and Chris Oatley's Artcast. They both are mostly interviews with other professional artists and contain all sorts of wisdom and inspiration to help you out.
I have more, but I'll leave it there. I hope the best for you man! Keep up the hard work! Feel free to PM me for whatever reason.
Bridgman's Drawing from Life. I highly recommend this for any artist. I keep it within an arms reach at most times.
The best thing you can do is get a few books/e-books or like Kissnellie suggests online guides.
I suggest Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life , I also like Anatomy: A Complete Guide for Artists by Sheppard.
Basically just draw all of the images over and over again, they are like maps to the human body. Sure they won't be exact for every person - but getting an idea of how it looks will help you shape it better. Drawing figures (and anything) is about understanding it and yadda yadda.
Draw from life, gesture often from pixelovely, and Posemaniacs
If you practice for a while, you'll get a good understanding of the human figure pretty well :D
I might have some anatomy e-books if you're interested - drop me a message. I am currently taking a life drawing class, so it's all good fun if I can help others =3
what you are doing is probably the best thing you can do. the second best thing would be to have a look at Bridgeman's Complete Guide to Drawing From Life and then keep drawing. You are right, hands are hard!
edit: I also just learned (by linking to the bridgeman book on amazon) that andrew loomis's books have FINALLY been reissued. Like bridgeman, his books are essential. I remember a few years ago his books were going for $100+. get them.
I picked up this book Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/1402766785/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_AXcNzb6626FC3 to learn anatomy. Is that good?
I think you should get yourself either this adorable little pikachu coin pouch, or this book to help you with your drawing. OR, you could get this adorable Up funko (not on your list, but I thought you might like it). Happy birthday! :)
swaggybananas
I would suggest picking up a couple anatomy books and simply copying them. Like I said, you'd be surprised at how much this teaches you. First, take a look at Bridgman's guide It's very loose and probably easier to learn from because of it. But there is complete accuracy in the looseness of his drawings, so I know I learned a ton about the figure from him.
Secondly, I'd pick up Richer's Artistic Anatomy This is a ton more informational, and the drawings are much tighter, but spot on figures and great info. This is one of my teacher's favorite reference books, and he's been published in Spectrum 13 times, and worked for George Lucas.
I skimmed the page and there's a lot of stupid here.
NO ONE has a natural ability to waltz into an industry from day one and be able to magically produce works of art that someone will pay for, NO ONE.
So before you start whining about how bad you are, just remember that anyone in the video game/entertainment industry worked their asses off their entire life to get where they are. Dedication is the only thing holding you in your little box of "boohoo".
Take a few cups of manthefuckup, go get a sketchpad, Anatomy for the Artist, a GOOD or REAL human skull (if you can afford it) human skull (Feferences/images are not the same as an actual object you can feel and turn. Distortion as well as inaccuracy in a clay/ceramic model won't teach you what you need to know to learn the convex and concave shapes/proportions.), and start drawing from life.
DO NOT DRAW FROM YOUR HEAD TO LEARN THINGS. This is the area of stupid a lot of people will suggest. Why isn't imagination good to start from?
Let's see:
Obviously there's more than 1 and 2, but one aspect to drawing AFTER you've studied something is you understand the proportions better. Drawing from life builds your imaginative figures to give them a stronger "feel" of actual being something in existence rather than a made up creature with no solid structure/anatomy/form.
No, I'm not intending to be rude to you, I'm just pointing out that it's going to be a pain to learn this if you're serious. If not, that's life, you'll find something else. Just be ready for this to be your life if that's what you want.
Good luck.
These are flash movies, so granted, you'll need software that can imitate, or an actual flash program. You'll need to learn basics of animation, so looking up books like these would really help you, also listen to djm19. He's got good advice there.
It would also help to learn basic drawing, so anatomy lessons are go so books like Human Anatomy by Eliot Goldfinger, as well as learning how to use audio programs like Audacity (It's open source, and I'm sure you'll be able to find better types) for the sound part of flash shorts.
As the Warframes are near-human-looking constructs, start your drawing by learning how to draw a correct human form first, especially the body musculature. You should not need to invest in learning a proper rendering of human facial structure if it bothers you since it won't be used for a Warframe concept anyway (and to tell you the truth, a rendering of human facial expression is one of the hardest subject to master).
This book is one of the very good source for that. I highly recommend it if you have that inkling of desire to start learning to draw human anatomy for artistic purposes.
There are also a lot of online courses for human figure drawing. Free tutorials on Youtube and sites like DA are mostly fine too. Just remember that at the beginning you don't want to delve too much into the artistic aspect of drawing; get your basic / technicalities firm first then you can start being creative on your own.
Draw a naked human figure in a neutral or T-Pose as the base and put a lot of emphasis on the correct musculature (since the Warframes are usually lean and muscular). Do it three times each on a different camera shot: one for the frontal shot, profile shot, and rear shot. If it's done, start adding the skin or armor of your Warframe concept on that figure.
You could draw additional, a more detailed (close up) shot on complex things you need to explain more such as the details on the fingers, the gauntlet armors, the head armors, etc; but get the overall shot of your Warframe concept clear and right first before dwelling too much on the individual parts details.
One of the good rule of thumb of character design is if you could identify the character in a silhouette, it is a good design. Think about Mario in his signature jump pose, Megaman X while shooting his X-Buster, Ryu while doing Shoryuken, Superman in his flight pose, or other signature characters, and then think whether you could easily identify them even if they were just a silhouette.
Anyone not linking to this is wrong.
http://www.zackpetroc.com/skull-and-muscles-of-the-face/
http://www.zackpetroc.com/skeleton-and-muscles-of-the-body/
http://www.zackpetroc.com/marta-design-sculpt-ztl-2/
http://www.zackpetroc.com/reeve-design-sculpt-ztl/
EDIT:
As well as:
http://www.amazon.com/Human-Anatomy-Artists-Elements-Form/dp/0195052064
My favorites are "Human anatomy for artists" by Eliot Goldfinger & Constructive anatomy by George Bridgman.
Goldfinger is very accurate but can be quite dry to read, Bridgman isn't as accurate but is great at describing structure and retaining the gesture.
