[philosophical_recovery]

WARNING: CONTAINS SOME NSFW CONTENT INCLUDING NUDITY IN PICTURES AND VIDEOS
But, you're an artist, so get over that shit.

Disclaimer and about me
This is a guide for someone who is very new to drawing and mostly clueless about where to go. I am not a professional artist, but sometimes I do related work. There are better artists on the forum than me that are also either going to school or pros, and I welcome their additions to this datasheet.

Why I learned to draw and why you may want to know how to draw

• Improved ability to think in 3D - Drawing well requires you to be able to mentally manipulate what you are seeing: rotating, shrinking, exaggerating, and interpreting what every day objects look like in your brain.
• Amplify imagination - Thinking in 3D is one thing, but being able to come up with imaginary landscapes, people, faces, or other objects straight from the imagination increases your ability to think creatively.
• Better communication - Drawing something to express an idea or to bridge gaps in understanding is now a lot less of an issue. It still takes time, but the bridge is now wide open.
• Peacocking - Being able to draw and having tons of sketches hung up or lying around gets the panties wet.
  

What you need

• Paper (preferably a letter sized artist notebook with plain white paper)
• A pencil and pen -I prefer a mechanical pencil and rotate the pencil as I draw to get a sharper point
  A lot of people, master artists and amateurs like me included, love the Pilot Hi-tec 0.5mm. You can draw as light or as heavy as you want with them if you know what you're doing.
• A kneadable eraser (the grey ones that enable you to shape it to a specific area to erase)
• 30+ minutes a day of dedicated drawing time
• The mindset that over time, you will reach any level of skill that you want
  

What fundamental hangup do you need to get over:
You are not going to make a perfect drawing on your first try. Only after a an enormous amount of bad drawings and the experience that comes with them do you really see this kind of talent. Do not be let down by this. Almost everything creative is a trial and error process. You need to accept the fact that you will make hundreds if not thousands of drawings that you do not like to squeeze out a few really good ones. It's just like approaching girls. They're not all going to come home with you, and you have to do a lot of approaching to make it happen. But, you're going to have fun along the way.

A free book that you will practice on the daily until you complete it:
The free loomis book "Fun with a pencil" http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/Andrew%20...Pencil.pdf
Loomis grew up in Zanesville and then became a famous illustrator. He made several books, of which I own in hardcopy, but are now all available online for free as pdfs. He is close to the Isaac Newton of drawing, except I'm sure he didn't die a virgin.

The only book I would buy as a beginner if I was absolutely determined to buy a book:
How to Draw by Scott Robertson

Loomis gives you ample background on drawing people with his freely available books. Scott Robertson backs that up with extremely good perspective drawing and composition techniques that will push you into creating elaborate drawings of your own. He also has a book on how to render, but you really need some drawing experience under your belt to use it well.

The Routine
Dedicate a solid 30+ minute (preferably an hour or more) to drawing practice. In my time of learning additional skills, it takes at least that to learn anything, whether it's drawing, languages, etc. My own habit is to wake up early in the morning before work, brew some coffee, and get drawing. A bad day looks something like this:
   
A drawing from this morning, which happened to be a bad day.

I did some form practice, screwed up some proportions, and then practiced some pen drawing and circles and lines. I'm not happy with it, but such is the life of an aspiring artist. I'm not ashamed of showing it, as I have produced work that is much worse, and much better, and it doesn't embarrass me any more.

Once you figure out your time slot that you must complete consistently every day, you are free to do whatever additional work outside of that time slot. That's when you are free to explore more detailed studies, try digital art, or meet babes at coffee shops before swooping them at your pad.

Your practice time is sacred.

Just like going to the gym, you have to do this consistently or you will not improve.

Good Days and Bad Days

You're going to have good days and bad days. Days where you cannot figure out what the fuck you're getting wrong with a face until you see it the next day, redfaced, because you drew the damn nose and chin too damn long to be in a reasonable proportion. Other days, you're going to pick up a pen and draw a face from imagination while bored in a meeting and people are going to stare at it because they can't draw. That's just how it is.

