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For all you pro artists, budding artists and artist wannabes out there, there's a tip that's bound to help you amongst WTFrog's Ten Tips for when you Draw. Enjoy!
Tip #1 - Big to little
Ever found yourself spending half an hour drawing an absolutely perfect hand, and then realising that you should have drawn it two inches lower? There's only one way to guarantee that won't happen. Start your picture big and rough. Draw every basic element in the whole image long before you even think about that hand.
So, if you were drawing two guys on a bridge, the very first thing you'd do would be scribble down both their rough figures, and the bridge. They wouldn't need faces, hands, or even stomachs. Who cares if they'd look like a pair of stick figures? If you thought the guy on the left looked like he was about to fall over the railing edge, and the guy on the right appeared to be staring at the other guy's arse, now would be time to fix it.
Giving them flesh, faces, clothing and... cat ears... would come afterwards. Making sure you've got the big picture under control first is a fundamental part of drawing, and it's a hell of a lot more convenient, too.
Tip #2 - If you can do it once, you can do it again
Let's go back to that hand scenario I dished up earlier. So you should have drawn the hand two inches lower. It's an absolutely perfect hand that you spent half an hour on. Now what? You couldn't just redraw it – all the time and effort that went into getting it flawless would be erased. Or could you?
The answer is... yes. If you can get part of a drawing perfect once, you can do it again. So redo the hand in the right spot. Not only will it improve the picture, but you'll get extra practice, too.
Tip #3 - The recipe of the best artist
Ever wondered if you really have what it takes to be the best of the best? To be an ace artist calls for three ingredients: talent, hard work, and a passion for art. Conveniently enough, if you possess one ingredient, snagging the other two shouldn't be too difficult.
Let's begin with talent. If you're talented, you're lucky. Some people are born with the natural ability to produce good art. You don't need to have been born into a family of cartoonists and interior decorators to be talented at art. The creative gene can pop up in the most unexpected places (my parents are both science and math nerds). Even so, talent can't do much on its own.
Developing your talent only comes through hard work. Some people may be born with a gift from God, but that doesn't mean they can draw like pros the first time they lay hands on a pencil. Practice, practice, practice. The number one method of improving your drawings is to draw.
Do you look forward to drawing? Do you draw when you're supposed to be doing math? Can you draw for hours on end? Have you ever drawn deep into the night, and only stopped because your sleep-deprived eyes began to lose focus? There's really no point putting your back into art production unless you really enjoy doing it. If you don't like drawing, don't suffer the frustration of doing it.
So, if you're in short supply of any of those ingredients, you better go stock up.
Tip #4 - Take a break
According to my school homework diary, ‘studies' show that if you do homework for 40 minutes, take a break for 10 minutes, then continue, you will work far more efficiently than if you took no breaks at all. Same goes for drawing and CGing. If you're like me, you can draw for three hours non-stop, no worries. But if ever the going gets tough, and your sleeves begin run out of cards, just drop your picture and do something else for a while. You'd be surprised how much it helps.
Also, not looking at your half-done picture for a while can help you find mistakes that you couldn't see when you were working on it. If something doesn't look right about the picture, let it sleep for a couple of hours, then come back to it and stare it in the face. The errors will stick out like pinkie fingers on a five-star cruise ship.
Tip #5 - Take a break
According to my school homework diary, ‘studies' show that if you do homework for 40 minutes, take a break for 10 minutes, then continue, you will work far more efficiently than if you took no breaks at all. Same goes for drawing and CGing. If you're like me, you can draw for three hours non-stop, no worries. But if ever the going gets tough, and your sleeves begin run out of cards, just drop your picture and do something else for a while. You'd be surprised how much it helps.
Also, not looking at your half-done picture for a while can help you find mistakes that you couldn't see when you were working on it. If something doesn't look right about the picture, let it sleep for a couple of hours, then come back to it and stare it in the face. The errors will stick out like pinkie fingers on a five-star cruise ship.
Tip #6 - Be a chamelion and shed your style
You want to develop your own unique drawing style, right? Don't try to create one. That won't get you anywhere. The best way to develop it is to have the style emerge by mimicking the styles of other artists whose art you like. Keep ripping other peoples' art techniques and styles, read their tutorials and tailor them to achieve the results you're chasing, and gradually your own style will appear out of the fog.
Try hard not to make habits. If you have a habit of drawing mouths in a particular way, stop doing it. Do it the way someone else does instead. Perfectly copying the way another person draws is not bad for you at all, and it will pay off in the end.
Tip #7 - Step off your field
If you strive to improve your ability as an artist, speed your improvement up by ‘stepping off your field'. What I mean is, try covering areas in art that you've had no experience in. If you want to improve your sketching, by all means sketch. But, do other things as well, even if they seem completely unrelated. Ceramics, for example. It will actually help you, in ways that you probably aren't aware of.
On top of this, cover as much ground as you can. Do things you've never done before; practice things you thought you sucked at. If you tried making an animation once, and all you ended up with was a half assed little stick figure, go back and make him breathe fire! It can't hurt, can it?
Tip #8 - Perfectionists are winners
Ever gotten stuck with an object or body part that you just can’t seem to get right? You’ve erased it and redrawn it a million times over, but the bloody thing is so stubborn, it’s refusing to correct itself. It’s tempting to just leave it and move on to another part of the picture.
But don’t give up! In the long run, drawing that foot over and over will improve your skills, and getting it perfect will definitely improve the picture.
Being a perfectionist is not about getting things perfect, because nothing’s perfect. It’s about getting every little detail as close to perfect as you possibly can. You don’t have to stress over tiny things in every picture, but it is a good idea.
Tip #9 - Self-taught only goes so far
What if you've got your feet off the ground and you're flying? Your drawings are fantastic and you're improving at a rapid rate. Everyone wishes they could draw as well as you, and you've never met your match. School never taught you a thing about art (except that acrylic paint doesn't wash out of jeans), and you could draw better than the teacher anyway.
You're flying so high that no one can teach you a thing. You only ever tried an extra-curriculum art class once, but you left because it bored you out of your wits. You've considered teaching other people how to draw, but they're so far behind you that it wouldn't be any fun.
Sound like you?
Believe it or not, attending an art course for pros really does ice your cake. If you think you can teach yourself everything there is to know, forget it. You can't. It's true that some pro artists go their whole lives without attending a single lesson, but those artists will have had a narrow spectrum of skills, and they will have struggled at times. If you're a kid who's full to the brim with talent and skill, find an art class for adults! They'll accept you, and you'll learn things you never could've learned on your own.
Tip #10 - Keep Drawing
Well, you heard me.
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