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How did you learn to draw?


Roosterofdoom
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More of a poll, really. Were you just born with it, did you practice till you got better, or did you use books or something to learn?

I like drawing, and I used to do it a lot in high school. I had a little series of pictures with stick people. They progressively got beter, but never anywhere close too good. Most people I know say they were just kinda born with it.

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Well, like any skill, it starts with natural inclination, I think. You take an interest, even if you don't have much aptitude. I, myself, though, began noticing elements of art at a young age and it was something I was interested in, even if my skill didn't grow as quickly as a lot of others in the same boat. I think the main thing was just drawing and figuring out how things worked, especially in anatomy. I learned some basic rules and techniques (classes helped with these) and just drew a lot and observed things and how they moved, as a summary. Looking at things in the form of basic shapes helped, too, especially when I was just learning how to draw actual forms.

Hmm maybe that was more than what you were asking for. Well, might as well summarize like that anyway.

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My art skills... I must blame my dad for buying/ renting those anime (Pokemon, CCS, etc.) when I was young along with the action films he loves to watch. I really liked the style and I've been drawing since kindergarten, those cute little kid doodles. I started animu when I was in elementary. Then copying the arts from posters and images on google. As I grow my skills grow, too, I guess. I do buy some books but they don't help much cause I only look at the pictures instead of reading the context. Oh well. At least my art is now good-looking enough. If only I know how to shade and pose... >|

EDIT: Collecting fanart helps me too. /stares at them all day.

Edited by Amelia
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The laughable irony of the situation is that I've actually a strong, formally-taught foundation in traditional media, and yet I stupidly chose to disregard and ultimately forget basically everything I've learned in favor of some shitty-ass animu crap that nobody even cares about. I'm now painfully trying to re-teach myself/forget all this crap, because in the long run, nobody's going to take your animu shit seriously when you art. And because UGUUUUUUU is pretty much gross.

Tl;dr - I was taught, I fucked up and forgot, and I'm now paying the price for being stupid.

As I've pretty much ground into the dirt at this point, I don't believe I have any real talent. I'm a terrible artist and creator, and anything I've done is pretty much the result of my stupidity being smashed and smeared onto a page for the world to gawk, point, and laugh at. I really do think practice is the biggest factor in ever being "good," though. Talented people are few and far between; all the rest of us shits need to work for it.

I mean, I like art - I love art. But I'm not really much of an artist. I just like to stare at pretty things.

Edited by · j e a l o u s y ·
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Similar situation to Aeo I suppose~ I've been through a hell of a lot more art classes than most people have been at my age, because I was lucky enough to both have a natural desire to draw -constantly- and a mother who saw that as something worthy of my time. I went to a middle school, a high school and now a college that have all really allowed me to take a lot of art courses.

Yet I still choose to ignore a lot of the fundamentals I've learned. I don't draw anime stuff but I do have issues with my own style barring me from making my characters look real.

I've always kind of had an innate talent for drawing, but as is often said, talent is not even 5% of it. Practice is what it is really about. My best friend is extremely talented but she never ever draws anymore so her art is very stiff when she does occasionally decide to do it. I think a real, true desire to create is way more important than being talented.

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Doodleshit when I was a little kid. Started taking traditional art lessons when I was 15, which pushes my style from lolanimushitlol to a more realistically-grounded style. It's not full realism unless I actually intend it that way (which I normally don't because or else that'd take me way too long) but it's a style I suppose.

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Lots and lot of drawing, most of it during classes. I started drawing dinosaurs and things in Kindergarten and basically went on from there. More recently I've tried using references and some tutorials, but I haven't really improved much in the last three years. I still draw mainly dragons and dinosaur like creatures.

I guess it's been a natural inclination towards art and a lot of practice. I've never really took formal classes, and though I've read some books I could never bring myself t do what they asked of me. Drawing fruit, scenery, or just stationary objects has never interested me. This is probably the one reason I will never get better at shading.

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Drew a lot as a kid, basic public school art classes through middle school. I had a tendency to check "how to draw" books out of the library and then promptly either intentionally disregard or forget about 90% of their contents, which was probably a good thing given how much of them were Chris Hart. Practiced. Practiced. Not even really as a "must improve" sort of a thing, just as a "I can't stop drawing stuff what are you kidding I'd go nuts" sort of thing. Didn't really take any classes in high school. Somewhere along the line, took to poring over "the art of" type books for movies and shows that I really admired. A few classes in university.

