So how did you start?

Dear artists,

I've always wanted to know how to sketch comic characters. I even got myself a pen tablet (not too fancy, just something to play with).

The thing is, I have no basic art knowledge what-so-ever. I'd like to know what do you consider to be the best point of start. My logic tells me it should be basic anatomy. Then maybe work on perspective/angles. And then shading. And finally coloring.

I guess my problem is that I give up too easily. I'm graduated in Marketing and Management, but I've always loved art and I'd love to know how to sketch. It just seems too damn difficult. I can barely sketch the shape of a head properly.

I know that in a way talent matters, which I don't have at all. But I guess practice can do wonders if I actually put some effort into it.

I wonder how did you lot started and how long did it took you to start actually being able to do your own stuff.

Hope you can enlighten me a little!

Cheers.

Well, for my HBAS junk (link in sig*... >.>), I just look at the avatar, and kinda try to see how the lines go, then make my hand draw lines nothing like them.

* - Every time I say, "link in sig", I immediatly think of this...

[ ProTip: The banner is a link to art refs!! | The Khellection | The HBAS Repository | Brute Guides (4/16/10) | How To Post An Image - A Quick Guide ]
Biggest Troll on the forums? I'll give you a hint:

Hey there False Fiction welcome to the best part of the forums!

As for how I started I learned shading first but I was a kid at the time and probably couldn't pronounce anatomy back then.
If I were to start over I would say first thing is to train your eye to see things correctly and learn basic proportions.
If you don't know things like the eye line and lip line of most any face defines the top and bottom of your ear
(go ahead put a finger at the corner of your eye and corner of your lips and then slide the hand around to your
ear ) etc you will find yourself frustrated when things "just don't look right" but you cant see what's wrong.

For comic art I would say a great starting place is "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way"
and also spend a lot of time looking at other peoples art and apply what
you are learning by seeing the proportions in their work.

Then Anatomy Anatomy Anatomy!
Once you learn where stuff needs to go to look convincing you then will want to understand the
skeleton and muscle groupings in depth to really take it to the next level. Here I would suggest
Dynamic Anatomy, or anything by Burne Hogarth and/or Bridgeman's.

Really honing your shading and detailing then will bring it all together and there are tons of
good resources on this.

Finally none of these will happen in a vacuum, i.e. you will learn some shading with your anatomy
and some anatomy with your proportions and angles (hey there's Chocolate in my Peanut Butter!)
etc etc, but that is how I would tackle it and the Marvel book touches on all those plus
how to add more drama to a scene and imparting menace or danger by changing
the viewers perspective too. Best of luck FF!

P.S. The best advice beyond that is practice constantly! Take a sketch pad and a pencil with you
when you can be in front of your pc/tablet and sketch whenever you can. Also set a goal for yourself
if you are serious... I chose to do 40 drawings in 60 days and post them all for the world to see no matter
how they turned out (see my sig button for the results) and it put positive pressure on me to keep at it
even when I wanted to quit, plus having people here following along giving encouragement was huge...
after doing anything for 60 days it's pretty much a habit.

One --> Artz Giveaway <-- To Rule Them ALL!

I will settle this. ORANGE FTW! - Ex Libris

The hard truth is that practice is how you get better. Mainly because the best way to learn is to draw from real life models, drawing what you see, and after you do it enough it get you doing things innately from an accurate source rather than using other references...

That way when you decide to draw something that isn't all together realistic you'll have the measurements ingrained in your head without having to fight with it.

Once you are at that point then you just move to basic shapes and learning how shadows and perspective actually works so you can accurately do them...


Depending on what path you go... some people have natural talent and can do what looks to be master pieces fairly rapidly, but they are only skin deep and anyone with a discerning eye can tell they aren't really all that good. Other people takes longer due to getting hung up on this issue or that issue that is caused by them trying the previous method and then having it stick, so instead of knowing what the problem is and fixing it, they continue with it and call it style but eventually they realize that because they don't know what their problem is exactly they don't know how to fix it and they hit a plateau.

It you go the method i said... it probably takes around 2-3 years to get to a good point.

Basically 1-5 years is the standard if your serious at getting excellent at art. If your not, can take a lot longer.

Thanks for the replies folks. As it happens I already had a printed version of "How to draw comics the Marvel way". I actually learned something out of it, but I just haven't practiced enough. I think I kinda gave up when I saw some links on youtube showing how easily Jim Lee could draw a fantastic comic scene out of nowhere. Of course, he's a genius and I'm a newbie but still.. he makes it look effortless while I can't even draw a straight line!

Anyway, thanks again for the tips. I will try and practice and maybe post my shameful sketches on the boards so I can get some constructive criticism from you lot.

PS: Btw, I'm a big fan of your work, Chris. Maybe this means nothing coming from a silent user of this board section, but I just wanted to say it. You, sir, are talented. Keep it up, pretty please!

the best thing you could ever do as an artist is sign up for or find some place that has live models that you can draw from... among the things that I took from the college I went to for animation are...

Draw from live models...
Try different techniques and impose different rules on yourself... for example:
Get a model to pose for you and then draw them without looking at the paper.
Impose time limits, A "decent" animator can get a full figure without detail within a minute (I can do 30 seconds ^.^)
Go to some place where people are and as they go by draw them.
You can also do things like think up an emotion or concept and draw it in silhouette form.

Don't get hung up on a style but rather get it ACCURATE, then you can flow to any other style like anime or western or any other style...

Practice hands. According to my professors... most professional artists consider if you can draw hands you can draw anything because they are hard to do.

as far as my advice...
Try doing crazy things like find a few lines somehow that are random and create an image from it.

LEARN everything you can about what you are drawing. This mainly my thing which i don't hear others saying but in my opinion, just like in writing, you should learn about what you are drawing because it allows you to be the most creative and allows your drawings to be more easily relateable and immersive.




as far as straight lines... I'm a little OCD about that, or at least I used to be... someone in elementary class asked if a line was straight and i had her redrawing the line for like an hour ^.^ There is a secret though... For clean, straight lines... plan ahead where you plan on beginning and stopping that line and then do it as fast as you can. The faster you draw a line the straighter it is.



As far as shadows and perspective... Almost noone uses 100% true 3D perspective because to do it is tedious. It's useful to know, but it really just comes down to knowing how x and boxes work. And shadows... that's a matter of skill and understanding unless you're doing things perfectly and then it's mathematical and fairly easy to do...


And last but not least... remember... Perfection has already been accomplished in almost all the arts. It is not perfection that makes things beautiful or skillful but rather the personal touches that some might consider flaws.


PS. nude models are traumatizing... prepare to see human flesh that should not be seen if you go to a nude model class... Advice I'd like to give my younger self that I can not.

Pfft, nudes aren't bad. I was nervous as heck, and my first model was an older man. But after like 5 minutes, I was so intent on what the professor was saying about how the anatomy was at work, I didn't even notice.

Figure drawing is one of my favorite things to do. I have an open invitation to crash the figure drawing classes any time I want (I finished up all my figure requirements).