Drawing exercises exchange!

[BadMange]

I have been gathering drawing exercies, tips and advice from a few different message boards that I visit (sijun.com and conceptdesignforum.com, to name a few) for the past few months. Since there are so many helpful threads and people here, I thought we could do a sort of exchange.

Please add your own exercises, but scan the thread first so we don't have duplicates. I apologize in advance for not stating who the author of the exercise/tip/advice is, as I just copy/pasted tips and edited them.

I'm really looking forward to discovering some new exercises and hope everyone tries these at least once. And hopefully we'll learn some of the pro's exercises too (hint hint)!

-Bad Mange

P.S. Please feel free to let me know if an exercise/tip/advice would be better in a different category, or if I should rename the category, etc...

[BadMange]

Drawing Exercises

For all exercises, set a reasonable time limit anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours (later, each exercise will be listed with a time range best suited for it), then set an alarm to count down from that time. This is important, since worrying about time stops you from letting go and following the visual side of your brain.

DO NOT make quick little aimless strokes until it gets into the right shape. The purpose of practice is to allow you to quickly get down the shapes you need, the sketchiness of an image is not in all those little aimless and uncertain lines as you try to find one correct
shape, but in the artist's exploration of what shapes work for particular drawing.

Practice general tool control by sitting down with newsprint and simple doodling away with just tool control in mind. Keep the hand light, and the lines light. Focus on calming shaky nerves and unlearning heavy handedness. For dry mediums, try making squares, then shading them in completely using the edge of the pencil, alternating between drawing lines with the point, then shading using the (side) edge.

Draw random scribbles lightly with a very hard pencil. Next, go back with softer and softer pencils, darkening lines you think are interesting. Then pick out whatever shapes look interesting and make something from it.

Draw ellipses in a big sketchbook of newsprint. Start large and gradually work your way smaller. Start with ellipses that take your whole arm to draw. Next, move down to ones that only use the elbow down, then wrist, and then fingers. Try doing 5 or 6 sheets a day, back and front. And actually try to draw ellipses; it won't help to just flail a bunch of ellipses on the paper.

Draw two points on the paper, and connect those two points in the straightest line possible. Try setting up rows of points parallel to each other and connect all of them, making sure to keep them straight and parallel. Do this fairly fast and fill an entire sheet of paper.

Practice drawing straight lines by placing the pencil point where you want the line to start, move your eyes to the point where you want it to end and keep them there as you drag the pencil towards that point. It's very important that you never move your eyes from that point as you bring the pencil to it.

Draw straight lines close together, making them equidistant from each other. Fill a whole page of 18x24 newsprint.

Draw straight lines different lengths and go over them several times. Next, make parallel lines of the same length, equidistant from each other. Then fill the spaces in between them with ellipses. Also, draw random 'S' curves and try to go over them several times. This will aid in controlling your line and getting it to go where you want.

Draw circles both clockwise and counter-clockwise, making sure they are perfectly round.

Draw cubes on 18x24 newsprint in different forms and using different methods of perspective dissection to figure out proportions and measurements. Do not use a ruler, rather draw from life, and build up the drawings using structuring techniques.

Draw one shape (circle, ellipse, square, etc.) as large as possible on the paper, and then draw smaller and smaller shapes inside it. Make sure to keep the lines even and in proportion, and never forget to keep it light and smooth.

Practice drawing “O | -“ everywhere you go. Draw them from different perspectives. Draw them at all different sizes.

Draw/sketch a scene, person, or object in 30 seconds to a minute (depending on size). This forces you to focus on the whole. Good exercise to loosen up with.

Draw people around you in any open area, making a quick sketch of their forms. Try to capture the image of their forms and movements in that quick sketch (gesture drawings).

Draw a random picture from a magazine.

Draw from TV, mainly figures or any interesting objects. Quickly memorize the main features of the figure and draw from that. It’s a good way to draw the figure when you don't want to head out to the mall or park. This is also a good way to practice artist memory, where you will only get to see someone from a particular angle for less than a few seconds.

Do contour drawings, varying the width of your line to suggest depth and mass. Do not look at your paper while drawing the subject.

Render a small object on the table in front of you, then slowly render larger or more complex objects. As a replacement for drawing out a complex composition or scene, this will help with drawing in general, and help to understand how to interpret a three dimensional shape on a two dimensional plane.

