Drawing Help

[Agrajag]

I absolutely suck at drawing, and I want to improve. Since you guys are all crazy good artist types, I was hoping you'd have suggestions of books I can buy or websites I can go to that will teach me to not draw like crap. My original plan was to kill Sam Logan and eat his heart to gain his powers, but he's all the way on the other side of the country so I decided buying a book would be more convenient. Ideas?

[Desov2]

I think the only that can help you draw better is to... well... ummm... draw? Just doodle and stuff or take an art class... And books are strange... Waht do you want to draw?

Cartoons?
Manga?
Classic?
Impressionist?
etc.?

you get the picture... or at least tried to draw the picture anyways.

[Agrajag]

I would definitely like to NOT draw manga. Cartoony stuff is more what I'm aiming for. I don't really have the liberty to take an art class at school cause I'm doing an engineering double major which leaves little room for random electives. Just drawing randomly doesn't really help me if I have no idea of the basics of art/drawing. Or maybe it does.

[JadedFaye]

Just practice. You'll be amazed at how much you improve over time. When I was little, I'd sometimes try to copy my favorite comic book characters, or the images in my brothers video game walk-through guides, but I also just drew random characters.
At first, they looked silly. But they got better, and better. I'm not the best artist out there, by any means, but I'm better than I used to be.

Also, you can just use Google to find tutorials, and various "how to" sites.

[Matador]

My first art book was "How to draw comics the Marvel Way." There's enough content there for you to skip to the fun stuff, but also skip back for the fundamentals. It even encourages you to practice scribbling. How can an art book that encourages scribbling be wrong?

[Desov2]

I recommend a book that says to scribble!

another good way to get better is to freehand random pictures... when you get decent at freehand copying then try and shift the thing your drawing into a different pose... like moving an arm or something or adding an object to the fray...


oh and a helpful hint... erasers are your FRIENDS... Seriously...

just draw with a pencil and erase mistakes and keep trying and soon the world of draftsmanship will come slowly to you.

[Ben]

I learnyt to draw by finding artists that I liked and copying there pictures.

If you look at it and it looks crap, do it again, and again and again. I used to fill entire art books in a couple of weeks. Books can be helpfull but no were near as helpfull as just drawing the fuck out of everything. Basicly what Desov said, draw draw draw. There isn't really a quick way to learn to draw, its all just practice.

[iamnotachicken]

For a beginning book that will give you results, I would recommend "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".

[stock]

Draw people, and grab an anatomy book (preferably aimed at artists), the anatomy book is there so you can see what's moving and if it's anything like one I have, show you the lines that are being created by certain muscles etc. It's really useful to understand the human anatomy before jumping into full cartooning.

Maybe ask an art teacher at your school what a good book to pick up would be?

[Ben]

Greys Anatomy is good.

[pie]

I would agree with these guys and say copy. Copy other people's drawings, copy Sam (if that's the style you want) then build on that knowledge to develop your own style. Anatomy is always useful, try drawing from life, ie, draw your hand as it is in front of you, etc. Practice is important.

[JadedFaye]

Anatomy is key to knowing how things bend properly. In your cartoon universe, this may not apply completely--since most cartoons are not all that realistic--but it will apply some. If you can't get a book on anatomy, like I said, check online. Also, look at pictures of living things in motion. If you're drawing a race, look up pictures of runners. This is also helpful with drawing muscle definition. When drawing fantasy creatures, I've used to different characteristics of different animals--like the fins of a lion fish--and again, pics came in handy. Also, if you're doing some fantasy-fighting based cartoon, athletes are often caught on camera in some bizarre but useful midair poses.

[Ben]

If you want to get good musscle defenition I suggest looking at body builders. Obvisouly you don't have to go to that extreme but it's always a good source of refrence.

[mixofsunandcloud]

Except that body builders have very wrong proportions for any sensible anatomy.

I'm not an artist at all, but for improving my drawing a bit, I was using a book of Da Vinci sketches It has stuff like a few pages where he'd be just working on arms. Others with legs, or basically any body part. Of course he did other stuff in there too. But that's what I was using when I drew the heart sketch I posted a long time back.



I think it looked better before it got scanned.

[Ben]

Except that body builders have very wrong proportions for any sensible anatomy.

They're proportionly wrong but its a great way to see were all the musscles are and how they move in relation to eachother.