#ive been using quickposes for practice

[whywasthissohardtomake]

another @ultrainfinitepit color palette. Hunter’s eyes gives me so much inspo

[dorkfruit]

sorry if you've been asked this before but i love your art and i was wondering how you learned to draw? like did you do studies or did you just wing it? thanks for answering

aw thank you! im self taught, so i do studies and draw almost every day (: i use a lot of resources online to practice.

info/resources under the cut

good yt channels with info: finch | sinix | sycra | proko | love life drawing <- i watch these a lot for tutorials but mostly just watching someone draw makes me wanna draw

other stuff:

fresh eyes - this is a free course that teaches you how to draw people. really good for beginners. they have a paid forum i’ve been apart of for years too that has a lot of exercises that do a good job of breaking different parts of anatomy down into easy ways to learn

quickpose - i do 10 of these at 45 seconds each for gesture practice, helps to get confident in drawing people and its a good way to warm up before drawing

sketchfab - 3d model site, if you search anything you can find a model and rotate it around to get different angles for reference

for more specific references i’ll just go on google images and search ‘arm reference’ or ‘foot reference’ and there’s plenty of images there

i tend to need a bit of structure or ill end up doing nothing, so i usually break my drawing sessions into two parts, that being reference studies and imagination drawings. so i’ll do some gesture drawing off quickpose, or maybe draw some arms from reference. then when my hand feels warmed up enough ill do some quick imagination drawings, and then finally i’ll do whatever big project i had in mind (if i had any at all, if not i just draw whatever til i get bored for the day)

i also do studies of artists work that i like. i keep a folder of all the art that i want my style to be like, and i go through them to see what traits that includes. im into more western comic book art styles, so i do copies from comic books to practice too.

but basically, as long as you draw consistently you’ll get better, so i draw almost every day even if it’s stupid doodles LOL

here’s some of my studies/sketches as examples:

the 45 second gesture drawings i mentioned (ive done 100s of these LOL)

reference studies based on photos

imagination drawing where i just scribble random stuff just for the sake of drawing

i’d been planning on uploading my studies to a separate blog someday actually cause i’m gonna run outta space on my ipad eventually LOL

anyways, thanks for the ask! so happy you like my art (: im working really hard to get good but i’ve still got a long ways to go

[wollfling]

Hello! I have an art question, if you don't mind talking about art stuff! I'm trying to get better at drawing, but having a really hard time with figuring out how to draw people. I feel like I've made progress with things like animals, objects, etc but I just can't get my drawings of people to improve! You draw people (and everything else tbh!!) so beautifully, do you mind if I ask how you learned to draw them? Or if you have any advice? Thank you for posting your art here, you're such a big inspiration and I love seeing your posts when they come across my feed! 💗

I love talking about art stuff!!! ♡ firstly, thank you aww ;×;) !! I'm so flattered, its really so sweet of you to say that!!

(( oh my god once again I've written so much I am so sorry! I put a tldr at the end, I couldn't quite go into much detail about specifics because im not quite sure what specifically you would like to improve, but I did try to cover some bases but please don't be afraid to message me with any more info or questions!!! ))

I'm a bit of the opposite where I can only draw people and struggle making progress with everything else lol, I admire you a little bit!! 🤭

People can be hard to capture, because we naturally (subconsciously?) examine them trying to determine things like emotion and im not quite sure how to put it but... health? For most people, its easy to see if someone is tired or sick at a glance. This comes into play when drawing people because we are wired to immediately analyze everything about them and pick up things that are wrong (think of uncanny valley type stuff!)

I often think about something bob Ross said, I dont have the time to hunt it down but what he said was basically along the lines of; he prefers painting scenery, because when we see a scenic painting its easier to think "this looks like somewhere ive been!" And its more believable. Meanwhile, its hard to capture the exact likeness of someone. If its a little off, we feel it looks "bad". I may have changed or added some points in there, but I think that was the general idea? 🤔 thats not to say scenic paint is easy in any way, its just about how we view it.

My point in this is, the key to drawing people is to create a believable figure. And how to achieve this depends on the style you draw them in ! I can only offer advice for stylized drawings (i struggle to draw hyper realistic people, and I also just don't enjoy it? Lol) but im assuming that since you like my art you're okay with that? ^^

In regards to how I learned to draw, well.. ive been doing it since I can remember ^^; I grew up watching anime which definitely altered my style and interests, and when i was in high-school I transitioned from an "anime adjacent " style, to a generalized "stylized" look, and now I strictly use photo reference which has helped make my style less cartoony but it still shares cartoon elements I feel? For a long time I drew without using references at all which im sure also contributed to how I draw things now. I havent had a chance to take art classes, so I've learned mostly by self study. Practicing drawing from reference, looking up tips and tricks youtube videos, watching other artists work and looking closely at their pieces to try and see how they achieve certain looks. Eventually it all adds up! How i draw people is a reflection of like 20 years of this!!

My biggest regret is not taking art "seriously" and going nearly all of those 20 not properly studying. This is my biggest piece of advice :^( unfortunately, im still learning how to do this myself, I think "studying" is a learned skill and hard to do without instruction. But if you can draw animals and objects I think you probably know a little bit on how to. So then looking a bit deeper into "improving", what about your drawings do you feel are lacking?

Circling back to my earlier paragraphs, how you want to improve depends on what sort of style you are going for and the way you want to portray or capture people. Portraits rely on technical skill i think. I'm not sure i could offer valuable advice here..

