Thread: Developing My Art Skills

Hey guys,

I have never really been too much of an artist in my life and recently something just sparked inside of me and i just have this urge to draw, now below is a manga drawing i basically copied, i used a grid to help me get a more realistic shape, it isn't finished, the body is rubbish, the hand looks diseased and personally the breast line is just ridiculous. Basically i am new to art in a way, i want to be able to draw some cool stuff and i was wondering if anyone could give me any pointers or better yet help me improve my drawing. Yes i know it is a bad scan, the scanner is rubbish unfortunately.



Btw just to let you know, this is like the first drawing i've done in ages, plus it is a copied one and i still cocked it up, please help me out by leaving comments and suggestions on how i can improve my artistic skills

Thanks alot!

Look more carefully at the picture, see where everything goes and how it goes. Copying other pictures is a good technique for building up to drawing your own pictures well. I find that drawing rough shapes of where everything is and making sure it's all in perspective and in the right place helps. Then when you fill in the detail it's all in proportion. If you start drawing detail with no idea of where it's going you end up with a mess.

To be honest, I'd erase the chest and right arm (her right), the neck's in the wrong place and you need to correct that. The left shoulder and arm look good however as does the right hand.

You're right about the boob line.

Thanks goldney, okay so do you think that a good way for me to develop my basic skills would be to draw out the basic points of a face say of this anime type of style, give the picture all the right and needed characteristics before adding detail. Do you think that if i just work on this it will help me add the detail? I know things come with practice but this would take a while right?

If you're going to use a grid, you should use a much smaller grid. The purpose of using a grid is to break the full picture down into smaller portions that are easier to transfer(for lack of a better word). With her head and body only taking up two squares, you're kinda defeating the purpose of using the grid.

Also, when you are copying pics, you have to do a lot of visual measuring. In the reference pic, take note of exactly how far above her left eye the left goggle lens is. Take note of exactly how far above her right eye the right goggle lens is. Imagine there is a grid running across the reference picture. Would the right eye be sitting on the same line as the left eye, or would it be higher? Is the length of her nose 1/9th the width of her eye, or 1/3rd?

These measurements have to be meticulous. You need to make sure that all of the dimensions of the picture you are copying from are perfectly (or as closely as possible) scaled on your drawing.

[Edit: And yes, it is good to get your positioning in before adding detail. Just do very light lines as a sort of idea of where all of the features are going to be. Then, work in the detail as you get further along.

Position first, then fill in with detail.]

What Oneironaut said. At least, that's how I do it. It's not a travesty to use a ruler, either. If it helps, go for it. I personally just measure dimensions and draw from the centerline out when I copy knife pictures, but I use 1/4" graph paper, and I'm almost always drawing a full-scale version from a down-sized photo. It sounds harder than it is; I acquire the dimensions beforehand, and just have to very carefully, either with a ruler, or by eye as I improve, get the proportions right.

Copying is a good way to learn to draw the proper proportions without having to freehand. It's helped me a lot in my design sketches.

Hey guys, i took advice and i copied a few pictures, but then i downloaded a few anime pictures that gave me an insight into the distinctive features such as the eyes and nose and mouth etc, i managed to come up with the below, the arms are a bit long but its all my original work, no copying, just ideas from the pictures i saw, it is also not complete yet either. Pointers, comments and advice would be good

Oh and it looks purple because the scan i did was very very faint, i don't know how to change that but the picture on paper looks fine but when i scanned it it came out really faint so i had to screw around with the levels.

Okay, i would still like comments for the one above but i have started on a new one and its looking alot better since i seem to be giving it more detail as i go so that it looks how i want it, my main problem with the one above is the fact that it is very two dimentional and flat, with this one i am attempting to make it look a bit more three dimentional however i may need some pointers on where and how to make it look a bit more three dimentional so if you could maybe offer some pointers on the picture above because i may try making that one a bit more 3D before i do it to the one i am making now since the one i'm making now has taken ages, i don't want to cock it up.

I really appreciate any help as always