What should I use to draw, paper and pencil or computer?

[gamecubeguy214 2,512]

I'm unsure where to post this, but I want to be an artist just like you guys are. I like seeing MLP art and I want to be able to make my own. I see MLP pictures made on lined pieces of paper and sometimes I see it computer made. What should I use? What's easier? What looks better? Tell me your preference. Paper or computer?

[SFyr 1,982]

Of the two, I would say drawing traditionally is the more important skill to learn.  To me, the digital bit has always been something of an offshoot of the original skill, which is best represented/studied/refined through its base part. I mean, it's a whole new thing to tackle and learn how to do, but I think you'll first want to learn rudimentary drawing concepts, form, gesture, and anatomy. Though, I think people are kinda taken with some of the pros of digital art, being that it by nature tends to be cleaner, easier to modify/fix, and tends to "look better", but I think there's still a ton to be said for the improvement that comes best through sitting down with a pencil and paper. Heck, I still can't quite match the level of detail or ease of sketching a subject that I can when using a pencil.

 

But, I'm just one person with their opinion. 

Edited August 6, 2015 by SFyr

[Akari of Duskshire 581]

I would say start with paper and pencil.  Not only is it easier to obtain pencils and paper, but it will also give you a stepping stone of sorts if you ever decide to draw on a computer.

[A Joe in the Bush 255]

The skills I learned in paper and Pencil drawing have been applicable to all other types of art. But the skills I've learned in Photoshop are photoshop specific. I would start with plain old pencil and paper, until you understand how to actually draw a pony. Then switch to a program.

[Chronicleer 31]

Learn to draw with paper and pencil first, digital is complicated, and requires MORE hand/eye coordination. This is the very basic of what it is required to self teach at any proficiency. Allot of internet artists skip the basics, and while their work looks good, they will never progress. These are the building blocks of the craft. Master form, not shape.

 

1. Learn anatomy. All of it. Practice it allot. Do this right off from your very first day. There are tons of great courses, one that was recommended to me, and I will pass it on, is Riven Phoenix's course:

http://www.alienthink.com/

 

Take the whole thing, start to finish. Just draw along with him. By the time you are done, you will be able to grasp the basics of form and anatomy.

 

2. Once you've done the course, taking NO days of breaks in between lessons. Start doing gesture drawings every single day and never stop. This is a nice site:

http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/

 

3. Take it a step further, and start actually learning your craft. A wonderful and amazing site that I can recommend whole heart is DTO (Drawing Tutorials Online):

http://www.drawing-tutorials-online.com/

 

4. Read, do, and practice each book on this list:

Andrew Loomis - Eye of the Painter

Andrew Loomis - Fun With a Pencil

Andrew Loomis - Successful Drawing

Andrew Loomis - Drawing the Head and Hands

Andrew Loomis - Creative Illustration

Andrew Loomis - Figure Drawing

Norling - Perspective Made Easy

 

I've put them in a nice order that I think you will find handy.

 

5. Then to move on to digital, if you've never worked in heavily in something like that before, I recommend the course Ctrl+Paint:

http://www.ctrlpaint.com/

 

Further reading depends on your path, though I am much fond of "The Natural Way to Draw" by Kimon Nicholaides, and the Manga Mania series, since even I delve into the taboo of drawing anime. Do NOT start out drawing anime and just get stuck doing that. Someone, who's entire experience is drawing anime will surely argue with me. This person will never achieve the life they want with their illustrations. Anime is an exaggeration of real life, just like all cartoons. Master life drawing. Practice gestures every day.

 

Do not become discouraged, while the mountain is rough to climb, when you get to the top the view is pretty sweet. It is an awesome feeling being able to draw whatever you want. You will be WELL on your way if you do the entire Riven Phoenix course. While he is not the best artist, I can promise that the excersizes he has you do, will have you drawing with measurements and angles effectively by the end of the course.

[Nintenboy195 384]

Use whatever you like, it's your preference.

[Chronicleer 31]

Use whatever you like, it's your preference.

 

I disagree, this person is asking a complicated question. They are new to art and:

 

- A good tablet is prohibitively expensive, and could be a major waste of money if it is something they are not going to stick with.

- A poor tablet can make something already difficult, impossible.

- Tablets are harder, and could discourage them from advancing.

