It sounds like you mostly work in traditional arts rather than digital? That’s a good place to start. Here is my guide to draw literally anything:
I recommend learning these things to take the next steps:
Draw by Sight - This is a great method to learn traditionally because you don’t strain your eyes as much as you would with a screen. If you use up a lot of paper then Newsprint (recycled newspaper) is great medium to practice on as you can get very large books of it very cheap. You should probably buy a small pencil kit that has 2H, HB, B, 2B, 4B, and 6B. 2H is the hardest graphite so it leaves very little on the paper, usually for sketches or very thin lines, while 6B is an incredibly soft graphite that leaves behind thick dark streaks similar to charcoals, oils, or markers. Put some random sketch-able objects in front of your work area and put a light towards them. The most important skill to obtain from this exercise is being able to judge ratios and angles, many artists learn to hold their arm all the way out with a pencil and hold the pencil so that its uncovered length matches the height or width of the object, and then compare that to the other dimension so you’ve got an idea of how long it is compared to how wide it is. I used a ruler back in school. You can also compare those dimensions with the distance between the endpoints so that you know your angles are somewhat accurate. Once you learned those essential skills you have the options to move on or you can continue learning this method until you’ve mastered recreating textures by sight.
The Three Perspectives - It is often said that using three perspective points is the most accurate to life representation you can draw, which is sad because generally not many artists appreciate it in my opinion. Since the points need to be placed so far off the canvas to be accurate this can be very difficult to learn traditionally as opposed to digitally, but you should have no problem learning single point to a high enough degree to accomplish it even without a ruler. One very difficult concept for beginners is that even living creatures follow perspectives and you can pick up the Bounding Box technique to utilize it.
Understanding Concepts behind the Subject - You need this to properly “draw from mind.” This is a much more vague skill to learn, but basically artists like to specialize on understanding specific subjects. Learning Anatomy for humans and animals for example, or perhaps learning structures and landscapes for “background artists” and “architectural artists” for contrasting examples. Artists like to do “studies” on subjects to learn to draw them from many angles, and the best way to do this is to observe them closely or watch videos of the subjects, or simply through trial and error of drawing from many heights and angles without reference but that takes much longer to master. Many modern artists will delve deep into Abstraction: how much or how little can you use to portray emotions or contexts to the audience. Cartoonism benefits greatly from all of the above but like all of these styles it is very much a separate discipline that you can learn with or without any of the others. You should decide what sort of artworks you want to specialize more in and then I can send you some download links to recommended reading materials (WHICH WE WILL STEAL, YAR HARR ME MATEYS).
Color Theory - I don’t think it’s very important, tbh, unless you’re going to recreate the impressionists era works or some Kitsch paintings. However, you should probably learn the basics for contrast, tones, complimentary colors, and clashing colors (THE WHEEL), etc. If you do actually do any paintings then you should note that all colors will eventually mix to brown which is bad except sometimes really useful to shade things or make unimportant details stand out less than the focal point. Clashing colors will make browns immediately, I find that Red/Green makes a sort of chocolate color which is quite nice. Color theory can consume your entire lifespan if you go deeper than these basics.
Focal Point - Focal Point utilizes the previous skills to force the audience to hone in on once specific detail. For example, The Last Supper’s entire background is drawn in single-point perspective and they placed that single point behind the christ. They also made the Christ’s colors stand out, and they faced the apostles looking inwards towards him or otherwise gesturing towards him in some way. Christ is the focal point. These techniques can be used much more subtly than this example, I’m particularly fond of using lines of surfaces and objects to point towards characters.
Shading, Outlines, Textures, and Patterns - To really make good shapes and forms pop and look professional, the best technique is to utilize multiple styles of shading and highlighting. This is often referred to as “Inking” and has many skills within such as crosshatching, fills, and clever utilization of negative space.
I was going to post example images but after I drew a couple I became unsure of the comment limitations of lemmy.
This is super detailed and informative, the actual information I needed. For some reason I couldn’t find it online, maybe I just wasn’t looking in the right place.
I’ll have to keep referring back to this as my drawing journey progresses. Thank you!