It's a work in progress, certainly.

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I just loved to draw a lot when I was little~ Though I felt like tracing stuff is what ultimately made me get better at drawing things because it made me so used to them.

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Geez... reading things like AK's story... almost makes me glad I chose to stick to computer stuff >_>;

Though I guess that seeing pretty things makes you want to try and learn how to make one yourself.

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I remember during third grade i once traced a dalmatian from a story book... Then i began drawing things that were infront of notebooks (not traced)... Of course when i showed it to my friends no one believed me and my mom threw the notebook away when the school year ended (she threw everything from notes to doodles at the end of the year... that meanie...). I thought the drawings were pretty good but i can't recall many of them nor how they actually looked. I just remember thinking they were pretty great at the time. Not really a story of how i learned to draw really but i guess its something that was stopped less than midway?

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  • 2 weeks later...

When I was younger I loved watching my dad play video games and I would trace off the characters in the manuals. Later on I got into just trying to draw them instead of just tracing, and then I wanted to draw my own characters too. I probably pumped out a lot more volume than other kids my age, and my mom made sure to sign me up for lots of art classes. I kinda like fine arts but don't like taking on assignments. So at one point I actually failed high school art because I refused to hand in my sketchbook or do the assigned work. I came back the next semester and merely worked on my own paintings and my teacher decided to just give me an A for that. I even got a $500 scholarship from that. As an after school thing, I took animation classes and that was really the art I loved, with a teacher who let me draw anything and even encouraged it. I spent a long time dicking around after high school in art school but was never happy with fine arts, because I just can't force myself to take the abstract approach to things. I'd rather draw things literally, so after a couple failed applications to the animation department, I finally broke through and got accepted last year.

For all the people who say "I wish I hadn't drawn crappy animu", I don't think that anime itself is necessarily a detriment. The people who paint landscapes don't necessarily have a more fulfilling art career. There's obviously appeal in the anime aesthetic that draws people in. Personally I wouldn't call my art "anime" because I'm not Japanese or French. They're cartoons. Anime is just a word for animation. And there are some seriously talented people who work on cartoons for a living and couldn't do anything else, because they love creating characters and worlds. I really look up to artists like Osamu Tezuka and Chuck Jones who decided they loved cartoons even more than their original callings.

Now, the people who obsess over anime like it's the bestest thing ever have zero appreciation for the pioneers of animation and comics who take inspiration from all sources. I'm also not a fan of shows that are basically a cut and paste job of nerd wank material for the monies. I'm just saying that it's not necessarily bad that drawing cartoons is bad for anyone, as long as you don't shut out the rest of the world.

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The laughable irony of the situation is that I've actually a strong, formally-taught foundation in traditional media, and yet I stupidly chose to disregard and ultimately forget basically everything I've learned in favor of some shitty-ass animu crap that nobody even cares about. I'm now painfully trying to re-teach myself/forget all this crap, because in the long run, nobody's going to take your animu shit seriously when you art. And because UGUUUUUUU is pretty much gross.

Tl;dr - I was taught, I fucked up and forgot, and I'm now paying the price for being stupid.

As I've pretty much ground into the dirt at this point, I don't believe I have any real talent. I'm a terrible artist and creator, and anything I've done is pretty much the result of my stupidity being smashed and smeared onto a page for the world to gawk, point, and laugh at. I really do think practice is the biggest factor in ever being "good," though. Talented people are few and far between; all the rest of us shits need to work for it.

I mean, I like art - I love art. But I'm not really much of an artist. I just like to stare at pretty things.

The irony in this is that there's a lot more anime-esque styles now (stateside) since the 90's.

If you like anime then push through and just do your thing. It's called a passion for a reason; you just can't expect everyone else to agree and don't let nay-sayers get you down.