Break your illustration up into a grid and limit the time spent on each square. More time usually equals more detail.

Draw a common object in perspective. Use plans and measurements along with one of the perspective setup methods commonly used (plan view projection, measuring point method, etc.), then observe the results, fixing or redoing the drawing until it looks natural. This is to help you better grasp what perspectives look natural to the eye and what setup will get you that natural look, so that you can eventually draw without all the tedious setup work.

Draw a room in perspective. This can be something as simple as the inside of a box, with all major cubic forms drawn in as just cubes. Add more detail as you progress in skill. This is mainly to help get a sense of a natural indoor perspective. Measure, draw by eye, or both. Also try drawing a human sized figure in the room to better understand object to background relationships, as well as how large humans really are compared to their living environments.

Draw a corner of a room, preferable your own. This corner should have a few object in it at least, try to show the inhabitant’s personality through those objects or the general state of the corner.

Go to a train station or airport and find a view with a really awkward perspective. A piece done from a photograph will be far easier because all the perspective lines are there for you to copy, rather than working them out for yourself. You will get a much greater understanding of space if drawn accurately from life. This is not quite as obvious with life drawing, but the subject matter is not as different as you might think, because every object has form and perspective.

Draw a scene in perspective, have this scene be of a place where a character resides, but do not place this character in the scene, rather, try to have the scene portray the character even in his absence. Example: if the character was a boy who liked anime, draw his room filled with anime posters and figurines, maybe even a desk with drawings on it. If it was a forest ranger far from home, draw the clearing or tree in which he beds down for the night. Variant: think of settings where your characters would be in, but don't place the characters in them. Try to show that character's personality in the place.

Render a texture you find both in pencil, pen, coal (or similar chalky non-erasable medium, like conte), and digital. When doing digital, try to create a repeating pattern. This is both general practice to help understand light, train your eyes to see light interactions, and practice for future texture work for 3D models.

[BadMange]

Alternate Exercises

Work with next to no pressure for slowly building up lines. Make "painting" sketches with a pencil - take a soft pencil (B or softer) and after having a rough shape of things, just quickly throw in some dark shadowy areas to render them. Unlike the "classical" way of drawing, this is more of a painting process, as you are forced to think in areas, not in lines.

To get smooth lines, first move the pencil over the paper without touching the paper to get a general feeling for the size and shape of the line (like a practice swing in golf). Next, draw lightly and sketchy, then firmly go over all the sketchy lines choosing the ones that most show what you want. Usually the light lines don't even show, but if they do you can always erase. Pen and ink makes light pencil disappear even easier.

Try different shapes, or different views of the same shape, to get the feel of what you’re trying to draw. Play with positive / negative space and color.

Do some quick paintings, giving yourself a time limit. This forces you to see and put things together quicker. It also loosens you up and helps you see the more basic structures / shadings of various objects. Another exercise that trains your eye is painting something upside down. This helps break down the barrier between what we "think" we see, and what is actually there.

Try using two pencils in the same hand simultaneously. Use large pencils of the same type and then just hold them one over the other and go for it. It makes you worry less about mistakes so you just focus on doing. Of course you need to work at a fairly large size but it should give you the practice to move back down to a single pencil and be even more confident with that.

Draw with three ink pens (one very thick, one medium-thickness and one very thin). Make sure you make your initial doodles so heavy with contrast they almost fall off the page. Use all three pens.

Make a habit of listening to people talk while doodling, especially while you're in class. Take what the teacher is talking about, etc. and make that your subject.

Concentrate on drawing negative space, and then realize what perspective and proportion actually *look* like in your own drawings. That will help you remember how things look in real life. Once you know how to use perspective to draw what you see, use it (or lack of it) to draw angles and viewpoints you'd never see in real life.

Try to draw a random subject or character in a style different from your "default" style. Focus on other things. If you're into drawing photo-realistic faces, try some Manga stuff to re-focus on expression. If you're into clean line work, scribble around. If you're into clean forms, try some spawn-like line work with "insane" forms and lines. If you're into heavy simplification, draw someone with a heavy cape that falls in lots of folds. If you're into tech stuff, try something living.

