I'm kind of a noob at drawing--where do I start?

[Hira]

>///<; I'm new here, so I apologize if I posted this in the wrong forum or something. ;///w///; (Totally doesn't know where to post here..)

I'm kind of a anime/manga artist that wants to learn realism D': Especially anatomy. And life drawing, and that stuff. But I am completely lost as to where to start! @_@; There are just so many different things. I don't know what to do first!


D': Should I learn anatomy (Like the bones and muscles stuff) or figure drawing first? What about realistic faces?

@@;;; I think too much research has been my downfall....

...help please? ; w ; Where should I start with all this stuff?

[p sage]

Hi.

What kind of work would you ultimately like to do?

If it's illustration or fine art, try looking into the books of George Bridgeman, Andrew Loomis, and Betty Edwards.

If it's animation, try looking into Glenn Vilppu's books and videos.

[Hira]

Oh. Hi P sage. owo;; I guess it'd be animation?
Videos? I didn't know Glenn Vilppu had videos...xD;

[Swampdigger]

If you're trying for realism then one of the best things to do is to draw from life. You can do still life and figure drawings, but you can also just draw everything around you. Draw your room, your house, your dog, your family, whatever. In conjunction you can also study some anatomy from books.

If you want to draw realistic faces, you could get a book, but I would just suggest drawing your own face in the mirror. See what it actually looks like. If you get tired of your face or want more variety ask friends/family to sit for you. If you don't wanna do that just get pictures of peoples faces.

Mainly the key is to draw from life. If your trying to draw something and it's coming out too "manga", get a reference to see what a real arm looks like, or draw your own arm, etc. The nice thing about drawing more or less realistically is that you don't need a tutorial on how to stylize something, life is your tutorial. :)

[Hira]

Swampdigger - Oh right. Drawing from life. ; w ; but my surroundings are so boring..!

Ohh. Good point. >>u Things do end up coming out too manga....like I end up drawing the eyes too big or something. lol.

[p sage]

Swampdigger makes good points about life drawing.

Look into doing Gesture drawings. Kimon Nicolaides has a good book and regimen out there that starts with doing nothing but gestures.

You can use life drawing to either copy the model, or analyze it as an action or gesture drawing... or both. Those studying illustration tend to copy the model, those studying animation tend to analyze it.

Of course, anatomy is quite important, but that can come later.

An easy thing to start with would be sitting down with a sketchbook in the mall or a bookstore somewhere and start doing quick gesture drawings.

[Maidith]

There's a nice tool for quick gesture drawing - http://www.posemaniacs.com/?pagename=thirtysecond, it shows you a figure for 30, 60, etc. seconds or so.

I think I have learnt a lot by copying old master paintings and drawings, so it's quite easy for me to "get" the posemaniacs figures and draw them quickly.
In fact, I think that Posemaniacs is as effective as copying old master's figures - just more efficient because it makes you draw more figures. Depending on what artist's work you are looking at, the anatomy might be stylized to some degree. Botticelli's figures, for example, often have a questionable anatomy while Poussin, the Neoclassicists, the 19th century academic painters (think: Bouguereau etc) draw phenomenal (though often idealized) figures which just want to be studied. You even can learn some anatomy from them. But not much more than from Posemaniacs. Its 3D figures look all the same and have no realistic skin folds and gravity doesn't affect them (think: silicone boobs).
In short: I think that both Posemaniacs and copying old master stuff are great for training your accuracy and artistic vocabulary, which also helps with life drawing. But if you really want to understand anatomy, you gotta do life drawing and on top of that, study the body parts thoroughly. That's my theory :)

[Black Spot]

I second gesture drawing if you're into animation. You can do it at a park or a coffee shop. It's that essence of movement you want to capture.

[Xeon_OND]

Just curious, but between Loomis, Bridgeman and Vilppu, which of these 3 teaches the best?