Well drawing for me started out as a coping mechanism when I was a kid and still is for me today (especially these days). I had a lot of problems with depression and anxiety as a child coupled with a fairly ignorant father that didn't recognize these things as mental problems. I was forced to try to find a way to deal with hordes of feelings and emotions that as a mere child I was incapable of understanding and drawing helped me do that. Around the time I was about 13 or so some close friends of mine started drawing and where WAAAAY better than I was, so that pushed me to start working on things like technique and different styles. I really liked Dragonball Z at that age so I started drawing pictures I printed out from the internet regularly and started drawing in an anime style and eventually began coming up with my own characters, my friends were really good at drawing in anime styles so they taught me a lot about it.
When high school rolled around (I'll say sophomore year or so) I took basic art 1&2 but I never really did too much because the course material was SO rigid that it didn't interest me. Ms. Huelett (the art teacher) felt like I had a lot of talent and took me under her wing in a big way. She knew A LOT about art and helped me learn and meld multiple styles together in order for me to create my own. She taught me a lot about anatomy and how to draw people/characters in different poses, how to properly shadow characters and apply light sources to my pieces, creating expressions and applying drama through a characters poses, she poured as much knowledge into me as she could and I couldn't be more grateful for all she taught me.
I know it isn't much (you've also been given some great advice already I see, which is fantastic) but I'll give you a few links to some books that really helped me learn more about various styles and techniques (I still have most of these books and refer to them fairly often, even now)
http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404954561&amp;sr=8-9&amp;keywords=how+to+draw
http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Urban-Sketching-Location/dp/1592537251/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404954800&amp;sr=8-19&amp;keywords=how+to+draw+graffiti
http://www.amazon.com/Street-Art-Doodle-Book-Outside/dp/1856696820/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404954800&amp;sr=8-28&amp;keywords=how+to+draw+graffiti
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404954902&amp;sr=8-28&amp;keywords=how+to+draw+books
http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Manga-Mark-Crilley-drawing-ebook/dp/B006WUD10S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404954990&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=how+to+draw+manga
http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Manga-Bodies-Anatomy/dp/4766112385/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404954990&amp;sr=8-6&amp;keywords=how+to+draw+manga
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Cutting-Edge-Anatomy-Reference-ebook/dp/B00G8ELT2K/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404955084&amp;sr=8-10&amp;keywords=how+to+draw+comics
http://www.amazon.com/Draw-Comic-Book-Action-Garbett/dp/1440308136/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404955084&amp;sr=8-14&amp;keywords=how+to+draw+comics
I think that's most of the books I've got, at the very least it'll give you some ideas to practice with and all of those books together isn't too bad of a price and it's a good way to get experience in the things you want to learn (I think) if you're not able to afford the classes you were suggested.
Good god this post is long as hell and I apologize for that, I'm just trying to be as helpful as I possibly can with what I know (call it a flaw)
I'll leave you with a few pieces of advice that help me out regularly and that I feel have gotten me to the level I'm at now (though I think I'm just ok at best truthfully)
Sorry again for the book, I just hope I was at least a little bit helpful with the advice I was able to give and didn't come off as arrogant sounding or anything
Best of luck and I can't wait to see what you do in the future :)
Archives for the links in comments:
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Hi :) ... So, the anatomy is quite off. Specifically, his face looks concave, when it should be more convex. The placement of the facial features is off. His shoulder width is too small considering the volume of his neck. The arm sticking out is too thin and too short. His torso narrows too much at the waist. Men have a more | | shape going down. The leg on the left has the knee pointing toward us, but the foot pointing sideways. The thighs could also use more volume. Anatomy/figure drawing is definitely a really tricky subject. Youtube should have some good videos that can help you. Also, this book is extremely thorough and a great start to learning how to draw people. It's probably the best figure drawing book I have (and I have a lot :P)! amazon link
I learnt to draw fundamentals of anatomical structure in humans and animals from Jack Hamm http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914
But the best advice is to get a pad of paper. Don't make it some fancy, super expensive art-store stuff. Then you'll never want to draw on it for fear of 'ruining it' (or atleast thats my compulsion). Just a pad of paper. Draw everything. Notice everything. Look at light, look at shadows, look at the basics of shapes and curves and how basic structures work. And draw. It'll look like crap. But keep drawing. The more you draw, the more you train your draw for neuroplastic reorganization that will, eventually, allow you to accomplish better and better drawings.
And don't draw with a damned mechanical pencil either. One of my art teacher gave me that advice and it's liberating. You get too caught up in the details.
Drawing is like building a house, build a good solid foundation, then add the fine details.
whats your opinion, if any, on this?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0399507914/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&amp;condition=used
First you must realize that whatever camera you buy now, will 99.9% not be the last camera you buy. Your wants and needs WILL change as you take more pictures. ANY camera(P&S, DSLR, rangefinder, etc) will work. Go and take pictures. Post pictures in websites that revolve around photography and ask for critique. People will help you with composition and model posing(if you're into portraiture). Stay away from sites whose url or homepage revolve around cameras(ie dpreview.com).
Try to ask yourself "What am I taking a picture of?" Go to interesting places and find things you want to take pictures of. Again try to ask yourself "Why do I want to take a picture"? Take pictures at sun up and sun down. Midday pictures are technically difficult to pull off whereas EVERYTHING looks nice during dawn and dusk.
For the technical side of things, go over your pictures and find out what you didn't like about them. Is it the color? Did the camera take too long to focus? Did the you or the camera just not set up fast enough tho catch the subject moving around? Is it the picture too dark? Did you get the subject in the frame perfect but feel that the background is too busy and detracts? Learning how to fix these problems will get you acquainted with the basic controls of any camera.
I'm pretty sure people didn't invent a hammer and then go around looking for nails to bang. Someone probably realized attaching a stick to a rock did a better job at jamming things into other things than just using a rock. Why then worry yourself about things like "3D matrix metering" or "1/500s flash sync" or "1:1 reproduction" ratio if said things solve problems you haven't seen yet?
Read up on composition and color from painting/drawing websites/books. Too many photo sites focus on technical aspects and camera features rather than the analyzing the resultant photo. I learned more about composition from this book than any photo website.
