Well, we obviously have very, very different views on this subject. NinjaFish seems to like your and Expresate's view, so I don't see the sense in continuing to debate with others when the person I'm actually giving my opinion to doesn't agree with it.

That's not to say you shouldn't learn it, but honestly it's not as important (IMO) as people make it out to be.

My suggestion would be to use LOTS of reference photos, even if you're going with something that doesn't actually exist or drawing a cartoon. It can help a lot with the different angles and such.

The number one thing to keep in mind when learning what to draw on your own is to draw what YOU want to draw, otherwise you'll just get burnt out all over again. Perfect example of this is one of my latest drawings (which I can't link to, don't ask). I was just lying in bed one night, the thought came to me, and I decided to draw it. Came out pretty good too.

The number two thing I'd recommend is to be sure to sketch lightly first, then go back with an eraser and clean it up. Not only does it make the drawing look cleaner in the end, but it also helps to get motivation as your drawing begins to take shape.

To be fair, bad habits, formed while learning one style (such as manga), may slow development when learning a new style. However, there is no one style greater than another, albeit so long as the style you've developed is the one needed for the task at hand. Many teachers prefer a student to disregard old information, so that the teacher may reshape new, often more relative, information for the student based on what is to be learned. The teacher's real goal is to make the process efficient so that the rate of learning is not hampered, rather increased.

I recently started drawing again myself. Growing up I used to draw a lot but I was never all that good at it. Drawing inanimate objects like swords and stuff was pretty easy and I could do faces okay but when it came to drawing full body figures I could never get the proportions right. I still have trouble with the proportions but I've improved a great deal. I can even draw hands to some extent.

As to whether this belongs in the artistry thread, that thread is more for showing off stuff you made so I think this thread is fine if we're just talking about art in general. If you have anything to show off, put it in the artistry thread.

You should consider getting an anatomy book, even if you want to draw non-realistic style. Knowing the placements of muscles and proportions of the bones is always a good thing. And if you're trying to learn the perspective of, say, the head, being able to see and understand the shape of the skull from different angles will help with that. The internet is of course a great resource, but it wouldn't hurt to go to a local store that stocks textbooks and see what spending money will get you.

I think if you really try to find tutorials on three point perspective, it will help a lot. It's supposed to be one of the harder perspectives to draw in but I found that it helps a whole lot in getting used to proportion.

Yup! I'v already gotten into the habit of light lines for faces [so you can erase the stuff that would normally be hidden under hair], and just so it doesn't look messy if I need to redo an eye or something.

As for drawing what I want to draw. It's what i'm teaching myself for. I don't like looking into books and having it say 'draw this, with these steps', because it turns something Im enjoying into something I am now studying. I'v been using alot of reference photos as it is [as well as some tuts on drawing certain things, like eyes]


I'm the same. I could always draw little things that didn't have alot of detail. But when it came to bodies, my proportion was always WAY off. It's something i'll need to practice alot of to get it right.


This is a really good idea. I'v never been good at determining where muscle lines should be put, so I always tended to have... scrawny.. spaggetti arms aha.

As for the three-point perspective tutorial, I'll keep an eye out for some. Anything that helps me with drawing perspective on different points would be a great help.

Is it possible to be incapable of drawing anything decent? I've been wanting to learn to draw ( on the computer ) for a while but I'm just never happy with anything I make. It always looks blocky, or if I try to make a curved stroke it gets all screwed up ( using a book for a mousepad probably has something to do with this ) and I just get frustrated. I'll have to check out some of the books you guys mentioned.

Drawing with a mouse is really difficult unless you practice.

If you run into the same thing with pencil, my suggestion is how I learned. Sketch everything, and don't do it in full strokes. Always do small strokes to get the shape you want, and once you get it, you can either go over it with a single line, or leave it like that.

I prefer sketching it out, and keeping the.. pencilled look to it. Where you can still see some of the lines for a face or something doesn't connect.

I got ninja'ed ina artsy-fartsy thread about an art book ref???

Hey Sami... eat my shorts :swear:

really good book though :goodjob:

and Sami... please don't eat my shorts, 'kay buddy? :biggrin:


I need 'em :hehe:

What do nipbles ever have to do with Japan?? Other than not ever being drawn correctly..
oh wait..

:teehee:

Oh well crap son, why didn't you say so at the beginning?? And here we all are -or at least I was, worried like hell that you were out there drawing stuff that you didn't wanna draw..