Pick a subject (a midget wielding a stolen yard ornament, a police officer beating a homeless man, etc) and then draw quick sketches (1 to 2 minutes each), no details, no correcting. Draw several on each sheet, one after another, and I do that for at least an hour. If you get tired of the subject then switch to something else. Afterwards, go back through the drawings and pick some good drawings to do a finished sketch of the figure, still all from memory. Do as much from memory as possible, and only then use reference to correct it. Fix the anatomy and folds of clothing (etc), but be careful not to let the reference take control. Also try this exercise with just faces, hands / feet, and complete compositions.

Make a picture in motion. Do not use any trick to achieve the feeling of motion such as blur or speed lines. Rather, try to show the motion through the positioning of people and objects, camera angle, tensing of muscles, sway of the cloth, etc.

Trace a figure to practice pencil / pen control and line variation. Tracing is easy, but finding what line to use to give the illusion of depth without shading is the hard part.

Draw from a photo, but do not use any hard lines. This is to help you move away from hard line drawings and into the Gaussian mode of viewing, where everything is a different light value.

To aid in drawing things from your imagination, keep a set of references to help your drawings and catalog them for easy access in the future. Draw something once with a reference, then put the drawing and photo (or model) away and redraw from your memory. Try to draw interesting shapes first and then add detail.

[BadMange]

Advice

Lock your wrist and elbow (this applies especially when drawing big). Let your shoulder and part of you upper body do the swing of the art and/or line. As you go smaller in lines and arcs, start moving your elbow but keep your wrist locked, and then finally use your wrist to do the arcing for small detail.

If you draw something from life and want to get cleaner, longer and more confident lines, try looking at it for a bit and then drawing it in as few lines as possible. Look at big shapes and remember the shape you see. Look down as fast as you can and put the exact line you see in your head in your memory. Thicker lines tend to come forward, and thinner lines recede. Top planes tend to have lighter lines (to suggest a top light source for form and space). Lines pulse from thick to thin as well.

Artist Richard Schmid stresses the importance of being EXACT. Don't put down a line unless you're 100% sure of it, and you know what it's intended to do. Drop “sketchiness” and try being meticulous. Eventually, you'll be able to make very precise lines with amazing speed, and with speed comes a natural fluidness of line.

Draw fast, as a quickly drawn line usually looks smoother than one drawn slowly and carefully. This works best using a good black soft-tipped marker.

Start from anywhere, with no clear idea about the whole look of your concept. Example: start drawing a head, leg or arm, and then draw the body next. This usually will give you ideas about the rest of the character.

Draw with vine charcoal. The stuff comes off so easily from paper that you absolutely cannot put your drawing hand down on the paper to steady it, forcing you to be more confident and bold and sweeping with your strokes.

Draw with a ballpoint pen. It gets you in the habit of not relying on your eraser to solve problems for you.

Drawing the same thing over and over again isn't a bad thing. Constricting yourself to drawing different things can be one of the faces of incongruence.

Draw large on the paper, and draw lightly. This is difficult because new artists lack the hand control to draw long lines the way they envision, and there is the psychological roadblock of thinking flaws are easier to see.

Do a quick thumbnail sketch (or multiple thumbnails) so they are down on paper and not forgotten. Then you develop ideas from them into more detailed work.

To loosen up with your sketching, relax your grip on the pencil and draw standing up.

Work large and downsize your work on a Xerox machine or a scanner/printer.

Observe your surroundings. There is plenty of detail around, it is just that your mind tends to filter out most of it (along with many other things). This is a key aspect, since learning to see is the first step in learning to draw.

For inspiration, look at comic books or an illustration source book (Workbook, American Showcase, etc.) for ideas. Study the reference, put it away and try drawing from memory or incorporate the idea into your own original drawing. Also draw small stones and scale them in your drawing to different sizes. Finally, visit 3D websites that have textures for rendering available. Concentrate on contrast and texture.

Do tons of research, and put as much of that as you can into the mix, deliberately throwing in things that you normally wouldn’t think would work. Things that help bring out the life a character leads, or what kind of world this is to live in. Most of that will not be used exactly, but helps convey what the design is about. If the production artists down the line won't have much time or patience for making additions, keep that into account, hopefully having time to talk to them before, during and after. If they want to know what kind of cloth the character is wearing, you should be ready to tell them.

Study other artists’ images and apply something you like to your own drawings. Don’t just copy, but try to imitate their style and linework / brushstrokes and learn from them. Find a new artist whose work impresses you and spend time trying to learn as much as you can by studying their work.