Finally, try to get advice from people whose pictures you like. Here are a few pictures I've taken so you can judge whether or not to take my advice!
yupp! grab this book by Jack Hamm about landscapes and drawing scenery. it has everything from trees to rocks to clouds and composition etc. its an awesome book and just practice :)
If you're interested in a book to suppliment your studies I recommend [Jack Hamm's landscape book] (http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Scenery-Landscapes-Jack-Hamm/dp/0399508066)
The art book market is very limited when it comes to composition and although dated, this book is among the top of the heap.
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Scenery-Landscapes-Jack-Hamm/dp/0399508066
This is a cheap book with a lot of really good information on drawing landscapes. I recommend it.
awesome! It's a great resource. I should read it again, for a while I was reading it like once a year or so. This is another good one for composition https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Scenery-Landscapes-Jack-Hamm/dp/0399508066
Drawing on the right side of the brain is a good start, there's a reason people keep on recommending it for you!
Andrew Loomis's books is also good (all free there in digital form)
Constructive Anatomy by George Bridgeman
Imaginative realism by James Gurney more about painting and finishing, better for more advanced stuff.
Other than that, just draw things! Just anything and everything, it will help!
I've been trying to strengthen my anatomy and proportions over the last 6 months or so and the only advice I can give to this is draw draw draw. Don't worry about it looking wonky but if it does, find out why and see what you can do to improve it.
There seems to be a point when a light bulb just goes off and all of a sudden you understand how to get consistent results of how you want things to look and translating it to the paper/screen.
Check out these, I've found them pretty useful:
http://www.amazon.com/Bridgmans-Drawing-Dover-Anatomy-Artists/dp/0486227103
http://www.amazon.com/Constructive-Anatomy-Dover-Artists/dp/0486211045/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1418314804&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Constructive+Anatomy
oh yeah dude. there's plenty out there. don't be afraid to look into it. Some great books to get, but you just got see which ones would work for you. I don't know the level you're at so... I recommend this one for anatomy. Helped me out a bunch
http://www.amazon.com/Constructive-Anatomy-Dover-Artists/dp/0486211045/ref=pd_sim_b_2
The best books I ever read and studied on anatomy were the old ones written by George Bridgman. In fact, I just ordered two of them so I could refresh my knowledge of anatomy. He looks at anatomy from a very sculptural point of view and shows you how to draw every bone and muscle from any angle you can imagine. Highly recommend.
http://www.amazon.ca/Constructive-Anatomy-George-B-Bridgman/dp/0486211045/ref=pd_sim_b_1
I highly recommend Constructive Anatomy by George Bridgman. It's been the go-to book for learning figure drawing and has been used in college anatomy classes for decades.
Go get a big pad of newsprint and some charcoal sticks or charcoal pencils and redraw Bridgman's drawings. You will pick anatomy up incredibly quickly. And to keep it more interesting, skip around the book.
For perspective, a really valuable, but quite an easy book is Perspective Made Easy by Ernest R. Norling.
Read the pinned post:https://www.reddit.com/r/learntodraw/comments/adyijo/welcome_to_rlearntodraw_heres_the_sidebar_and/
The day 1, day 2 and day 3 links are down, you can find them in the first comment in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/learntodraw/comments/c8wqwh/about_how_some_of_the_sidebar_links_are_down/
I'm not good yet, been drawing for only 6 months, but the best advice I can give is to not forget to have fun.
There is no point if you start doing lots of boring exercises if you end up getting bored and stop drawing, just focus on trying to do some drawing everyday, and have fun.
This is the book I started with: https://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=learn+to+draw+30+days&qid=1564793025&s=gateway&sr=8-1
It helped me a lot to stop getting nervous about getting nice drawings and to just have fun drawing.
Good luck!
I bought a book by accident a year or so ago...
http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1464891942&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=draw+in+30+days
This was my pre-test:
https://flic.kr/p/uMcGUn
A year later...
https://flic.kr/p/GiBcPm
Trust me. That is one fantastic book.
Qualcuno in questo stesso sub mi aveva consigliato questo: https://www.amazon.it/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415
Ma sono arrivato nemmeno a un terzo e poi per varie vicissitudini non ho più disegnato quindi non so dirti dove porta.
C'è l'anteprima da consultare sul suo sito se ti incuriosisce.
I HIGHLY recommend this book, You Can Draw in 30 Days by Mark Kistler. This helps learn the basics in bite-sized pieces.
https://www.smile.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1536155701&amp;sr=8-1
Starting to learn some aspects of visual design will definitely assist you. I'd begin with learning to sketch. It's something that takes practice so getting started early will definitely help you. Grab a copy of this book and you'll be surprised how far you can make it in 30 days.
http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415
You could also join Lynda.com which is great to learn the basics of design. There's a UX course on there as well. One thing you'll find about this field is there is no shortage of material to learn.
Haha yeah I was pretty bad at first too, but then I worked through this book which really helped:
https://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415
Highly recommended for anyone else looking to get into drawing...
I'm in the middle of this book: http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415. It's fun!
Check this book: http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1371607474&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=you+can+draw+in+30+days
Try to draw for a least half an hour everyday
Did you make the PDF?
This is for sale on Amazon. A file gives no credit to the author. https://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415
Removed for discussion.
I ordered this one I should it Tuesday, I only had to pay shipping because Amazon gave me a $15 promo code because my copy of Fire Emblem Fates Special edition came late from them
Sorry I probably didn't explain myself well. I do learn 2 musical instruments and I have no problems practicing fundamentals in them. With /r/artfundamentals it feels different. I can't bring myself to do the exercises. For some reason just thinking "alright let's fill 2 pages with lines" makes me discouraged. It would have been a bit better if I could do it with music but without it I'm more focused.
And about learning, for example in the elipses part, a lot fo things are written about elipses but honestly I don't understand what he means and what's the purpose of learning about it (of course it has a purpose but what is it?). Generally it feels like I'm doing it just so my lines and elipses could be a little better. Maybe that's what makes me discourages. Anyways it's hard for me to learn from /r/artfundamentals and I don't know why.
I've seen people recommend "How to draw". Also some people talked about this. And I just found this which is #1 best seller but I didn't see anyone talk about. Which one do you think is best?
you might wanna checkout these two books too while you are at it -
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition ...
You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn ... - Amazon.ca
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good luck!
