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About Digital Art / Student Member DelphineApolloFemale/United States Recent Activity
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I'm attempting to learn how to draw after failing to do so for the past 6 years. No progress has been made what so ever towards my goals. I'm not out to make a name for myself or have a unique style - in fact quiet the opposite; I'd rather be a carbon copy of the people I'm attempting to mimic. I'm desperately seeking help on learning how to draw

Through the years I've attempted to understand the basics I've gathered tons of books, websites and videos. I have not made a full list of the videos or websites but if it's been linked to thousands of times for generic 'learn anatomy' or 'learn to draw form and mass' I've seen it before. David Finch's videos at Gnomon are the closest I've ever gotten to learning anything but even then I'm looking for something far more basic than what he teaches.

As for the books here is a full list:

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards
The New Drawing on the Right side of the Brain - Betty Edwards
The Natural Way To Draw - Kimon Nicolaides
Creative Illustration - Andrew Loomis
Drawing the Head and Hands - Andrew Loomis
Figure Drawing for all it's worth - Andrew Loomis
Fun With a Pencil - Andrew Loomis
Sucessful Drawing - Andrew Loomis
Anatomy for the Artist - Jeno Barcsay
Anatomy for the Artist - Sarah Simblet
Anatomy for the Artist - Daniel Carter and Micheal Courtney
Human Anatomy for the Artist- Andras Szunyoghy and Dr. Gyorgy Feher
Anatomy Drawing School - Andras Szunyoghy and Dr. Gyorgy Feher
Anatomy for the Fantasy Artist - Glenn Fabry
Complete Guide to drawing from Life - George Bridgman
Heads, Features, and Faces - George Bridgman
The Human Machine - George Bridgman
Constructive Anatomy - George Bridgman
Drawing Dynamic Hands - Brune Hogarth
Drawing the Human Head - Brune Hogarth
Dynamic Anatomy - Brune hogarth
Dynamic Figure drawing - Brune Hogarth
Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery - Brune Hogarth
The Vilppu Drawing Manual - Glenn Vilppu
Basic Figure Drawing - Glenn Vilppu
Drawing Animals - Glenn Vilppu

Better Figure Drawing - Cecile Hardy
An Introduction to Drawing - James Horton
How to draw blitz cartoons - Bruce Blitz
Advanced Drawing Skills, A course in Artistic Excellence - Barrington Barber
Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy - Christopher Hart
How to Draw Comic Book Heroes and Villians - Christopher Hart
Drawing Cutting Edge Comics - Christopher Hart
Consturction Drawings and Details for Interiors: Basics Skills - W. Otie Kilmer, Rosemary Kilmer

Pencil Drawing Techniques - David Lewis
Digital Character Design and Paitning: The Photoshop CS edition - Don Seegmiller
The Art of Animal Drawing - Ken Hultgren
The Animators Survival Kit - Richard Williams
The Human Figure in motion - Eadweard Muybridge
Drawing for the Abosolute and utter beginner - Clarie Watson Garcia
Drawing Scenery: landscapes and seascapes - Jack Hamm
Drawing The Head and Figure - Jack Hamm
Drawing Portraits, Faces and Figures - Giovanni Civardi
Drawing Realistic Textures in Pencil - J.D. Hillberry
Figure Drawing for Dummies - Kensuke Okabayashi
Figure Drawing Without a Model - Ron Tiner
FORCE The key to capturing Life through Drawing - Micheal D. Mattesi
FORCE character Design from Life Drawing - Micheal D. Mattesi
Drawing the Female Figure - Franics Marshall
The Artist's Complete Guide To Facial Expression - Gary Faigin
Understadning Architecture Through Drawing - Brian Edwards
Anatomy and Drawing - Victor Perard
How to Draw the Marvel Way - Stan Lee
Techniques for Drawing Female Manga characters - Hikaru Hiyashi
How to Draw Manga Vol. 1 - Society for the Study of Manga Techniques
How to Draw Manga Vol. 2 - Society for the Study of Manga Techniques
How to Draw Manga Vol. 3 - Society for the Study of Manga Techniques
How to Grow as an Illustrator - Micheal Fleisman
Japanese Comickers - ?
American Drawing A Manual for the Amateur - John Cadsby Chapman
A Manual on Drawing the Human Figure - L.A. Doust
Line and Form - Walter Crane
Michelangelo Drawing - Micheal Burban
Pencil Sketching - Thomas C. Wang
Perspective Drawing Handbook - Joseph D'Amelio
Perspective - Jay Doblin
Perspective Made Easy - Earnest R. Norling
Portrait Drawing - Wendon Blake
Rapid Viz - Kurt Hanks and Larry Belliston
Figure Drawing - Richard G. Hatton
See, Feel, Trace, Draw It - Sheldon Boreston
Drawing NAture - Stanley Maltzman
The Art of Drawing the Human Body - ?
Action Cartooning - Ben Caldwell
Techniques of Fantasy Art - Bruce Robertson
The Art of Drawing - Willy Pogany
The art of layout and Storyboarding - Mark T. Byrne
The Complete Book of Drawing Techiques - Peter Stanyer
The Elements of Drawing - John Ruskin
The Figure in Repose - ?
The Fundamentals of Drawing in Colour - Barrington Barber
The Practice and Science of Drawing - Harold speed
Comics and Sequential Art - Will Eisner
How to Draw what you see - Rudy De Reyna
How to Draw Everything - Barrington Barber
Classical Drawing Atelier- Juliette Aristides
Drawing Workshop II - Marie-Claire Isaaman
Mendelowitz's Guide to Drawing - Duane A. Wakeham

