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[bahihs]

Spoiler: Drawings just ahead (click to show/hide)

Decided to take up the recommended Loomis book. Some sketches using ball and plane. Having a lot of trouble with the chin from below

[Araph]

Two suggestions for character line art tutorials: this Imgur gallery and Tracy Butler's Lackadaisy tutorials.

Also for characters, quickposes.com is really nice for stretching yourself out of your comfort zone when you're practicing. (I like drawing characters, if it wasn't obvious by now.)

Beyond that, I've found that watching speedpaints and artist livestreams is useful for figuring out little tricks for shading, adding details, and cleaning your work up a bit. In particular, I recommend checking out TamplierPainter's videos (they go fast; pause is your friend) as well as Plague of Gripes (also, watch his 'Let's Gripe About Horror' and 'Let's Gripe About Writing' videos just because they're great).

Finally (and this isn't particularly suited for pencil sketches, but if you have a tablet it's great for shading), watch some clips of Bob Ross on YouTube if you want to work on drawing landscapes. He uses oil paints (so a lot of the brush-based tricks don't really translate), but I've found it's still useful for learning some color theory, lighting, and landscape design.



Anyways, that's my two cents on learning art. I'm just some guy on the internet, so take it with a grain of salt, but those links have really helped me.

[bahihs]

@Araph How do we use the imgur gallery? It just seems to be a collection of images in random order with a lot of redundancy. Quickposes is an awesome alternative to posemanaic though (as to life as you can get on a computer screen).

Thanks!

[Araph]

@Araph How do we use the imgur gallery?

...You read it? It breaks down a lot of techniques for creating forms with primitives, shading, drawing realistic cloth folds, creating realistic anatomy, and a whole bunch of other things, and the drawings show simplified examples of the concepts. It also points out a lot of common mistakes.

It is a little sporadic in how it jumps around, but I found it useful.

[Dampe]

As somebody who draws almost constantly, the best advice I could give you would be to practice, practice, practice.
But that sounds rather cliché.
Using drawing books to study other artists' techniques helped me out a lot when I was just starting out, that's a good place to start.

[bahihs]

I've swapped Loomis's "Fun with Pencil" for "Successful Drawing" which seems to be far more...serious, I suppose. More than half the book deals with perspective and I've done several studies (i.e copied the drawings from the book) with perspective. But I'm wondering, is there ever a point where I can stop using a straight edge and just draw by hand/eye?

Cause right now I can't draw or match up straight lines to save my life.

[Shook]

Cause right now I can't draw or match up straight lines to save my life.

Spoiler warning: most people can't, and unless you're drawing cityscapes, you rarely need straight lines. :v
But yes, you can totally learn to do so, although one should never expect free-hand lines to be quite as straight as the ones made with a ruler (or a similar thing). Therefore, if you do find yourself needing painfully straight lines, straight edge is a great tool.

As for free-handing, i've found that it's easier to make straight-ish lines with fairly fast (or at least continuous) motions, since it tends to bypass how unsteady my hands are, making the line look totally confident and all like "RGHRGHRG I AM NOT WAVERING IN MY FAITH", although this does raise the problem of making the line hit the right spot. As it is with many things, though, it's all about practicing and finding techniques that work for you, so i wouldn't be surprised if the slow and steady approach works for someone else.

[Cheesecake]

I watch Sycra a lot on YouTube. Check him out, he's got great stuff. Basically the kost important thing to him is to draw everyday. Not for anyone else, just yourself. Because when you draw for someone else you start worrying about the outcome and how others will think. You'll start to doubt yourself and you'll draw less. Happened to me before.

Basically make a time of day where you can make a drawing that no one else will ever see. Just do it for the sake of drawing.

Another piece of advice: if you spend more time reading and watching tutorials for how to draws and stuff (like I did!) than actually drawing then you're doing it wrong.

[bahihs]

I watch Sycra a lot on YouTube. Check him out, he's got great stuff. Basically the kost important thing to him is to draw everyday. Not for anyone else, just yourself. Because when you draw for someone else you start worrying about the outcome and how others will think. You'll start to doubt yourself and you'll draw less. Happened to me before.

Basically make a time of day where you can make a drawing that no one else will ever see. Just do it for the sake of drawing.

Another piece of advice: if you spend more time reading and watching tutorials for how to draws and stuff (like I did!) than actually drawing then you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, I'm starting to see this happening for myself. I'll pore over the descriptions in the book and stare the pictures (looking at how it was constructed) but not actually draw. Part of it is I don't know what to draw so I just end up drawing basic forms in perspective which feels like a waste of time.

[Sonlirain]

Well here's my tip.
I'm rather terrible at drawing but i got a mild hang of it pretty quickly after doing one thing.

Tracing.

HOWEVER don't just put an overlay on your screen and copy it straight on like a preschooler on Deviantart.

Instead get something you want to copy (preferably lineart) and try to redraw it while constantly having it in your sight for reference.
You will both practice your hand and get a hang on some shaped while drawing something impressive looking rather than simple circles.
You will also get to remember how some artists do anatomy ETC which might be helpful in the long run.