   
A good day of rendering practice from Scott Robertson's book


That said, let's move on to what you're going to practice.


The very important basics: drawing circles, straight lines, and holding the pencil

• Tool grip
  
  
  A lot of people use the same grip that they use for penmanship, which is not the best place to start drawing smooth lines. Having a loose grip towards the back of the pen or pencil will give you better control of smooth lines, as it gets rid of the twichiness of your fingers and wrist.
• Drawing with the whole arm
  Your wrist has very limited movement, and towards the extreme of your fingers/wrist movement, your drawing can get very shaky and uncontrolled. However, with large, circular movements or straight lines, moving your entire arm from the shoulder down makes drawing a lot easier.
• Draw towards you
  It is much easier to draw in a direction that's towards you than away from you.
• Rotate the damn paper
  Even if you decide to go digital, you can rotate the virtual paper on the virtual easel and still draw in a more favorable direction. So, do it. Whatever your arm mechanics tend to do best with, do that.
• Short vs. long strokes AKA CHICKENSCRATCHING
  One of the worst habits beginners tend to have is drawing tiny little chickenscratch lines because they are unsure if they're going to screw up a feature. So, instead, they draw a millimeter, correct and partially draw over with another millimeter, over and over until they have a jagged edge line that is kind of sort of in the right shape.
  Fuck that.
  Work on confidently laying down contour lines in the general shape you want. If you screw up, so what? You've got plenty of damn paper and can always start over. If you're worried about drawing good lines, practice contours.
  
  If you don't want to make that part of your daily drawing ritual, then take out some free leaves of paper and practice there. However, this is a fundamental part of drawing, and absolutely invaluable to improve. I do it all the time.
• Drawing big vs. drawing small
  Generally, it's easier to fine tune a larger drawing. If you find yourself drawing in a tiny little corner of the paper, please try to get out of that habit as you're making it overly difficult. You don't need to make broad strokes that are the size of the paper, but work on basics before you try anything too miniature.
• Phantom lines
  Before committing to a circle or a line, I will draw in the air, without touching the paper, in the direction and length that I want. This is helpful for circles, as it loosens up your arm joints and muscles and prepares them for a cleaner circle.
  

Switching to pen to increase line quality
Pencil is great to practice on, because it let's the new artists who don't have confidence erase their mistakes.
However, I highly recommend practicing with a pen. Just draw smooth lines, use a reference and try to capture it in as few clean strokes as possible. You'll make mistakes. However, I've found that I'm surprised at how few mistakes are made when you know that you have to commit to a line. Pen forces that upon you. Work on your visualization of what the line will look like before you lay it down. This is what master artists do. It's a skill that requires significant practice.

Imitating Others
I have specific artists that I follow and imitate from time to time. A bookshelf full of works that I probably shouldn't have bought, but I am a book hoarder and this suits me. You don't have to do that. I do suggest, however, finding artists that you enjoy and trying to imitate their style.

Just as an example, some artists draw with brush pens, and focus on a very limited pallete. I enjoy that work, and will grab a brush pen and practice it. I'm horrible with the brush pen, but every now and then I turn out something worthy to hang on my wall.

Drawing in public and meeting babes
Once you get over yourself and start making drawings that you don't hate yourself for, it's time to step out of your home and draw in public. There are some key things to do here that I recommend to optimize your experience.

