From zero to... we'll cross that bridge when we get to it

[Thistlegorm]

New guy here, I've been drawing around a month, and I'm obsessed about faces, so I practice drawing daily just so I can get them right at some point

I'm also inspired by fantasy, children's book type art and the many brilliant artists on this forums; I'll get there, but to do that, I need you guys to rip me a new one

I know it's terrible, I know it pains you to see this sort of work, and I encourage you to say it, I would just like to ask you HOW it's terrible, and WHAT it lacks; drag me through the mud, but drag me towards the right direction

I appreciate all your time and critique, and will do my part and work hard to improve


Also, this will double as my sketchbook, which is why I'm posting it in this category, to show my improvement and keep criticism here

[lionheartGFX]

hey man, good start! its all about hard work you know? the thing we all here respct most its that you put your heart and soul into it even if it is only 30 minutes of practice give it your all, there is some reading i recommend so you can get some basics into your stuff, first of all Vilppu, and hampton are sure to help you, they work the figure and the head in a very simple manner and they build on upon that!, so see if you can grab some stuff from them and just keep at it

[Thistlegorm]

hey man, good start! its all about hard work you know? the thing we all here respct most its that you put your heart and soul into it even if it is only 30 minutes of practice give it your all, there is some reading i recommend so you can get some basics into your stuff, first of all Vilppu, and hampton are sure to help you, they work the figure and the head in a very simple manner and they build on upon that!, so see if you can grab some stuff from them and just keep at it

Thank you! Coincidentally, I got my hands on Vilppu's anatomy videos and book just yesterday, super excited to get off of work and do some figure drawing

[n1frit]

Nice faces and you have a lot cool thought and ideas but still need to start from first simple steps. Try to draw more simplest objects like cubes spheres, keep attention on releations between forms, train the proportions on simple but correct stuff. Keep drawing!

[Thistlegorm]

Nice faces and you have a lot cool thought and ideas but still need to start from first simple steps. Try to draw more simplest objects like cubes spheres, keep attention on releations between forms, train the proportions on simple but correct stuff. Keep drawing!

Thanks for reminding me that, I started from the circles and cubes, but I couldn't stay away from constructing faces from the circles; I'll take some steps back and make my main focus getting basic shapes and proportions right for now, and just draw whole sketches and faces when I need to blow off some steam or relax

[aaron2]

Good start mate
Your hardwork can be seen in your sketch as it has lots of attraction like it is well very neat and well finished and this is a sign of good sketcher

[Thistlegorm]

Good start mate
Your hardwork can be seen in your sketch as it has lots of attraction like it is well very neat and well finished and this is a sign of good sketcher

Thank you for that! I appreciate the encouragement!

[Thistlegorm]

I've been practising around with basic shapes, but I've also managed to squeeze in a couple of poses (no focus on anatomy at all)

Also, apologies for the terrible photos, my scanner broke down a while ago, and I'm too lazy(read: cheap) to go fix it

[Lucarky]

Welcome aboard Thistleborn. I'm new here too. If I can, an advice. Try to post even your works on forms, this way we can help you much better. Even if you think is bad drawn, post everything. A book saga that you can't miss is the collection of Andrew Loomis books. Great lessons on drawing. Try go here to get them: http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/

And another good book to study anatomy is "Michael Hampton- Figure Drawing - Design and Invention"
And draw from reality.
Keep drawing! Don't give up!

[Thistlegorm]

Welcome aboard Thistleborn. I'm new here too. If I can, an advice. Try to post even your works on forms, this way we can help you much better. Even if you think is bad drawn, post everything. A book saga that you can't miss is the collection of Andrew Loomis books. Great lessons on drawing. Try go here to get them: http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/

And another good book to study anatomy is "Michael Hampton- Figure Drawing - Design and Invention"
And draw from reality.
Keep drawing! Don't give up!

Thank you for your link and advice! The only reason I haven't posted form is because I know what I'm getting wrong so far and I know how to fix it, when I post here I try to post what I know is wrong, but I don't know how or why it's wrong

Right now I'm reading Vilppu's drawing manual as LionheartGFX suggested, but I'll alternate between that and Loomis, honestly, I love both authors methods!

[Thistlegorm]

So, I'm reading up on Vilppu's manual, and here I'm trying (operative word: trying) to give these shapes some life (had a public holiday, so 7 whole hours of basic shapes )



After that, I tried to break down the female body with those shapes; however, they seem worse than the studies I've done without any shapes as references.