- Perspective (learn how to think and draw in space. Learn how to draw a cube, cylinder, cone, and ball in perspective and scale)

- Proportion (train your eye to see this, if proportion is off, placement, weight, and form and likeness is off too)

- Gesture (learn how to see relationship between things: how forms are tie together by action, thought, or weight)

- Form (learn to see simple mass of the body and ignore the details. See the big idea)

- Overlaps (learn to communicate spacial relationship between forms. What is in front of what?)

- Planes (adding more information to a simple form (cylinder) by breaking it up into planes (example: Box - more 3D directional planes detail with top, sides, bottom planes).

- Construction (able to trim and add smaller forms on top of the bigger structure with out losing your dominate perspective. Putting the details on "top" of the form, not through it)

- Lighting (learn how light works and how to use light to better communicate your idea. What do I want to show? What type of lighting should I use?)

- Shapes (compose your image with the basic 2D elements of light and shadow shapes, page layout. How do I compose the image to better stage what I want to show? How can I communicate abstractly? How do I use contrast to communicate?)

- Edge / texture (learn how the eye sees and focuses. Learn atmospheric perspective, how to draw the space and air around the model)

Each step is there to re-enforce and strengthen the previous…

[BadMange]

C'mon now, 33 ppl read this and none of you have any exercises, tips or advice for others?!

[AmadorL]

whats crackin bad man i also collect these sort of tips. I will find some and post ..can't wait to get to work and print these.

A

[hyphen]

Here's my warm up technique. Depending on what I want to draw, I take references and do quick gesturals of that person/thing, usually just the outline and general shape. From there I shade a little to show dimensionality and depth. I do these drawings for front, back, side, and 3/4 views [even if the drawing only gives me 1 view]. It helps me get a feel for it and how it's going to move or act. Knowing that I can contort it or move it around to form my own concept.

[BadMange]

...I give up... :(

[jester]

Hey, Bad Mange, why did you give up so early? Don't you think that it takes people a few days to dig up their stuff?

Right, this is a give and take thing, but I was quite annoyed when I returned to this place, now having organised the exercises I collected, to see that you actually removed all your posts. How can one compare what one already has collected when they are no longer there?

:(

Jester

[franz]

Huh? Why did you have to delete everything? :confused:

[BadMange]

Jester, YOU were annoyed? I'M annoyed that I went to the trouble to post exercises that took a lot of time and effort to gather, 350+ ppl read the thread, and ONE person offered an exercise. I see the take, but where's the GIVE??

Anyway, I'm sorry if I annoyed you by removing the info. I'll repost it when I get home from school today.

Later,
-bad mange

[jester]

Hmpf, just a side note, BadMange, I chose the wrong word when writing "annoyed". I really meant "disappointed". Sorry, but I'm not a native speaker - and I wrote this late last night.

Anyway - great that you took the effort to post them again, I really appreciate this. And: as said in my PM before, I'll post the ones I found.

Jester

[jester]

Ok - you have been warned... so here's my collection. All of the stuff is just copied and pasted from all over the net. Sometimes there's a sig at the bottom who gives a hint to who the author is. I checked Bad Mange's posts bust still there might be some double posts. What the hell, spread the wealth!

Jester

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Inking warm-up

I gained my inking knowledge and skills from two sources-- my experience at the Joe Kubert School, and from 5 years of doing roleplaying illustrations.

At the Kubert School, I was fortunate to have Kim DeMulder as a Methods & Material teacher. Kim , at the time, had been the SWAMP THING inker for years. I learned a lot of valueable "tricks of the trade" from him.

Regarding inking control with a brush, Kim used to give us an inking test. We had to ink the following on a 11"X 17" sheet:

1) 20 thin horizontal lines (4" in length);
2) 15 thin vertical lines (6" in length);
3) 10 "thin to thick" horizontal lines (at least 2")
4) 10 "thin to thick" vertical lines (at least 2")
5) 20 "thin to thick" curved (dome shape) lines
6) 20 curved lines
7) 5 squiggly lines
8) 5 squiggly lines "thick to thin"
9) 7 thick horizontal lines (4" in length)
10) 7 thick vertical lines (4" in length)
11) Drawing a 2 inch, black square, we had to add "feather" lines all along the outer edge.
12) Drawing a 4" box and place an "X" in the center some where. Then we had to draw "thick to thin" radiating "zap" lines (aka speedlines) from the contours of the box, in towards the "X".
13) We also had to rule lines using a brush and a metal ruler (that was a pain).
14) We had to do dry brush, "pointalism" and many other things too, but you get the idea.