Alright, thank you all for the useful tips and information, I plan on getting these books
(http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415)
(http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Manga-Mark-Crilley-drawing/dp/1440309310)
and I also started the download on all the loomis books.
If you're at all interested in trying some books, I'd recommend these two:
This one isn't bad. Covers basic technique pretty well.
I will like to recommend Mark Kistlers book. Learn to draw in 30 days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcwpFpZVk-g
http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1450907569&amp;sr=8-5&amp;keywords=learn+to+draw
Maybe she likes or would be interested in knitting? You could buy her some magazinines with knitting tutorials. Also does she know how to use computer and internet? If no maybe there are some courses nearby that could teach her. That would open a new world to her, she could try new things, watch tutorials, learn etc.
Does she have a pet? Maybe you could gift her one for christmas, if she's not allergic.
Also there's this book: http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Draw-30-Days/dp/0738212415
Its not complicated and rather easy to follow, + it actually teaches you how to draw, atleast basics. So this could be a great wait for her to learn a new skill + drawing is like therapy, so that would help her too.
This is the book i'm reading/drawing from! It starts from an extremely basic, "you've never drawn before" sort of standpoint, which I liked.
I've made a lot of progress so far, in just 6 of the lessons. Although, I've taken a little more than a day a lesson.
I spent $14 on an introductory drawing book
($14 for finally convincing myself that I just might be able to draw is a pretty good deal in the long run) that is now collecting dust because I realized midway through the second lesson that I had no idea how to draw circles, and I wanted to be able to draw good circles.
Then I realized I couldn't draw lines either, and that scared me enough to look for other resources.
Drawabox has already taught me how to draw lines and circles (and... boxes), so I think $3 a month is a steal. I think it's certainly worth more than $1, which is why I didn't pledge that amount when I signed up.
Might help if you specify whether you want tips for Traditional medium or digital? This is a tut for digital but you can apply the concepts to trad., here is a fun youtube vid as well. As for print material, I suggest buying/renting/borrowing "Color and Light" and the Hogarth classic on the same subject.
One book that was surprisingly helpful for me was Art School: How to Paint and Draw. I actually got it in the bargain bin at a book store.
A couple other helpful books are Problem Solving for Oil Painters and Color and Light.
Also, if you have an art studio around, sometimes they have cheap beginners classes. I've found those to be quite helpful starting out.
There are a number of color theory books out there but I'm not sure that will answer all of your questions. I have a copy of The Elements of Color that I reference often. The thing is, there isn't really one solid formula for mixing paint. It mostly comes through practice and understanding the physics of color and how colors shift in tone, saturation, and hue. There is some really good advice in this post already. I have a few other sources you might be interested in.
Wet Canvas has some great forums for people like us who need help with this kind of stuff from time to time.
The Dimensions of Color has a very thorough breakdown of color. It is extensive and a harder read than maybe you are used to. Take it slow. Read it a few times. Refer to it often.
Color and Light by James Gurney is a great resource as well. Be warned, that it isn't necessarily a "how-to" but it will give you insight into how a professional artist goes about his work. He provides insight on techniques and palettes and things like that as well as phenomena seen in nature.
Take a look at those. Best of luck.
This is looking really good! Keep it up!
I highly recommend you check out these books... they are something I wish I had read (or been available) when I was your age.
1)Color and Light: A guide for the realist painter
2)Imaginative Realism
These two books do a really good job of explaining some practical 'rules' for painting. You do not always have to follow them, but you should for sure know them and learn them.
3)Dynamic Light and Shade
This is just a book that is full of really great black and white drawings that that show how much can be expressed without any color. It is a great book to study from and to try copying images from.
http://www.tutorial9.net/articles/design/simple-practical-color-theory/
Photoshop swatch sets, some pre-organized for easy color matching:
http://www.monkeyslunch.com/resources/
And always, always, James Gurney (Dinotopia) is an excellent resource:
http://maggiemaggio.com/color/2011/08/color-inspirations-james-gurney/
http://www.amazon.ca/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
I'm late to the party, but I made a cheat sheet for my boss niece last week: here's all the ressources I can think of to kick butts at matte painting.
The sites where we pay per month
Gnomon Online School
Super school of vfx in California. They have on their site a lot of tutorials from 8 to 20 hours to learn to make your own camera projections. You can either pay (expensive but worth it) for a private class with a teacher via Skype. Or you pay (cheaper) for a bank of tutorials.
private lessons
https://www.gnomon.edu/courses/online
the bank of tutorials
https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials?tags[]=matte-painting
I recommend: All the tutorials of Dylan Cole (vol 1, 2,3), Camera Projection Techniques in Maya, Matte Painting Production techniques, etc.
Plural Sight (formerly Digital Tutors)
a site that has courses on a little everything. This site is very good when you want to learn new programs. Excellent serie on the 3D which becomes more and more present in the matte painting, and some tutorials
https://app.pluralsight.com/library/
related to 3D
Quick start to modeling in Maya (volume 1,2,3)
Professional Tips for Modeling Complex Shapes
related to matte painting
Photo manipulation and Clean Plating Fundamentals
Matte Painting Basic and the Static Camera Shot
Sites where we pay per tutorial (Gumroad, etc.)
The tutorials of Anthony Eftekhari
Good DMP tutorials that show you the latest techniques and how to do it step by step.
https://gumroad.com/anthonye
The tutorials of Eytan Zana
More concept art, but the main lines apply just as well to the DMP.
https://gumroad.com/eytanzana
Free sites and tutorials
Garrett Fry's blog
He also has a Facebook group that helps each other in DMP, it is THE technical reference for matte painting. His blog is full of technical stuff for camera projections (aka moving your matte painting). A treasure of information.
https://www.gfryart.com/blog
Other
TEXTURES! (Or can we find good textures to make DMP)
CGtexture
http://www.textures.com
Flickr (Matte Painting References)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tjframe/sets/72157605581901392/
Flickr (Matte Painting Resources)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dman3d2000/sets/72157629164518650/
Photobash.org (paying a card)
https://www.photobash.org/
Pictures of Jacek Pilarski
https://gumroad.com/jacekpilarski
Books (yes yes, it's a thing)
Digital Matte Painter Handbook
it's old, the drawings are ugly, the photoshop stuff in it is pure candy though. Full of stuff in DMP that I have never seen elsewhere but that is the basis of the trade. Still actual today. The matte painting of the castle in is also an excellent starting point if you start from scratch.
https://www.amazon.ca/Digital-Matte-Painting-Handbook/dp/0470922427/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1523975893&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Digital+Matte+Painting+Handbook
How to draw and How to Render
Scott Robertson, a big shot of concept art, shows the basics of traditional drawings, perspective, etc. An essential.