Maybe it's because I'm still new to applying the shapes to the body? Or is it just that I'm doing it all wrong? :p Opinions on that would be appreciated:



Also, sorry for the terrible, TERRIBLE quality, had no choice in the matter

[Thistlegorm]

So yesterday I posted saying that I was trying to create figures out of shapes (spheres as the base of chests, cubes for the knees etc) and said that I wasn't sure it was the right approach for me, but today I practised it some more, and I think it makes sense, something still feels off however, and here's one sketch where I felt I started to understand it:



Something is still eluding me however, I've added the (shabby) replicas of the shapes I used to create the figure with on the sides; can you guys see what's going wrong? (my beginner eyes fail me! :p )

[Beartankmaster]

Hey man great to see other people trying to improve and chase their dreams. We're not alone eh? Though it can feel that way sometimes. I don't really have any critique to offer other than that your proportions were a bit off on some of your gesture drawings. keep it up man

[Thistlegorm]

Hey man great to see other people trying to improve and chase their dreams. We're not alone eh? Though it can feel that way sometimes. I don't really have any critique to offer other than that your proportions were a bit off on some of your gesture drawings. keep it up man

Hey, we all have to start from somewhere, right? And hard work can get us anywhere we want to go

[ja1307]

Hey glad to see you have started your journey to being a better artist. You have def started in a good way. I like drawing faces too they are a lot of fun. One thing that helps with drawing anything espc as complicated as a portrait is learning some rules to do with proportion. Ron Leman is really good for head construction, so is Andrew Loomis and David Finch. Think you can get a lot of videos tutorials online

Here is a quick intro to Ron Lemens lecture on head construction..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWLS3fki6oM

its pretty brief as its an outake from a much longer dvd but gives you a basic intro and a decent starting point. Seems like you are using a lot of smudging with you pencil for rendering? think this can be a good stylistic choice but I think you will learn more at this stage by having to control the tone yourself and get used to making strokes with the pencil. It wil teach about how the pencil responds and how to control light and dark tones ect. Maybe do some basic geometric shape studies and try shading these in to go with your portraits. Try experimentimg with different grade pencils. Do simple gradient exercises to see how dark and light a toine you can get out of one pencil. I have just done a few recently and you will be surprised how verstaile one pencil can be. Most of all try and draw as much from life as you can. Cups, spoons, veg, shoes, your phone whatever. Just draw it and try and break it down into shapes and think about everything in 3dimension. Most important be consistent a couple of hours or more a day and you will be improving in no time. I shall def check back. Have fun.

[ClockworkLives]

Seems like you are using a lot of smudging with you pencil for rendering? think this can be a good stylistic choice but I think you will learn more at this stage by having to control the tone yourself and get used to making strokes with the pencil. It wil teach about how the pencil responds and how to control light and dark tones ect. Maybe do some basic geometric shape studies and try shading these in to go with your portraits. Try experimentimg with different grade pencils. Do simple gradient exercises to see how dark and light a toine you can get out of one pencil. I have just done a few recently and you will be surprised how verstaile one pencil can be. Most of all try and draw as much from life as you can. Cups, spoons, veg, shoes, your phone whatever. Just draw it and try and break it down into shapes and think about everything in 3dimension. Most important be consistent a couple of hours or more a day and you will be improving in no time. I shall def check back. Have fun.

I have to second ja1307 on this. You are off to to a good start. However, your shaded drawings are a bit on the light side, which flattens them out. Pushing the darker values will go a long way to create a nice sense of volume.

[Thistlegorm]

Hey glad to see you have started your journey to being a better artist. You have def started in a good way. I like drawing faces too they are a lot of fun. One thing that helps with drawing anything espc as complicated as a portrait is learning some rules to do with proportion. Ron Leman is really good for head construction, so is Andrew Loomis and David Finch. Think you can get a lot of videos tutorials online

Here is a quick intro to Ron Lemens lecture on head construction..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWLS3fki6oM

its pretty brief as its an outake from a much longer dvd but gives you a basic intro and a decent starting point. Seems like you are using a lot of smudging with you pencil for rendering? think this can be a good stylistic choice but I think you will learn more at this stage by having to control the tone yourself and get used to making strokes with the pencil. It wil teach about how the pencil responds and how to control light and dark tones ect. Maybe do some basic geometric shape studies and try shading these in to go with your portraits. Try experimentimg with different grade pencils. Do simple gradient exercises to see how dark and light a toine you can get out of one pencil. I have just done a few recently and you will be surprised how verstaile one pencil can be. Most of all try and draw as much from life as you can. Cups, spoons, veg, shoes, your phone whatever. Just draw it and try and break it down into shapes and think about everything in 3dimension. Most important be consistent a couple of hours or more a day and you will be improving in no time. I shall def check back. Have fun.

