How or where can i learn to draw?

[Amateur Gamer]

Ok so i really want to draw and want to learn it but every time i try i just fail and end up extremely angry and just feel like a total failure.

Can someone please tell me how on earth could i get into drawing or am i just an idiot who completely lacks any talent?

I'm so angry right now i'm on the verge of crying. This just annoys me so damn much.

 

Sorry for this post but i honestly need any help i can get.

[Amateur Gamer]

@Tibbles Yeah but practicing is what makes me annoyed i just don't know where to start i feel like i'm too stupid for drawing.

[JoeCoke]

I hate to sound unhelpful, but the only way to learn to draw is by doing. In just two years my brother went from doing crappy doodles on a 3DS to doing some pretty crazy stuff on his huion tablet and even... Paper! Oh my!

[Amateur Gamer]

@Tibbles @2Buck Are there any good forums or pages where i could seek some help with drawing?

like for tutorials and stuff?

 

Ps.: @Tibbles

Your icon is super adorable

[Volbet]

It seems like the first thing you have to learn is patience and acceptance of failure.

No one ever just sat down with a pen and paper and drew the Sistine Chapel.

Practice does make perfect, as cliché as that sounds. It's all a long process.

Hell, I've been drawing and painting for over 20 years and I'm still pretty shit at it. 

 

That said, you could try on DevianArt. If memory serves right they have a section for tutorials.

But considering the talent pool on DevianArt you need to tread carefully. 

 

[Shakaza]

Buddy, I am in the same boat. I am pretty terrible at drawing (but I am pretty good at 3D modeling according to my peers and professors), but I am trying to get better. Right now, I'm learning some fundamentals from here: http://wayback.archive.org/web/20161030072547/http://hippie.nu:80/~unicorn/tut/xhtml/ It's in the WayBack archive because the website was taken down by the owner, and it's oriented for furries, and although the fundamentals largely remain the same, if it's not your thing, you can go ahead and avoid it. And even if you do use it, don't be afraid to switch to something else if it doesn't seem to be working for you.

 

For now, my mindset is to not care about making anything good, but be in a constant state of improvement. I'm satisfied with continually making bad stuff until I can stand on my own two feet and make "good" art. Once I reach that level, I will just draw, draw, draw and improve from that point as a result of drawing instead of it being my main focus. So far, it's helped me keep a little more motivated where I would normally have gotten frustrated and given up.

[Amateur Gamer]

@Volbet Normally i'm really patient but when i feel stupid and helpless i just can't focus and usually just give up.

 

[Amateur Gamer]

@Shakaza I'll check the site out later.

Right now it's super hot here and i can't exist in this environment. 

[theninja35]

Even in my drawing and design classes, we were taught to look at something for reference. Especially when you're beginning, looking at something and trying to draw it is extremely useful for learning techniques and the shapes of things. In my first drawing class we only drew from still-lifes, and in my automotive design class we used other car parts for reference and thought up a car from there.

[Volbet]

1 minute ago, Amateur Gamer said:

@Volbet Normally i'm really patient but when i feel stupid and helpless i just can't focus and usually just give up.

And it's on those situations where patience is the most important. 

 

You also need to give up on feeling studpid and helples (easier said than done, I know), but those feelings are holding you back.

[Amateur Gamer]

@Volbet If i knew how i would try my hardest to get rid of feeling like that but it's not easy.

[Volbet]

3 hours ago, Amateur Gamer said:

@Volbet If i knew how i would try my hardest to get rid of feeling like that but it's not easy.

Well, unfortunately there is no easy way to do this. No one is born as a good artist.

Salvador Dali didn't pop out of his mother's womb, twirled his mustache and began painting melting clocks. He, like everyone else, had to practice.

 

The frustration that you're currently feeling also won't go away even with a teacher or tutorial. Neither of those will boost to a higher creative level. They will merely teach you methods on how to learn.

 

Personally, I would recommend that you just start off with easy to reach goals and work yourself up from there.

Like, start off with challenging yourself to draw a symmetrical face with a reference work.

[Amateur Gamer]

@Volbet Well i'll try my best thanks for the help. Hopefully i can figure out a way to get better.

[Arika]

YouTube tutorials or Lynda.com

[Amateur Gamer]

7 hours ago, Sierra Fox said:

YouTube tutorials or Lynda.com

Well tutorials on youtube tend to be vague and most of them don't even explain stuff. 

It might just be because i'm completely new to this but the ones I've seen so far were not all that helpful.

[minibois]

Set small goals for yourself, like learn how to draw 3D shapes, than try to set them inside a room, than add a light source and learn shadows, etc. etc.

Don't try to recreate insert famous hard to make art piece here in one day, you have to start with the basics.

 

Now tell me, what would you like to do? Characters? Environments? Painting or digital drawing? etc.

[Amateur Gamer]

@Minibois I want to do digital art mostly characters but i would love to make some landscapes as well. 

