+ Tips for beginners... :3 +
Currently working on : Commissions
First and foremost: I'm probably not the best person to give advice to beginners, since I'm mostly self-taught and I don't have a refined technique. So, yeah... this is not really a 'tutorial', but I receive more and more notes and mail to ask me what tips I would give to beginners... so I thought it would be more convenient to type all the useful advice I could give once for good and just have to point it out to people who ask, instead of re-typing it every time in a rather shallower way.
[And as, who knows, some of you might find this useful too, even though many of you are not beginners... I might as well post it here.
I'll keep a link to this journal in the 'Misc' section at the bottom of my journal for future reference.]
Tips for beginners
Most of this is general advice. Everyone is different, and improves in different ways, so every of these tips might to apply to everyone. It's just... well, general advice.
+ Art supplies +
Good supplies are a key if you're trying to make nice artworks. It's very very hard to get acceptable results with bad quality supplies - actually, you have to be very skilled to get good results with cheap stuff. Good supplies can be a bit expensive, but it's a real investment that you won't regret.
On the other hand, art supplies will never, ever make the work for you. So basically, it's useless to buy some excruciatingly expensive, professional-quality supplies, if you don't know how to use them. Having a Wacom tablet, or Pantone markers, will not make your work become suddenly awesome if you don't master more basic medias and basic concepts of drawing. They're no magic wands. Don't fool yourself.
To make it short : use good-quality, easy-to-use, not too advanced art supplies first, and when you'll have mastered them, you'll proceed to something more advanced. That's how you'll improve best.
+ Be observant +
It's not as easy or obvious as it sounds. When you are looking at something, you generally consider it as a whole - but to draw it, you have to take it little bits at a time. You have to try and figure out how things really are, and that means trying to get a fresh look on things, which is far from being easy.
For example : colours and shadows. When you want to choose a shade for a shadow, anyone who's a beginner will just pick a darker shade of the base colour, making the whole thing look flat. Now look at something real. Is its shadow colour the same as the base one, but only darker? Usually not - it might have a twinge of green, blue, purple, grey... because it's 3D and reflects backlights from the walls, etc.
You need to observe and be as impartial as possible to be able to reproduce something.
+ Work on your basics +
I know, basics are no fun. But they're really something you will need to work on at one point or another, and the sooner the faster you'll improve. Without the basics, you'll soon be stuck anyway.
Work on your anatomy, your proportions, colour theory if you intend to work with colours, yada yada.
I can't stress this enough.
The old, worn-off tips might sound boring, but if they're still in use, it's because they're helpful. Always work from the most general shapes of your picture (general body forms and background elements) to details, never the other way (don't start a character with an eye and work around it, for example). It'll avoid you some painful proportion/placement mistakes. Use the old balls-and-sticks figures to draw proportionate and realistic poses for your characters. Reverse your picture to see its symetric and spot anatomy/proportion mistakes before you proceed to inking or painting.
And as someone said... "You have to know the rules before you break them". That's only too true. Stylizing requires skill, it cannot hide lack of skills.
+ Be patient and work hard +
The last and probably most important piece of advice.
It takes very long to improve, irksome as it is. We all start somewhere, though we might not all start fro the same point - and we don't all improve at the same speed. But with patience and hard work, you'll eventually improve.
So don't loose patience and don't get discouraged!
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!
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Devious Comments
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moved to ~Tamathegreat.
.. don't take the 'easy way' only to amaze the internet audience because you're not patient enough to follow the normal/standard way of improvement through practicing.
Writing 'easy way' I especially mean tracing/over-drawing photographies/drawings if you don't feel self confident with your anathomy skills.
And yes - the audience CAN actually see if you did that or not especially if your images have suddenly uber-improved from one piece to another.
That's maybe a good way to practice drawing but if you stop at that point and make it your normal way of drawing it will eventually cause you sadness and self dissatisfaction.
What's the fun if you'll have to avoid drawing live with weird excuses because you will not want people to see that you are actually worse skilled than you seemed on the internet? And what kind of self-satisfaction will you get from cheating..?
Sonner or later you will get the point, I promise you that.
Practice is the key. Remember that folks.
Kmye, I think poeple need to be reminded from time to time that improvement in drawing takes practice and will so thank you for this journal. I think it will make many people actually more aware that getting to 'the next level' will not come from itself.
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take that beethoven you deaf bastard!
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-the path of life can be lonely, unless you have someone to walk with-
C'est gentil quand même de mettre ça par écrit, moi j'aurais pas eu la patience (mais faut dire qu'à force d'avoir des notes où les gens demandent "comment tu fais pour dessiner " suivi de "t'aurais pas des tips?" (dsl me souviens pas du mot en VF
Les Prismacolors sont un peu mois bien, ils n'ont pas une pointe aussi fine pour les détails... mais ils sont aussi moins cher (mais de toute façon, si tu habites en France, tu devras les importer des US et ça risque de te revenir au même prix !).
L'avantage des Pantone, c'est qu'ils sont vendus en France dans les boutiques de dessins (demander aux vendeurs, souvent ils sont rangés derrière le comptoir pour ne pas que les gens qui ne savent pas s'en servir les tripotent et les abîment !). Donc tu peux choisir tes couleurs. Le problème c'est le prix, j'ai pas trouvé moins cher que 5,40€ pièce en magasin. Le bon plan, c'est d'aller regarder à quoi ressemblent les couleurs en boutique puis d'acheter sur Ebay, c'est moins cher !
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Kmye-Chan.com | Blog | Portfolio
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Kmye-Chan.com | Blog | Portfolio
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take that beethoven you deaf bastard!
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