Finding my way one step at a time

[Ryan Provenzano]

Hi, I'm Nexuun. I'm 16.

Here's my journey.


This is something I did from imagination

More imagination drawing

Copy of Ichigo from bleach

Imagination drawing with some references for the arms and abdomen

A robot I drew from imagination for an art battle I was having with my friends.

Copy of Shinji from Bleach

I'll upload all the studies I do now from this point on. So, please suggest some studies I should do to improve my work ^.^.

[LukasA]

Well, you should probably stop drawing manga and do gesture sketches and figure drawing if you want to get better at drawing people.
Keep reading the Loomis books, but manga books will steer you away from what Loomis is teaching you.

[Ryan Provenzano]

Alright thanks Lukas, that's the kind of guidance that I was looking for. I've been confused lately on which books I should focus on to improve, so a big thanks to you!

[Ryan Provenzano]

Well, sorry for not updating this sketchbook daily, heheh. I'm afraid I'll have to dump everything of my now-finished second sketchbook


































































Here is my last-finished sketch of something from imagination


Here are the drawings/sketches I did while still doing all the studies/drawings and exercises from my sketchbook. It's mandatory imagination drawing/original drawing(with some reference) that I have to complete everyday for a competition on another forum that I created. If I don't submit one of these everyday, I get disqualified basically.


















After not seeing any improvement, I did some research and found out really important information about the basics that has changed my attitude to learning to draw. That lead to starting The Glen Vilppu Drawing Manual. You can tell when my sketches became influenced by Glen Vilppu's drawing manual. I've decided to stop being stubborn, and start doing some serious work.

If you have any advice that you wish to give me for studying from Glen Vilppu, you may. I'm going to try to draw from life in conjunction with the book, but I definitely won't be able to go to any live drawing sessions.

[DKHutcheson]

Whew, that's a lot of stuff to look at. Pretty educational though.

I'm just going to throw somethings I noticed out there first. Your boobs look like circles with dots. Got to think of them less as cootie shots and more of the forms that are actually going on there. You've noticed that they move based on the arm lifting but your shapes are still a little too 'basic'. There's a little informative tutorial of sorts here that has a pretty quick and easy explanation of the boob mechanic.

Another thing, all your drawings are very straight on and robotic. It's a hard habit to break out of sometimes, especially if you're afraid of messing up, but you've really got to get out of it if you want any sort of dynamic to your work. If you're looking for books, I'd recommend Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators by Mike Mattesi. You need to
start moving your characters around and giving them life. Bend their knees, twist their torsos. You might even look into contrapposto in classical statues, or just the the way people stand in the street. Almost no one stands that straight with their arms and legs board stiff.

Though wanting to learn manga style drawing is cool beans, it is best to earnestly study proper human anatomy and proportion along-side of it. Otherwise you'll be cranking out art that just doesn't look quite right since it's based on inaccurate human proportion. It will also help you feel out your own manga style instead of riffing too much off of other manga-artist's style. A mix of different influences from the naturalistic to the cartoony can really enhance your style and make it something unique. When I say cartoony, I don't just mean manga (though you ought to really look into the CLASSIC manga artists like Tezuka, Rumiko Takahashi, and, my personal favourite, Katsuhiro Otomo), I mean things like American cartoons, Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks films, European comics and animations (GOBELINS has so many great animations coming out of it's school, and all have such great character design and short stories). The places to find inspiration for your work are quite literally limitless, so don't just study Bleach.

As for no life/live drawing sessions, you can fake those a little. Using Pixel Lovely's Figure Drawing Tool for short studies and Characterdesign.com's Photosets for longer ones (or vice versa or however you roll), that can sort of cover for not having real life drawing classes. The live sessions are better for you, by far, but a lot of times it's hard for most people to find/get to them.
As for drawing from life, that is easily done, through still lives (which I HIGHLY recommend you do, cannot press that enough) and from just drawing gestures of people or animals or anything you find interesting. Make sure you do that too. It's very important to train your eye through life drawing (which isn't just nude figure drawing) somehow.


This is a great start to your sketchbook! I think it's great you want to improve and start fleshing out your work at your age. It's going to take some resolve to keep up with it, but I encourage you to really hunker down with your work. You'll be kicking some much ass once you're through you won't believe it.

Post more when you can! It'll be great to watch your progress!

[Ryan Provenzano]

@DKHutcheson
Thank you so very much for giving me advice! I'll make sure to keep working hard, and I'll definitely try some of the things you suggested. I'll definitely be able to research and read the old manga(because I read all manga ). I'll try to find some influences from American cartoons(but definitely not the junk that's played nowadays on TV). I actually do have pixel lovely's figure drawing tool, and I have done gesture drawings from that. Though I definitely will keep using it. I absolutely will somehow manage to break away from my bad habits! I guess because I was too focused on drawing stuff right, I forgot to learn how to put movement into my drawings.

And well here's today's art survival drawing(that's just gonna be what I call those daily character drawings).

[Ryan Provenzano]

Some anatomy studies to help improve my character drawing. Will do more soon.

