Learning to draw professionally

[Kriss_Kringle]

My name is Andrew,I'm from Romania and I decided a month ago that I wanna become a comic book artist or even a concept artist.I've always had talent at drawing ever since I can remember,the problem is that I didn't work at it to improve.I would start drawing for a while and then forget about it,the years passed by and now I'm 23.I still have a bit of skill but I'm nowhere near a professional standard.For the average person I guess my drawings seem decent but for pro's I think I'm above average.I got 4.5 gb of books about drawing,Loomis,Hogarth,Bridgman,Villpu and others.I also have around 30 gb of video tutorials from Villpu,Gnomon.The thing is that there are so many of them and I don't know on which one to focus on.I've seen most people tell beginners to study Loomis so I started with him.I've seen others mention some of their favorite artists for the experienced members to get an idea at what level the beginners thrive to get.

Jack Kirby-I love his art(who doesn't?),it's classic and he's a legend
Bruce Timm-has a very simple yet classy art,it reminds me of movies from the 30's and 40's
Marko Djurdjevic- is an inspiration since he's self taught and look at the level he is right now,it's fantastic.
Ariel Olivetti-has some crazy anatomy that I love
Mike Mignola's- is incredible,his imagination is something else and his gothic style with the great use of shadows just amazes me
Clayton Crain- his run on Ghost Rider is on a whole other level from everybody else

Those are the ones I can think about right now even though I left out a lot of artists.
I started drawing the head from the Loomis book so I'll post my drawings and a couple of older ones I did a couple of years ago.What I'm looking for is advice,and recommendations of books that I should start off with or if I should keep it up with Loomis.

[AdrianNagorski]

Seems like you came to the right place, its good that you know of Loomis,
Bridgman etc, the next step is just hard work, DRAW DRAW DRAW and
DRAW some more. You'll know when your ready to go to the next step of finding work.

[Kriss_Kringle]

[AdrianNagorski]

When you post click on go advance, should direct you to a page thats just got a txt box, scroll all the way down till you see manage attachments - click on that and simply upload.

you can embed your images using the paper clip after you upload them.

[Kriss_Kringle]

The images are too big.I can't figure out anything else that's wrong.The question is with what do I resize them with?

[AdrianNagorski]

Use paint or photoshop, make sure if its jpeg that the file isn't bigger than 500kb, also try prevent side scrolling resize the images so they are small, if your really having trouble copy some one else's image into MSpaint, and paste your image on top of it and resize so the sizes match n save. I would however say that windows paint saves the image in poorest quality. GOOD LUCK once you get it right once you should be able to do it forever and always.

[Kriss_Kringle]

Use paint or photoshop, make sure if its jpeg that the file isn't bigger than 500kb, also try prevent side scrolling resize the images so they are small, if your really having trouble copy some one else's image into MSpaint, and paste your image on top of it and resize so the sizes match n save. I would however say that windows paint saves the image in poorest quality. GOOD LUCK once you get it right once you should be able to do it forever and always.

Dude thanks a lot for the help.I think I managed to get the image resized on imageshack.It looks ok to me now.I'll start uploading the rest of my drawings.

[Kriss_Kringle]

Now that I finally managed to post the sketches I'll ad some old drawings of superheroes I made 4-5-6 years ago,It might be more than that,I'm not sure.I know there are lots of things wrong with them,mostly the stiff positions they're in but feel free to add any criticism.I'll ad more superheroes when I wake up

[Kriss_Kringle]

Besides Deadpool, which is recent, the others are old like the other superheroes I posted.

[Kriss_Kringle]

I haven't updated this thread in a long time so here's some of my latest stuff.
Captain America is done after a picture made by Paolo Rivera and the Batman redesign was made after a digital painting created by Mike Mitchell.
I made it in pencil,copic 0.1 mm and acrylics and Cap in tempera paint.

[creeptool]

just passing by to say you got much better at drawing sins last time you posted keep it up.

[Kriss_Kringle]

Thanks a lot man,I don't know if I got much better because most of the superheroes from the earlier posts were done a couple of years ago but I did improve.

[cricketts801]

Hey thanks for stopping by my sb. Dead pool and batman look great btw.

[Kriss_Kringle]

Yeah,Deadpool came out pretty good even though it's drawn from a Cable & Deadpool comic.I didn't cheat though,I've done it purely by observing,same goes for the Batman concept too.