It sounds like you mostly work in traditional arts rather than digital? That’s a good place to start. Here is my guide to draw literally anything:
I recommend learning these things to take the next steps:
Draw by Sight - This is a great method to learn traditionally because you don’t strain your eyes as much as you would with a screen. If you use up a lot of paper then Newsprint (recycled newspaper) is great medium to practice on as you can get very large books of it very cheap. You should probably buy a small pencil kit that has 2H, HB, B, 2B, 4B, and 6B. 2H is the hardest graphite so it leaves very little on the paper, usually for sketches or very thin lines, while 6B is an incredibly soft graphite that leaves behind thick dark streaks similar to charcoals, oils, or markers. Put some random sketch-able objects in front of your work area and put a light towards them. The most important skill to obtain from this exercise is being able to judge ratios and angles, many artists learn to hold their arm all the way out with a pencil and hold the pencil so that its uncovered length matches the height or width of the object, and then compare that to the other dimension so you’ve got an idea of how long it is compared to how wide it is. I used a ruler back in school. You can also compare those dimensions with the distance between the endpoints so that you know your angles are somewhat accurate. Once you learned those essential skills you have the options to move on or you can continue learning this method until you’ve mastered recreating textures by sight.
The Three Perspectives - It is often said that using three perspective points is the most accurate to life representation you can draw, which is sad because generally not many artists appreciate it in my opinion. Since the points need to be placed so far off the canvas to be accurate this can be very difficult to learn traditionally as opposed to digitally, but you should have no problem learning single point to a high enough degree to accomplish it even without a ruler. One very difficult concept for beginners is that even living creatures follow perspectives and you can pick up the Bounding Box technique to utilize it.
Understanding Concepts behind the Subject - You need this to properly “draw from mind.” This is a much more vague skill to learn, but basically artists like to specialize on understanding specific subjects. Learning Anatomy for humans and animals for example, or perhaps learning structures and landscapes for “background artists” and “architectural artists” for contrasting examples. Artists like to do “studies” on subjects to learn to draw them from many angles, and the best way to do this is to observe them closely or watch videos of the subjects, or simply through trial and error of drawing from many heights and angles without reference but that takes much longer to master. Many modern artists will delve deep into Abstraction: how much or how little can you use to portray emotions or contexts to the audience. Cartoonism benefits greatly from all of the above but like all of these styles it is very much a separate discipline that you can learn with or without any of the others. You should decide what sort of artworks you want to specialize more in and then I can send you some download links to recommended reading materials (WHICH WE WILL STEAL, YAR HARR ME MATEYS).
Color Theory - I don’t think it’s very important, tbh, unless you’re going to recreate the impressionists era works or some Kitsch paintings. However, you should probably learn the basics for contrast, tones, complimentary colors, and clashing colors (THE WHEEL), etc. If you do actually do any paintings then you should note that all colors will eventually mix to brown which is bad except sometimes really useful to shade things or make unimportant details stand out less than the focal point. Clashing colors will make browns immediately, I find that Red/Green makes a sort of chocolate color which is quite nice. Color theory can consume your entire lifespan if you go deeper than these basics.
Focal Point - Focal Point utilizes the previous skills to force the audience to hone in on once specific detail. For example, The Last Supper’s entire background is drawn in single-point perspective and they placed that single point behind the christ. They also made the Christ’s colors stand out, and they faced the apostles looking inwards towards him or otherwise gesturing towards him in some way. Christ is the focal point. These techniques can be used much more subtly than this example, I’m particularly fond of using lines of surfaces and objects to point towards characters.
Shading, Outlines, Textures, and Patterns - To really make good shapes and forms pop and look professional, the best technique is to utilize multiple styles of shading and highlighting. This is often referred to as “Inking” and has many skills within such as crosshatching, fills, and clever utilization of negative space.
I was going to post example images but after I drew a couple I became unsure of the comment limitations of lemmy.
This is super detailed and informative, the actual information I needed. For some reason I couldn’t find it online, maybe I just wasn’t looking in the right place.
I’ll have to keep referring back to this as my drawing journey progresses. Thank you!