Artists! Tell me your secrets!

[TheMadDuckie]

What I like to do is make myself suffer and draw what I hate/suck at drawing the most, and for me that is eyes and lineart. It sucks, but it helps me improve.
So, moral of the story; draw more hands and feet.

 

[Gaby]

Yeah it was a little girl

I read that as "yeah, when I was a little girl"
and I.
I had to stop for a moment.

 

[fhamersley]

That drawing is awesome Ced, keep it up! Very creative way to avoid drawing her arm.
The following are my tricks for improving (these are all from pencil/pen and paper.. will still work!). Draw little pieces of humans, some eyes, some faces, lots of feet and hands, and doing this really improved my overall drawings. If hands and feet are daunting to you, work on them! I start by writing a short anatomical study. I do some research, look at some images, stare at my own hands, and pretend I'm trying to teach someone about the make-up of hands. Then I get to loosely and quickly drawing them in different poses without an eraser. Over and over. No one ever has to see them so don't worry if you stuff up. Just try again straight away.
The same applies to faces. Draw heaps of different expressions and experiment with features (i.e. big noses, wrinkly ears, eyes made from interesting shapes).
Also, some mentioned that copying/tracing is helpful. I totally agree. If you're not sure how something looks, get an image (or look at your hand, other people etc.) and draw directly from them!
Finally, for general improvement and style development, play with bigness and exaggeration. I found the following video really helpful with personal style especially, which can be so hard to uncover ;0;

Hope this all helped a little and can't wait to see more stuff from you

 

[Ced]

Been doodling rubbish stuff, experimenting kinda but not really with much intent to make nice-looking things, but today I got an image in my head and I felt an urge to try and recreate it, so a couple minutes ago I started something! I'm using an anatomy model as reference, which makes things waaaay easier, but I want to change it enough so that I'm challenged to come up with limb proportion on my own, too

( "I wonder what sort of way Ced will avoid drawing any arms or faces this time..." )

 

[bettemus99]

... How can this be. You're better at anatomy than me-.. ..

 

[Ced]

... How can this be. You're better at anatomy than me-.. ..

For the left arm and shoulder I used a reference image of male anatomy, which will be why it doesn't look ludicrously disproportioned

Adding mooooore! If the hands look different from each other, good; there's a reason for that

 

[fhamersley]

Go Ced go!

 

[dUMMY]

I still plan on posting a little guide, I haven't forgotten!

Ok, I forgot, but I remembered just now, so . . . yeah.

 

[Sankera]

But uhm Ced, what type of tablet do you have?

 

[Ced]

But uhm Ced, what type of tablet do you have?

Wacom Bamboo CTL-470!

Haven't been doing any drawing at all recently because of stupid stuff and bad things But should hopefully post a finished thhhiiiinnng soon, once I get the time.

 

[Somnastra]

I still plan on posting a little guide, I haven't forgotten!

Ok, I forgot, but I remembered just now, so . . . yeah.

. . . You forgot again

 

[dUMMY]

. . . You forgot again

OMG, I was just thinking about this yesterday and hoping everybody else forgot!!!!!