People rave about Vilppu and I recently read many posts here where people were talking about Loomis and Brigdeman as if these 2 are household names (e.g: "I'm gonna do some Loomis today" and/or "Gonna work on my Bridgeman today").

I assume Vilppu is still king? If I'm not wrong, all 3 specializes in human anatomy and human drawings.

[FranciscoShreds]

Just curious, but between Loomis, Bridgeman and Vilppu, which of these 3 teaches the best?

People rave about Vilppu and I recently read many posts here where people were talking about Loomis and Brigdeman as if these 2 are household names (e.g: "I'm gonna do some Loomis today" and/or "Gonna work on my Bridgeman today").

I assume Vilppu is still king? If I'm not wrong, all 3 specializes in human anatomy and human drawings.

King? Did they get in the squared circle and battle it out? If you have all 3 use all 3. Also, can't forget Hale, Vanderpoel, Hogarth, and if you can understand it Bammes. Use peck for general reference. Honestly, treat it as a buffet of knowledge not as a fast food menu. Not stuck with what you order.

[Hira]

P sage - @_@ I tried using Kimon Nicolaides "The Natural Way to Draw" and the whole blind contour drawing thing almost broke my mind. xD; I have no idea how they expect me to take 30 minutes to do ONE of those. >>;

I guess I should analyze it then...Dx -has no idea how to do that- That sounds pretty hard. lol.

; w ; I live in the middle of nowhere. I don't think a mall or bookstore is really an option... >>;;

Maidith --- Oh I've seen that. Posemaniacs is win <3

Copying old master's figures...? xD; I've never even taken a good look at one. lol.

Oh boy. @_@; Studying the body parts thoroughly..? T w T

Black Spot-- ......D': again, you guys really make me wish I lived in the city, and not in the middle of nowhere lol.

Xeon_OND - I HAVE NO IDEA! DDD': I never saw Bridgeman's books before, but Loomis' kind of confused me a bit...>>; I hear about Loomis the most though. I think I'll go through Loomis' stuff again when I learn the basics a bit more...><

D: As far as I read Vlippu's stuff, I really liked it though. It starts off with basic things like shapes lol...@ w @;

But I shouldn't say anything >< I know nothing about this stuff! lol

[Xeon_OND]

Look into doing Gesture drawings. Kimon Nicolaides has a good book and regimen out there that starts with doing nothing but gestures.
From what I heard, Kimon's book ("The Natural way to draw") is a book straight out of Hell. It will break you and reduce a hunk to a whimpering sod.

Below is a review from one guy at Amazon.com:

Anyone preparing to undertake this book should be aware it is tremendously demanding of your time and energies. There is a minimum expectation that you will draw for three hours a day for a one year period. I have never completed the whole course but undertook it several times and managed make it through three or four months of the program with some success. This book was held in tremendous esteem by a lot of students who swore by it when I attended Cal Arts. This is in part because Cal Arts is an animation school. A lead animator needs to capture weight and gesture in a very quickly done drawing. The book teaches you to actually feel as if you are touching the object with your pencil and feel its weight and volume by means of various excercises.

Later in my drawing career I found a school that taught foundational classic illustration techniques that have been passed down for ages. We were taught life drawing techniques using the four basic tones, proportions, light and form shadow, line quality quick sketch etc.

One day my teacher who is an esteemed fine artist who has also created many well known movie posters you would recognize, noticed one of the students had a copy of "The Natural Way to Draw" on her drawing bench. He picked it up and asked all the students to take a look at the book. He opened it up high and actually began mocking it.

My mouth was wide open as I assumed that this book was unquestioned in the art world. As he made his way through the book showing samples of the illustrations especially in the advanced stages, many in the class were laughing out loud at the pictures. I must admit at that moment they suddenly looked rather poor to me as well. I asked him isn't there anything in this book's teaching methods you feel is worthwhile? So many people follow it. His answer was a very flat and absolute "No." I was shocked.