..while I was going to propose using a playboy, penthouse, hustler or other nature / wildlife magazine to capture the inherent beauty of the female form in all it's photoshopped splendor.

no to mention some great proportions :hubbahubba:

as to the yay/nee manga debate.. I'm gonna sit squarely between Antibody and Expersate on the whole matter.. cuz they're both right.



yes.., they are.

my cedentials; three years of study over a five year period at these two places when I wasn't on deployment.. I needed something to noodle

http://www.hku.nl/web/show
http://www.gerritrietveldacademie.nl/nl/



Ex is right that you can 'use' manga drawing techniques to get a handle on things like basic human proportions; the small child, the teen, the young advlt etc.. -but only as a guideline since manga by it's nature is cartoonesk. Manga is also great in practicing dynamic movement and posing, since it doesn't deal too deeply with shading and proper anatomical definition, just the outlines.

AB is right, via proxy of his professors, that the classic disciplines of shading, learning to work from the negative space, color palette, contrast and an understanding through art history of how things like composition and perspective evolved into works like http://www.google.com/search?q=nachtwacht&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1440&bih=698 and a http://www.google.com/search?q=pindakaasvloer&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1440&bih=698 are equally important, and if you're a professor at a renown institute of the arts, or a student of one such professor, then it's more than understandable that this is your defended point of view.

:)

I almost hate you because everything you post takes me a substantial amount of time to read compared to everyone else

Buuuut I agree on the debate on people for//against manga as being good art and whatnot. Personally, I think it's up to peoples preferences. I never understood why people are like "LOL YOU'RE LOOKING AT A YOUNG GIRL IN ANIME? YOUR SO GROSS!!", when I can easily make the same argument as "You're looking at kids in art... your a paedophile..." :confused:

Annd I really wouldn't mind taking art classes. However, this insinuates I have money for said classes, on top of the course I am trying to make a career out of ._. So I say you're lucky to of been able to afford those classes and get some use out of them. I find it weird starting into something like this from the age 22, when I was learning about computers when I was 7 :mellow: .

As for me starting with Manga. I don't think i'll ever really veer off that course. I mean.. I don't like art with huge amounts of detail in the first place. Why? Well... I don't see it :mellow: . I know people whom are life-long artists do get into great detail when drawing. But for me, it's just not my cup o' tea. I more of a minimalist.

And sheesh! You should know better! I can't use playboy as a reference!! I'd have to exaggerate certain... aspects of the manga character I was drawing :unsure: . *cough*

Regardless however, for now I use images as references when I want to try to learn to draw something from different perspectives. So far, i'v been drawing on a head-on view of the face, and a view slightly looking towards the right.

Also.. i'm right handed, and I find it VERY difficult to draw anything on the right side of my drawing [hair, eyes, anything on the right half of what I am doing]. Does this get any easier? :sweat:

EDIT: I was kidding. I don't hate you for makin me read long posts ^^

You know that saying about practice? And that other one? An' that other other one, come to think of it?

Very, very few people start off good (and even they are trumped by skills). Anyone, however, can develop the skills to make some pretty awesome stuff. Key word being 'develop'. It takes time and effort, and more time and more effort, but you can get there, just like loads of people before you . Might help if you tried paper before/rather than wresting with a mouse .


And beaten to it by someone who doesn't even draw, no less . I did buy that book though... and have never touched or seen it, as I bought it online as a gift for my little brother . But I'd definitely grab a copy if/when I find the mental energy to start learning artsy-ness.

I'll spare your shorts if you give me *dum dum duuuummmmm* vun meeeelleeonnn stroopevaffles! Mwahahahahha! Or just a few really good ones.

'Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.'
'I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.'
'I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.'
van Gogh.

'Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.'
'Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.'
Salvador Dali

'An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have'
Andy Warhol

Try http://www.drawspace.com/, there's a lot of free courses you can download form the site, and they are quite wholesome :foodndrink:

I'm a lefty.
You really wanna have this debate? We lefties have been ostracized and persecuted by you *righters* since the dawn of time..
See?
See what I mean???
You'll never see a book produced by someone calling themselves a lefter...

bring.it.on. :toughninja:

I only marginally hate you for having to edit that in as an afterthought... <_<


:teehee: attack of the goofy teehee

Hey! I had to actually reopen this thread to edit it! That was alot of work! <_<

And thanks for that link, I bookmarked it and i'll look at it later [somewhat tired since I am going on another day of no sleep ><]

And I like those quotes.