• Practice figure drawing beforehand
  There are youtube channels and figure drawing websites like http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-t...e-drawing/ that show a figure for a short period of time, where you are pressed to hammer out a drawing gesture then move onto the next one. These are powerful for speeding up your understanding of form and line, and will help you to draw much better in public.
• Flat references are boring and easy
  Given enough time, you can copy someone else's drawing from a sheet of paper and recreate it. You're only limited by time - the more skill you have, the less time it will take. But, given a very unskilled person, they can copy perfectly a photograph or other two dimensional image. This is why hyper-realistic painting is so damn boring. There's not much creativity in it.
  Drawing in public, however, whether it's at an art school or just at the coffee shop, forces you to interpret three dimensional, real figures into two dimensional drawings on your page. This is much more difficult than just copying pictures, and takes some getting used to.
  Do it as often as possible. I like to do it when I'm bored at meetings.
• Dress Well
  If you're going to be hanging at a coffee shop or in public, drawing people, it's best not to look like a neckbeard or social outcast. You don't need to get suited up, but don't go out there with stains and crap all over your pants.
• Tip the staff well
  Find a coffee joint that doesn't suck and tip the staff well. Get to know at least one or two of them, strike up a conversation, so that they know you're not a social reject before you start drawing random people in their store.
• Occasionally invite cute girls to meet you an hour or so after you started drawing.
  This is where it gets interesting. You've gotten the phone number of a girl, somewhere, and you don't want to buy her dinner on a first date because you're not an idiot. So, you invite her to a coffee shop. However, you don't let you know that you're an artist and that you'll be drawing for quite a bit before she shows up. This lets you get your practice in, possibly start chatting with people around you, and then you have something to show off when they arrive. It's the best conversation starter there is. She likely won't turn down your offer to come back to your pad and see your art.
• Once you've made sweet love to them/banged them into a coma at your pad, you can use your refractory period to pull out your notebook and practice figure drawing while they sleep it off. This is especially nice for daytime bangs when the sunlight is pouring through the window in the summer and casts nice shadows all over their tight bootymeat.
  Congratulations, you have just used a manly skill to get laid, yet also created something of value at the same time.
  

Digital Art
   

• Drawing Tablets
  A good drawing tablet is essential to doing good digital art. Personally, I own a wacom tablet that has a drawing surface that is about 8 1/2 x 11". It has a touch interface, but it is flat black. No screen. I haven't had the need to purchase one with a screen you can draw on. There are a few options here, and they're coming down in price, but I don't have anything intelligent to say.
  Even with my relatively cheap drawing tablet with no screen, I can hover the pen over the screen, and it will show the cursor position without touching the surface and laying down a line. This is essential for building hand/eye coordination and practing some phantom lines before committing to one. Of course, with a computer, you can always ctrl-z and undo, but it's good to at least attempt a solid line on the first try.
• My love of Krita (free)
  For the reference, my entire software toolchain for digital drawing is free, including Gimp, Krita, and Blender. I end up using all of them. Krita is the best for digital art, Gimp is good for quick cropping and image editing, and Blender is great for 3d sculpting, rendering, and creating forms to draw over. Hell, I'm also running a free operating system! All of these are free, but I have donated to Krita because it's such a damn good tool.
  There are people that get paid to make work in Krita, and they never have photoshop. If you want to use photoshop, that's fine, but I haven't found the need to plunk the money down when there's such a good, free tool available on all platforms.
• Benefit of being able to mirror
  Digital art lets you easily mirror an image instantly. That is, if you're drawing a face, you can immediately flip it. In Krita you just hit the "m" key. Why is this a good thing though?
  Flipping an image over lets you view your drawing bias. You're used to seeing it by the time it's mostly done and on paper, so mirroring it and seeing it from that perspective starts to show all the flaws. Professionals use this to identify their errors. You can use this technique to catch your own mistakes, once your eye is developed.
• Make multiple copies of base art and experiment
  Digital artwork allows you to quickly copy anything you want, and then do whatever you want with it, while still retaining the original. You can do the same with traditional paper and tracing paper, but it's a lot more time consuming. Learning to color and not sure about what to do? Make a whole bunch of thumbnail images and try a few color schemes until something starts looking good.
• Layers are magic
  Layers are a concept in digital art, and other digital creative fields, that lets you preserve the original. I can lay down the line work of a piece, and then create a new layer with all of the color. Then, I can add black and white shading on another layer above that. If I later decide that I don't like the original colors, I can change the color layer while preserving the shading.
  This is invaluable, and I will not get into it here, but it's a feature common in any digital drawing tool.
  

   

Pitfalls of digital drawing
Moving to digital drawing too soon will amplify all of your chickenscratching bad habits and make you overly reliant on the software. Take breaks and get back to traditional media on a regular basis if you ever get heavy into digital. It will help you identify weaknesses.