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=GWB27RDDYF5E0JG7TTY0
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Render-fundamentals-shadow-reflectivity/dp/1933492961/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=K9W1RK5K9KVWMPY14EAE
Imaginative Realism and Color and Light
James Gurney is an illustrator who specializes in realistic fantasy artwork with traditional mediums, excellent cues on light and color
https://www.amazon.ca/Imaginative-Realism-Paint-Doesnt-Exist/dp/0740785508?th=1&amp;psc=1&amp;source=googleshopping&amp;locale=en-CA&amp;tag=googcana-20&amp;ref=pd_sl_2y2j9az9y9_e
https://www.amazon.ca/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=YCNYYJCTNJ4405KD1S6B
Nuke 101
We can make the projection of matte painting in Nuke or Maya. An excellent book for Nuke.
https://www.amazon.ca/Nuke-101-Professional-Compositing-Effects/dp/0321984129/ref=pd_sim_14_8?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=FNST5YS1F7464SZY3QZV
Reeves is crap paint. Try using it up as a paint you sketch with rather than finishing a whole piece with it. The reason why economy (or student) quality paints such as Reeves are not so great (even for beginners) is because if you try to do any sort of color mixing with them, you end up with mud. Reason why is because the pigment to medium ratio is poor (less pigment and more fillers/mediums in the tube than a more pricey brand). I teach art classes to beginners and I am now requiring that they purchase artist-grade acrylics, oils or watercolours for class. Here's a bit of a shopping list for you... obtain the following: Golden-brand paint in these colours: Hansa Yellow Opaque, Quinacridone Magenta, Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) or Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna, Zinc White and Titanium White. Also, pick up some Golden Acrylic Glazing Medium (Gloss) or Retarder Medium to mix into your colours instead of adding water. Adding water to acrylic polymer emulsion paints breaks down the paint, therefore resulting in a less saturated, washed-out or "dull" surface. You can mix water with watercolour paints, but try using acrylic mediums such as the glazing medium instead of water. The paints I mentioned and the medium will run you about $60-$70 depending on where you live (the stuff is cheaper in the USA). If you have any questions at all about art materials, please message me and I will answer your questions. I've worked in art supplies for a some years now and have extensive product knowledge about the stuff.
As far as composition goes, I get my students to use their own photographs only. The reason is because if you take photos off the net (even though you are giving your painting away this time around), the composition has already been solved for you, so you aren't learning much when it comes to that. Use your own photos and crop them using a viewfinder window to obtain a composition for your work. Oh, and also another good practice tip would be to sketch out at least 5-10 different compositions in thumbnail format in a sketchbook (using a pen or pencil or whatever you want). That way, you will have a nice little plan before starting on a canvas.
It is always best to draw or paint from life when you can, but when you can't get outdoors to paint, be sure to stick with your own photos (or composites even; you could do this in Photoshop and then print it out).
When mixing, do not use black. I say this because it is good to learn colour theory, and then make up your mind whether or not you'd like to use black to darken areas. Complimentaries create neutral grays, so for example: Red & Green, Blue & Orange, Yellow & Purple. Theoretically, you can mix equal parts of any two complimentaries and obtain black. Add white and you get grey. Zinc white is a good one to start with because Titanium White can be overpowering. Try mixing both whites together in order to create a "Mixing White" and then use that when tinting (tint = adding white to a color). Another little trick to obtain black (and subsequent grays) is to mix Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber. You can mix Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna to create a warmer black/grey.
And now, for some books that you simply must purchase and read through! I'm real picky when it comes to good art instruction books... so here are my recommended selections :)
Color & Light by James Gurney
Landscape Painting by Mitchell Albala
Composing Pictures by Donald Graham (Disney's art instructor for many years)
Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting by John F. Carlson - written in the 1920s, this is THE DEFINITIVE book on landscape painting. The man's writing is sharp, witty and to the point)
One more thing... failure and criticism from others (and yourself) are your friends. Failure will drive you to create better work, and criticism will help you know where you aren't doing so well. Praise is great, but it can be extremely dangerous because if too many people praise you and not many give suggestions then where are you at exactly? You won't know if you've made a mistake (especially if you are just starting out).
Quantity (and quality) are everything... paint paint paint! Paint one a week or even daily if you can! Create your next post on Reddit when you've completed 30 paintings. Seeing your progress would be nice. Start a blog to keep track of your progress. Also, try and enroll in a night class at your local art university/college. Take the basics like Life Drawing first.
Oh, and... paint for yourself, first and foremost. Do not give a shit about "is this going to sell?". Do not care. Just do it for yourself. And don't be afraid to create something out of your comfort zone (pure abstraction or something with shocking subject matter).
Good luck!
James Gurney's books are great. There's a couple ugly links for you.
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719
http://www.amazon.com/Imaginative-Realism-Paint-Doesnt-Exist/dp/0740785508/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=010WGMHA6E5MNR6W03RW
Following artists on facebook has helped me more than anything. Well not more than putting in the time and effort to improve of course. Anyway, professionals are always posting advice and links to valuable resources. Its worth looking for artists that you like and seeing what their process is and how they solve artistic problems.
Color and Light - yes it's a painters book but the theory and ideas apply directly into compositing. (http://www.amazon.ca/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719)
Digital Compositing for Film - You are going to hear and read a lot fo stuff by Steve Wright. He basically is the man haha. This book is great because it teaches ideas no programs. EVERYTHING YOU COULD POSSIBLE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT COMPOSITING IS IN THIS BOOK!(http://www.amazon.ca/Digital-Compositing-Video-Steve-Wright/dp/024081309X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1413392563&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=digital+compositing)
For your last question, I did a while ago, i didn't work for them I worked with them. I now am employed by Prime Focus World.
