How to draw

ShadyoFayx

ShadyoFayx

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Hello.

So, I am terrible at drawing, but I would love to be able to draw all my OC's. Anyways, any suggestions for a way to learn? I have looked up tutorials on how to draw Manga, but they get confusing when it's a video. So, any help?​
 
I'm selling a bunch of my old how to draw manga books (Mostly Chris Hart's manga mania collection), if none of the others I highly recommend 'How To Draw Manga For Dummies. It's absolutely amazing and teaches you the WHY of stuff. Super easy to follow and covers everything from anatomy to an in depth hands and feet chapter , backgrounds, panel layout, expressions, hair, everything.

I'll post some examples when I get home
 
The way I was taught was to break the image/body into lines and shapes. Then practice. A lot. As you mentioned, tutorials are a great way to learn, if you learn better by example. DeviantArt is a great free-source for tutorials (of the non-video kind). Take a look, and just keep on drawing. You'll be surprised about how much you improve over a year's time.
 
Oh, thank you! I will definitely keep practicing.​
 
Learn your anatomy, start with stick figures and shapes of things, and stay away from tutorials that don't explain the whys or the hows. A lot of beginning artists often get confused and frustrated when they're picking up books like the Chris Hart's How-to-Draw collection and becoming agitated over the fact they're not technically learning anything, and that's because Chris Hart doesn't extensively explain - if at all - the why's behind what he does. DamaiMikaz has a couple journal entries on Deviantart that you might be interested in: this one and this one. They give a lot of neat tips but not in the way that you expect so brace yourself. There are rants and blunt truths-of-the-matter but they can be pretty helpful ^^ Keep an open mind and don't limit yourself and you so be fine as long as you practice and experiment!

I would also like to add that just because it's a tutorial, doesn't mean it will always be the set-in-stone way to go about things. Keep and open yet cynical eye when viewing tutorials. Often times the tutorial is actually explaining the artist's style rather than actually teaching a lesson, but it's always a plus if you pick up tips and tricks ;)

Another tip I picked along the way; focus on the general and not the details. This seems like a really weird tip seeing as most artists are all about the detail, but by sticking to generalizing poses instead of being a stickler, you'll find that it'll be a lot easier to get down what you want down. It also leaves a lot of room for edits and alterations :) There's a great example of this somewhere floating around Deviantart, and I'll find it if you like me to.

Oh and be warned: hands and hair are said to be one of the harder things to draw. Why? I dunno, I guess they randomly decided to the archenemies of artists xD Try using spheres to make the hand a little more three dimension and using more to represent the individual joints in the fingers, contecting them with lines to represent the bone structure. I had more to say but I forgot...

Oh! And if you're planning on coloring your artwork, look into color theory :)
 
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Thank you! That really helps! I shall have to look into those tutorials and try to get some really good books where they explain the "whys" of things.​
 
Since Experi up there gave you link's and shit I'mma just tack on one more addendum. I ain't puttin' you on blast, booboo this is more of a general finger-waggin'.

Manga isn't a way of drawing, it's a style of drawing. This means is if you don't know how to draw a square but try anyway and that shit comes lookin' like a Ditto pokémon blob, no amount of crying in the world about how it's your style of drawing a square makes up for the fact y'all don't know how to draw a square. If at any time you're struggling with how to draw them big ol' moe sparkly eyes instead of tackling why a hand isn't looking like it's coming at the viewer-- straighten out your priorities. How you gotta play with putty, stretching it, twisting it, balling it up when you can't even make putty? Dig?

Here, more often than not people who love to draw got a good probability of being visual learners so here you go. Sycra is a goddamn godsend.




 
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Practice practice practice

and good references. I would recommend only drawing things you already have an image of until you get decent and not drawing from your head. It's very difficult to visualize something that looks at all real. Proportion, in particular, is difficult to get.
 
I'm gonna be honest, When I was learning, I traces the crap out of everything I could get my hands on just to build that fluid contour skill as quickly as I could, traced and traced. Then as I hit high school I was tracing, I put my own techniques into process, and Practiced everyday.

EVERYDAY I was sketching something.

People and animals, I start with circles and lines, for a 'skeleton'. Then I fill in the rest lol. Not very helpful is it? well that because the rest is up to you. The most important thing to remember is to stretch that imagination. Look at other artist work or ideas, inspiration, refresh yourself by stretching your hands every half hour.

Another thing that really helps is drawing what you see. Throw some fruit in a bowl and just take a shot at drawing it. look at some trees outside and follow a few branches with your pencil all just to practice. Hand eye coordination is a skill and MUST be practiced if you wish to draw what your own mind creates.

Get loose and Comfortable. Draw big circles and little circles. Put each circle in a square, draw circles to close the empty spaces between the squares. This helps you to get used to the work it takes to "FILL THE PAGE" without getting to serious. You can just relax and let your hand do allll the work, giving your brain time to just soak up all that practice.

Any specific question you can PM me any time. Ever want to exchange art or just ask me how a drawing is for an honest critique, ANY help at all, don't hesitate to ask :) and Good luck. <333
 
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Seriously? Why am I always late in answering these...

So pretty much to summarize it all

Practice anatomy (trace or no trace)
Light lines until you get what you want.
Clean stray marks
Keep size ratio in mind at all times.
Keep perspective in mind as well.
Practice until you can draw what you want without having to spend forever on a draft that won't work...

That was a horrible summary... Sorry.
 
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