Drawing Tips
Oct. 11th, 2009 11:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ink_in_handDrawing is not learned overnight. It takes years and years of continued practice. I've personally been drawing ever since I had the mechanical ability to pick up a pencil and put it against paper. I've made more mistakes and more cruddy pictures than you could shake a stick at. And no matter how good I get, or how much I improve, I'm never satisfied with my ability. But being happy or proud of a picture I just finished because it was done to the best of my current skill level is absolute key to not getting discouraged.
Drawing can also can have a steep learning curve for those who didn't start early, or had stopped early and are only now picking it up again. For some, classes work, for others, classes are a disaster that could kill a person's desire to create art. Either due to clashing methods, or clashing people. A good artist does not always a teacher make. Hence why I titled this the way I did, I'm just giving a few pointers that have worked for me. Insights that help put the image in your head, onto the paper. This is not a how-to, because I can garentee that no two people create art the same.
People will say that emotions and expressions have the range they do because of how flexible our bodies are. But there is a limit to that expression. That's one reason some cartoons can look just plain wrong when it's over the top. (The first time I saw chibis it tied my brain in knots.)
Our muscles attach to bone, and our skin attaches loosely to our muscles. Our eyes are spheres, set in sockets and covered in skin that moves over them while they stay in place. Our lips and cheeks move over our jaw, teeth and skull. This can seem complicated (or basic), but I'm not asking you to think of every little thing every time you draw, that's just my own preference. Just... keep it mind. We're not sacks of meat tossed about willynilly.
The basic head. It's oval, more like a chicken egg. NOT a circle or a sphere like some will try to tell you to star off with in basic art. Some are more angular like the middle head on the right. Our are thick and reach just below that middle line, with angled muscles giving it a curved base and lines around our throats. The shoulders, whether they're sloped or squared can fit your head on either side again. And even without a face, they can express emotion. You have my permission to use the above for as much facial expression practice as you need, save it, print it, I don't mind.
This is the second stage, I use the same emotion to show how it changes visually at different angles. It's a fairly stupid looking expression but it proves my point. You can also see where I cleaned up the skull shape with the darker lines.
Ours eyes tend to be juuust below the middle of our head, and probably the main reason the gigantic chins in TF Animated gave everyone such a fit. It broke what's probably the most important ratio we possess. The mouth falls about halfway between the tip of the chin, and the eyes. While the end of the nose again tends to be halfway between the eyes and the mouth. With the actual midline between the eyes and chin above your upper lip. The base of your ears tend to start at that eye line as well, with your lobe ending pretty much at that nasal line. Look up the golden ratio in terms of humans, I've found it more helpful than anything else when trying to get humans right. And technically? The most average face is considered the most beautiful.
Now this is just a generalization, obviously we have all our own unique features that change this. It's the imperfections that make us, us.
Next: More Emotions
Your homework, should you choose to do so, is to make faces at yourself in a mirror. That's it. Make crazy weirdo faces at yourself, look how your face shifts and moves. See where it's pulled or pushed, make happy faces, make devastated faces, make I'm going to kill you faces, make what-the-hell-did-I-just-read faces. See just how far you can move your mouth in any direction, bare your teeth, wrinkle your nose, crinkle your eyes, wriggle your eyebrows. Have fun. The best way to draw what you want is to know exactly what you need to to draw it. You are your own best reference, it's easily accessible and you know exactly what it is that makes those expressions on that face, USE IT.
And if anyone questions you. Tell them it's homework, I'll gladly take the blame.
Now for my life news. I can now cross -Getting sandblasted in the snow- off my lifelong to do list. During an unplanned trip to the Sleeping Bear Dunes, a storm came off Lake Michigan and was so brutal that you could lean backwards 15-25 degrees and have the wind support you. And I say backwards, because facing forwards was not an option thanks to the sand. I'm just thankful that with my cold I had tissues in my pocket, so I was able to use them as a makeshift breathing mask. All in all, it was kinda fun save for the bruised knees and inability to breathe parts.
Drawing can also can have a steep learning curve for those who didn't start early, or had stopped early and are only now picking it up again. For some, classes work, for others, classes are a disaster that could kill a person's desire to create art. Either due to clashing methods, or clashing people. A good artist does not always a teacher make. Hence why I titled this the way I did, I'm just giving a few pointers that have worked for me. Insights that help put the image in your head, onto the paper. This is not a how-to, because I can garentee that no two people create art the same.
People will say that emotions and expressions have the range they do because of how flexible our bodies are. But there is a limit to that expression. That's one reason some cartoons can look just plain wrong when it's over the top. (The first time I saw chibis it tied my brain in knots.)
Our muscles attach to bone, and our skin attaches loosely to our muscles. Our eyes are spheres, set in sockets and covered in skin that moves over them while they stay in place. Our lips and cheeks move over our jaw, teeth and skull. This can seem complicated (or basic), but I'm not asking you to think of every little thing every time you draw, that's just my own preference. Just... keep it mind. We're not sacks of meat tossed about willynilly.
The basic head. It's oval, more like a chicken egg. NOT a circle or a sphere like some will try to tell you to star off with in basic art. Some are more angular like the middle head on the right. Our are thick and reach just below that middle line, with angled muscles giving it a curved base and lines around our throats. The shoulders, whether they're sloped or squared can fit your head on either side again. And even without a face, they can express emotion. You have my permission to use the above for as much facial expression practice as you need, save it, print it, I don't mind.
This is the second stage, I use the same emotion to show how it changes visually at different angles. It's a fairly stupid looking expression but it proves my point. You can also see where I cleaned up the skull shape with the darker lines.
Ours eyes tend to be juuust below the middle of our head, and probably the main reason the gigantic chins in TF Animated gave everyone such a fit. It broke what's probably the most important ratio we possess. The mouth falls about halfway between the tip of the chin, and the eyes. While the end of the nose again tends to be halfway between the eyes and the mouth. With the actual midline between the eyes and chin above your upper lip. The base of your ears tend to start at that eye line as well, with your lobe ending pretty much at that nasal line. Look up the golden ratio in terms of humans, I've found it more helpful than anything else when trying to get humans right. And technically? The most average face is considered the most beautiful.
Now this is just a generalization, obviously we have all our own unique features that change this. It's the imperfections that make us, us.
Next: More Emotions
Your homework, should you choose to do so, is to make faces at yourself in a mirror. That's it. Make crazy weirdo faces at yourself, look how your face shifts and moves. See where it's pulled or pushed, make happy faces, make devastated faces, make I'm going to kill you faces, make what-the-hell-did-I-just-read faces. See just how far you can move your mouth in any direction, bare your teeth, wrinkle your nose, crinkle your eyes, wriggle your eyebrows. Have fun. The best way to draw what you want is to know exactly what you need to to draw it. You are your own best reference, it's easily accessible and you know exactly what it is that makes those expressions on that face, USE IT.
And if anyone questions you. Tell them it's homework, I'll gladly take the blame.
Now for my life news. I can now cross -Getting sandblasted in the snow- off my lifelong to do list. During an unplanned trip to the Sleeping Bear Dunes, a storm came off Lake Michigan and was so brutal that you could lean backwards 15-25 degrees and have the wind support you. And I say backwards, because facing forwards was not an option thanks to the sand. I'm just thankful that with my cold I had tissues in my pocket, so I was able to use them as a makeshift breathing mask. All in all, it was kinda fun save for the bruised knees and inability to breathe parts.