As for being a Lefty....

BRING IT :gun:

:whisper: Just tell him his little nunchuck smiley is a righty, he already lost.

Cool that you're getting back into drawing. I used to try. Key word try. Never had the patience for practice. So, good luck.

[adjusts seat, cracks knuckles and takes a sip of cold coffee....]

Weeell sonny, it's like this.

Some smart boyo went and figured out somehow -I'm just a simple soul, don't have much understandings of matters scientific, but this here feller figured out that through out the entire history of man, the presentage of lefties has stayed constant at 22% of the standing population. So my question is..
why are we such a threat?


your turn. :teehee:

As the above post says. Your ninja smiley is a righty.

As for my rebuttle.

God hates you?

And for my REAL rebuttle.

We don't need left-handed stores to function properly in society We got ALL the regular stores. You lefties are just like the recent Canadian Liberal Party -- limited and unwated

I of course, kid :flamethrower:

Aw, the sweetness of love. Motivating you to learn what you hated.

I was lucky to have a really good art teacher. He did not teach us, he did not call himself teacher. He was only there to help, to facilitate us to complete our works, he called himself a facilitator. In any case, yes we had to learn different tools and how they work, and he would mark our works. He didn't mark according to how well we've done, but instead how much and how well we've learnt through the experience, so we had to mark our works too. It's the experience that counts, its product was there only to delivery yourself to the audience.

It's never bad to learn all the skills and sharpen your tools, but tools are useless if you cannot express yourself. To tell you need the tools first, to use the tools you need the skillset. It's always nice to know how others employ their skills to their works, but it's never good to confine yourself in their ways.

Btw, get a drawing tablet.

Do you know deviantart.com

Not love D:. She no love meh
Half way through reading this, I was debating talking about how I want to get a chepa tablet, and then you mentioned it ahaha.

Ya I want to . I tried my friends, and I think i'd really like to be able to import my drawings into PS or something, and add some colour and such to it, or draw from scratch on it .

@above post I didn't see until I posted. Yes. I plan on making one when I get a bit better. And to look around at other peoples stuuuff.

I know about the smiley.. tried altering the smiley.. need more time.

I'm a lefties with glasses, needed braces from the age of nine through fifteen (the outboard motor kind..) a ginger redhead with chronic badhair day (call it bad hair life.) and I can't dance.
you have no idea.. :shakehead:

There are, of course, no hand grenades large enough to shove down your undies right now, you understand this?
I mean, I wasn't gonna get brutal or anything but now.. now I'm getting Rohugh to backtrack your ip and I'm booking flight for Oshawa.. I used to live in Sarnia.. so you're basically screwed.
Move to Belize or something..
I know some of the Outlaws in Toronto who still owe me..

uh-huh... Roh just pm'ed me back..

:stare:

You could always just string half a dozen handgrenades together through the pins, tape the string to the box top and the box bottom and mail it to me. But since I suggested it, i'd be expecting it so. To bad

And don't worry, god hates me quite a bit to [might of been that type I ran naked through the Church..... *cough* totally kidding, you understand...

I wouldn't be surprised if you knew someone in Toronto. I have friends in the States and Europe whom i'v found had the same friends as me on Facebook :confused:

The left-handed individual is mankind's salvation through leftiness. We are destined to rule and bring mankind into a golden age in which we shall share the secrets of our glorious god-flesh and ascend mankind to the higher plane that is being left-handed. Opposing this glorious salvation shall doom you to our god-grudge, from which there is no escape. _{the left handed are not responsible for any damages suffered when we melt down the right handed by increments of a thousand in order to obtain enough material to create a proper left-handed individual.}

Anyway, about drawing, if your going to draw in manga style I reccomend you take the chance to learn about body-fat distribution. Too often have I seen someone try to draw manga-style only to give a female skeletal arms and D-cup briasts.

That's fine. You're a bunch of lefties playing with fire. That can only turn out awesome for any of the surviving righties who are still in cages after you've all lit yourself on fire :flamethrower: :celebration:

That the swords of our creative endeavors always be pointed in the same direction and in combined unison, together valiantly and with utmost resilience fighting against that unholiest of abominations





edit:
..and of course what Darth said.

Elvis.
:bolt: <-- this again
Building.

Hey! We're not playing with fire, we're playing with the Large Hadron Collider.