Probably with Gothic/darker style because i really love the way those usually look.

[minibois]

12 minutes ago, Amateur Gamer said:

@Minibois I want to do digital art mostly characters but i would love to make some landscapes as well. 

Probably with Gothic/darker style because i really love the way those usually look.

Style is not important for now (mostly). To learn a style, you must first learn how stuff actually looks. Draw from life, meaning draw actual humans, their skulls, skeletons, muscle layers and than skin, learn how stuff wraps around each other and than you can draw characters realistically.

Learn to simplify shapes and add detail after. You can't build a building without a solid foundation, which holds truth in drawing too. Without a proportionate base, a human will never look like a human. Do a lot of drawing exercises a day, but I won't tell you to 'just practice', spend time usefully. 

 

If you want to draw humans, spend about 30 minutes a day doing gesture drawing: quick 60 sec. drawings to get the shape of humans right. 

I find this site to be very helpful for this:

https://www.quickposes.com/en/gestures/timed

It shows you humans (you can choose yourself if you are okay with seeing nudity), both female and male (here again you can choose if you want to see both or not) for a limited time and you just have to get the pose down. Don't worry about the details, this is just about understanding form. 

Another helpful tip I can give is that typical adult humans are about '8 heads high'. So the height of your characters head is 1/8th the size of the human. You can use this as a kind of reference to get this down. Do understand that every human is different and you should only use this as a very rough measurement.

 

I found this tutorial to be very helpful with some general anatomy stuff:

https://foervraengd.deviantart.com/art/UNDERSTANDING-ANATOMY-part-I-220251993

But you have to study from life to properly understand it all.

 

As for drawing landscape, begin easy, start with some hills. Than add detail like a house, some happy trees, etc. You first get the big picture out of the way and than add details.

Also, I can't repeat this enough: study from life. When making characters or landscapes, you will be making a simplification/stylized version of real life: and you can't break the rules if you don't know them.

 

Another tip I can give is, keep a sketchbook with you at all times, so you can quickly sketch down some ideas. Ideas can come at the most random of times, be sure to capture them.

[Amateur Gamer]

@Minibois Alright thanks for all the help!  

I'll try my best to become better at it and hopefully one day i will succeed.

 

Some people told me that i should study primitive shapes as well so i'll look into that as well.

[AniJan]

Well, what style do you prefer? Or the better question is, what do you want to draw?

If you like anime:

-Study and draw from references. See how it all fits together. How does the arm connect to the torso? How do the legs connect to the body? 

-Watch tutorials on how to draw certain parts. I'd recommend Sycra; he makes very long, but efficient tutorials.

If you like drawing realistic things, then:

-Observe the atmosphere and draw exactly what you see. Of course, no one is perfect on their first try. That's where patience is essential. Draw something and reflect on it. Try to think of the flaws in your art piece and try to improve from that. I recommend watching SchaeferArt; he makes videos pertaining to life art.

 

I hope this helps; I'm a beginning artist as well and I suck too. Ironically, I also want to pursue art, yet I don't follow my own advice.

[Amateur Gamer]

@AniJan Thanks for the recommendations

[minibois]

14 minutes ago, AniJan said:

Well, what style do you prefer? Or the better question is, what do you want to draw?

If you like anime:

-Study and draw from references. See how it all fits together. How does the arm connect to the torso? How do the legs connect to the body? 

-Watch tutorials on how to draw certain parts. I'd recommend Sycra; he makes very long, but efficient tutorials.

If you like drawing realistic things, then:

-Observe the atmosphere and draw exactly what you see. Of course, no one is perfect on their first try. That's where patience is essential. Draw something and reflect on it. Try to think of the flaws in your art piece and try to improve from that. I recommend watching SchaeferArt; he makes videos pertaining to life art.

 

I hope this helps; I'm a beginning artist as well and I suck too. Ironically, I also want to pursue art, yet I don't follow my own advice.

With your first point, I hope you mean draw from real life references and not from anime show references.

[Amateur Gamer]

@Minibois To be honest i've never tried drawing from real reference.

I thought it would be best to follow tutorials and such of drawings.

[minibois]

1 minute ago, Amateur Gamer said:

@Minibois To be honest i've never tried drawing from real reference.

I thought it would be best to follow tutorials and such of drawings.

No matter how good the artist is, everyone while drawing omits details, makes tiny mistakes, etc. When you draw with a drawing from someone else as a reference, you are going to copy this person's mistakes, plus add your own. While if you draw from life, you are only adding your own mistakes. The base you're drawing from (real life that is) is 100% correct how it should be.

 

This is why I mentioned earlier style is not important for now. You first need to know how to draw, before adding your own style to it. Style is just your interpretation of how things look, AKA changing how real life stuff looks. Which is 'breaking the rules' and you first need to know the rules before you can break them.

[Amateur Gamer]

@Minibois Yeah that makes sense.