I drawing/art n00b. Help need. Pliss. Law El.
 

I apologise in advance if there's already a thread about this (in which case I'd love it if you could post the link to it) and again if nobody here does this kinda thing.

The thread's title pretty much sums it: I'm a total n00b when it comes to art and drawing. I've drawn just a wee bit and I don't know how to move on, for lack of a better way to say it.

What I need is basically tips, lessons/methods and/or books I can read to learn how to draw. I have virtually zero skill/talent at this point and have about the same amount of inspiration.

If anyone can help me out, I'd really appreciate it. If not, however, well....you suck. :dotdotdot:

P.S:- I'm sorry of I used to many / s.

What have you done so far? Show us what you have drawn so far, what you like to draw and who some of your influences are.

Pfft, just draw what you like.

What you need help with really depends on what you are trying accomplish. So yeah, we'll also need to see what you can do first. Although generally, for anybody wants to get better, the general advices are: "Draw a lot, draw from life, draw for fun". That's about it.

Welcome to TCC, by the way.

I can't show you the skecthes I've drawn, I don't have a scanner.


So far as my influences go, I want to draw comic/anime kinda stuff with maybe a little still-life stuff as well. I saw your "Request" thead Magi and I'd love it if I could learn to do the type of stuff you have in it. And yes I want to draw for fun of course.

And whats TCC? :confused:

But of course you do.

I don't recommend hauling off and drawing a whole bunch of anime or comic stuff and doing that for years, because you're probably just going to form a bunch of bad habits which will be very difficult for you to break. You definitely, definitely need to draw real people, from life (photos are good, but try to avoid porn and such) and you need to do it a lot. Once you have a good idea about anatomy, where stuff should go, etc, then you can bring some of your other influences into it.

Don't try to force a specific style on yourself. Don't tell yourself "I draw anime" or "I draw comic style stuff." Let yourself be flexible, let your style evolve naturally from drawing things over and over. Because in the end, the last thing we need is another kid posting his Invader Zim fanarts all over Livejournal.

Fanart, now that's an ugly word, I mean, there's absolutely nothing wrong with learning from others, but when it's only cartoons you don't develop beyond what you need to know before you can actually draw either animation style or comic book cartoons good enough (most technically talented cartoonists usually have some sort of art academy education, which involves still life, portrait drawing, nudes/anatomy studies, landscape etc.)

My advice - As you develop artistically you get a better sense of what's technically good and bad, so I suggest you learn from the best as you get better control over your hand.
Cartoonists are artists to some extent as well, but in my opinion the term artists is still a word that fits the names of Rembrandt, David, Degas and Lautrec better.
(With the exception of Miyazaki and similar anime artists).

If you have no inspiration that means you don't want to draw. You need an idea of where you're going before starting to go there. "I want to draw anime/comic book style" isn't enough from my perspective. What do you want to do for it? Being able to create for the sake of creating is great and if you have fun, more power to you. But if you're starting from scratch, I think it's better to have a set goal for yourself.

For example, my life goal is to publish a popular manga. That has been my driving force for the past five years, and that is not going to change.

If you want to look at more manga-esque art, go to the links section on my site. I have a collection of different artist sites there that a lot of my friends reference a lot.