If this is your first attempt to step away from outline work I think you're doing a great job! I would maybe work your light and shade relationships to define the forms a bit more, but that may be a style choice on your part so disregard if so. Also, the brain looks a little flat compared to the rest of the piece. Get it a little wet?
I would also recommend getting ahold of James Gurney's book Color and Light. It was really helpful when I was trying to get away from outline work and I still reference it all the time. He explains things more with theory than being medium specific.
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (James Gurney Art) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0740797719/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_SJB2Bb2KHP47J
This one is great for understanding color and is really good if you're going to use traditional media.
James Gurney (of Dinotopia and Color and Light fame) has an excellent blog that provides tons of information on plein air painting and hand-made pochade boxes and easels.
He uses this sketchbook for most of his plein air work (watercolor, gouache and casein paints) It is small and versatile.
Color and Light by James Gurney.
I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but Color and Light: A Guide to for the Realist Painter seems to be very well regarded.
This video and the idea of gamut masking a limited color palettes really helped me.
I tend to shoot black and white a lot now though. Color is hard!
Que buena onda que hayas empezado. Como consejo, lo primero que puedo decirte es que identifiques que tipo de persona sos a la hora de estudiar. Si te resulta mas facil organizarte "solo" para estudiar, youtube y un par de libros de cabecera son todo lo que necesitas. Hay canales muy muy bueno y completamente gratis, te paso algunos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HR59yFZ7Y&list=PLtG4P3lq8RHGuMuprDarMz_Y9Fbw_d2ws
https://www.youtube.com/user/Sycra/videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQTqWAaSzhAKRanOpes1nA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHNr6171ABuPh6-thLbdvmA
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Los libros que se sugieren ahora para empezar son estos:
https://www.amazon.es/Figure-Drawing-Invention-Michael-Hampton/dp/0615272819
https://www.amazon.es/Colour-Light-Realist-Painter-Gurney/dp/0740797719/ref=pd_sim_14_3/262-2885865-4628303?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0740797719&pd_rd_r=2c830cb3-a49c-11e9-af60-adc40eafed34&pd_rd_w=Xc6BJ&pd_rd_wg=T3BTs&pf_rd_p=7cb3e23e-064d-4c10-b8ca-d3e14b48695e&pf_rd_r=MR8ZBNPA5XTR153PN5QE&psc=1&refRID=MR8ZBNPA5XTR153PN5QE
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Sí necesitas una mano, un buen taller de dibujo es lo tuyo, y la practica diaría. tenes que ser proactivo y curioso sin esperar a que el profesor te lo de todo.
Lo importante cuando uno se inicia en el dibujo es aprender a cuidar el trazo y controlarlo; despues estructura para no dibujar unicamente las siluetas que vemos y mientras vaz aprendiendo eso poco a poco vas a ir ganando fluidez en tus trabajos y confianza.
Muchos exitos
Color and Light by James Gurney has a great section on understanding the importance of color theory with some very nice examples and it is easy to read/understand, as well as a lot of information on how to understand light/shadows. Not exclusive to watercolor but I think it is still a great resource. I haven't found a watercolor technique book I love yet, usually my go to for that is YouTube.
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1453174518&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=james+gurney
If you've got the time and resources to spare, try making maquettes. You can get modeling clay fairly cheap, and it can be incredibly helpful to throw together a quick maquette, chuck it under a lamp, and see what happens with the light.
If you want a great pair of books on light and form by a master painter, check out James Gurney's Color and Light and Imaginative Realism. His blog is worth a read as well, it's always informative and interesting.
If you want a more technical approach to lighting, How to Render is a fantastic technical examination of how light behaves on various surfaces. The associated How to Draw is an excellent technical book on perspective. Both are a bit dry and clinical, but quite excellent.
Anything by Andrew Loomis is also well worth picking up.
Congrats on your job! :)
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter, please.
Thanks for the contest!
pumpkin
That sounds like a ringing endorsement!
Is this it: http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719?
I'm feelin' randy enough to buy it. Paperback good enough?
And damn dude, you're one of the best painters I've seen anywhere on reddit; and if you're learning from it...
Hey there. I think the shading could be simplified in its shapes, and also direction. Right now you have the highlights indicating the light is coming from all sorts of places: underneath her (arms) Front right (chest and legs), upper right (face and hair). Make sure you know exactly where your light source is and how it will hit her body.
The shadows also don't seem to make sense- they aren't conforming to the body shape and they don't reach the edge or wrap her form, so they just read as floating shapes.
It's a good start but I think you may want to take it back a step and really plot out/block out where everything is going to be in shadow and light. Also, this book is the best http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1427037249&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=color+and+light
Good book here: http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Artist-Sarah-Simblet/dp/078948045X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1397771944&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Anatomy+for+the+Artist
Another thing is once you feel comfortable with your drawing, take a life drawing class. You can usually take them at any community college where you will draw nude models, it will push you to get outside of your comfort zones because you will be forced to draw complex poses in short amounts of times. Developing muscle memory through speed and repetition will make you better and better.
I still take figure drawing classes even though I've been drawing for over 25 years.
So I think the previous commenters were right in telling you to use softer lines. When you keep line art in a piece you have to be rather conscientious about your line weight and where you place lines. Lines are a representation of light value.
If you’re not trying to make a character scowl it’s best not to put lines between the eye brows unless they have a prominent wrinkle there. Perhaps if it’s a slight wrinkle a lighter line would do or it could be softly painted in.
Under the nose suffers from the line weight as well it makes it appear like it may be a scar. This philtrum May have been better demarcated with paint or lighter lines.
Your drawing is extremely symmetrical giving it a stiff appearance. Almost like you drew one half and then folded it down the middle to make a carbon copy. This is especially apparent in the bridge of the nose. Average people have slight asymmetry in their face. Little imperfections make a portrait piece great vs good.
Lastly the bone structure is slightly askew. The character being an elf this may be intentional but I would strongly advise more anatomical practice. The orbital vaults in the skull typically don’t extend that far down into the maxilla. The collar bones are also askew and extremely symmetrical.
I think you’d benefit greatly from studying more anatomy, there are TONS of online resources but if you want something tangible this is a good book for like half the price I got it for 🤣
Anatomy for the Artist https://www.amazon.com/dp/078948045X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_W26hDbCFHD828
All in all it’s a good render. The color is where it shines the most. Just keep drawing and you’ll get better and better 👍 Keep up the good work
Feel free to DM me if you want to talk about it.