If the only thing a person knows how to do it anime and one certain style that's one thing/a challenge they want to overcome/expand their skills, but if they know how to do other things as well and anime happens to be their favorite/expertise, then don't listen to people who put you down. It's the exact same type of people who put down modern/pop art. They have an idea of what they like and what they think will "sell" and bash anything that doesn't conform to it. What they don't realize is that art, like everything else, changes and progresses. Maybe they don't like to admit it but it does.

Look at all of the current cartoon shows now for kids and compare them to the ones from the 80s and 90s. They all have a more "anime" look and feel to them. Avatar:The Last Airbender is a pretty good example, but then again just look at the progression of certain licenses. The DC Animated Universe for example - look at the art change from the original Batman series, to the sequels, to Justice League and finally to Teen Titans and Young Justice. The shift is way too obvious and that's because anime DOES appeal to people.

Oh and you want to see something cool?

Check out this artist: http://aimo.deviantart.com/

She started out as a humble fan of Bioware games and not really anyone big or important. Her name and art is super well known and she gets commissions out the butt now. She doesn't even use CG or computers, her main sell is personal sketch cards and copic markers. She got to be really popular when she got a mini fanbase for her work on the forums and devs took notice. They start posting her work on their facebook page and a few other places and now she is a mini internet hit. Her style is more "comic book theme" which I dare say is more of a difficult "sell" than anime, but she still managed, and probably in the least likely place.

Yeah maybe "raw genius talent" may be hard to come by but then again so is true perseverance and that's something everyone can get for themselves. So if anime is was you REALLY like to do, don't undermine yourself and stop what your passion is.

edit - to stay on topic, i've always just liked doing stuff with my hands, projects, building things, drawings, etc since i was a kid but i havent drawn anything serious since high school.TBH though i think it's less of a talent thing and more of a practice thing. a lot of great artist just start young and run with it, kind of like playing an instrument. it's highly unlikely than an adult will just pick up a pencil and be as good as someone who has had years of experience, the same way as someone who has played an instrument for years will, in reality, be better than an adult who just picked up an instrument and started to play it.

Edited by metavision
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  • 5 months later...

Pretty standard story here- started doing little kid drawings when i was little, REALLY enjoyed it! Got obsessed with magical girl anime in elementary school (Cardcaptor Sakura, Sailor Moon, Tokyo Mew Mew) and drew those characters ALL THE TIME. Also my own characters. Also i got really into drawing in the Wind Waker style when i was in like, 5th grade? and then my drawing sort of developed from there, i think that's where i started really trying to improve my art. I took the standard public school art classes too. And my mom signed me up for this art club thing at church when i was about 2nd grade. Also i got help from my brother and sister along the way, which i am TOTALLY grateful for!

I'm still at a bit of a rut as to my style now, though. I can never seem to keep a consistent style. Also i am REALLY BAD at drawing animals, i should really work on that. Who knows, maybe i'll get the guts to post my art on here sometime!

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I used to eyeball a lot of anime drawings in junior high when I first started wanting to draw, and then gradually developed my style from there; then it kind of stagnated and I stopped drawing for awhile and my drawings really deteriorated over the next few years. I luckily was able to befriend some artists once I started university, though, and I think that really helped in terms of influencing my need to improve! The same thing happened on tumblr, and I kept repeating a process of seeing cool aspects I liked in other people's art and incorporating different things into my own style until it evolved into what it was today!

I think a key turning point in my improvement was figuring out the direction I wanted, and this happened a number of times-- my primary style is currently heavily influenced by Phobs and Len-yan while my secondary style is mostly influenced by Kali Ciesemier! Art idols, man.

I'm pretty sure a crazy amount of practice and experimenting helps, too; I didn't really improve much in the last half of 2012, but I drew something new almost every two days last month and forced myself to try new things, and as a result improved rather drastically!

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When my sister and I were little, we would ask our dad to draw pretty pictures for us. He'd give us little stick figures. We thought we could draw better than that, so we started drawing ourselves. After a while I gave up, because all I could do were really crappy doodles while my sister was much better than I was, developing a neat and stylized style. Then, when I was in middle school my interest in drawing was rekindled by Naruto, and from then on I would draw quite a lot, managing to very slowly develop a modest and anime-ish style. Unfortunately, I'm still not that great at drawing, but I'm at the very least a hell of a lot better than what I used to be.