Kim would look over our lines and circle any "wobbles", line inconsistancy, or other such flaws.

Now before sitting down to ink, I'll do a 15 minute warm-up, practising a lot of the above. By the time I'm finished, I'm ready to ink anything on a page.

Loston
professional writer and a writer and an aspiring writer its that the professional writer is actually writing” the same applies to this godforsaken art business.
- Learn that the Rpg industry most of the time sucks.
- When someone asks you to do a portrait of their character, ask for payment first, if not, kindly direct them to… http://southpark.gamesweb.com/flash/sp-studio.html
- These things are not set in stone, and are probably sooooooooo veeeeeeeery wrooong (katatonia moment), I have more but I rather not bore you all to a gruesome death, so have fun and it hope it helps.

[jester]

- Draw, draw, draw!!! Carry always a small sketchbook, try to draw the people around you, nothing detailed or fancy just try to capture the general outlines and shapes quickly as possible, if you have ever been in a life drawing class the model changes posse every 3 minutes, so its pretty much the same exercise if you are trying to draw someone smoking in a parking lot. Do not despair if these turn out completely abysmal, it takes practice to interiorize such things. (for an indepth look, learn proper anatomy, yes, this means the bone and muscle structure).
- For proper lighting get yourself a lamp and some basic figures (cubes, cones, spheres) painted in white, study how light an shadows behave when you manipulate these objects, draw them to the point of exhaustion.
- If have problems internalizing the main shapes try observing the negative spaces, when you read, you don’t actually follow the the outlines of the letters, but the blank space contained within these outlines, you can apply this concept to hone your drawing too.
- If you have an specific problem, i.e. the clothes, try isolating the problem and concentrate on it, ALWAYS TRY TO DO IT WITH REFERENCE MATERIAL, concentrate on your weaker points by detailed drawings of them.
- As the above point, do not be afraid to use reference, reference it’s a must, some artists even have photograph studios and models to get their own reference material, always try to draw from real life, if you are getting serious about improving, learn to see technical issues clinically, the more detached this process its from the ”creative process” the better, sounds bad? Yes it is.
- You will notice that is not necessary to produce a REALLY UBBER detailed drawing to reach a convincing level of realism, the eye never perceives every single strand of hair, but rather the general shape of the hair, if you capture this correctly then you will need only a couple good highlights. Take for example the human body, we usually focus our attention on the face (specially the eyes) and the hands, the whole process of drawing its about perceiving key points and their successful translation on the paper. (learn the Rules of perception by Gestalt, or psychology of Perception, Semiotics also helps)
- Draw on grey paper or canvas, drawing on pure black or white canvas will distort you value perception, if you draw on a white canvas your values will look darker than they actually are. Use a white pencil for highlights.
- Always start with the backgrounds, defining its values and shapes first are a must otherwise you will end with serious problems when trying to finish the pic, or learn to use Layers…
- Circles and abstract shapes always get the attention first, exercise caution when using these on the background (and try to break their shapes or use them at your own benefi), you run a serious risk of making the background step over your main character/scene.
- A good tip when drawing trees its resorting on the ”negative shape” method described above.
- Monsters, aw, monsters, its really easy, just base your ”dragon” anatomy using the muscles/skeletal structure of a bird or a lizard. All monster work its just a good combination of previous existent forms. The more uncommon it’s the form (i.e Mollusks, snails, Octupus) the weirder the monster will look. Duh.
- Learn proper anatomy before going into stylization (manga, marvel comics rip-off, et all) otherwise chances are 90% that you will screw the anatomy.
- One writers once said ”the only difference between a professional writer and a writer and an aspiring writer its that the professional writer is actually writing” the same applies to this godforsaken art business.
- Learn that the Rpg industry most of the time sucks.
- When someone asks you to do a portrait of their character, ask for payment first, if not, kindly direct them to… http://southpark.gamesweb.com/flash/sp-studio.html
- These things are not set in stone, and are probably sooooooooo veeeeeeeery wrooong (katatonia moment), I have more but I rather not bore you all to a gruesome death, so have fun and it hope it helps.