 

As someone who has been doing both for quite some time, I can say with confidence that this person needs to build their skills with pencil and paper first.

 

For digital, I recommend the Intuos Wacom 3. Why not 5? The pros use the 3, when they are not on the Cintiq. It is affordable, and has far less cons than the 5 (which has a textured surface to start with). Don't bother with digital until you've put at least a couple of hard months into basic form. The Riven Phoenix course will guide you with that. Finish the whole course, then consider a digital tablet. If you can finish the entire course in a timely manner, I am confident you will have built the regimen to warrant this expense.

 

Tablets are harder to work with, and if you don't have the hand/eye coordination for drawing already down (it's a practiced skill not a gift), then the tablet might turn you off permanently.

[JonasDarkmane 19,785]

I think it is better to start off with paper and pencil . 

[SFyr 1,982]

@@gamecubeguy214, 

 

I think I agree with most of what @Chronicleer has to say, IF you're deadset on making this your new major hobby and being 100% serious about moving forward as much as possible. All of it sounds rather intimidating, but taken piece at a time, that's how you get good at drawing. I'm pretty sure you could vary a lot of the steps, or find other reference/drawing books and all that, but it's solid advice for a more professional path.

[gamecubeguy214 2,512]

What do you guys mean by ''Anatomy''? Do you mean the kind of anatomy you talk about in biology class or is it some kind of artist vocabulary?

[SFyr 1,982]

@@gamecubeguy214, it's related to biology, but while biology focuses pretty heavily on the different systems and their function, you're mainly looking at shape and motion. Like, your body has a 'framework' of bone, that defines the major shapes and often is simplified into the boxes and circles you may see artists use for basic planning. On top of that framework, you also have muscle groups, fat layers, and key features that change how your drawing will look. Knowing anatomy well tends to translate into knowing where the joints are, how the whole body is shaped, what parts contribute to the 'shape' of the drawing, where muscles, curves, or bone juts are visable, and so on. When you lack good understanding, it's easy to get parts that look correct but are subtly... off, or gain unintentionally noodle-like limbs, or body parts that just don't make sense/mesh well together. Instead of looking natural or impressive, bad anatomy can cause some awkward or funny-yet-bad mistakes that ruin an image.

 

Here's a very rough example of someone paying close attention to the skeleton, though the drawing is very rough: 

 

 

 

MLP doesn't rely as heavily on a strong grasp of anatomy, like many cartoons, but it's really just a stylized simplification, and knowing anatomy will still help quite a bit. Heck, some people have adopted a "more realistic" but still cartoonish style for MLP, and a stronger grasp on anatomy can be seen sometimes.

 

 

Skybound and Lucky Lass are two artists here on the forum that seem to drift towards this more realistic style. 

 

But yeah, one of the major ideals in learning to draw is learning to see your subjects as 3-dimensional forms rendered on a 2d plane, rather than flat images that are really just a collection of lines. They ideally have depth, and a system of parts/shapes (some fluid, some rigid) that mesh together to get a final form. 

Edited August 6, 2015 by SFyr

[gamecubeguy214 2,512]

Ok, I got a picture of my OC playing PAC-MAN drawn on paper.

[Chronicleer 31]

What do you guys mean by ''Anatomy''? Do you mean the kind of anatomy you talk about in biology class or is it some kind of artist vocabulary?

 

To further elaborate anatomy's roll in art, SFyr did a pretty good job:

 

- Anatomy also translates to measurements and angles. You will adopt certain joints and points on the body as a natural way of figuring out where things go initially. There are key points that help your brain naturally remember where things go, though the initial practice is hell. Lots of poses are very complicated, and you need those references to get a likeness.

 

- What's below the skin translates to what's above the skin. The most common mistake, for example, are round eyes. New artist always draw round eyes, if they were aware of the underlying anatomy of the skull and facial muscles, they would not make this mistake. Muscles, bones, fat, and sometimes organs, translate to surface anatomy.

 

- I don't think what I listed is for "professionals" only. Beginners develop allot of really, REALLY bad habits in the beginning. I am trying to curb those habits by recommending very excellent study material. For example - though not a complete list of sins - if you draw with your wrist, you will eventually develop carpal tunnel, which will dissuade you from continuing your craft. If you try to go right into cartoons, you will not understand the form, only the shape. Cartoons are complicated, and you will never quite achieve the results you are looking for unless you completely understand form.

