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So, I don't know whether you'll consider this good news or bad news, but the path to illustrating anything well mostly involves developing your artistic skills in general, and not one specific type of illustration. For example, you don't learn how to paint landscapes so much as you learn to paint in general, and then do a lot of landscapes.

Example: Randall Munroe, of xkcd fame. xkcd is very simplistic art (stick figures, for the most part), yet it looks better that most people's attempts at stick people. Why? Because he's an actual artist (by hobby, not by profession, although it's basically his profession now), not just some guy who decided to draw stick figures. Stuff like this is what he was working on back in his high school years, and he's clearly had many years of practice since then. His stick figures look better than the average person's because he draws them with attention to the details of human anatomy and proportions.

Okay, so what's the path? The boring answer: practice, practice, practice. If you really are willing to "put in the 10 years," then you already have the right mentality. But you probably want a little more guidance than that.

Step 1: Start thinking about art in the right way. You think you want to draw from your imagination, but what you really want to draw is reality that doesn't exist. What do I mean by that? Drawing "from imagination" isn't much different than drawing from life; it's just strictly harder. When you draw from life, you see something with your eyes and then copy it onto your paper. When you draw from imagination, you have to see it with your mind's eye and then copy it onto your paper. This means that your imagination has to come up with the details you'd normally see in the world, all on its own! That's very hard. (This is true even for stylized drawing, which I'll get to in a bit.)

So how do you learn to do that? Well, your brain can't come up with realistic details without knowing what realistic details look like. So, every artist needs to start by drawing from life. There's no way to get around it. BUT, there's a catch! If you don't have any artistic inclination right now, you probably don't really know "how" to draw from life! Eventually, you'll "get it," but for now you could use some guidance. So, you need someone to teach you. Assuming you don't have any private art tutor friends, you should get a book. The standard recommendation for new artists is Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which, despite its title, is not a book about pop psychology and is a book about learning to draw "the right way" from the ground up. What is "the right way"? Basically, it's forcing yourself to draw exactly what you see without thinking about it at all. You need to learn to shut off the part of your brain that tries to draw things the way "they should look" and instead draw them the way "they do look." The book will teach you all about this.

Step 2: Developing your basic skill set. Assuming you picked up the book I just recommended, you're going to want to start reading it and doing the exercises. I recommend spending the first week of your artistic journey just blindly following what the book tells you to do. Do one exercise per day for the first 5-7 exercises, and read the material in between your practice. Do practice 5-6 days a week for at least 30 minutes each day (preferably longer, but we all have lives). Don't burn yourself out by spending an entire Saturday blowing through half the book. If you're having fun with your drawing, do some light doodles on the side, but don't undertake more than one major project per day. Spend your doodling time just playing with the pencil (or pen), drawing shapes, experimenting with holding the pencil in different ways, etc. Just have fun. Not only will this keep your brain fresh for the major projects, but it's learning in its own right because you're developing comfort and flexibility with your instrument.

Step 3: Embark on your own projects. If you've worked through the first 5-7 exercises of that book, then you probably "get it" a little more than you did before; enough to start drawing anything and everything that catches your fancy. At this point, you don't need to keep following the book. Feel free to only come back to it when you need ideas or inspiration.

Copy, copy, copy. Like a picture you see online? Copy it. Your version won't be as good, but it doesn't matter, because it's all practice. However, try to make at least 50% of your drawings from real life (as in, 3D objects that you see with your physical eyes), and not pictures you see in books or on the internet. Why? Because drawing from a picture is easier than drawing from life. Pictures are, by definition, "flattened" for you, so you don't have to interpret what you're seeing as much. You need to be able to visualize and interpret objects in 3D, so you need to draw from life.

Step 4: Challenge yourself. Although your art skill will have undoubtedly improved by this point, you're still super far from your goal. This is usually where people settle in to only drawing things that they can draw kinda-sorta well, like simple objects, or copies of cartoons without any shading. This is a huge mistake! You have so much to learn and you know it, so don't stunt your growth now. If you're not sure what to practice next, I recommend drawing human beings. Why? Because there's not a single artist on the entire planet that couldn't benefit from being able to draw people; it's basically a necessary skill. It's also difficult, and forces you to move out of your comfort zone. But it's also a highly desirable skill, and once your humans start looking, well, human, you're going to feel super proud of yourself.