He asked me a question that I felt is worthy of consideration for anyone considering undertaking this book. He said "Look at these pictures." Would you like to be drawing like this after a year, or as you are drawing now after only a few months. As I looked at the book and examined my illustrations and those of the other students in the room, the illustrations in Nicolades book looked like primitive scribbles.


To be sure the gestures and longer drawings had weight form and action, but so did the students work we were doing to an even greater degree, plus our work was capturing the personality and likeness of the model. In my case I much prefered the look of the drawings I was able to do using classical techniques. I had moved much closer to my personal goals in a much shorter amount of time.

Now I don't tell this anecdote to disparage Nicolades, because many people have truly become the artist they always wanted to be through this book. Flip through the book and ask yourself, after all the work you will go through, do the examples in the book represent the way you would like to be able to draw. Know that you when you are through you will not be drawing like a Norman Rockwell or in a classical, comic or animation style if that is your desire. These methods will not translate as these styles require different disciplines. Do you want to be an artist where your work will be looked at as an internal expression? Do you put a priority on how your work expresses an esoteric truth over a literal one? If the answer is yes then by all means go for this book. If you desire to draw illustrations that capture accurate or sleek stylized likenesses and express yourself with subtle light and shadow or beautiful linework you may find yourself happier with a book or class that teaches with more classical methods. To put it more simply, when people think of you as an artist, do you want them to think of you wearing a french beret at an easel or a baseball cap at a drawing table? You can learn greatly from this book. This book offers you a long arduous trip. Do make sure it is taking you to the destination you desire. If you are not sure, or you aspire to be an animation clean-up or in-between artist then perhaps should look into the easier Betty Edwards, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain series." She borrows exercises directly from this book and it might be a good guage to see if this method suits your personality.

I'm thinking of getting this book but I think maybe Vilppu would be a better choice.

[Asatira]

Of the two, I'd go more for Vilppu. I tried Nicolades a number of times, but I just couldn't get into it and the schedule. Also, I was exposed to Edwards first, and she does cover some of the exercises in a more accessible way.

Can we please, please sticky this thread? http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=152626 It's a good one, and it keeps getting lost in the archives.

[grp03_macro]

Hi, If I may just add..SInce we are just beginners, we need to get the cheapest possible gadgets and tools available. You may want to check out this art and photocraft discount (http://www.artphotocrafts.com/) site. You'll surely find a range of good deals here. :sungod:

[German-s]

Don't just take our words on the books though. There are enough art resource online you could flip through them, read them, digest them and see what works for you and what doesn't.

Ideally, you wouldn't just "follow" one person's method but have a collection of methods which you are applying where and when they are applicable.

[gogidolim]

I can tell you from my experience. If you are stuck with anime style, you will have some trouble adjusting to realistic style. It doesn't hurt to do a lot of copying from master drawings. Actually, you should do a truck full of it, with a bit of exaggeration. Just don't copy from Dragonball and Naruto. I suggest you to copy the faces of the extras from Berserk. They are very well done. And if you have the money, try to obtain Famous Artist School instruction books. They will cost some money but they worth every penny.

[hitnrun]

If you want to learn realism - one HUGE thing you've gotta do is learn proportions. If the eyes come out too big, then keep this in mind - there should be room across the face for five eyes, width wise. There should be enough room between the two eyes on the face to fit one in the middle, and one on the outside of each eye. Although, I'd use that as a guideline, because noones eyes are an exact measurement. There isn't a HUGE difference, but I'm sure my eyes aren't the exact same size, shape, width as yours.

Oh and I would recommend Joseph Sheppards books, George Bridgman, Loomis, and I'm sure there's a vast amount of others.

Also, if the front cover is any indication of how the rest of the book looks, then "The Natural Way to Draw" looks like it might be more for beginners. Not for anyone with experience. I can already do gesture drawings, they're easy as pie. But for someone who has no formal art training, it may be a lot harder because gesture drawings aren't representational - they're about movement and the attitude of the pose. I think it's all about the mindset you need to draw.