[DKHutcheson]

Watch your legs in that muscle study, they're way too short. Make sure you measure them out. From the hip to the knee is about the same distance from the groin to the armpit, and from the knee to the heel is the same distance as well. Your hand is looking a bit small, so keep it mind that they are actually a pretty decent size. Your elbow on the arm with the hand is too high I think as well, but on the other arm it is more accurate. The elbow is usually located where the rib cage ends.

It looks like you're having more trouble with your skulls than your muscle study though. You really need to sit down and look at whats going on there. Your skulls are very flat, and there is little understanding of the placement from what I can tell. Try and think about it 3-dimensionally. Here is a set of skull photos that shows the skull in a full 360 degree view (the download has all the images). There are a lot of indentations and protrusions on the skull that gives it it's form. You really only touch upon them, and your placement isn't very accurate. I would suggest giving it another go. I redlined your profile veiw of the skull. It is the best of the bunch as far as detail goes, but you should keep proportion in mind when drawing. All the parts relate to the others in easy to remember distances.



There's a big improvement so far though. c: Keep it up! It's been a few days, don't forget to keep posting!

[Ryan Provenzano]

Thanks for giving me a kick in the ass, Hutch. I'm not drawing to the best of my ability and I need to fix that. Those skulls are now my first priority to work on. Anyways, I have been doing some stuff. Was trying to learn to draw sharks but I seriously underestimated the amount of work I'd need to do to learn to draw them proficiently. So, that's a lesson in itself. I did some drawings of my shoes and my leg, because I feel like those two things are having a bad impact on my characters so I want to get better at them. Thank you very much for watching over me, Hutch. I've been missing something lately and I think you've helped me place it back. I definitely will try not to lose it again.

[syrella]

Wow! You've really done a lot of posting so far. Impressive!

I think the other comments are spot on with their evaluation. In order to draw "manga", of course, you need to first know how to draw! Are you interested in actually doing comics as well? If so, I recommend you get the book:

Drawing Words and Writing Pictures: Making Comics: Manga, Graphic Novels, and Beyond

... or anything by Scott McCloud, really!

As for your actual drawing skills, though, the best thing you can do for yourself is to "draw from life". Do things like still lifes. Believe me, even though they seem boring, they are absolutely key to being able to invent fantasy landscapes or making compelling and memorable characters. Draw your home and things inside of it. Go outside and draw your neighborhood. One lesson I had to learn the hard way is that imagination needs a push in the right direction. You gotta put stuff in to get stuff out. Watching people or studying the world around you is key to creating the next cool comic. Whatever you do, don't forget that.

Anyhow, I think I might just be rambling now. DO keep practicing! With that level of dedication, I'm sure you could go far. Best of luck!

[Ryan Provenzano]

Stuff's been pretty weird lately...heh. All I can say is that the stuff that's been happening to me lately is leaving me wanting to become better. Here's a drawing using a model from characterdesigns.com. I actually really enjoyed drawing this.

P.S. I really need to study faces.

[Ryan Provenzano]

Here's a skull, and I changed my reference to Bridgman this time . I enjoyed drawing it and the result I like too

[DKHutcheson]

First off, that skull is a HUGE HUGE HUGE improvement from your last. I'm very impressed. Be sure to keep at it. I don't have a reference to compare it to, but it seems to me the frontal and temporal bones might be erring on too large. I don't think the sides of the skull extends out beyond the cheekbones, and the top of the skull seems to be too tall. Might want to check your measurements to make sure.

I second what syrella said about Scott McCloud's books. Understanding Comics and Making Comics are two great books. I think Understanding would probably be more helpful for learning to 'think' in comics, and Making has a lot of the same information with a little clarification about how it's all done.

It looks like you're getting the basics of perspective, but I'd suggest using a ruler one, and to be very careful about where your vanishing points go. In two-point, when the vanishing points are so close like that, you end up with a big skew. It can be used for some pretty cool 'spooky' effects sometimes, but it can also just make your picture look weird. Keep them as far apart as you can manage. One of my teachers told me, it's best to keep at least one off the page, if you can.

In your drawing of the sitting woman, your legs look much better in length, but now the arm is too short. You don't need to add length to the bottom, it's at the shoulder you've missed. See how her shoulder pushes up? Her whole shoulder line is tilted, but you've got her shoulders at an even horizontal.

If you're going to draw clothed models, you should also really look at the clothing you're drawing, and how it hugs the body and so forth. The bra you've drawn on her doesn't really look like a bra. At first I thought it was a misshapen censor bar. The lightning on it in the photo is very subtle, so you can't really see the forms, I understand that, but you should still think about them, and then really look at the shape of the clothing. If you look, inbetween the cups of the bra is a deep V shape, with curved sides. You drew a small v making the cups look very big, and then you made the cup of her side-breast very flat. This makes it look like she's a size A wearing a poorly fitting C cup. Make sure when you draw bras that you have them follow a woman's contours, and be aware that the smaller a lady's breasts, the smaller the size of the bra cup will be. (You also forgot to hook her up in the back; the back-band just sort of stops before it reaches her arm.)