Pushing it Even Further

• Blender
  Blender is a FREE three dimensional modeling too. If you want to step up your artist game, I recommend getting familiar with it because it cannot hurt, and even though it is not used everywhere, it can get your foot into many doors. Skills and concepts learned in 3d modeling are often transportable into other professions and software, even though user interfaces and objectives change.
• Learning 3d modeling is another subject matter entirely
  There are a lot of good Youtube channels and tutorials online for learning various Blender skills. Once you get started, it's good to check out those because it's beyond the scope of this datasheet.
• Combining multiple tools (I'm not there yet myself)
  Combining tools like Blender and Krita lets you accomplish some fantastic things. For example, say I'm designing a crazy awesome science fiction drawing scene with spaceships and all kinds of goodness. The spaceships are probably pretty rigidly geometric, with specific perspective and dimensions. I can draw that by hand, but it's so much easier to make a 3d model, spin it around and put it in the perspective I want, then use that image as a layer in a Krita drawing to put line art over it in order to give it character. This is a commonly used technique for finished artwork.
  

Youtubers to follow
I am a fan of Sycra, who has a wealth of good tutorials on his channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Sycra/videos
I am also a fan of CG Cookie, who has more tutorials from a different perspective:
https://www.youtube.com/user/conceptcookie/videos

Visions of a true master: Kim Jung Gi
I am wrapping up this datasheet with a video of what is possible if you decide to really take on drawing as a skill that you must perfect. Kim Jung Gi is amazing. He can visualize almost anything and lay down near perfect brush strokes. It's just what he does. This video is a good example of his skills, as well as his manly mind drawing wild sex scenes in his notebook:

His use of visual library (memory of what he has seen in life) and imagining his strokes before placing ink is legendary.

[spokepoker]

3dbuzz.com has lots of 3d tutorials, I used it when learning solidworks.

[262]

For some reason I expected this thread to be about drawing pussies and somehow profiting.

[Suits]

9/10 Thread Title.

[Elster]

^^^
262:
In my experience pussies are already pretty hard but cocks ironically remain a greater challenge

[kbell]

Perfection is the enemy of getting any piece of art done. I stopped quite a few pieces of artwork since I pursued getting it perfect.

Feathering isn't the bad if you erase it and control the line weight later with an eraser. Those kneaded erasers were the best at cleaning without destroying the paper if I remember correctly. Haven't did serious drawing for awhile.

Mirroring is a crutch, but excellent for getting base forms done. You will eventually have to break it for assymetry which every face has.

I used blender since 2001, but use zbrush far more now. I'm surprised its getting so popular now. Its 700 or more now, but its a whole different ball game in terms of digital sculpting. People would chat me up all the time when I was working on a character, but its a much slower process than drawing so they lose interest on it after awhile.

I have a surface pro 3 myself. Touch screen, its fun to use but the font is small for me to see. Windows 8 sucks so its awkward for me to use. I don't think my software works well on 10 yet. Its a far more expensive set up than a wacom, but less parts involved in drawing something. Also what you see is what you get with pen strokes.

Drawing copies of master artwork from baroque periods which proper composition and proportion generally attracts a ton of attention. I'd also recommend taking figure drawing courses and anatomy courses if you want to get to the next level.

[philosophical_recovery]

(06-05-2016 10:06 AM)kbell Wrote:  

Perfection is the enemy of getting any piece of art done. I stopped quite a few pieces of artwork since I pursued getting it perfect.

Feathering isn't the bad if you erase it and control the line weight later with an eraser. Those kneaded erasers were the best at cleaning without destroying the paper if I remember correctly. Haven't did serious drawing for awhile.

Mirroring is a crutch, but excellent for getting base forms done. You will eventually have to break it for assymetry which every face has.

I used blender since 2001, but use zbrush far more now. I'm surprised its getting so popular now. Its 700 or more now, but its a whole different ball game in terms of digital sculpting. People would chat me up all the time when I was working on a character, but its a much slower process than drawing so they lose interest on it after awhile.

