Size does matter, but mine are to small...

[Kartoffel]

One of my biggest problems is that my concept sketches are to small.
A person has an average heigth of about 4 cm an tis is definitely to less.
But even though I know that I seem to be unable to make them bigger.
It always ends up that small and so I can't work on the details and it comes out messy and ugly.

My question is, does anyone here has the same problems and if so, how did you make yourself to draw bigger? Are there any tricks that help me to enlarge my sketches?

[EVIL]

here is a little tip. scan your small sketches in. enlarge them and print em out. then use a light table or just tape em to your window (at day time :)) and draw the sketch very lightly over a new clean sheet of paper. after you are done you will have a nice basic sketch wich can be used to make a full detailed drawing.

[Kartoffel]

Well, I was searching for a method that does change something in my head which will make me draw bigger.
I don't want to scan in - print - trace every small piece of crap i produce.
I am searching for more psycological advise.

[Noah Bradley]

I have similar problems quite frequently, and what do I do? Well as for now I'm doing nothing, I'm just figuring out how to draw. But no matter. I've found in past experience that if I play music (quiet or loud) and try to almost express the music (more of the rhythem than anything) while being very loose, my drawings tend to be larger. Give it a shot, it's fun nonetheless. :)

[bara]

my stuff grew in size (and is growing) as i got better. i guess once you get more confident and know what you're doing it's easier to do it bigger. i didn't think about it, it just happened.
i dont think there is magic psychological trick to it, just draw a lot and stay focused, bla bla.

[Kortez]

i don't know if this will work for you but it definately worked for me.

If I was gonna draw a character, i'd place a line and say "here's where I want the top of the head to be" and then I put another line way beneath it and said "this is where I want the toes to be". Just putting these lines down and saying it to myself helped me. And now I don't have to do it anymore to make reasonably sized sketches. Hope that helps :)

[Vik Thor]

Hi All.

Well I hope I can help you: I also had the "drawing small" problem when I was younger (I will be 21 later this month, I drew smaller when I was started, at the age of 12 or 13 years old) and all my friends that never had a training in drawing also have it. To me (and it is just a theory) the problem is that when you (or me or anyone else) draw a small sketch you see the drawing as a whole, just like your right brain (the side you use to draw) sees it, if you try drawing bigger, your right side won´t know what to do and your left side doesn´t know how to draw very well, so you just do what is your inclination (in my case was draw it small, no matter what).

Well, now goes the Answer. First you´ve got to really know what the problem is. As they said before, you can always enlarge it and trace it, but that doesn´t really help because that isn´t the problem (and also you would lose a lot of detail). To me, your problem is that when you try to draw bigger, you get frustated and maybe you even hate yourself and begin thinking things like you are never going to be able to draw right or something like that (I have those toughts every time I get frustated!) and you have to know that drawing small is NOT a problem by itself (you can always enlarge it). Maybe your problem is that you are drawing in a small surface. If you begin drawing in a bigger size, you will eventually draw bigger. My main advice would be draw as much as you can forcing you to draw bigger. how can you do that? Well, first you can trace the outline of a bigger drawing and then finish it by yourself. This way you will be able to draw things bigger and it will take some of the frustation (if you have it). Another thing you can do is grab a clean sheet of paper and make divisions to see where everything has to be and then draw it trying to fill all the space that you can. When you have an space to fill it is easier to let yourself go.

Just in case it helps, I will tell you what happened to me: I am drawing nearly every day since I was 12 years old. Most of the time I focused on comic books wich were (and still are) my goal. When I was like 14 years ago I found that comics where drawn in a bigger size than the finished product, I knew I had that "drawing small" problem (and I didn´t think about enlarging the drawings then), so I forced myself to draw bigger, it didn´t matter which size, the bigger the better. When I turned 17 I could afford to buy a really big sheet of paper like 35 cm x 70 cm (about 18 x 35 inches) and started drawing there, it was a struggle to full pagers, so I went back to draw on "legal" (I don´t know the measurements) size of paper. Little by little, I was able to draw bigger (and sometimes I even had the problem that I drew to big for the space I was given!!). My first assignement was earlier this year and I had to do it on diggest size (smaller than standard comic size). And for my lattest assingment I had the chance to work on the standard 10 x 15 inches (25,4 x 35 cm) comic size, but I choose to work on it in the published size so I could make it faster. Right now I don´t have problems to work on any size (And tough I don´t like to use it, I can always enlarge or reduce my drawings).

Well, it took a little bit longer that I expected, but I hope that I could help everyone that have this "problem" (and it really isn´t a problem beyond everybody´s goals).

Victor Cabanelas
Buenos Aires, Argentina

PS: Forgive me for all the mistakes in my writing, it´s been a long day...

And Since the one that started this tread is german, let us all raise our beers!!!
:chug:

[Kartoffel]

Thank you all for your replies!

silvir: I tried what you said and it really helped. I always listen to music but never tried to concentrate on the music while drawing but it really seems to work!

Kortez: This was the first thing I have tried but the problem was that then important parts like the head were to small an other things were off and the easiest way to fix it was to make everything a bit smaller. So in the end it had no effect at all.