Comics, manga, and graphic novels sole intention is to tell a story through drawings. They don't give metaphors (usually!! Sometimes they do but not in the context im trying to explain) and/or tell us how characters are feeling, they show us! This is why the art styles of them often have exaggerated features, and simplified features. The eyes tend to have more detail because we read eyes for emotion, mouths are exaggerated because they are key to reading emotion (most importantly so I think! Watch: 🙂☹ the only difference is the mouth, but we can tell they feel totally different emotions.) Noses in comparison are usually more simplified as they, out of all features of the human face, are the least expressive.

If you want to improve your drawings of people so that they are more expressive and relatable, I would try to analyze how your face changes with emotion and perhaps practice with one of those emotion chart meme templates!

Illustration work is similar, but I feel the face doesn't actually matter as much. If you look at full bodied illustrations of people and zoom in on the face, you'll find that they are sometimes quite simplified! When viewing a full bodied person we generally take in the body's language first. It would take me a long time for me to explain in detail on this post (though I would love to talk about body language in illustration please let me know of you would like me to... also the body language of two figures.. but ill spare you for now ♡) I would recommend gesture drawing and timed studies. I improved drawing so much when I started doing this (I use the site quickposes a lot, set a high timer and draw!!) If drawing the face is hard for you and you can't seem to get anywhere, try focusing on the body for a little bit! Especially how bodies look when bending and twisting.. which might sound random, but I think it helps get a better understanding on how proportions can change with pose.

I wrote so much and I really didn't mean to. Its always hard to answer questions like this without much information like what your goal is and what look you want to achieve. I hope I didnt scare you away with my horrible novel of an answer but if you'd like to give more detail or ask any more questions please I welcome you to!! I love talking about art and I love love love hearing about other peoples art ;^; ♡

Tldr; when trying to improve drawing people it may not be as simple as working on technical skill, its important to keep in mind purpose, emotion, body language, and art style

[tomatoscribbles]

How did you learn to draw bodies so well?

thank you for the compliment! hmmmm, probably the same as everyone else? ive been drawing for a long time, and my study technique is anything but proper, but ive just used a ton of reference and had a lot of practice. one of the best things you can do to learn how to draw the human body is 1) figure drawing, and 2) structure studies.

knowing basic rules for anatomy is a MUST HAVE for drawing people, especially from your imagination, and its largely what i use when sketching out my figures and basic structure. both the gestures and technical anatomy are important to make bodies look correct, and honestly ive used so many sources its hard to find some for you, but ill try!

heres some good videos on drawing gestures, figures, and construction. heres many stages and how to find which you need to be in, this is also great for faces at angles! not quite what you asked me for but IMMENSELY helpful nonetheless. these are the basic anatomy rules i use, and this is how i draw legs! quickposes is a great tool to use to get better at drawing people quickly, and a good way to fight artblock.

this is just a small handful of help, but you can find help all over the place! i browse places like pinterest to see a bunch of poses at once and see what im going for the at the time, and a lot of my approach to drawing people is largely based on memory and general knowledge of anatomy. 

if youre having trouble in certain areas or just in general, dont be afraid to look it up! even in recent years ive done it plenty when i get stuck. use reference, pull insp from other peoples styles, experiment! but its always best to start out with knowing realistic anatomy, to form a basis of structure for stylization.

follow art blogs, resource blogs, youtube channels, watch artistic media, learn art history where you can find it - always seeing art that i love helps me to create and gives me constant reference and inspiration to pull from! even art i dont love helps, cause im seeing different styles and often mistakes that im making, or just an idea of what NOT to do.

overall, theres so much to learn and so many people to learn it from, you can go just about anywhere to study! ive never had a formal art class (at least in the kind of art i actually do), so you can see that even someone who learned as backwards as me can become decent with a lot of practice. good luck, hope i could help! <3

[confusedlucifer]

i dont usually post these faceless abominations here but ive been forcing myself to do more figure/gesture drawing bc i Loathe it and i suck at it. ive been using this site https://line-of-action.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/ which i find way better than quickposes bc they offer “class mode” which warms u up w series of 30s references and then you get to spend more and more time fleshing your sketches out, the results of which you see above. 

the blue one is from today and i think im finally getting towards more dynamic and fluid sketching mainly thanks to spending about an hour sketching along w this guys videos on gestures today so i recommend checking that out if you also struggle w gestures!!

[pikozumo]

hey i hope this isn't a bother (i read your faq so i'm obv not gonna ask for a tutorial BUT) did u mostly study anatomy through books or just through looking at photo references? i know practice is usually if not always a main factor but idrk what to practice with (other than to draw it lol)

Youre not a bother at all!( I am really bad at expressing these kinds of things through text but ive been asked a bunch so i might make a “heres how peach tackles anatomy so its probably inaccurate” tutorial at some point )

BUT the answer for me personally is through photo/video reference. Ive also taken life drawing classes, where we had a textbook that I didnt read because I just dont learn from books. SO really if you arent a book person, dont force it, BUT do check out the pictures in them and Honestly try to mimic what you see?

As for practice, I recommend breaking the body down into simple forms like cylinders or boxes and see how they interact in terms of size/ratio! I know theres also the “bean” strategy where you start the body as a bean which can be seen IN THIS VIDEO ! I dont really lean toward one way or the other personally, but thats all on preference. Body part ratios are also super important to learn, especially when you want to get into stylizing anatomy! 

Also also, If you are okay with it, posing in front of a mirror works too! And i also super slip up with anatomy stuff all the time tbh so I check out THIS BLOG sometimes to see how others tackle stuff I might struggle with! Oh I also used to do an hour of timed gesture drawing On QuickPoses!

Sorry this is really scattered but I hope it helps some!! ><