Correctly using the pencil

[Mad_Mistro]

Ive been drawing for a long time and i think ive gotten into some bad habits. One bad habit i think is i do a sort of pencil stroke where I constantly go over the same line over and over again as i draw kinda like scratching it, and it looks a little like its furry i guess you could say. I wanna draw things similar to comic book style charecters where lines are smooth and not roughly drawn out. So, should i start just drawing cleaner lines when im working on ideas or is what ive been doing correct for drawing?
Also, when i make any human body will i always have to use the technique where i draw the "skeleton" first and then go over it later and erase the lines because this always makes my drawing look bad because of the erasing. Will i eventually be able to draw a charecter without having to start with a skeleton or basic shapes. Anyway any advice with drawing would help greatly because i hate having my drawings look sloppy. TY

[Jin]

Hi,

As to messy drawing due to erasing, try working on smoother paper and use a Clic eraser. It's soft and doesn't damage the paper.

Most people, or so it seems, first do a pencil sketch, then do an inking based on the sketch. If the inking is done on vellum or some kind of paper that's partially transparent, the sketch can be traced and at that stage, it's possible to clean up the lines because you won't trace the unnecessary lines in the sketch.

When scanning or copying the inking, if the paper is translucent, you can back it with white paper so the scan or copy will be black on white.

Others who do this kind of work can give you more extensive tips but I hope this will help a little.

Good luck,

[Atomick]

There's many ways to do this, but I'll share what just happened to work for me. This is painful advice, which has been given to me many times: sketch with pen instead. Hide your pencils, don't carry one for a while. Don't switch back and forth; commit yourself to the pen for a while.

Why? Well, without the ability to erase or smudge, it forces you to be pretty damn decisive with your marks. It'll force you, ideally, to observe form more carefully and increase your "stroke economy." (is that a new euphemism for porn..? :D)

Do it a lot. In your regular sketchbook. It will suck, you'll be embarassed sometimes by the results...but when I returned to my pencil, I found my mark-making much improved.

HTH,
-Atomick

[blackrage]

About messy drawings because of erasing.

Erasing is not the the problem. Many great artists use a technique called drawing through, where they start out with simple shapes and later add more and more details, therefore it's inevitable to erase.

BUT there are two rules you should follow:

FIRST You draw lightly!

SECOND Y_O_U D_R_A_W L_I_G_H_T_L_Y!!!

No kidding, just use less pressure and there won't be any ghost lines. Only when inking your drawings, you should give your lines volume, not while drawing with the pencil, except you're not going to ink at all.


Well about your "furry" drawing style, for quick sketching it maybe right, but if you want to ink the drawing it would be very confusing with all these useless lines on the paper. So you could do several things to get rid of this bad habit:

You use the technique described above and as you draw lightly it doesn't matter if your drawings look
a bit furry in their early stages, because while you go on you will erase and refine these lines until
you have nice clean ones where you want them.

Another method would be to force yourself to draw one shape with one single line and then do
the corrections needed without erasing. This one I would rather recommend for drawing stuff you
actually see.

And one very important thing, you should ask yourself: Am I making that many lines because of an inner dialogue, trying to find the right one or am I making this just because once I thought it looks more professional, if my hand is always in motion?

That's all, I hope this helps a little!

[Mad_Mistro]

ty for the post so far.

btw Blackrage...ur first lines in your post where you said first you draw lightly and second y o u d r a w l i g h t l y. lol im just mentioning that because u sound like this guy from a video tutorial on how to make concept sketches from a website called 3dbuzz.com. Hes very good, but are you him? just curious...

[blackrage]

Nope, I'm not him!

But I watched his tutroial several month ago and was quite impressed about these simple rules.

They helped me a lot though it needed a bit training to draw everything with light pressure.

Well, and as these rules are so simple and effective, I started preaching them myself, don't think the guy from 3dBuzz would be offended.

[TheDirtSyndicate]

the first rule of drawing:
sketch lightly

the second rule of drawing:
SKETCH LIGHTLY

......and for some reason Tyler comes to mind.....