My point is, really look at what you're drawing, and try to understand how it's working. Try to draw without shading sometimes, so it's easier to see what's going on in your art. Shading can cover mistakes, or hide some really good parts of a drawing. I'm not saying "Don't practice shading" or "Shading is bad", but spend some drawings without it, and then on others use it. Or scan a before-and-after.


But wow. That skull is a big jump for sure, and I'm glad you worked on legs. Random studies like the sharks can be really fun, and I say "do more!" if you're enjoying them. But make sure you do some still lives too. Like syrella said, they may seem boring, but they help a lot, and will sharpen your eyes like nothing else. You're coming along great! Keep going!

[Ryan Provenzano]

Sorry for not posting for a while. I haven't stopped drawing though, and I'll have some stuff I did earlier/in the summer up later. Thanks to some guys in the IRC for helping me out with starting drawing from life; zelrik, cookiedough, some others.
First three posts are just some sketches/practice with some minor reference use.

[Ryan Provenzano]

Here's more still lifes, circles/boxes from imagination. My first two self-portraits, plan on doing more. Suggest any studies xD?

Got a new scanner

[kaikaisushi]

Wow tons of studies and i notice some impressive improvements! you could try color studies or landscapes if you had get quite bored with anatomy. Also you could study more on facial areas like eyes and nose. With all that said keep studying and and with a few years time you would have seen massive improvements and you wont regret that!!! I gaurantee!

[Ryan Provenzano]

Like you said I'm working on ear studies now! They were actually pretty fun man, thanks for the recommendation.

[Ryan Provenzano]

First portrait study from a photo! Done with photoshop. If anyone sees anything wrong with it, please do comment!

[RoyalAce]

Almost forgot to thank you for being the first person to visit my SB lol
and I'm like that you update your sketchbook daily. May I suggest you start doing 30-1minute gestures everyday as a warm-up.

[Ryan Provenzano]

Trying to get better with boxes...and still working a bit on facial anatomy. And I'll see if I can get some gesture drawings done, as I know how important they are.

[Ryan Provenzano]

School's been pretty busy, and I know that's a bad excuse for not updating. I'm still having a bit of trouble with drawing the nose. Hopefully I will solve this soon. I've also done some quick layouts for some stages in a game I'm working on in my gaming graphics/creation class. I'm continuing to do box exercises as well, but who wants to look at those?

[Ryan Provenzano]

Enjoying my drawing lately, heh. Have some Burne Hogarth heads; read through a lot of it now and I think I'm going to start practicing the techniques now. Did some line and ellipse drawing practice. And then we leave off with self-portraits/draper drawing from life.

[Ryan Provenzano]

Not much drawing done lately. Just hands and blind contour hands. Getting back into the groove, though. I probably made the worst digital painting ever created(I don't think you can even call it a painting >_>).

Gotta do some actual landscape studies before I attempt something like that again(and learn some freaking composition)...

[Ryan Provenzano]

I found a new method for sketching that works much better for me. Some of these are from drawing on my bus(the ones that are really messy). Been pushing proportions big time on some of these.

[element1988]

Looks like your having trouble with construction the head at different angles. I recommend the ron lemon gnomon dvd on drawing the male head, that dvd completely changed the way I constructed the head after a long long time of struggling. But if you cant afford the full dvd there's a 10 min video he has on constructing the head on youtube, its not as in depth but it should still help a lot.

[Ryan Provenzano]

Thanks Element. I'll be sure to keep in mind some of the things Ron was talking about. Here's some gesture drawing. Near the end I found myself unsure what to add to the drawing when there was still 5 minutes left for the pose(for the 10 minute pose), because I've already made it almost impossible to change anything due to my mark making. I saw a centipede on the ceiling in my laundry room and that inspired me on the last one. Everything else are just sketches.

[blogmatix]

You are talented. At your age I couldn't dream of drawing the way you can draw. As such I cannot give you any advice - I'll soon be taking lessons from YOU. :-)

But keep at it, and good luck. A few years of this and you'll be a professional.

[Ryan Provenzano]

Just some sketches in my off-time. Messed up the last one, but ya know, can't get it right every time. My bus ride home is also a considerable amount of time...30 minutes. I've figured that I should draw in that time, so I have.
@blog: thanks man. Though I say it's more like I'm talented at working hard and being obsessive >.>. But please do give me advice if you have any. My classmates only give compliments, and no advice. Advice is what I really need, so please.

[blogmatix]

I am not as skilled as you are at drawing from imagination. Thus I cannot possibly give you any advice, I'm afraid. :-)

I am often a bit skeptical about advice in general anyway. I find that on a forum like this, one often gets plenty of contradictory advice and you end up more confused than you were. In the end the only bits of recurring advice are very simple: keep on drawing, observe nature, etc. And that we all know already.

Well, you are still young, so here's advice from an old geezer. When I was your age I had plenty of time for drawing and didn't use it. Now that I want to draw I often don't have time or energy because I have a job and several other hobbies. So my advice is to keep on doing what you're probably already doing, and use what time you have productively.

[Umbravita]

I can see a lot of improvement in this page alone. Try to branch out a bit, push past your comfort zone a little. You'll improve more quickly that way.