Some Newbie Questions ;o

[NameWTH 9]

I'm hoping this is the correct place to post this, since it seems like the most relevant section even though I have no pictures to share.

 

I'd like to start getting into drawing, but I'm really bad at it. As in stickmen are about the extent of my drawing ability. So I was hoping some of you might be able to help me get started since, y'know, a bunch of you are amazing at it. So on to my questions.

 

1) First and most important one, does anypony know where I can find a good step by step tutorial starting right from the beginners stage? I've tried looking at a few sites and I find they either skip stuff (or maybe I'm just that bad at drawing straight lines and wasn't ready for the next step :l), or they just move way too slowly and I get bored after 4 days before I even get to drawing any sort of a picture.

 

If it makes a difference to what kind of tutorial I should use, I am in fact interested in drawing in the same general style as My Little Pony characters are drawn.

 

2) I notice sometimes in short guides (like when I learned to draw Perry the Platypus), a lot of the time they start with a frame kind of a thing. Like, shapes in place of body parts (such as an oval for each limb, circle for the head, etc.) that you just end up erasing later anyway. What are those for, exactly? Are they just a beginner thing or is that something even advanced artists use?

 

3) If I learn to draw on paper (which is what I'd like to learn first), is it easy to learn how to draw on the computer afterwards, or are they significantly different from each other?

 

That's it for now, though I may think of a few more later. Thanks in advance to anypony who helps out. <3

[ErBoi 501]

1. While I don't know of any tutorials offhand, there's plenty around that you can find and some are better than others. I'll try to make a note of finding some and coming back to this thread to link you to them.

As for starting at a beginner's level, some cartoon DVD's include "How To Draw" featurettes on some characters; one of the Futurama seasons has a pretty good one for Bender; but some of these have a bad habit of not really teaching you why the characters are drawn in such a way. It's also important to note that the proper, and best, way to becoming a good artist is to focus on becoming good drawing realistically and then move into things that are more stylized and simple. Once you have things like proportions, anatomy, gestures and posing down, the rest comes fairly easily.

 

2. Yes, beginning with basic shapes is something that professional artists and animators do, and they serve a handful of purposes. They construct the characters so you can consistently draw them on model (essential for animation), they help define the shape and volume before you put down the final lines (also essential for animation), and they help you map out how a character should be shaded (not essential but a nice touch for animation).

 

3. If you're using a tablet, then yes, it shouldn't be much different. Understanding the fundamentals is more important than what tools you use. There will be a difference in comfort when you switch to a different tool to draw with but the principles will still be the same. Personally, I use a Wacom Cintiq tablet and I'll admit it took a few months before I was as proficient at drawing on it as I am on paper but it was worth the practice.

If you're using a mouse, I'd advise you to get a tablet. In this case, the tool in question is a serious hinderance.

[NameWTH 9]

Thanks a ton for answering so thoroughly. ;o

 

I'll take another look for a tutorial, I guess. Probably was just unlucky with the ones I happened to check.

 

I'm a little confused about what you meant with the frame. I think I may be referring to something else when I say frame, so once I'm on back my computer I'll post a quick example.

 

Edit: Here we go.

 

 

 

Maybe that is what you meant and I'm just misunderstanding what you said. If that's the case, then what do you mean exactly by "consistently draw them on model," and how would you use it to help you with shading? ;o

Edited March 9, 2012 by NameWTH

[ErBoi 501]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. Keeping something 'on-model' means drawing the character consistently in that you don't end up drawing them with considerably different features each time you draw them (like, say, you happen to draw their legs longer than before and they suddenly become inexplicably taller). When you start with basic shapes you can have a 'plan' for your character, where each shape tells you how large each other shape should be in relative scale.

Similarly, characters in cartoons are often defined height-wise by how many 'heads' tall they are, and specific features are sometimes defined that way too (for example, Marge SImpson's hair is, usually, 3 heads tall).

 

A good thing to look into for starting out is called 'gesture drawing'. Different people can go about this a bit differently, but the main idea of a gesture drawing is to get the pose of the character drawn out as quickly as possible before you actually draw the character itself (usually with a sort of elaborate stick figure, one that includes lines for shoulder and hip-width).

Here's one something I found on youtube on gesture drawing:

 

Not quite how I do it but something you might like to look at. He takes a few minutes to actually get started though.

[ShadowBean 318]

On this site you can find many step by step tutorials http://www.dragoart.com/other-c366-1.htm

[NameWTH 9]

Oh, I see. That would explain my drawings always being way out of proportion then. Thanks for the explanation.

 

Is the gesture art another type of frame, or would that typically be done separate from the frame?

 

 

And thanks for the site ShadowBolt - just found a guide on MLP that looks pretty thorough and beginner friendly, so I guess I'll be starting with that today after work.

[ErBoi 501]

Gestures are sort of a preliminary to frames. In my life drawing class in college, each day we started with doing a bunch of 30 second drawings, then 1 minute, then 2 minute, then 5 minute and then 10 minute. The idea was that we were able to get the gestures done in the first 30 seconds so when we were drawing beyond that, we could have our construction/frames drawn in and we could have nearly complete or complete drawings when we were working in the 5-minute to 10-minute range.

Oh and because I forgot before, the shapes help with shading because they give you a quick understanding of how each part of the character's body is shaped, so from there, you just shade those parts as you would if you were just shading those shapes on their own.

Here's another example, this is actually me drawing Catwoman in time-lapse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4shKYBav0A8&feature=plcp&context=C48eaef9VDvjVQa1PpcFNDrdgKwVVhqv9w2dB5zNXJvyMZIPZeDKY=

 

I start with a gesture that's just a "skeleton" of lines, then I put shapes onto it to define the character, then I keep working in the details until I'm ready to clean it up.

[NameWTH 9]

If you had done the same thing on paper, would you erase the frame as you were drawing or would you have erased it all at once at the same time as you moved it away in the video? ;o

 

Thanks for all the help - I'm usually able to teach myself stuff but for some reason drawing is something I've never known where to start with. D:

[ErBoi 501]

If I was doing it on paper, I'd erase the frame all at once; I'd get an inking pen and trace over the lines that I wanted to be a part of the final drawing, wait a little bit so I could be sure the ink was dry, then just go nuts with a pencil eraser over the whole thing.

[NameWTH 9]

Oh, that makes a lot more sense than how I was thinking of erasing it all at once. =P Thanks again for all the help. Should be enough to get me started now.