[jester]

Here is my suggestion.

Stop drawing randoom "stuff" right now and start doing basic drawing techniques and rendering. Get a couple art pencils (H, HB, and B), a couple Sharpies (fine and wide), and an inexpensive art pad and draw everything that you can see.

Start of simple, a coke can, a pen, a mouse (computer), a desk, and so on. Basic shapes is what you are looking for. Then get more advanced, start doing whole building and cars. THese are NOT long complicate d sketches and NONE of them should take more than 15 minutes.

Then do everything again but sketch it quickly, say no more than 1 to 2 minutes each.

After you are done look over your stuff. Is the compostion good? Did you run off the page because you did not use your space well. Is the page taken up by a whole bunch of really small images rather than a nice large one? And so on. You should be doing at least 10 to 20 sketches a day.

This is not a formula though and I would highly reccemend taking classes, even if not towards a degree. Research the place you intend on taking classes and make sure it is worth it. How is the scholl recognized within the art commmunity?

I would do this well before you start tackling "How to Draw Manga" tutorials on the internet. I would also do the above with different mediums, such as charcoal and pastels, design markers, and ink pens, to get a feel for what other marking material does on the same paper.

I think that should be enough for right now. Most art schools have you doing that for 12 hours a week in class with another 4 to 8 hours outside of class (single class). If you are not always drawing, then you aren't really serious about it...at least starting off.

Richard

[jester]

Hello there, a few people have asked me to elaborate on my painting techniques and I noticed that the FAQ portion of the gallery site is no longer accurate, so here is a revised description.

1 - composition. Using just a regular 2h pencil(reduces smearing) I rough in a basic composition using simple shapes and movements, thinking more about the dynamics and emotion I‘m trying to express rather than on the final, finished image. This is based on script, personal visual preferences and overall mood, trying to do different things with each page, but not straying too far from the basic style of both story and character.

2-refining the idea. Sometimes your first idea is not always the best idea, so try other things and don‘t be afraid to toss something just because you really nailed that forearm, drawing a page around one bit you liked will usually make for a bad piece.

3-polish and prep. Now I‘ve got a basic composition that I‘m ready to tighten up and prepare to paint. This means making any straight lines actually straight, circles real circles, and the little bits that I‘ve only roughed in until this point clearer. Now, this is the point where I will go two different ways depending on whether or not I am working with an inker/colorist or if I‘m finishing the piece myself. If I‘m working with others, I try to make the pencils as clean and precise as possible, this is just a personal choice, I don‘t want to kick myself later because something didn‘t turn out the way I had planned, the inker can‘t read your mind and unless you‘ve worked together for a long time, all those little things that made perfect sense to you will just look like clutter to the inker. If I‘m going to finish the piece myself, this is where I ease up on the pencils, leaving a lot of the finished rendering to the painting stage, no sense drawing the same thing twice. I still try to keep the drawing very clean however, I‘ve found that the pencil can still run under some paint which can be very frustrating especially if your trying to put some blush on a girl‘s cheek and she ends up with a five o‘clock shadow because your pencil blends at the wrong moment. I am now using Mars Black to fill in the darkest parts, I prefer the matte quality of the paint to the shiny inks that I‘ve used in the past, it also lasts much longer than ink, preventing your blacks from becoming charcoal grey in a few years, thereby protecting your hard work and your investment. It also blends better with the pencils so I get a smoother transition from black to grey. If I am going to have some lights or special effects on the page, I will sometimes draw these in the actual color that they will be painted in later, eliminating the telltale black lines and hopefully increasing the realisim and impact of the effect. For example a green indicator light on a laser rifle will be outlined in green as opposed to a black line. If I am going to have hot whites or highlights I try to keep these as clean and “white” as possible. I am still using my Koh-i-noor Rapidiographs for some of the linework but I now add just a touch of water to the ink inside the pen to dilute the black and produce a less intrusive black line. I am using brushes almost exclusively for rendering now. I prefer the white synthetic rounds, from 00 to 1 and 2(I like them because they are cheaper and easy to find and maintain)When I have my greyscale drawing finished it‘s time to paint.