I have a surface pro 3 myself. Touch screen, its fun to use but the font is small for me to see. Windows 8 sucks so its awkward for me to use. I don't think my software works well on 10 yet. Its a far more expensive set up than a wacom, but less parts involved in drawing something. Also what you see is what you get with pen strokes.

Drawing copies of master artwork from baroque periods which proper composition and proportion generally attracts a ton of attention. I'd also recommend taking figure drawing courses and anatomy courses if you want to get to the next level.

I also have a Surface Pro 3 but have nearly zero drawing experience on it. I had to get one of those partial gloves that keeps your palm and pinky from activating the screen to draw on it. Played around some with Sketchbook, as Krita's icons are so small on that hardware, as you mention.

Yeah, 3D sculpting is fun but you do have to sink a lot of time into it. It takes getting into the zone and just going for it. I would like to do some character creation from 3 angles and using that as a background to sculpt over, but it's too distracting from my main project.

[kbell]

Anime studio Pro http://my.smithmicro.com/anime-studio-pro.html,is recommended for drawing on surface pro by the guys here http://surfaceproartist.com/

I think it has some sort of hand block feature when drawing.

Zbrush works fine but the words are super small on it. No gloves needed.

When you get a feel for drawing decently on the screen, you have access to almost every medium, and can delete bad strokes too. I will play with krita some to see if you can adjust icon sizes and hand block support.

[marty]

Great info, thanks. Will rep soon. I've been considering getting into drawing for a while, this might be the push I needed. I have a stupid question. Stupid because it's vague and varies between individuals. With about an hour practice a day how long do you think it will approximately take until someone can do decent looking drawings? Which look like proper drawings that you would proudly show others. Just a rough guess e.g. a month, 6 months, a year, ...? Just to know what to expect.

Also I guess if you can draw well, picking up painting isn't that hard. The basics still apply, you "only" have to learn how to handle the brush and the paint. What I mean is it's kind of a natural progression, like learning another foreign language.

[philosophical_recovery]

(06-05-2016 11:59 AM)marty Wrote:  

Great info, thanks. Will rep soon. I've been considering getting into drawing for a while, this might be the push I needed. I have a stupid question. Stupid because it's vague and varies between individuals. With about an hour practice a day how long do you think it will approximately take until someone can do decent looking drawings? Which look like proper drawings that you would proudly show others. Just a rough guess e.g. a month, 6 months, a year, ...? Just to know what to expect.

Also I guess if you can draw well, picking up painting isn't that hard. The basics still apply, you "only" have to learn how to handle the brush and the paint. What I mean is it's kind of a natural progression, like learning another foreign language.

I went from no way in hell I could draw anything that even resembles a face unless I had a picture right in front of me, to being able to draw decent faces with no reference in about six months-year. I would also watch a lot of Youtube tutorials while drawing. It was one of my habits I picked up while doing the 1 Year Drinking Wagon Challenge.

However, you may require someone looking at your work and giving you pointers. It depends on how good your eye is more than your drawing skill. For the longest time, I was making mistakes on the height of faces - I would always tend to draw the noses far too long, as well as the chins. I had to overcompensate by deliberately drawing them way to short, and experiment until I got something more reasonable.

I wish I had started Loomis earlier, as from the get-go he has you constructing faces easily out of basic forms. Even if they look cartoony, it's a fantastic start.

[debeguiled]

(06-05-2016 12:08 PM)philosophical_recovery Wrote:  

It depends on how good your eye is more than your drawing skill. For the longest time, I was making mistakes on the height of faces - I would always tend to draw the noses far too long, as well as the chins. I had to overcompensate by deliberately drawing them way to short, and experiment until I got something more reasonable.

When I taught myself to draw, my mantra was that the secret wasn't being perfect on the first go, the secret was being willing to keep drawing a line again and again until it was right.

[kbell]

When I was in art college, beginner drawers took about 6 months to a year to become competent with instruction. This wasn't every day of instruction but they did give us homework and the classes were 3-6 hours long. I personally been drawing since I was 4 or 5 years old. So it was more refinement at that point and technique fixes. I wasn't top of my class though, those artists were beasts.

