- Joined
- Mar 26, 2016
As an aspiring (and still terrible) artist myself, I know, at least in part, what you should do. Go to 4chan. /ic/, the beginner thread. Ignore whatever the fuck they're talking about there, just grab all the fucking resources from the OP, and start learning. While I did make some genuine improvement with Right Side Of The Brain, I didn't improve a whole lot, as compared to what I could do before, and what I could do after reading Fun With A Pencil.Decided to get back into drawing after spending a couple days with my $250 drawing tablet last summer. Drew yet another old guy to see if I could do it any better.
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I haven't drawn in years (and even then it was only occasionally), but everything I've drawn so far looks no better than the stuff I did when I was nine, and all I had then was pencil and paper without the ability to make a rough sketch on a separate layer. The most frustrating thing is that I "see" what I'm trying to draw in professional graphic novel-level detail, with my own drawing style, but when I try sketching that mental image it comes out as a total mess and I'm forced to omit details until it looks like what you see above.
But you did something better than I did: you posted, and you explained what you're feeling. My advice to you is this:
1: Learn the fundamentals. The basics of perspective and construction will do you well here.
2: Abandon symbol drawing. Symbol drawing, to explain it simply, is using a preconceived notion of what an object is to draw it. For example, you drew that eye there. I'll post a drawing of an eye, in steps, to show you what I do. It's still not an amazing eye (I didn't draw lashes or anything), but I think it might help you. Look up Proko on Youtube, they do a good series on drawing things, although it's a bit more intense than anything I'm actually capable of right now.
In case you can't read my handwriting
1: Almond
2: Circle Inside
3: Pupil
On the head, the eye is halfway up (that is, between the chin and the top of the head. Measure your own head, and get an idea of how big everything is, and where it is exactly. Eyes are smaller and lower on the head than you think!)
Draw eyebrows as follows
1: Draw the eye, as a measuring tool
2: Measure 1 eye height above the eye
3: Line
4: Using the line, fill in a shape around it.