# Speed and accuracy



## Runefox (Apr 7, 2009)

More or less mutually exclusive, but I definitely need to learn ways to increase both, speed most importantly of all. While I realize that it takes time to draw, it takes me either around two hours with a pencil and paper or seven to eight hours with my mouse (using Inkscape) to draw a single character, which tends to make drawing an all-day affair. Further complicating this is the other side of the equation - Accuracy, or lack thereof. I often make mistakes in anatomy and pose even after creating a baseline of roughly where I want everything to go (this improved my accuracy dramatically over what it used to be), and these slow me down tremendously. This leads to me not practising anywhere nearly as often as I should and leaving me with sometimes very large gaps in between sessions, from several weeks to months.

So I guess my question is, what can I do to improve my speed and accuracy?


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## krisCrash (Apr 7, 2009)

Vector lines will probably slow you down big time. I take a long time to get the sketch I want, but on that is done, inking it accurately takes maybe an hour because I use a tablet.

Did you try inking it on paper?


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## Runefox (Apr 7, 2009)

krisCrash said:


> Vector lines will probably slow you down big time. I take a long time to get the sketch I want, but on that is done, inking it accurately takes maybe an hour because I use a tablet.


Well, they are the most accurate means of getting the lines down, though I feel like I'm cheating every time I use them. If I had a sketch to work from, it wouldn't be so bad, but drawing from scratch using vector does take an awful long time.



> Did you try inking it on paper?


Well, recently I've found myself without a pencil or a solid surface to draw on (this desk has so many blisters and ripples and bumps that it'd be suprising if I could draw a straight line with a ruler on it), so like I said, my mouse-drawn works tend to take me upward to 7 or 8 hours for a single character, which is rather absurd.


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## Charrio (Apr 7, 2009)

> what can I do to improve my speed and accuracy?



I would say give yourself a timer, like pause a Screenshot of your fav cartoon or anime, and Draw but you only have 3 mins to do it, then stop. 

I taught myself to draw, and used to use a old VCR for this, it had a 3 min Pause then stopped the tape, so i had to be quick, before the timer took my subject away. 

It helps like doing the 30sec thumbs of poses


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## Arshes Nei (Apr 8, 2009)

Runefox said:


> So I guess my question is, what can I do to improve my speed and accuracy?



Practice.


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## Runefox (Apr 8, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> Practice.



Well, I sort of already knew that. I was more asking if there were anything I could do while practicing to try and work on speed in general so that I'd be more willing to practice more often, seeing as how practice right now amounts to eight hours' worth of work. Charrio's suggestion sounds interesting, though it might be a little closer to tracing than I'm comfortable with. Might give that a shot, though.


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## Arshes Nei (Apr 8, 2009)

Speed comes with practice. There isn't a shortcut. I mean, think about if someone learned how to drive. It's only going to be practice that makes it second nature to know how to drive, apply speed and when to use the breaks (of course people still can't drive but...).

The other thing to look at is how you're drawing in general. One bad habit to break and again practice comes into it is learning to make longer strokes and not short choppy ones. Trace over your own drawings if you're not comfortable with someone else's. 

When we were kids we were often uncoordinated and this resulted in many mishaps. You didn't have the correct balance, you fell off your bike and scraped your knee. You misjudged the weight of a container to pour yourself a glass of milk/juice/water and caused it to spill. You didn't apply enough strength to tie your shoes so your laces become undone later and you trip over them.

We barely remember this because we're adults now. Drawing is no different. It's easy to get discouraged at the amount of time, but it's funny how we don't even think about how much time we put into things we do every day to get used to it.


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## Charrio (Apr 8, 2009)

> Charrio's suggestion sounds interesting, though it might be a little closer to tracing than I'm comfortable with. Might give that a shot, though.



I would say its tracing only if your subject was stable, but keeping a motion or character on screen and sketching with a time limit is a bit harder then with a image permanently available


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## Arshes Nei (Apr 8, 2009)

Charrio said:


> I would say its tracing only if your subject was stable, but keeping a motion or character on screen and sketching with a time limit is a bit harder then with a image permanently available



There are several things to consider.

Why do that when you can go outside to a mall and practice the same way? Why use a lens instead of something you can see with your own eyes outside? We filter color shapes and shadows much better than a camera. That's not to say there isn't advantages to film or camera.

Depending on the kind of TV, you also experience warp in the shape. So it's going to kill the whole "accuracy" thing. 

Eyesight. That's probably not good for your eyes in the long run.


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## Runefox (Apr 8, 2009)

Well, I guess the _first_ thing I should take away from this is to try and get into more traditional media, get myself some good pencils and a sketchbook instead of the thin typewriter paper and mechanical pencils I've been using. I'm already faster with traditional media to begin with, so with any luck, I'll be able to improve that way. I may try the timed-sketching idea, though I'll be sure to use my computer monitor for it instead of my curved CRT TV. Since styles change so much in animation and vary so widely in terms of realism, I'd do better to learn action poses and things of that nature from them if I were to do that instead of general perspective.

And with that having been said, going out to the mall and sketching random passer-bys is something that isn't very common around here - In fact, art in general is fairly uncommon. For real-world locations, I'd do better to look at scenery and things like that than people.


