Forums » Art & Creativity » Art Tips!

Hello, I'm ImagineTheDragons. I've been drawing for all my life, but I'm looking for some tips. I really want to be able to draw my characters, so all tips on drawing people are greatly appreciated! If you have made, or know of a good tutorial on drawing people that would be amazing.

♥ImagineTheDragons

What are you struggling with at the moment? Expressions? Body gestures? Anatomy? Shading and lighting?

I usually start out with a stash of reference images, like an actor or model who looks sort of like what I imagine my character should look like, clothing that they'd wear, colour schemes they'd like, etc. etc. Then I pull two or three references to keep myself on track while I'm drawing, and sketch out a basic body shape (You know, planar shapes like they mention in Art 101 lessons!) and start to build on top of that by etching into the drawing with an eraser and drawing more sketchy lines atop until I get something that looks right.

I like to keep hints (sometimes blatant hints) of planar profiles on my characters because they help with lighting and shading, but if I were to do more finished work, I'd eventually paint on top of those and smooth things way back down to normal skin, hair, clothing, etc.

Here's something I just did tonight while figuring out a profile for a new character:



If I wanted to take it further, I'd go back into those shadows and add real cools and warms instead of that overlay-style layer, because I would want the skin to look more organic. I'd then start painting up the translucency of the skin (ears and nose and cheeks get a little more pink) and smoooooothing those little sketchy contour lines to heck and back by using a range of lights and darks to indicate the planes instead of relying on the crutch that is the lines themselves. I'd do the same treatment of the hair, creating translucency where it's thinnest by casting light through it, indicating more shape via shaping 'hanks' of hair, then detailing how those hanks reflect light.... the process can take hours because I haven't streamlined my workflow for that much detail yet!

But yeah, the pile of images I showed above is kind of how I get started. Take previous work that is relevant to your needs and build up an idea from there. If I were doing a full-body image set in a background, I would additionally attempt to find the right poses (or barring that, I would heckle my girlfriend into making the pose I wanted) as well as the kind of background bits and pieces I needed--nature, architecture, time-of-day lighting, etc. etc.

Expressions? Body gestures? Anatomy? Shading and lighting?




im struggling with all ;-;

It's important to level up at all of those, but you will probably find that there is one part or another that you enjoy drawing the most, or some aspect that you would love to be great at. What are some of your favourite art styles, or favourite artists? Maybe we can pick apart what it is that draws you to them, and work on picking that one thing to start with.

(The more you draw of one thing, the more you'll get better with other aspects of art over time... and though things can get badly skewed if you neglect one aspect of drawing over years, you have to start somewhere, right?)

Your great with tips meh man. Thanks alot! ^^

I can't draw worth a damn, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but maybe you could watch some speed paints on youtube of who has drawing attributes that you like. For example maybe watch one for expression and then a different one for posture. That being said you will probably want to set those speed paints to the lowest possible speed which is .25. Doing so might give you some insight on how to improve yourself.

Here are the basics I would suggest for improving your drawing skills:

1. Get a sketchbook.
2. Get a pencil and a ballpoint pen.
3. Draw everything around you! Every day! For years! Focus on the stuff you're weakest at, and that will improve with time. If you want to draw characters, focus on real people and anatomy. Even if you want to draw in a certain style, it's important to understand anatomy IRL, so that your characters' movement and composition will look believable.
4. Profit!

It's basically training your brain to know what things look like without having to reference them over and over. Building a reference catalog in your physical and visual memory so that you know how to make it look how you want.

Another important tip: do not compare your work to others' work! Ever! Compare your new work to your old work, and always keep your old artwork around so you can reference and see how much you're improving.

Hope this helps!

Now I wasn't always an artist but always thought the people that made artwork was so cool and wishing I could do the same and what I got told was this.
"Practice, Practice, Practice."

Another thing that helped me out a lot was just drawing things simply to draw them, to look at a picture of well a yugioh card and see if I could draw it but this is basically tracing without putting a whole lot of effort into it so eventually I started to save references of anime girls and would use just the basic body structure and then add whatever I wanted to it.

Hope this is helpful.

Thank you so much for the help! I will go practice this stuff this week. I'm mostly trying to find my own art style.

Finding a personal art style can definitely take a while. It's one of those things that I think (and have often heard) just comes along with time. Eventually you'll find the aesthetics and types of art you like and, whether consciously or not, work that into your own art style. It's sometimes a bit hard to get your art style to look like how you want it or get comfortable with it, but it's one of those things that just comes with time.

Oh, man...I think at one point, I had....4 or 5 different styles (because I liked to experiment), and they eventually merged into 1 or 2.

Like @DarkCrow said, it takes time and experimentation, surrounding yourself with styles you want to emulate, and then (maybe) settling for an overall style that you can do consistently.

Another thing to consider is what style. are you going for a more realistic approach? cartoony approach? anime approach? this could help further tips from people knowing what area of approach you are looking for. Some artists may only have skills in that department.

hi! here's a thread i started up a while back with the aim to collect art tips from across the web. perhaps something in there might help?

best of luck on your art journey! practice really does make perfect, you'll find your style as you improve your skills.

I don't think I'm going for anime or realistic. I'm not sure yet, I haven't done a ton of experimenting yet.