You might want to consider getting a glove or a second sheet of paper to rest your drawing hand on to draw too so you don't smudge up your drawings when moving the hand around. This more critical when you get to shading and if your using softer pencils. You could train yourself also not to drag your hand on the sheet if your first starting though. Consider getting an 2h (hard, yet light pencil great for sketching in proportions, curve lines and base forms), hb (standard pencil) and b pencil (soft but creates darker shades). As you become better the amount of pencils you use increases. Although mechanical pencils are nice since they are always sharp and come in different sizes tips.

Painting is much harder than pencil or pen drawing in my opinion. The easiest is acrylic which drys super fast. Blending paints to get different colors is hard to learn. Its also not very portable. Although surface pro 3 style painting allows it.

[General Stalin]

Nice sheet man.

I am an illustrator by hobby. I used to draw non-stop when I was in grade school. Doodles, sketches, comic books, whatever. I was always drawing in class and at home. I used to get in trouble at school for drawing and not paying attention. It was a passion I lost over the years due to evolving interest and have been itching to get back into for a long time.

Can't say it ever got me laid or that I ever considered it as an avenue to get laid. I have shown some of my work to girls before and they were impressed.

Jack Dawson comes to mind when I think of artists game. Get a bitch to pose nude and draw her. Having a man scanning over every inch of her body and immortalizing it on paper/canvas is sure to get a bitch going.

[Elster]

I was terribly shy as an adolescent and since I couldn't bring myself to dance halls I cultivated speed drawing/portraying/caricaturing of girls at cafes and bars. It did wonders for my understanding ofbody language and as an ice breaker (though I continued being a blue pill dumb ass)

[philosophical_recovery]

(06-06-2016 04:17 AM)El_Gostro Wrote:  

I was terribly shy as an adolescent and since I couldn't bring myself to dance halls I cultivated speed drawing/portraying/caricaturing of girls at cafes and bars. It did wonders for my understanding ofbody language and as an ice breaker (though I continued being a blue pill dumb ass)

I think I found a video of you:

It's okay though, because she's hot.

[hydrogonian]

I think that media-based art is only likely to improve social capital to the extent that it improves your social environment that you are in control of similar to other tactics that have been used across the storied history of the pickup artist.

For instance, are you a skilled enough charcoal, pastel, or oil artist to have women dying for you to sketch them? Simply, does your ability to interpret the female face and form leave them a little damp? That could make for an interesting life.

Do your watercolor or oil paintings inspire emotion and a following? That puts you at the center of group interest, not dissimilar to a (small) rock-star.

But all of that would start with drawing practice in the manner that the OP prescribes.

[HonantheBarbarian]

Excellent points by philosophical recovery! Theres not much I can add that he hasn't already mentioned, but I will provide a few additional pointers:

-For black and white line drawings and basic sketches, use a Prismacolor Verithin. For designers and many fine artists they are the industry standard. The lead is extremely hard, so you wont have to worry about smudging and it has a very distinct sharp contrast look.

-Adding to the above, if you plan on coloring or using any additional media over the line drawing, graphite (which is what normal, mortal pencils use) doesnt play well with a lot of materials out there. Verithin doesnt give you this problem.

-If you cant mirror digitally, just flip your paper over and hold it up to the light/window or even an actual mirror. Seeing your image backwards will expose flaws your eyes didnt pick up.

-Train your self to draw standing up. My accumen increased at least 3 fold when I was forced to work this way. If you're serious, get yourself an easel. The image you see warps and extends when youre sitting down and looking at a desk. Use your whole arm like Pr said.

-When drawing people, there are basic proportional guides to follow if you want a believable figure drawing people take seriously. Things like distances between pelvis, neck and head. Look them up. They are important.

-Practice for 15 minutes just marking an entire sheet of paper with lines. This will develop your line weight and line quality. Both very important.

-Copy the masters! Master studies are one of the very integral things that have deveoped my skill as an artist in a very rapid timeframe.

