forum improving my art

Started May 27, 2021 by @moss

tune

does anyone know of any resources for improving my art? I've been drawing for a while but I haven't been liking my art lately. I mostly want to get better at coloring, realism, and anatomy

https://line-of-action.com/
is my go-to for practicing anatomy! In fact, I might go practice right now, since I'm thinking abt it haha

I already use it but thanks

Oh cool! it might help to add a list of the sources you already use, so that won't happen again.

i dont really use much besides that and pinterest
i cant really think of anything else

I'm more into traditional media, so I follow Denise Soden's YouTube channel "In Liquid Color" for watercolors. It's more trouble to mix colors with something like color pencil, usually you just get a slightly different color of pencil entirely and work that in—but, the color theory should be the same.

Actually, I'll link Alphonso Dunn's more comprehensive color theory video here.

And color theory can be plenty of fun, but there's this saying "value does all the work while color takes all the credit", that is, if you make your colorful images into black-and-white, and the gray values look wrong in that desaturated image, then the color that corresponds to that gray value has something wrong. Maybe all the colors are the same saturated intensity, so if you look at a black-and-white version of it all the grays compete with each other—so the main tip is to keep the value of the color in mind as though that color were a gray.

I don't do oil painting, markers, or digital art, but I do still follow vlogs and tutorials about those too because some skills are transferrable whereas others are specific to the art medium.

Something that's really helped me is Sycra's channel on YouTube. He has a bunch of compositional videos that break down all the components of making interesting scenes, as well as series on anatomy and stylized features. I think his most well-known video is on foreshortening, and for good reason! It literally single-handedly changed my art.

Another really good resource is David Finch. His video on dynamic figures, especially, really helped me break up a lot of my stiff poses. He talks a lot about weight disproportion and how gravity affects things. It's actually really interesting!!

Jazza is also super helpful; here's a video of his on figure construction. And if you're looking for really harsh (borderline emotionally abusive) critiques and learning through example, Angel Ganev has some really useful advice in his roast videos between the vulgar language and insults. He's basically the Gordon Ramsey of art.

My personal advice is just to focus your energy on figure drawing if people are what you're trying to draw. Not just for finding a line of action, but for learning how the muscles contract and stretch with different movements. Try to get the figures down in a minute or under and then, if you have a pose you really like, flesh it out.

Hopefully at least a little of this helps. No matter whether it does or not, I wish you the best!

(feel free to ignore the last paragraph, that's just me rambling)

I really suggest Marc Brunet. He's a great teacher and he gives plenty of tips on getting better at coloring and anatomy. Though I don't entirely advise for paying for the actual classes he offers, mainly because I have no experience with them and I don't want you to feel cucked by my recommendation.

Also, Ethan Becker gives some great tips, and he's worked on big time animation projects such as Voltron. He's a really fun and silly guy to watch, but he gives good advice, I recommend him greatly. One thing he advises often is to take your own reference photos and to not draw deadface. Big expressions, using children as expression references is often good when you want a really expressive portrait.

My advise on realism. Just give up, lol. I'm kidding, of course. It's definitely to look at everything in rough shapes first. Shadows, facial features, hair. Break it all down. Additionally, notice what features are often present in the type of face you wish to draw. Children, eyes are lower down, faces are mushier, eyes are larger, big heads. Easter Asians, they often have lower nose bridges, naturally darker hair, etc. I'm sure you get the point. The greatest tool for realism is observation. If you don't know what the real world looks like, how are you gonna draw it, right?

But most of all, for all of these, the worst thing you can do is give up. You'll get better for sure! I remember being at a spot where I thought I was getting no better, and then I looked back at my art from just months before. The improvement that I had truly underwent was unbelievable to me, but it made me release, it's hard to see improvement when you aren't looking for it.