Buy this book (or illegally download it)
http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Artist-Sarah-Simblet/dp/078948045X
This one? https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Artist-Sarah-Simblet/dp/078948045X/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=25L7VOL20RQ3B&keywords=anatomy+for+the+artist&qid=1558800534&s=gateway&sprefix=anatomy+for+th%2Caps%2C144&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1
they make anatomy text books specifically for artists, google turned this up. I guess artistically you would probably mostly care about bone and muscle structures.
I think I remember that... not sure if this is the book he's talking about but this is literally the illustrators bible:
http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Artist-Sarah-Simblet/dp/078948045X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1452621275&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=anatomy+for+the+artist
Like this one?
Anything specific you can recommend? I was actually going to buy some books. I mean there's so many to choose from
Thanks
No the problem is with the expression, not the rendering. I think you didn't commit to an expression, so you did sort of a neutral one, but it comes off as jovial.
You should pick this up and run through it. This is one of the best expression books, because it doesn't use actors faking emotions for the photo-shoot. These are reproductions of candid photographs of expressions, so they're real:
https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Complete-Guide-Facial-Expression/dp/0823004325
Have a look at that.
Di libri ce ne sono a bizzeffe.
Visto che vorresti fare i ritratti ti consiglio questo, che spiega quali sono i tratti fondamentali da cogliere per rappresentare le espressioni del volto:
https://www.amazon.it/Artists-Complete-Guide-Facial-Expression/dp/0823004325/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1549019579&sr=8-4&keywords=expression+anatomy
Per la prospettiva poi questo è stato quello che ho trovato più utile, lo ritengo una buona via di mezzo tra il tecnico ed il pratico:
https://www.amazon.it/Perspective-Comic-Book-Artists-Professional/dp/0823005674/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1549019730&sr=8-3&keywords=perspective+for+comic
http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Anatomy-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0823015521/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1345442071&amp;sr=1-1-catcorr&amp;keywords=dynamic+anatomy
Worth it if you're serious about studying anatomy. Or just check out some books on drawing anatomy from your library. More detailed information and references will help! I would actually copy some figures from an anatomy book before trying posemaniacs, it's much easier to draw from a solid copy than a computer screen.
It was several years after I started anatomical studies that I had the sense to study the body from the inside out, skeleton, muscles, everything. Worth every minute.
Good luck!
> my 'gram
That's great, I love it. You're drawing is just about as adorable as that little fence lizard.
I was just looking through your other work and noticed all of your hand studies. You might want to check out this book. It was my bible when I was studying the fundamentals of figure drawing. I still consult my old charcoal dust covered copy. Note: I don't work for the book company or anything, just a friendly tip from one artist to another.
Anyways, great work. Keep it up.
Also, Burne Hogarth has a series of fantastic books on drawing the human figure.
http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Figure-Drawing-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015777/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y/186-3990155-9103639
http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Anatomy-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0823015521
http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Light-Shade-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015815/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z
Good start, nice job. This is basically how I learned anatomy: [Dynamic Anatomy] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0823015521/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518229124&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&amp;keywords=dynamic+anatomy+by+burne+hogarth&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=51IuMvcdUbL&amp;ref=plSrch)
And really I just went through it page by page and drew everything. Everything! By the time you are done, you'll have a solid grasp of human anatomy, or at least a damn good start.
&nbsp;
I learned this approach from one of my heroes, Frank Frazetta:
>When Ralph [Mayo] took over he pulled me aside and said, “Frank, you stuff is great, but you need to learn some anatomy.” When I was in school with Falanga the emphasis was on feeling, not on the nuts and bolts, so I really didn’t understand what he meant by ‘anatomy.’ So Ralph handed me an anatomy book and when I went home that night I had decided to learn anatomy. I started with page one and copied the entire book – everything in one night, from the skeleton up. I came back the next day like a dumb kid and said, “Thank you very much, I just learned my anatomy.” Of course Ralph fell over and roared with laughter. “Frankie, you silly bastard! I’ve been studying for ten years and I still don’t know anatomy, and you went home and learned it last night?!” But the thing was I had learned an awful lot. I had the ability to absorb things and he saw an improvement in my work right away. It amazed him and that meant a lot to me. From that point on I developed pretty rapidly: I started to do things with figures that made sense. I worked for Mayo and Standard for a few years, doing things like “Looie Laziebones” and all the funny animal stuff.
-Frank Frazetta
&nbsp;
Here's an old WIP character I made that shows some of my anatomy work, though not perfect by any means and stylized, being just a big muscle bound brute (no armor/clothing pictured here either):
http://jpe3d.cgsociety.org/art/maya-zbrush-shezmu-musculature-sculpt-816692
http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Figure-Drawing-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015777/ref=la_B000APHOOK_1_1/192-2409416-3387854?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1397941222&amp;sr=1-1
copy each page of this book and you'll notice an unbelievable change in your drawing!
Totally. Look at it this way:
Everyone knows when something is dubbed over or when spokem audio and lip flapping are out of sync. But everyone isn't a lipreader. We all know when something doesn't look "right". We rarely know how to MAKE it "right".
http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Figure-Drawing-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015777
I used to be exactly like you back in high school. You have the raw talent, now you need to pair that with an education on art fundamentals. These fundamentals exist irregardless of medium, so you can practice with just your doodles. The main fundamentals are anatomy, color and light, perspective, and composition. In your case, I recommend buying a book on proper figure drawing. You have really cool ideas, so you just need to nail the proportions. This was the first book I read on the subject, and I fount it really helpful. If you want more after that, Andrew Loomis and Bridgeman are the some of the other classic figure drawing educators. As for the other fundamentals, ctrlpaint.com is a probably one of the best free resources, and as for books, here's one I would recommend that covers all the essentials. Again, if you want to take your art to the next level, whether it be just doodles or digital art, it's all about dem fundamentals. Best of luck!