-Draw from life! Dont draw a picture of an apple. Thats bitch shit. Grab an apple with nice colors, place it on a table and set up a good light source, and sit down and draw that. Your eyes are smarter than you think. They know the difference. My teacher was so badass that she could tell immediately if a student drew from photo or life just by looking at the finished drawing.

-Mileage is everything. You dont learn from 10 approaches. You dont learn from 10 napkin drawings either. Its a journey.


As far as pussy goes

-Women are easily impressed, and most people suck ass at this. If you are even what I would consider a 4/10 in skill level, you will still get oooo's and ahhhhhh's at your work. Use this to your advantage.

-Draw stupid shit that other people are really into if attention is what you are after. Things like breaking bad characters, GoT, Star Wars etc. Not what I cut my teeth on, or like to spend my time drawing for that matter, but bitches will respond to it.

-Every girl wants to be Kate Winslet in Titanic. Be her Leo Dicap. Develop even a cursory understanding of charcoal figure drawing and girls really will be down to let you draw them naked.

-Social proof. Having a wall of classy, elegant naked chick drawings is the 15th century rennaisance equivalent of her seeing all of your tinder conquests plastered on the wall.

-Take life drawing workshops. They are usually a couple bucks, they bring a bunch of (not attractive) naked people and you draw them with a group. Your skills will exponentially increase and hot chicks usually take these classes. Game as usual.

-Make no mistake. Being an actual, classical artist in the romanticized sense is the closest, next best thing to being a rock star. The stigma alone will do a lot for you.

[captain_shane]

This is a great post. I have one question though, does hand position while holding the pen/pencil really matter that much? When I learned how to write as a child I developed a fucked up way of holding the pencil, and no one forced me to learn the proper way. Instead of resting the pointer finger on the pen like this pic:



I use my middle finger instead, and my pointer finger kind of wraps around it. Is it possible to be at all proficient at drawing without the proper mechanics? Or should I force myself to learn the right way?

[HonantheBarbarian]

Shane, you will cripple your drawing ability holding your pencil that way.

As mentioned above, your line quality will suffer greatly!

What does this mean? It means you will have shaky erratic lines that visually disort the image and fuck with your overall product.


I say this because, being a lefty, I too had a very gnarled, incorrect way of holding the pencil dating back to early childhood.

This is mainly due to learning how to write.

The correct way to hold your pencil is as follows;

1.Allow the rear end of the pencil to rest between your thumb and palm.

2. Loosely and genly, rest the front end of the pencil in the space between your index and middle fingers. These two fingers should be straight, there should be no wrap around.

3. Just like a punch doesnt start with the fist, your strokes generate from your shoulder and transfer down to your elbow. Unless you are working in tiny, minute details, your wrist should have minimal to no movement. A true artist will even rotate his hips to generate the correct line.

4. Direction. If you are a righty, start your stroke from the left and move right across the page. If you are a lefty, vice versa. You should never push the pencil, always be pulling. This will at times require you to flip your canvas around and work upside down, as PR mentioned.

5. Keep your pencil absolutely sharp at all times. This is key key key. A dull pencil makes shitty lines. Line quality. At my school you hear the whirr of an electric sharpener every ten seconds. I would sharpen my own pencil at least once every 60 seconds. It makes a big difference. Its also why the Verithin is a superior pencil over graphite, as it keeps a harder lead for a longer period of time. This tranmutes to nicer lines and a nicer overall image.

[redbeard]

Great datasheet. I'm glad you were able take the energy from the drinking wagon and channel it into a positive experience.

I am tied up with hustles right now, but maybe in a few months I'll make this my campaign.

[fighter]

Anyone tried drawing with B pencils? I mean B2 or even 4 and 6. When I use the H types it doesn't feel right. Also what kind of paper do you suggest for pencil, coal and pastel drawings?

[King of Monkeys]

I've been drawing on and off, and I'm getting back into it this summer. I have a few resources I can drop.


Peter Han: Dynamic Drawing

Han goes over exercises for improving straight lines, curves, circles, ellipses, and other basic drawing skills. They're good exercises to warm up with before diving into studies.