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:icondemiourgorgon:
~Demiourgorgon Apr 15, 2013  New member Hobbyist Digital Artist
Some advice I can give you is to imagine the contours of what you are drawing and let the pencil (or whatever you're drawing with) just glide smoothly along it. Don't worry about being perfect, just practice being fluent.
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:iconjmr4rich:
~Jmr4rich Apr 4, 2013  Hobbyist Digital Artist
[link] Sorry about that lol, I typed the link incorrect :)
Reply
:iconjmr4rich:
~Jmr4rich Apr 4, 2013  Hobbyist Digital Artist
Hi Delphine, I sent you a note a couple weeks ago. I wanted to check back with you to see how you were progressing. I want to say keep trying hard! But also I want to share a warm-up technique I use sometimes before drawing :) [link] hope that helps. That's all for now Delphine take care of yourself and I will add you to my watch list to see your progress.
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:iconsickboyardee:
thanks much for faving the linework on my saltwater croc!
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:iconprisonerofconvention:
*PrisonerofConvention Mar 13, 2013  Hobbyist Traditional Artist
Thanks so much for the favorite! :dance:
Reply
:iconcolin-bentham:
Mood: Joy ~Colin-Bentham Mar 7, 2013  Professional General Artist
thanks for the fav :)
Reply
:icondark-zeblock:
~Dark-Zeblock Feb 24, 2013  Student General Artist
Hi and welcome to :iconimprovement-club:!:wave:
Reply
:iconkhyrid:
!Khyrid Jan 28, 2013  Professional Digital Artist
My advice is to get a big cheap sketchbook, the kind with recycled paper that are very inexpensive and grab a few Ebony pencils, then just start drawing anything that comes to mind free hand.

Don't worry about the result, it's just to practice getting the muscles in your arms used to the free hand drawing. You re in a shell and you need to break free. You need to focus on expression, forget about if it looks good or not. if you enjoy it and you express yourself you will get comfortable with the use of the pencil, then when you go to do life drawing, you will be much more fluent.
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:iconnickbernstein:
~nickbernstein Dec 30, 2012  Hobbyist General Artist
My apologies if this seems overly basic, but since you said you are looking for advice that's more basic than those books, here's my take:

1. Mentally (or even actually on a layer) divide the image up into a grid. Make each line about 1" (72px) apart from each other .

2. Do the same thing to your source image. Instead of spacing your lines 1" apart, simply divide it up as many times as your canvas is divided. In other words, if your canvas is 8"x8" you would also divide the source image up 8 times by 8 times in even increments.

3. Make a new layer to draw on.
4.a. Look at the first box on your source image.
if it is the same as the canvas: move to the next box
else: try to make it the same.

5. If all the boxes aren't the same, then go back to 4.
6. If you did this for all the boxes, but the image still looks wrong, go back to 3.

A lot of people will say this won't help you improve. That's not true. This will help you learn to see things better. It's a classic technique. Some painters will cary a picture frame with wires in it to do landscape drawings and apply the same principal.

Once you can accurately copy a picture or draw from life this way, then start using less boxes. If you started using 1" boxes, move to 2" boxes, then 3" boxes, then just split it into quadrants, then you're just seeing and drawing. It's not a race, this could take you a lot of drawings to get there.

Another thing I've noticed is you're mainly only drawing edges. Edges are really important, but it's a good idea to draw areas of light and shadow as well, or shade the drawing. Sometimes things look weird when represented only in line art, but make complete sense when shaded.

The last thing I wanted to mention was - it's great to work towards improving your skill, but you should also just make time to doodle for fun. Draw some things and don't worry about how they come out. :) Make sure you allow yourself to have fun!
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:icondelphineapollo:
~DelphineApollo Jan 6, 2013  Student Digital Artist
I've followed your directions as best I could using the gridding method but unfortunately I'm still getting the same results here. I'm sad to say that I can't even tell whether or not I've failed completely or how I have gotten such poor results. The details are still completely wrong and the over all image does not resemble the one I set out to draw

The reason why I draw only edges is because I'm trying to understand the very, very basics. Shading is far, far too advanced for me right now.
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