As far as visual story telling there's nothing there. It's all just character studies. I'm a huge comics nerd and the medium is so unique and powerful but people think it's simple when it's anything but if you really want to do something with it. Check out this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-The-Invisible-Art/dp/006097625X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1331962588&amp;sr=1-1
It's probably at your local library if it's worth its salt. And read some great comics. Check out stuff by Top Shelf Publishing. I've talked with their publisher before and he really gets comics.
As far as the characters themselves go I think other people made the points I would make but here's another book recommendation.
http://www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Figure-Drawing-Burne-Hogarth/dp/0823015777
Dynamic Figure Drawing by Hogarth
Non-mobile:
^That's ^why ^I'm ^here, ^I ^don't ^judge ^you. ^PM ^/u/xl0 ^if ^I'm ^causing ^any ^trouble. ^WUT?
You are definitely talented, and being the logical analytical type can work in your favor. Drawing technique is a science, which you can break down and learn regardless of ability. The best way to learn is formal instruction, either a class or private lessons. An instructor will be able to teach you the fundamentals, correct mistakes, and give you feedback on your progress. If taking lessons is not a practical option, I recently discovered r/ArtFundamentals They have organized lessons that teach you the fundamentals of drawing from the very beginning and you can get lots of feedback by posting your completed assignments. It's the next best thing paid instruction.
Personally, I am self taught, and did not have any real formal instruction until college. My bread and butter is character design using my own blend of manga, comic book, and realistic styles. I employed 3 main strategies to teach myself. I practiced constantly, I copied the drawings and characters of artists I liked, and I read lots of art instruction books (I particularly enjoyed learning about anatomy, my two favorite books are Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy and Dynamic Figure Drawing I like the approaches to style and technique.)
Regardless of the path you take, the most important thing is lots and lots of practice, every day. I never had issues making myself practice, for me it was fun to challenge myself and figure out how to do new things. I definitely understand the frustration of not being able to translate the image in my head to paper, or getting stuck on a detail that just won't come out right. I cannot speak for every artist, but I find that my finished pieces rarely look like what I saw in my head. The trick is to let go and allow the picture to evolve and take shape the way that looks best. It is kind of hard to explain, but I make decisions constantly on the fly on what will look best regardless of whatever I originally planned. Get comfortable with the fact that you won't recreate the image in your mind, adapt to the drawing you are creating, and you will cut down on the frustration immensely. Last little tidbit, drawing on a Wacom is harder than on paper. I have an old Intuos and while I love it and use it a ton there is a disconnect. You look up at a screen and not your hand and god forbid there is any lag between the strokes you make and what shows on screen. I REALLY recommend using pencil and paper while you bone up on your fundamentals before you convert to the tablet. I regularly will start artwork on paper, scan it, and then finish it on the computer. Good luck with your drawing. Don't forget that you will make a lot of mistakes and that's okay, we all do, no matter how good we may be. The most important thing is to enjoy it and have fun. If you stop enjoying it then you will lose your passion. Sorry this post dragged on, hope I was able to help!
I'm using this book right now, it's simple and straightforward so I recommend it
I asked an artist friend the same question in college, and she gave me How To Draw What You See. Great, classic art instruction with a good amount of theory. I highly recommend it.
http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Human-Anatomy-Function-Movement/dp/0823024156
Stay away from Chris Hart books though, they're nightmare fuel.
Drawing the Head and Hands by Andrew Loomis
https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Hands-Andrew-Loomis/dp/0857680978
treat head as a separate thing. Same with feet and hands. Buy this book for the things above: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drawing-Head-Hands-Andrew-Loomis/dp/0857680978/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1521550646&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=hands+loomis
I love Jeno Barcsay's Anatomy for the Artist as a general anatomy resource. I just got Andrew Loomis' Drawing the Head and Hands and love it so far!
Again, this is something that will improve with practice. You have to train yourself to see and interpret the underlying structure rather than the symbols of body parts, if that makes sense.
If you're going for accurate, her facial features are too big, for example an average head should be 5 eyes wide, with the space of an eye in the middle (unless you're drawing someone like Drake, then put one and a half eyes width, haha). Overall I think you should look into general figure anatomy and proportions. Usually people in /r/learnart suggest Figure Drawing for All it's Worth by Andrew Loomis.
If you're planning on adding more to the drawing, it would have been much easier to sketch the whole thing out until it looks just like you want, and only at that point start adding details. It saves time and effort, and preserves your paper better from eraser and pencil scarring. Erasing shading and fine details is going to make a bigger mess than erasing light lines. It's less frustrating, too.
There are three things I would recommend to you. :)
You'll find that a lot of information on color out there is almost strictly theory oriented (not a big surprise considering it's called color theory), and there isn't much practical help on how to apply that information. Each of the things I just suggested are all very practical sources of information for learning how to work with color.
Some things you should note, though...the Scott Robertson book is designed to build on top of his book How to Draw. That book teaches you perspective and how to create proper 3d forms in 2d space. How to Render builds on that by teaching you how light will interact realistically with those forms you now know how to create. If you don't want to work through How to Draw, that's fine (though I highly suggest that book as well)...but you'll probably be losing out on a fuller understanding of the concepts.
Make sure that before you move too much into painting and color working that you can make well constructed drawings and can handle value properly. Those two are the most important. Why? Because if you don't have a proper looking drawing then no matter how well you can render and lay color over it...that won't save it...it will still look wrong. And if you can draw well constructed things but you're weak in values, then you're really in trouble. If, when you lay down color, the values of those colors are wrong, then your well constructed forms that you drew will no longer read as the forms that they're supposed to because the "light" that's interacting with the form isn't interacting like it would in real life so your eye reads it as a different form than you intended.
I understand that they style you're going after isn't at all realistic. On some of them the color that's there isn't even being used to render...it's simply there as a graphic element. Which is fine! Really awesome style. But you will be well served if you put in the time to learn the technical application of light and color. That way, since you know the "rules", you'll have control over the color...when to use it realistically and how and when to use it graphically...rather than the color having control over you. :)
Hope this helps! :)
Just a little critique. Your sculptures are nice, but they're really flawed with your lack of anatomy knowledge, her head is way too large for the rest of her proportions and her legs are different sizes. you can sculpt breasts but her form is off balance. I'd recommend picking up this, this, and this.
If you're interested, I can send you a lot of files of art stuff, I believe we can improve your anatomy ten fold.