4-painting I vary this a lot from page to page, sometimes I‘ll airbrush the whole page and sometimes I‘ll paint with brush only, it depends on the content and size. For example, a double page splash with a lot of backround will go much faster using the airbrush, while painting a peachy face in the middle of a blue sky is easier to just paint by hand. If I am airbrushing, now the boring job of masking arrives, I‘ll use tracing paper for large masks and masking fluid for small bits. I don‘t like frisket because it‘s too high tack and I always lose some drawing to the frisket. I just apply a few pieces of low tack artist‘s tape to the edges of my mask. I don‘t worry about it being completely sealed unless there will be a strong highlight on the inside or outside of the mask. Don‘t leave the masking fluid on too long as it may stain the paper. One other note, I have in the past tried spraying fixative to the grayscale drawing before I paint to help with smears and the pencil bleeding but I don‘t like the surface of the paper after spraying, but this is just personal choice. Now I begin to spray, I‘m currently using a Paasche VL and V airbrush and will go from using straight acrylic paint to liquid acrylics depending on how opaque I need the color to be. Airbrushing can be tiresome with having to constantly be cleaning the airbrush and difficult finding the space to work, but I‘ve found it can cut the time to finish a page dramatically and can give you effects impossible to achieve by hand. Now that I have my basic colors sprayed on, I‘ll start the refining process again, I‘ll sometimes brush on acrylic paint and sometimes use colored pencil crayons. You‘d be surprised how you can take a piece sprayed with only one or two primary colors and render it out with crayons to create a crisp and fleshed out finished illustration. Also, the sprayed on color will erase with some elbow grease from the drawing, increasing the effects and tricks you have at your disposal. Lastly, I will use acrylic white in varying degress of opacity to create hotspots and fades, I also use gesso, but I find it takes more applications to get a “hot” clean white. When I‘ve done all my finishing touches and I‘m either at the point where I am happy or I just have to let the thing go and move on, I will spray the page with a matte fixative, I prefer the matte because it doesn‘t reflect light at odd angles and the colors seem to my eye anyway, more vibrant.

Here‘s a list of the actual stuff I am using, this is not a plug or an endorsement, just a helpful note(In the past I have had the experience of wondering how something was done, and only until I knew what material was used, did I figure it out)

Paper: Crescent 99 cold press, thick enough to prevent warping but not unbendable(this can be important if you will be scanning the piece later and if the board is too large or inflexible it will mean problems)Also many of the crescent illustration boards can be stripped, meaning you can take the top of the board right off, but use caution doing this, I‘ve come close to tearing a page while stripping it.

Pencils: 2h all the way to 4b depending on what I‘m drawing. I do like to use mechanical pencils(the thicker 2mm variety) because you get the consistent weight and balance of the mechanical pencil rather than a shrinking pencil and it sharpens to a finer point. Also, when it‘s 3:00 am and your significant other is sleeping a lead pointer makes a lot less noise than a pencil sharpener. One other note, I put foam sleeves on all my mechanical pencils and some of my brushes, this will cut down on hand fatique and make the process less tiresome.

As for erasers, I like the Staedtler white plastic. I also like to use Sanford Eraserstiks(it‘s a typing eraser I believe) you can sharpen them to somewhat of a point and they will even remove some ink lines.

Paint: I use a lot of different stuff, watercolor dyes(the brand escapes me for now)I use these diluted and/or with black india ink added to do some things. I use either Golden or Liquitex liquid acrylics for airbrushing, sometimes using the straight Liquitex tube acrylics. I use Golden airbrush medium, like they say, get it to the consistentcy of milk and you‘re set. As I said earlier, I use a Paasche V and VL airbrushes. I recommend getting a compressor with a moisture trap, the compressed spray you can buy is cheaper but the fumes are really harsh and unless you‘re lucky and have a huge, well ventilated studio you‘re going to feel awful after an afternoon of spraying. For the highlights I like ProWhite acrylic white or gesso or just titanium white acrylic paint, but I‘ve even used liquid paper in a pinch.

Pencil crayons: I‘ll use either Prismacolors or another brand which I can‘t remember and will add later. The crayons are good for pulling lighter colors out of darker backrounds but don‘t use them for actual coloring over large areas. Do experiment however, trying very different colored pencils over varied backround paint, some interesting results can be found.

