Any Drawing Tips?

[terminoob]

I cannot explain how instrumental this is. I'm not a phenomenal artist by any means, but I consider myself pretty alright, and I only got to my level by copying at the start. Tracing seems really elementary, but using it solely as a learning tool does wonders. Tracing not just to trace, but tracing purposely - learning the lines of a character and all the small details - it helps so much. Not only because you nail down intricate details and learn how to make a character look like how they look, but so much crosses over between shows and styles, even in just western animation. Once you discover ways to draw something and add that to your repertiore, you find that things pop up a lot later on.

 

"Whoa, all the characters in Gravity Falls have the same eyes as the characters in The Simpsons!"

"Wow, all the hands in Adventure Time look exactly like the hands in Regular Show and Sanjay and Craig!"

"Oh my gosh, Buzz Lightyear and Larry the Lobster have the same base form from the waist up!"

 

Once you've added something to your....Creative Bank Account, as Terminoob would say, you'll see it pop up again, and it's not even just with definite formed things. You'll notice that a lot of art at it's core is just basic shapes. Really understanding squares and triangles makes drawing a house that much easier, because you understand how those shapes make up a whole. That definitely helps in the ongoing conquest to be able to draw...Well, theoretically everything. Going in knowing that lots of things are just base shapes: rectangles, squares, circles, breaks up a lot of things that may seem daunting at first to draw. But getting a lot of experience in different forms of art is great, because being able to draw "anything" is an almost necessary talent in the industry. The creators of Avatar started out directing episodes of Family Guy. Brad Bird, the dude that just directed Mission Impossible, started out doing simple cartoon takes on The Simpsons. There's a reason Ian Graham was a storyboard artist on the cartooniest seasons of SpongeBob and also one of Korra's most prolific directors. Diversity is important. It's literally essential if you want to work on more than one show/comic (or more than one type of show/comic might I add)  in the animation/comic industry. I feel like a lot of that was what terminoob already said but termi dont beat me up plz

 

I'm going to beat you up for using Mission Impossible as Brad Bird's directing benchmark and not The Iron Giant or The Incredibles.

[Cha]

Thanks for the advice! I wish I was able to draw for hours  It just gets tiring for me after a while.

 

 

And out of curiosity, what do you yourself draw?

I draw a lot of cartoon art, mostly of characters stuff I like. My avatar and signature were both drawn and later digitally colored by me.

[Young Nug]

I'm going to beat you up for using Mission Impossible as Brad Bird's directing benchmark and not The Iron Giant or The Incredibles.

I probably should've used Incredibles since it's animated

 

*cries in corner*

 

the shots he got in ghost protocol were so gorgeous though man

[SpongeyKid]

I draw a lot of cartoon art, mostly of characters stuff I like. My avatar and signature were both drawn and later digitally colored by me.

Ohh, I see. Well one last question, what program do you use to digitally color your art? (your avatar and sig are greatly drawn btw)

[Cha]

Ohh, I see. Well one last question, what program do you use to digitally color your art? (your avatar and sig are greatly drawn btw)

Thanks! <3 I use Pixlr, it's decent but it's free.

[terminoob]

Thanks! <3 I use Pixlr, it's decent but it's free.

 

Gimp is also good and free. It's more or less Photoshop without the ability to reproduce in CMYK, which doesn't matter unless you're printing stuff.