#anyway shout out to Lill and Ben who were the people to hype up my art when i was just starting to draw more

[angryducktimemachine]

Hi Ed!

I really really love your drawings, specially the ones with holmes and your penciled ones. I hope it’s not to bold/rude of me to say but I’d love to draw like you, do you have any tips on where to start? I have some basics from forever ago but I very rusty on my abilities. Should I draw using references? A particular tutorial on YouTube? Something entirely different?

With love, from a fan of yours

Well first step you want to be a 11 year old that gets absolutely obsessed with Warrior Cats-

Ok jokes aside (and thank you very much first!!) I'll see what actual advice I can give you! My approach to art is not really actively focused on improving (as I do not want to do this as my job and so just take the motivation to practice something specific as it comes.) but I'll try and recall what has helped me over the years.

Using references is definitely a very useful thing, I'm currently trying to use them more when it comes to drawing fabric but they're useful for all sorts of things. what I did and do personally as well is just. Watching people. Trying to figure out how the movement of a body works, the way arms can bend or legs are stretched. This works both with your own body (sometimes I just stand in front of a mirror trying to see how my arm bends over my head to get a feeling for it's movement.) and just observing people in day to day life! I find this technique easier than "static" photo references cause I get a better feeling of the body but they can both be useful.

I never really watched YouTube tutorials however what I did watch is hours and hours and hours of speedpaints - i think they're really fun if you are looking for different tricks and techniques to try, the way this artist does linework vs how this one colours- i have a few up myself.

Third, if you're anything like me and thrive on compliments; get yourself a buddy who's as hyped about your own art as you are. I feel like this helps with both inspiration and motivation, most of the time when I had art, be it when i was still drawing cats or Star Wars OCs to now drawing Sherlock Holmes - I also had a friend who was currently into the same things I was - or even better, was actively creating characters and stories with me which gave me lots of ideas to draw.

Oh also a little side note if you ever find yourself frustrated with your art or struggle to find inspiration, it often helps me to switch things up a bit, do something different. Get out actual paint. Try (and fail, in my case) to carve something. Paint a wall. Learn origami. Do something with model clay. Convince yourself that you can sew anything if you just tried hard enough.

I hope at least a few of those things are useful - explaining how I got here art wise is a bit difficult cause I mainly just picked up a pen and then just never stopped. But art starts somewhere for us all and I hope you can find joy in creating!!