A couple of side notes:

Reference: By all means, if you need it, use it, I‘m currently working on a science fiction project where reference is not available except for planets, people and animals. But if I were doing a noirish story based in New York, I would get as much reference as I could. Don‘t use it as a crutch, but don‘t discount it‘s ability to give your drawing an impact and realisim that‘s very difficult to achieve without reference. Sketching and practice: I‘ve found that unless I draw almost every day I get very rusty and it takes a long time to limber up again. Even if it is just meaningless scratching on a page, you can discover new techniques and effects from just moving the pencil around. I hope I have answered most of the questions I have been asked, if not, please let me know. Also I am not a typist so any spelling mistakes and typos must be overlooked in the spirit of artistic freedom. Travis.

[jester]

And for all those just loosely browsing: The last posts were NOT written by me but just copied and pasted. If you find a post and it's yours and you are not mentioned as author, drop me a not and I'll put it in.

Jester

[Payback]

Oh... I'm printing this. :D

[Lev_0]

Bad- I think you got all the ones I have, lol. Good post.

[Deth Jester]

Just a couple things to Contribute.. Sorry BM, I would have posted earlier, but I just saw the article now.. :)

here goes:

Sometimes I find drawing a pose is difficult, and I actually just read this the other day.. Have a friend, or whomever draw 5 dots on a page, actually get a few pages ... Then use those 5 dots to represent hands, feet, and a head... If you want your charecters to have more feet, hands, or heads, then add a dot... Then start drawing... Try and use perspective with this process.. THEN! after you have gotten the pose down, tip the charecter in space and draw him/her from other angles keeping perspective in mind.. You can also keep lighting in mind etc.. the more advanced you are.

Another idea, not sure if said:

Take a peice of paper and take a 10% Grey Marker and draw all over it making squiggles, circles, lines etc... Then from those shapes, try and see a picture and start adding more lines in developing a scene, a charecter, whatever, and keep rendering it out, if you get bored with it, go onto another, try not to spend to much time on them, but just enough where you don't become nit picky.

Well if I think of more Ill post em..

Thanks for all that you did BM.

peace

[BadMange]

Can you post an example of the 5-point exercise, cause I'm a bit confused. I understand the basic concept of it, but then I'm lost after that. A visual ref would be great, if you have time...

Glad you all found the thread useful, and thanks to Jester and Deth Jester for posting some exercises! Finally!!

-Bad Mange

[Dan.v.D.]

thanks for collecting and sharing that stuff :thumb:
well i got a little exercise and that is to find the most beautiful face possible (preferably laetitia =P) and try to not mess it up but get that beauty on paper.
dunno that might sound retarded but it helps me to work as concentrated as possible because every fault breaks my heart haha.

[JonnyDOH]

Man, Badmange and Death Jester, these are some GREAT tips! And as for giving, you've already given all the good advice away. Here's a small tip I picked up from my sister, who works in the architectural industry: (It's more of a cheat than anything else)-- oh, and it's "old school" too...

(hmm... and it's less of a life drawing technique and more of a rendering tip. whups...)

1. You will need access to a copy machine.
2. You will need acetone (none of the finger polish remover stuff; we're talking 100% pure acetone, in all it's vile and volatile glory)
3. A stiff piece of rounded plastic to burnish with (I know what some of you are thinking, and we're talking art techniques here-- Not the Playboy channel...)
4. A well ventilated area.

If you're pressed for time but wish to create a large sized rendering of something (or if you want to see one of your smaller sketches in the form of a large sized painting), one thing you can do is sketch out a bunch of small thumbnails on an 8.5x11 sheet.

Take the best thumbnail and enlarge it on a copy machine, to say about 300-500%.

Next, take a thick sheet of painting paper (50-100 lbs paper or similar) and lay the copied image face down.

Take the Acetone (do not, for the love of god, smoke) and pour it over the copied image in that well ventilated area.

Before the acetone evaporates, burnish the copied image onto the painting canvas. The acetone acts to lift the xerox ink off of the original sheet, and burnishing it with the piece of plastic will bond it to the painting canvas.

Rub the area until you think the image is transferred, then rub some more. Lift off the copy and, wa-la; you have an image ripe for watercoloring.

A note of caution, however; the image willl show through after you paint it, unless you're using acrylics or oils. If you watercolor the piece, I recommend using oil pastels on the touch up to help hide some of the more noticeable lines.

[AmadorL]

Yo JonnyDOH this sounds intense and very interesting I will definitely try this at some point. \

Thanks for posting
Amador