Vik Thor: You have read the Betty Edwards Book, didn't you (the evil side of the brain :evilbat: hehe)
I will try to get bigger sized paper and see if this enlarges my pictures. It seems logical that i can't draw bigger than the paper i have.
Oh, and "Prost":chug: :beer: (I didn't really get why the fact, that I am German is a reasom for drinking, but why not? - or is it to make all people so drunk that they don't recognize our bad english any longer :p )

[pvrhye]

get a stack of newsprint and commit yourself to filling the whole page. When I got used to big I could hardly go back. I used to draw incredibly small.

[magnut]

Okay, I think I have a different take on this.

Drawing small is GOOD! It allows you (those who like to draw small) to comfortably get your gestures down, to make your characters/composition look right, strong, and designed well.

Then, scan/enlarge/print it out, or use an Artograph projector to enlarge, or just xerox it up, and then put it on a lightbox.

THESE ARE NOT BAD THINGS. The trick is in how you apply your finished drawing. Such as:

You don't want (in your small drawing) to do too much detail. You want to do JUST ENOUGH, that when you enlarge it, you can take it from a 'loose' composition, to a finished piece! This way, you can take the ESSENCE of that really greatly composed, nicely presented small drawing, and end up making it into a nice piece that still reflects the power/composition/subtlety/whatever of your original sketch.

IF YOU DRAW SMALL, THEN TRY TO RECREATE IT ON A LARGER PAPER (WITHOUT ENLARGING IT TO DRAW ON THE LIGHTBOX), YOU RUN THE RISK OF YOUR SECOND LARGER DRAWING NOT HAVING THE SAME GOOD ENERGY AS YOUR SMALLER SKETCH! Pretty much no one (certainly people just starting out to learn how to draw) is able to do the same exact good drawing 2 and 3 and more times in a row! It's like doing a carbon copy of a carbon copy of a carbon copy... the integrity of all that was strong in the first place is just LOST.

If you do that, then you're likely to look at your final drawing and realize it's not as good as the original small sketch, and you'll never realize why. That would not be good.

How can I back up this claim? Go to www.nealadams.com to see how amazing this person's work is! Neal Adams is about the best draftsman there is on the planet! He's published a book about the benefits of doing the rougher small sketches, and how you enlarge them, trace off ONLY THE ESSENTIALLY GOOD STUFF, and how to make the small sketch into a completely solid quality illustration. This man's is so talented, and he still uses these techniques & approaches, not as cheats, but as a Means To An End (doing damned good illustrations).

You don't want to so overly complicate your life by thinking that it's somehow wrong to trace off the small drawing you did, that you're not a good artist because you can't recreate things time after time. First, that takes practice, and also, you need to use whatever approaches that are available to you. Neal Adams can draw every damned thing in the world, but that's because (in part) that he's smart enough to know how to utilize PROPER REFERENCE, and INTELLIGENT APPROACHES & SHORT-CUTS.

Go to http://www.nealadams.com/sell.html to look SPECIFICALLY at the repeated pencil sketches on the background of that webpage. This is about the ACTUAL SIZE that Neal Adams does the sketches for his comics pages (maybe an inch or two bigger, I'm not kidding). He then transcribes (by the method I described earlier) his compositions/gestures into actual finished comics pages.

(For you comics fans out there who don't know who Neal Adams is, shame on you... you should know where the major influences of today's hot artists likely came from. Just because Neal might not be considered the 'hottest' comics artist around today, doesn't mean he can't draw them all under a table with 3 of his drawing-hand fingers tied to his back...!)

I'm betting that, given time and practice, that you'll be able to also.

You can find Neal Adams: The Sketch Book at http://www.entertainment-reviews.com/Neal_Adams_The_Sketch_Book_1887591060.html - this way, you can (for a nicely discounted price) get some amazing knowledge to add to your artistic vocabulary.

Good luck!

[MulletMan]

Well, this is my first post, and here goes:

This is what helped me draw bigger. If i have a whole piece of paper, I say to myself, "Thats your workspace. Use it." If you dont use all of the space given to you, you limit yourself to a very small area. My friends and I just completed the drawing stage of a mural on the wall of the middle school next door (no, we actually got permission :D ) When I looked at the wall, the background was already set up, the space was used nicely. The thing is we went through multiple concept sketches before actually starting. So:
1) Start small and move up if you have to.

When I went to put characters in the scene, I asked many people to model for me. They got annoyed at some points, but it helped a great deal. So:
2) Draw from life.

Lastly, I found out that on some days I couldnt draw a thing. This is normal, but its worse on a big scale. Reasons were from the "I bombed a test today" to "i was putting to much into the drawing." Sometimes you have to come back to it. The same goes for both big and small, especially big, pieces:
3) Draw freely and calmly. Make mistakes. Try stuff. Make it so that you can fix stuff. Erasers are good.

Thats the most important advice that my teacher has taught me over a year and a half. Mistakes are good. Practice every day. My advice to you would be to bust yourself into a big piece right away, and mess up if you do. You dont need to show it to anyone, just as long as you get the experience of drawing on a large scale.