 

If you do nothing else, complete the Riven Phoenix course. It will do several things for you, all at once.

 

- Teach you form.

- Teach you regular practice skills.

- Teach you basic anatomy.

- Teach you basic shading.

- Increase your hand/eye coordination.

- He also talks allot about his experience with the industry.

 

I swear I get nothing out of advertising him, it's just a really excellent course for beginners, and super cheap. People pick up a book and say, "Well, what do I do with this?" With his course, you just follow along. Stop, rewind, but just draw whatever he draws. After you complete the course (which is around 100+ hours of no-fluff instruction), you will be far more confident with the rest of the list.

[gamecubeguy214 2,512]

The most common mistake, for example, are round eyes. New artist always draw round eyes, if they were aware of the underlying anatomy of the skull and facial muscles, they would not make this mistake. Muscles, bones, fat, and sometimes organs, translate to surface anatomy.

 

I consider myself a beginner and I draw my eyes like this. Do artists still call that a round eye?

Edited August 6, 2015 by gamecubeguy214

[Chronicleer 31]

I consider myself a beginner and I draw my eyes like this. Do artists still call that a round eye?

 

Yes. Eyes are not ovals. I tried to find a simplified one as an example. This one is from deviant art.

 

[Guest]

I'm unsure where to post this, but I want to be an artist just like you guys are. I like seeing MLP art and I want to be able to make my own. I see MLP pictures made on lined pieces of paper and sometimes I see it computer made. What should I use? What's easier? What looks better? Tell me your preference. Paper or computer?

 

 

Of the two, I would say drawing traditionally is the more important skill to learn.  To me, the digital bit has always been something of an offshoot of the original skill, which is best represented/studied/refined through its base part. I mean, it's a whole new thing to tackle and learn how to do, but I think you'll first want to learn rudimentary drawing concepts, form, gesture, and anatomy. Though, I think people are kinda taken with some of the pros of digital art, being that it by nature tends to be cleaner, easier to modify/fix, and tends to "look better", but I think there's still a ton to be said for the improvement that comes best through sitting down with a pencil and paper. Heck, I still can't quite match the level of detail or ease of sketching a subject that I can when using a pencil.

 

But, I'm just one person with their opinion. 

Well basically this^

 

I feel that in a lot of ways digital art is very glorified to a point where many people question why they should even try there hand in a traditional medium, especially when it comes to fan art.

 

But at its base digital art has a much higher learning curve to it. You need to understand layers, tools, pixel sizes for a canvas, how to use selections, coloring for a digital image compared to a paper one and more.That's not even getting into the learning curve of using a graphics tablet as well.

 

Its also very easy to get caught up in the idea that digital art allows you to use all these crazy tools to make "clean good looking art". You can very easily over do something or get frustrated when you feel like an artwork doesn't come out the way you wanted because of said tools.  In short, it can be extremely overwhelming making you to dislike it and feel as if you have wasted your efforts. 

 

Speaking of art software and drawing tablets let me tell you from experience that I have tried just about every program in the book and own 3 drawing tablets ranging from 100 to 900 droller range. Even so, I still think I'm much more comfortable drawing on paper with nothing more than a pencil or a pen.

 

If you were to ask me, don't even dabble in digital art until you feel comfortable with a pencil and paper. Now it probably differs for each person but, I think you can get a much better idea/grasp on shape, forum, lines, gesture and just drawing in general through traditional art.

[RarityFan01 2,444]

Digital is better because you have a large variety of sizes and color, you aren't wasting trees, erasing is much better, you can draw in multiple layers, the quality is better, you have a wide range of mediums, and you don't need to get more of the medium you're using. 

 

The only draw backs are that tablets are expensive, they require a computer, and if you have poor hand eye coordination, it will be difficult.

 

I used traditional art for a long time before I used a tablet. I went through paper after paper, sketchbook after sketchbook, drawing. With tablets, you do have to occasionally purchase pen nibs, but as long as you get good ones, and you aren't a drawoholic like I am, then you should be fine. It's better in the long run. 

 

If you're going to draw for a really long time, go for the tablet. If you aren't going to make it a hobby, then go with paper. 

 

Everyone is going to disagree with me. I'm a stupid digital loser who prefers digital. So ignore me.