How do you practice figure drawing? Well, if you can find real people to pose for you naked, then go with that. But, your friends and family probably aren't going to be comfortable with that. If you feel up to it, try to find a figure drawing class (check local community colleges). But, if all else fails, find pictures of naked people online (really not that hard).

Regardless of whether you decide to pursue anatomy at this point, there are two huge skills you should start working on about now: foreshortening and shading. This shit's super hard, and you're going to suck for a super long time at it. If you don't know what foreshortening is, it's basically the fact that objects warp themselves into optical illusions when you're not looking at them at right-angles. Your brain processes this seamlessly, but as a non-artist you've never thought about this before, so you're going to be terrible at drawing objects from all kinds of angles. Shading is exactly what you think, but there's no "secret" to it; not only is seeing light and shadow (in an artistic way) hard in its own right, but just getting the shadow to look right on the damn paper is a skill unto itself. NO MATTER HOW LONG YOU SUCK AT THESE THINGS, DO NOT BECOME DISCOURAGED. This is the death valley of art. Every single artist just needs to hammer away at this stuff until they start to become better at it, little by little. When you first start drawing, you usually make surprisingly quick progress. But this stuff? SLOWWWWW. Just do it and do it and do it, over and over and over. You will improve, very slowly, until you're actually kind of okay at it. Do not give up. Do not get frustrated. Block all emotion out of your head about this stuff, because you will not feel anything positive about your skills in this department for a long time.

Step 5: You're an Artist! It turns out there's no "endgame" for art. Every artist thinks they suck until they die, but around this time you'll start realizing that you can kinda-sorta draw almost anything. From this point forward, draw the things you want to draw, and go out of your way to practice the things you know (deep down) you need extra work on. Improvement at this point is measured in years, not months, but if you stick with it, you will become "a good artist" by the end of your 10-year timeline. Of course, at that point, you'll still realize there are infinite ways to improve, and you'll realize you're going to be working on this until you die. But congrats, that just means you're an artist.

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Q&A

Q: All you talk about is pencil drawing here. What about painting??

A: Drawing with a writing instrument on paper is where you should start because it's super cheap, super flexible (you can do it anywhere), and super productive (the line is a fundamental artistic unit). You should start experimenting with alternative artistic instruments (marker, chalk, feathers dipped in lamb blood, whatever) near the end of Step 3. At the start of Step 4, feel free to start transitioning to other mediums, like painting (digital of physical). Painting is about "form" more than about "line," but you'll need the fundamentals you developed in steps 1-3 to paint anyway.

Q: What about cartoons/manga/anime/comic books/Tim Burton/Picasso? Those aren't realistic! When can I start doing stylized drawings from my imagination?

A: No matter how abstract or stylized something is, it always has roots in reality. That's why you need to never stop drawing/painting/etc. from real life and real photos. However, you can start experimenting with these fields in Step 3. Do not let them make up more than half of your time practicing, though.

I will definitely check it out. I'm also a big fan of Mobeius. His stories and how they evolve is very dreamlike.

As a recommendation to you, check out 'Satania' I read it recently and it's wonderful. I could see it being an interesting adaptation to a movie in the future:

https://www.amazon.com/Satania-Fabien-Vehlmann/dp/1681121433?SubscriptionId=AKIAJAUEX2LVUIGMKSGA&tag=artisjour-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1681121433

If anyone is a fan of Pen-and-Paper RPG's, Free League made a game using his art called Tales From the Loop

You can also get just the art for Tales From the Loop and the upcoming expansion for the the games Things From the Flood, which has some of my favorite pieces of his.

If you're interested in buying, Modiphius has the stuff available for purchase in your local currencies.

I commissioned Austin Reddington to do some artwork for a steampunk book, and the results were more than I could have hoped for. He is a 3D animator, so the images you see are more than just a painting. You can actually enter the world and look around. This was extremely helpful, as we could now move buildings and rotate airships to get the perfect shot for the book cover. Find more of Austin's art here. Find the book here.

I know about Homunculus and its on my list to read. Omg my stack is too deep ! I'll bump it up in cue and get back to you.

Ok so you've read Garden of Adenea, have you read The Incal ? It was my intro to his stuff and my 2nd favorite, it was written by Jodorwosky. Technopriests is my favorite form Jodorowsky.