[cricketts801]

post your loomis study's and ill try to keep up with ya.

[Rotor]

Nice start in here.
I'd strongly suggest doing life studies. Still life and if you have the opportunity, drawing people. It will help you learn to recognise form and perspective.

[Kriss_Kringle]

Thanks,I try to draw people but I end doing portraits of myself as you can see because no one wants to sit still for an hour or so to get the job done but I did draw quite a bit from life lately.
I'll post some of the stuff a bit later after I finish the Loomis studies.

[Kriss_Kringle]

Here are some of my recent life drawings and portraits.
I'll post the Loomis studies tomorrow because the woman's body is giving me a hard time.

[Amber Marie]

Wow nice improvement since your earlier posts! Keep it up!

[Kriss_Kringle]

Finally added the Loomis studies,the woman's body is still a pain to do but I guess I'll have to work at it until I get it.
I posted some stills I made a couple of weeks ago and some sketches from imagination before I started doing anatomy.

[Kriss_Kringle]

I read last night a post by Lt.Plissken in someone else's sketchbook that he should work from imagination more instead of doing studies and working from imagination has always been my Achilles' heel so I decided to do a couple of sketches and see what happens.

[Kriss_Kringle]

I finally finished painting an egg made out of some sort of gypsum.I did Top Cat and the gang in acrylics from a cool poster I found online and a quick drawing of The punisher by Ariel Olivetti along with a werewolf made mostly from my imagination but the curtain in the living room that had some models embroidered on it was the starting point of the whole thing

[Mr.Ebony]

I see a great deal of potential in you. You already know where to start and are on the path to building a great foundation, because these studies look good already!

Some times I have when it comes to studying anatomy. Study the whole body but also focus on the closer details , like eyes, mouth, and nose. Study their muscle structure, how they look from various angels, and study how they fit into the skull structure. Doing this will greatly improve your ability to see anatomical differences in people and better apply them as well as eventually making your own OCs.

Keep up the good work!

[Mr.Ebony]

I see a great deal of potential in you. You already know where to start and are on the path to building a great foundation, because these studies look good already!

Some times I have when it comes to studying anatomy. Study the whole body but also focus on the closer details , like eyes, mouth, and nose. Study their muscle structure, how they look from various angels, and study how they fit into the skull structure. Doing this will greatly improve your ability to see anatomical differences in people and better apply them as well as eventually making your own OCs.

Keep up the good work!

[Klaustrophil]

Wow - dude - there is a big evolution between your first superheroes and your recent stuff. Deadpool looks really good :-) But your figures drawings look really comic-like - I think you should do real life studies - or drawing from photos. Keep it up man.

[Kriss_Kringle]

@Mr.Ebony:Thanks for the advice,I'll keep in mind what you said once I go deeper into anatomy in the following weeks.
@Klaustrophil:Well,the first superheroes were made when I was somewhere around 14-18 years old,I can't really remember for sure and I didn't have any anatomical knowledge,just what I picked up from cartoons and comics.
The reason why my figure drawings look comic-like is because I haven't been drawing from imagination a lot,everything was done from reference,more or less.
When I work from life I get pretty accurate and realistic drawings but it's gonna take some time before I can transcend that realism in the work I'll be doing from imagination.Thanks for dropping by!

[JDSart]

Hi Kriss.

Good you are getting into Bridgman , Loomis and so on. I think my biggest turning point for me was finding those books and studying them. Studying anatomy can a bit of overwhelmng sometimes not gonna lie but its the most rewarding thing you can do starting out. It gets exponentially funner as ou progess so dont hesitate.

One thing to keep in mind when you draw your figures. In nature there´s no straight lines, everything curves, bends and interlocks, only mechanical things are straight, so when you draw figures that make horizontal or straight lines they are perceived as static and fake, when all parts of a body face the same direction is rather unnatural too.

Try to get more comfortable with gesture, looseness and getting the rhitm of the figures and all the rest will start falling into place much more smoothly as you climb the anatomy ladder.

[Kriss_Kringle]

Thank you,JDSart.It's definitely going to be overwhelming to study anatomy even though I know some basic stuff.I hope that when I'm going to have that "AHA! moment" with anatomy I'll be able to push myself further and draw more often.

I have to practice on my line work because it's very rigid and it's always been like that so that's one bad habit I have to get rid of.

[pixel cheetah]

I like your portraits, post more!

[Kriss_Kringle]

I will,thank you.