Rate My Drawing

[MilkieTea]

2/10.

> There’s no solid light direction. At all.
> Pillow shading
> Zero line weight variation - this can look good in certain styles, but not with this
> Overly detailed hair, with almost no details anywhere else
> Very wonky anatomy
> Random highlights? That don’t serve a purpose and look out of place on the piece.
> Animal nose on the lalafell(?) for no apparent reason.
> Uninteresting colors and zero dynamic posing. I fall into the mistake myself of thinking a pose is dynamic when it’s static, so don’t feel discouraged. All it takes is more practice.

[DarkDaifuku]

I am not trying to act senpai here, but I do have a few years in my bag of drawing history. Here is my advices from my personal experience, it will save you years of progress.

1. Learn the basic first, facial, anatomical structures, pov. This is the most important one before you want to go anywhere.

2. Go wild on sketch first, don't go right into detail and finalized line at the beginning, this apply to each and every drawing, this is the period you want to make sure the anatomical structures and scale, and pov are similar to your imagination/planning.

3. Don't stubborn over one tiny spot or line and try to make it prefect, each line and spot are "interacting" with others in the drawing. Just because you drew a perfect line, it doesn't mean it is perfect for the drawing.

4. Grab yourself a pen tablet if you are into digital drawing, you don't have to go full piggy-bank-breaking model, many tablet without monitors are cheap and you can do great art with them. Don't bother with mouse unless you are going super heavy with OCD for perspective background field, mouse is just inferior for character drawing.

5. Get some artists/art styles you like and try to duplicate their traits, you can mixed multiple of them and pick parts you like the most out of different artists. It is impossible to 100% duplicate someone's style, and don't bother on that. If you like what you did but it is different from your "reference", keep yours. You will eventually develop your own unique style the further you go.

6. Don't burn yourself out, if you can't draw something at that moment, leave it, put it aside. Go find some poor primals to slay.

7. You style will change, only becomes less frequently until you slowly settle with one, but will never stop changing. (mine still shifting here and there after years) So don't worry if it is changing for the good.

8. Get used to one drawing software, all of them can do 99% of the same things. Try SAI, Clipstudio, they are more friendly to drawing.

These are the advices I wish someone has told me at the beginning of my journal. You have a long road ahead, a lot shorter if you take these advices. Don't worry if you can't get half as good as the artists you like, you will eventually surpass one after another. (I did). You will be bombarded by mean words by someone who never drawn anything pass a stick figure, or ignored by your favorite artists, you will see artworks seem to have less effort got way more attraction. Keep going, remember, you are DRAWING, not attention seeking.

[Caitlyn]

4. Grab yourself a pen tablet if you are into digital drawing, you don't have to go full piggy-bank-breaking model, many tablet without monitors are cheap and you can do great art with them. Don't bother with mouse unless you are going super heavy with OCD for perspective background field, mouse is just inferior for character drawing.

A drawing tablet wont make you better. I m getting much better (and faster) results by using my mouse ; )
And I can draw during my break at work >: D

It's fine if you don't like. Constructive criticism is very healthy to improve my drawing skills, you know?

Some critism I want to give here:
1. The "kiss" text doesnt fit. Only use text, if its a comic/manga. Everyone should know whats happening without the usage of texts.
2. The anatomy looks pretty wrong. The arms look to bulky or way too defined for a lalafall/tarutaru. And the face is a bit awkward.
3. The overall drawing/coloring-style is very static and artificial. You tried to let it look too perfect, but with so many mistakes and chaotic lines, it actually ruins the picture.
4. You re doing the typical beginners mistakes: solid black lines, white highlights, black shadows. The line should match the other colors, highlights are better in bright yellow, shadows are more in dark blue/purple. But never just white and black!
5. To many lines and stuff for the pink blanket/pillow/background. Same goes for the hair. Better keep the image simple, so people wont get flooded with unneccessary details.

Sorry, 2 of 10 from me here.


Some tips from a random pseudo-artist here:

1. Do your lineart by using wild sketches. It doesnt need to be 100% perfect. And most important: dont force anything!
2. Look at your lineart from distance. If you think there something wrong, there is. Another good method is to mirror the image. It shouldnt look worse when mirroring it.
3. Less is more. Dont try to be overly detailed. It doesnt need a fancy background or excessive lighting. Most good pictures are simple.
4. Dont trace/copy. Art theft is a no go.
5. When learning to draw, try something simple first. Baby steps.
6. Keep practising.

[ViolaLance]

Want to point out as being a former studio illustrator and storyboard artist.

The advice here is good, some a bit much, but a good portion is good. As well, the most importantly, pace yourself and do not dwell on minor details, this is where majority of mistakes will happen. From lines, foreground, background to colors.

Here is three simple drafts. One. Basic line, the other was after taking a day break to clean up the line work. And final was after another break (working on another project in between).





Not the best, nor greatest. Though the direction can be seen of what I wanted. It's set that through relaxing and resting to ensure frustration is minor.

Do not draw every day, that is worst thing you can do to yourself (even in the studio we had days were we did other things from art to do despite being paid for our art) draw when you feel the urge. Even of you don't know what to draw bur still have the urge too. Just draw. Be it a single eyeball, to silly little doodles and relax after.
All things in moderation, even art. To much of a good things is yes a bad thing, even if you're art is a hobby or not.

[DarkDaifuku]

A drawing tablet wont make you better. I m getting much better (and faster) results by using my mouse ; )
And I can draw during my break at work >: D

No tool will make any skill better, but they can make your job easier. Hard to mimic the pen pressure with mouse o.o+
You can also link the opacity of the brush to pen pressure instead of manually changing it when using mouse.
I was originally mouse user too for years until I eventually take on the tablet and now I can't go without it.
You can still do a lot of work by mouse in a tablet-drawn line drawing, like sorting the layers and create selection layers for later works.
My workplace is kind of chill so I can draw with graphic tablet too.