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## Charrio (Apr 8, 2009)

[QUOTE

Depending on the kind of TV, you also experience warp in the shape. So it's going to kill the whole "accuracy" thing. 

Eyesight. That's probably not good for your eyes in the long run.[/QUOTE]

Oh god, tell me about it, lol 
I was teaching myself way back, before this internet thing. I know sounds crazy, but back then PCs were rich people things.


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## Arshes Nei (Apr 9, 2009)

Runefox said:


> And with that having been said, going out to the mall and sketching random passer-bys is something that isn't very common around here - In fact, art in general is fairly uncommon. For real-world locations, I'd do better to look at scenery and things like that than people.



You're an artist, it's license to go out and draw. When the animators of Lion King did their research they didn't sit in front of the boob tube watching Natural Geographic, they went to the zoos and sketched. It's not just a mall, there's the cafe, too. Sitting behind a tv/screen is not going to give you the full range of color perception your own eyes can seeing that real object in front of you.


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## krisCrash (Apr 9, 2009)

Arshes Nei said:


> when to use the breaks


but the clutch is the hardest thing xP



Runefox said:


> Well, recently I've found myself without a pencil or a solid surface to draw on (this desk has so many blisters and ripples and bumps that it'd be suprising if I could draw a straight line with a ruler on it), so like I said, my mouse-drawn works tend to take me upward to 7 or 8 hours for a single character, which is rather absurd.



use a sketchpad, a cardboard backing from one, or a stack of paper. Don't draw on a single piece.

I have a plastic pad I can tape a piece of paper to as well, I think it's called a drafting tablet and has a ruler attached that can slide in a groove. It's very practical as well, you will love it for perspective drafting (got it secondhand for $2). Basically, find something flat to draw on!

If all your drawings take 7-8 hours, maybe break that up and sometimes do a LOT of small sketches that don't take very long, it may speed your progress more than always poring over the same drawing for so long.


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## pkingsora (Apr 20, 2009)

It took me quite some time to perfect my skill in speed drawing.. you gata find a technique, one that will skip over all the other flips and turns to getting an image complete..

Digital wise, I used to rely heavily on programs such as OC or Smooth draw to do line work.. now i use a program called SAi Painter, which has less but very friendly tools, the vector lines for Sai are easier than the ones you find on Adobe and other programs (They are user friendly, point click and keep on going) 

After finishing the image in Sai, I move it to Adobe and spiff it up.. drawing wise.. i do a basic sketch, ink over it..colour it (sometimes on 1 layer, sometimes on 3)  and continue the process..

testing yer skillz with 30 second poses really works too  http://www.posemaniacs.com/blog/


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## tomwaya (Apr 21, 2009)

I've been drawing now for about five years, and it still takes me around two hours to put the pencils down for a sketch. The pencils are the base of the whole thing, get those right and the rest will follow. If there's something wrong at the initial stages it'll be wrong at the end. Practice everyday and don't lock yourself in the mindset of doing a pic means, sketching then inking then colouring. Leaving a sketch at pencil stage is perfectly fine.

I'm never a fan of sketching using illustrator or photoshop, it's a shortcut and it shows.

Set aside time for practice only, with no plan of a final image, sketch and practice for an hour every day, put in the hard work and in six months time you'll notice a huge difference, and hopefully you'll be a bit faster too


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## heresydarling (Apr 27, 2009)

One thing that helped me when I started - believe me, you aren't going to like this.

Sketch very quickly and lightly using a ballpoint pen. Yep, ballpoint. Black, blue, red, green, I don't care what color you use. As some other people mentioned before me, time yourself. 30-second drawings, 1-minute drawings, 5-minute drawings. You will surprise yourself at how fast you start to lay things down. And if you don't finish the pic, it doesn't matter!

Don't worry about how the sketches look - tell yourself that you aren't going to show them to anyone. Often a big reason for slowness is censoring yourself - for example, when I was just starting, I'd draw an eye, then another eye, then a nose, then I'd think CRAP this doesn't look perfect, then I'd erase a hole in the paper, then I'd start again - another reason I recommend ballpoint. You can't erase. Just draw lightly and build the pic up in layers. Experiment. Play with lines, textures, shading. Don't be afraid to "screw up" - you learn quicker by screwing up.

This would just be your warming-up phase, maybe 15-20 minutes before working on an actual piece. 

Oh, and don't worry AT ALL about drawing in public. Most people are so self-involved that a) they won't even notice you, or b) even if they do notice you, they won't care what you're doing. People who will notice you will tend to be artsy types themselves (in general, artists or appreciators of art) who may even give you a tip or two if you let them see what you're working on. 

Nothing can beat a good life-drawing course. Many communities offer them, either college classes open to the public, or in a community center of some kind. These classes teach how to draw within a time limit, and were of great help to me when I was in school.

Most importantly, don't put your art off until you buy "better supplies" - it's a lot easier (and more cost-effective) to go through reams and reams of $3.99 cheap copier paper and Bic pens and mechanical pencils as it is to go through bristol board and graphite, and you won't be afraid of "wasting" them too!


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