Robert Norling: Perspective Made Easy

A beginner's guide to understanding perspective. If you want to set the framework for understanding how to draw cubes, furniture, and objects in perspective this is a good place to start. It includes exercises at the end of each chapter to keep your eyes and hands sharp.

Scott Robertson: How to Draw

This goes much further in depth into the technicality of perspective. Making it through to the end of this book and making sure to draw each exercise means you will have a better grasp of perspective. I would say the concepts are more in depth and difficult to grasp, so I suggest checking out Perspective Made Easy before diving into this book.

Michael Hampton: Figure Drawing - Design and Invention

Hampton explains how to draw gestures and then each proceeding chapter builds on the last one. Proko on Youtube has a reliable tutorial for getting the basics of gestures, and quickposes.com has plenty of figures to draw from.

Stephen Rogers Peck: Anatomy for the Artist

Rogers uses drawings and explanations to show the relationship between joints, bones, and other human body parts. It compliments Hampton's books since this knowledge is applicable to drawing the human figure or even those of animals.

Andrew Loomis: Fun with a Pencil

This book gives the artist a tool set to begin constructing figures and faces from imagination. There are tips on proportions for the ideal figure and on placing features on the human head. This builds an artist's ability to construct their drawings from 3D shapes.


Don't let yourself get overly frustrated when drawings don't turn out the way you expect. Although the amount of resources is overwhelming, you'll find yourself jumping back and forth between books often. Personally, I would suggest finding two resources you can alternate studies. For instance, Fun with a Pencil and Dynamic Drawing both mutually benefit each other. Practicing using one of these is going to help you in the other. Monday could be using one book, Tuesday the other, and so on.

The most important part is to keep it fun. Getting burned out means you will be much more willing to completely drop drawing, so find a way to keep it enjoyable and you'll breeze through practicing.

[philosophical_recovery]

I think I've played around or own most of those except for "Perspective Made Easy". I bought too many books, more than I have time to work through myself.

Anyway, Hampton's figure drawing book is interesting, but I think it's best taken as a supplement after Loomis. I wish I had practiced more Loomis before I did Hampton's book, or I just don't learn well from Hampton. I drew almost everything in there, and didn't retain much. I retained a lot more of Loomis' books, because he has direct practice with many many examples. It made me realize how simple some of the drawing concepts are. Hampton required a lot more snappy, visual memory to piece it all together and not get lost in the beautiful renderings.

Loomis has a short intro to perspective in his first book, among all the other basics, which is why I recommend "Fun with a pencil" above all others.

I may revisit Hampton after I finish all of Loomis. My biggest difficulty is expanding my visual memory on organic shapes.

Robertson's book could be difficult to grasp, interesting point. I come from an analytical background, so I think I adapted to his style a lot more because it's extremely mathematical in that sense.
This is worth noting to others who lean less analytic.

[philosophical_recovery]

(06-07-2016 02:20 AM)fighter Wrote:  

Anyone tried drawing with B pencils? I mean B2 or even 4 and 6. When I use the H types it doesn't feel right. Also what kind of paper do you suggest for pencil, coal and pastel drawings?

There's an artist supply store with drawing testing pads near me, where if I'm curious about anything I try it out and ask the staff.

Someone else may be able to give a specific recommendation, but see if you can find one. You probably need a heavier weight paper with some bite to it (different roughness, texture) for media like pastel.

[HonantheBarbarian]

(06-07-2016 02:20 AM)fighter Wrote:  

Anyone tried drawing with B pencils? I mean B2 or even 4 and 6. When I use the H types it doesn't feel right. Also what kind of paper do you suggest for pencil, coal and pastel drawings?

For pastel and charcoal drawings I have found no better paper than Canson Mi-Tientes. You can find sheets for about $3 at most art stores and they usually come in 19.5x26", allowing you to cut them down to what ever size you need. This particular type of paper has been around for centuries.

It is two-sided, meaning that the front has a very heavy texture good for figure drawings, life drawings and that sort of thing.

The back is smoother and less textured, so designers doing car drawings or product drawings tend to prefer this side more.

Steel Grey is a good color to practice on that is versatile.