# Need help please! ((Desperately!))



## TwoDou (Mar 17, 2008)

I have checked out all the recommended sites but I just can't get the hang of drawing, if someone has the time, can you please give me some lessons! I would really appreciate it. I am mostly interested in drawing Foxes/canines, nekos, and avians for the time being! Anyone that will help me has all my thanks!


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## LimeyKat (Mar 17, 2008)

TwoDou said:
			
		

> I have checked out all the recommended sites but I just can't get the hang of drawing.



Keep practicing, or try another creative venue you might grasp onto better. ALL people are not ALL capable of the same abilities, and drawing (like other things) may take many many years to never be really good at. These things are not instant.


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## shiftyfox (Mar 17, 2008)

Buy a sketchbook and take it everywhere you go.  Go to school with it, go to work with it, go to sleep with it.  love it.
When you are drawing, start inside out.  Look for the basic shapes first and details last.  
Just keep drawing.  Everybody has thousands of bad drawings and thousands of good drawings in them.  Its all about getting the bad ones out and finding the good ones.


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## Stratelier (Mar 17, 2008)

> When you are drawing, start inside out.


Gesture sketches and stick figures are a good start here.  Then you overlay basic shapes (circles, ovals, etc.) on top to block out the segments of the figure being drawn, and begin working on details from there.

Quick examples of good stick figures:
http://ari3n.deviantart.com/art/Stick-Figure-6740324
http://wezenbeesje.deviantart.com/art/stick-figure-76721106

Those may be just stick figures, but notice how expressive they are?  You can visualize an entire, finished drawing out of either of them.

I'm also trying to hunt up tutorials that show the use of stick figures and basic shapes to construct a figure -- ignore the finished result and focus your attention on the early steps:
http://mermaidundersea.deviantart.com/art/Manga-Tutorial-Men-Bodies-48858984
http://crazy-fae.deviantart.com/art/Running-Woman-Figure-Tutorial-22710222

Obviously, most anatomy tutorials you'll find deal with human subject matter.  If you prefer drawing anthros and animals (hey, so do I!), well, the same methods for drawing human shapes work equally as well with animal shapes!  Same All you do is tweak how they're placed next to each other:
http://wolfa216.deviantart.com/art/Wolf-Tutorial-Part-One-72194769

Again, don't concern yourself with what the finished result will look like so much as *focus on those initial steps*, circles and lines that hold the figure together.  These are the 'skeleton' (almost literally) of your figure.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/360214/
Blotch's sketch tutorial.  The tutorial itself looks like just any other, right?  But the dissertation he wrote to accompany it is to die for.


			
				Blotch said:
			
		

> All I can stress is practice! Work from life, from photos, or from the alien broadcasts in your brain, but all I can say is: Sketch!


Going "from point A to B", studying how to produce one specific result isn't the point of a tutorial, it's not the "how" you need to learn but the "WHY".  You won't get that from a book or tutorial, you have to learn it kinesthetically -- "by doing".

After all, chop the L off of 'learn' and what does that leave you?  Earn.  In order to sketch well you have to go out there and "earn" it, you have to practice and work for it.


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## Marji4x (Mar 17, 2008)

Draw every day.  I cannot overemphasize the importance of this.  Someone once said "You have 10,000 bad drawings inside of you.  The sooner you get them out and over with the sooner you'll start drawing better"  Even if you drawings look like crap, keep drawing!  There's no point in getting tips or tricks if you're not doing this.

All the advice here so far is good, too.  Read and study up on advice like this and tutorials.  But always draw also.  Just reading won't do squat.  Find something, ANYTHING and draw it.  Even if you want to draw furries, find a shoe and draw it and make it look as much like a shoe as you can.  This will train your hand-eye coordination to do what you tell it to...which will make it easier when you come around to drawing furries or avians or whatever.

Draw everything!  Shoes, plants, fruit, your reflection in a mirror, your dog, eeeeevrything!


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## Stratelier (Mar 17, 2008)

Give an artist a fish tutorial, he'll be taught for a day.  TEACH an artist . . . 

Blast it, I'm missing the other half of the analogy.



> Someone once said "You have 10,000 bad drawings inside of you. The sooner you get them out and over with the sooner you'll start drawing better"


Here's a "quick" and simple route to becoming a great sketch artist:

_Draw a stick figure in 1,000 differing poses._

Because it's not the destination that matters.  It's what you learn along the way.


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## oCe (Mar 17, 2008)

What it comes down to is, drawing is a skill like any other. You WILL NOT be good at it overnight, and there are essentially no shortcuts. You have to DO IT, and do it A LOT before you'll even approach being any 'good' at it. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, has to start somewhere, and is going to "suck" for a long time before they start getting "better."

For an example you can probably relate to, think how long it took you to read. First you had to learn the sounds, then you had to learn the alphabet, then you learned simple words, then you learned sentence structure. It didn't happen overnight; you had to work on it for years. And once you had a grasp of the basics, THEN you could start to really read... but you have to read A LOT before you're any good at it! Think of how many years it takes between starting learning to read, and generally being competent at it: say if you start in kindergarten, and are fairly competent by, say, your freshman year of high school... that's ten years, doing it pretty much every day, before you're even competent!

Others have already given the right advice: get a sketchbook, and take it everywhere. Draw in it EVERY DAY. Draw things you see, objects, plants, shoes, people, pets. Draw things from your head. Draw everything! And if you keep at it, it will start to make more and more sense, and you can build upon that foundation. But this bears repeating: THERE ARE *NO* SHORTCUTS! Learning to draw is hard, tedious work... but it pays off eventually, if you stick with it. 

--o/A


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## shiftyfox (Mar 17, 2008)

Marji4x said:
			
		

> Someone once said "You have 10,000 bad drawings inside of you.  The sooner you get them out and over with the sooner you'll start drawing better"


Shit.  Thats how it went...

whatever, Ill add another quote for the hell of it, I really like this one from Victor Wooten:
  "Everything that we produce is already there. We either had to find it or it had to find us. We have to let it through, but it's always already there. This is why I say everybody that wants to be a great *artist is already a great *artist."
Now if that doesn't make you feel good, put down that pencil.


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## TwoDou (May 11, 2008)

Thank you to everyone, I've been getting a little better, not much, but a little!


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## Shark_the_raptor (May 12, 2008)

Best advice I can give is look at different artist's styles.  Look at how they draw their subjects.  By studying how other artists draw, you can learn some really helpful things that you can use to improve your own drawing abilities.  Mind you, it takes time and patience to be able to draw well.  I've been drawing for 17 years, and I still have lots to learn.  Practice is the best thing you can do.

Hope this helps.


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## Beastcub (May 13, 2008)

tracing is good practice as it helps you get a feel for things, i for one started drawing as a very little girl by tracing the my little ponies in my clloring book so i could color them over and over....just DO NOT try to claim traced works as your own work


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## LimeyKat (May 15, 2008)

Beastcub said:


> tracing is good practice as it helps you get a feel for things, i for one started drawing as a very little girl by tracing the my little ponies in my clloring book so i could color them over and over....just DO NOT try to claim traced works as your own work



Tracing does not show you any of the steps or building blocks the artist used in order to bring the finished product together. Without knowing HOW it was done, you wont really learn how to do it yourself.


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