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I have pretty much drawn all my life and was self-taught for the most part (I wouldn't count public school art classes or high school art classes as real formal training. XD But they did give me even more practice time! For marks, too!)

I just saw what I liked and tried to imitate. But I was always much more interested in creating my own characters and worlds than making fanart. So I have.. hundreds of characters. Literally.

Unfortunately, I am kind of lazy and don't like pushing myself too hard when it comes to art so I've stagnated or only slowly improved over the many.. MANY years. Like.. what is a background? What is architecture? Perspective??? xD

I fear I will remain a hobbyist forever even though i have done a few commissions int he past and have had some works published.. but.. it still feels like I have barely begun pursuing any of my artistic dreams. *SIGHSIGHSIGH*

[spoiler=Here are a couple of evolution of skills/style timelines, not that they are totally accurate, but it's some kind of measure! I tend to be inconsistent lol]

Showing some kind of evolution of my CGing/digital colouring skills. Can you really even see a difference? >_>

The 2001 one in the upper left is with a mouse. The 2000 pic of the lower left is pencil crayon. lol

colouringstyle_by_meibatsu-d5mf7q3.jpg

Here is just one character that I only started drawing as a human in 1998. I then stopped making coloured images of him for a long time until 2009. I have yet to have another seriously coloured image of him. ;___;

But at least you can see what a 11ish years can do. LOL (not much..?? hahahah! If I were only more serious, maybe I could have improved that much in only half or a third of the time, but oh well..)

Evolution_of_GLS_by_Meibatsu.jpg

I still label my stuff as anime because that was my foundation when I started drawing humans, but my style is more naturalistic or even.. "western comic book" than most anime, so it's a weird mix of eastern and western cartoon/comic influences right now.I'm not even sure how to feel about that, but it's hard to move away from it because it has pretty much become my "default" style these days. I want to get back into anthro art because that's where I actually started drawing from (them kids cartoons with them animals, man!), and I want to add more flow and fluidity in my stuff but it's so hard.. Trying to inject a more animated aesthetic into my style is hard.

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When my sister and I were little, we would ask our dad to draw pretty pictures for us. He'd give us little stick figures. We thought we could draw better than that, so we started drawing ourselves. After a while I gave up, because all I could do were really crappy doodles while my sister was much better than I was, developing a neat and stylized style. Then, when I was in middle school my interest in drawing was rekindled by Naruto, and from then on I would draw quite a lot, managing to very slowly develop a modest and anime-ish style. Unfortunately, I'm still not that great at drawing, but I'm at the very least a hell of a lot better than what I used to be.

Aww idk why but that just sounded like a cute story to me ^~^

I think my brother used to be better at drawing than I was, then over time I passed him up. I guess I just drew more often than he did.

The only thing about my drawing though is that it feels like it isn't creative at all... Usually when I draw things I draw them realistically and make them look exactly the way they look for real. I haven't come up with any unique style to myself, though... But I guess that's why I don't plan to go into art professionally x3 I'll just draw for myself~ Or for my friends too if they wanted

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Doodled a lot of stuff when I was a kid; forgotten suddenly when I was in my elementary days when most of my classmates underestimated me... The ability was re-ignited when I stepped on High School when I joined the Art Club, and was furthermore powered up when I met my first "sempai" after graduating.

Now, I just do these for fun; but other than that.... I just suck horribly. By means suck; irredeemable amounts of sucking.

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Doodled a lot of stuff when I was a kid; forgotten suddenly when I was in my elementary days when most of my classmates underestimated me... The ability was re-ignited when I stepped on High School when I joined the Art Club, and was furthermore powered up when I met my first "sempai" after graduating.

Now, I just do these for fun; but other than that.... I just suck horribly. By means suck; irredeemable amounts of sucking.

I can't tell if you're putting down your work or going off topic towards the end... x3

If you're talking about your drawing... your signature makes it look like your drawing is fine, to me~

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I can't tell if you're putting down your work or going off topic towards the end... x3

If you're talking about your drawing... your signature makes it look like your drawing is fine, to me~

Old Art... Ew... They're just as garbage as my recent stuff...

I suppose your positive comment could "null" out my negativity for a while; but still... I'm not buying it a.k.a not convinced at all.

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