Thank you very much for the detailed answer! I'll definitely experiment more with pencils and lay off the smudging until I can control the tones with strokes, I'll also do more still life drawings

Also, thanks for the author suggestions and the video link, something worth looking into! I'm currently watching lectures and reading the book written by Glenn Vilppu, which is really helping me break down things (especially people) into shapes

[Thistlegorm]

I have to second ja1307 on this. You are off to to a good start. However, your shaded drawings are a bit on the light side, which flattens them out. Pushing the darker values will go a long way to create a nice sense of volume.

Thank you! and here I was wondering how I can make them look like they have weight and are actually a mass, not a scribble, that clarifies things a lot!

[ianharding]

Really nice to see others drawing and practicing, i like your face drawings and the eye one! nice!

[Thistlegorm]

Really nice to see others drawing and practicing, i like your face drawings and the eye one! nice!

Thank you! I appreciate it!

[ja1307]

hey got your pm no worries you are more then welcome. Yeah learn to shade with the pencil then you can smudge. Buts thats just my opinion and I am no expert. Also drawing is just about practice. Look at others work think about what you like in it what you can learn from it take that back to your own work. But just try and be as accurate to what you are seeing and you can improve. And the net has so much useful info.

[Thistlegorm]

hey got your pm no worries you are more then welcome. Yeah learn to shade with the pencil then you can smudge. Buts thats just my opinion and I am no expert. Also drawing is just about practice. Look at others work think about what you like in it what you can learn from it take that back to your own work. But just try and be as accurate to what you are seeing and you can improve. And the net has so much useful info.

I'm actually working on that right now! And hey, you're a much better artist than I am, so expert or not, your advice has value and I'll keep trying to get it right!

[Thistlegorm]

Still practising gestures and poses, a lot is still very far off, but I feel like I'm slowly improving; or at least I'm getting more confident

Just going to practise these sorts of drawings some more before I get some anatomy down and try to understand proportions (as you can see, my proportions are currently terrible)

[Thistlegorm]

More practice, the head in the first figure is way too tiny, so that's something to work on, the others seem to be problems with perspective?



Some 60 second gestures:



And finally, a horribly done head; the thing is, I don't know what I'm getting wrong

Is it the circle on the left side of the head which then throws everything off? Some insight would be GREATLY appreciated (Also, the features are terrible, but no attention was paid to them since they're only there for proportion purposes)

[Thistlegorm]

Think I figured out the head issue I was having above, it's all a matter of practise I suppose

Now I'm just practising with boxes falling through space (which is really hard to visualize), but I've also done a study on nose anatomy, I've watched one of Proko's videos, and I redrew the pieces of the nose he demonstrates and recombined it to make a nose, now at least I know what to look for when drawing noses



Now I'm just gonna create some more noses and rotate them in space, I figure it'd give me a spatial 3D rendering of what it's supposed to be like in my head (I hope)

[Thistlegorm]

Moar nose studies. Camera made them look much shittier than they are (No, really! ) BUT it's still a major improvement, knowing anatomy helps BUTTLOADS

The perspective still seems to be a bit off, but a few more noses and I'll get that fixed

[Emmi]

Hey! Nice sketchbook, you've started out pretty good, just keep going and never give up. I want to give you a tip that I saw in an art book; When you're drawing from reference, try flipping the picture upside down and draw the picture like that. That way you don't really know what you're drawing so you draw only what you see. Try it, you might amaze yourself! I think the book was called "Drawing with the right side of the brain" Keep it up.

[Thistlegorm]

Hey! Nice sketchbook, you've started out pretty good, just keep going and never give up. I want to give you a tip that I saw in an art book; When you're drawing from reference, try flipping the picture upside down and draw the picture like that. That way you don't really know what you're drawing so you draw only what you see. Try it, you might amaze yourself! I think the book was called "Drawing with the right side of the brain" Keep it up.

Thanks Emmi! I actually read that too, and you're right, it's from "Drawing with the right side of the brain" by Betty Edwards, it's the book that helped me get started I appreciate the encouragement

[Beartankmaster]

Adding to what Emmi said if you're drawing, say, a portrait and you want to check if it's off, mirroring the image is a good way to do so. This can also help in seeing value and composition errors.

Keep it up man you be renderin like a gangsta on dem noses yo!

[Thistlegorm]

Adding to what Emmi said if you're drawing, say, a portrait and you want to check if it's off, mirroring the image is a good way to do so. This can also help in seeing value and composition errors.

Keep it up man you be renderin like a gangsta on dem noses yo!

Ooh that's a good tip! Never thought of mirroring an image, thanks man!