03-10-2015, 01:01 PM
Hiya! Sorry I took a while to answer.
Really nice to see you're getting back to posting, you're making some good progress with these studies.
Don't think of your drawings as failures, see them as stepping stones to better drawings! Making ninety nine bad sketches is sometimes what it takes to make one good drawing. Nobody makes stuff they're totally proud of all the time, so don't feel bad if your drawings don't match what you want them to be, it means you're improving.
You asked about line quality and measuring angles, one exercise I started doing all the time was drawing straight lines on paper. Sort of like this:
http://www.carrie-lewis.com/demonstratio...ght-lines/
I prefer doing these in pen on paper and usually draw them a few inches long. The idea is to train your arm into a machine that makes straight lines using muscle memory. Oh, you should focus on drawing with motion from your shoulder and elbow instead of your wrist. That will keep you looser and will help prevent carpal tunnel and other nasties.
As for measuring angles and proportions, the first key is to draw simple to complex. When you're looking at a figure draw a quick sketch of the whole pose, then start defining the larger shapes and masses, then limbs, then features and details. You draw the biggest shape you can first and whittle down the shapes, making sure they're all related to each other. If you draw a fully finished head and then get to sketching the body, the body and head will probably wind up being different sizes because you don't have a way to measure. You need to build up the entire drawing in equal steps, get all the general shapes and measurements correct before going smaller.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthr...nguage!%29
I think that's a good example, see how the drawing starts out very sketchy and loose and only after the perspective and basic shapes are decided on does he draw smaller shapes like the spine or bones. That should help you measure proportions.
Drawing cylinder or box forms for your figures as was suggested is also SUPER helpful. Don't worry too much about drawing the right shapes, just use really basic boxes for the rib cage and pelvis and cylinders for the limbs. Getting those forms in correct perspective will help you make sense of the figure and see what parts of the body are closer and which are further away. When you get them looking right then you can add on muscles and anatomy and squishy parts, but if you draw those first the drawing will lack structure.
One trick I use for measuring angles is to actually hold up a pencil and match the angle of my reference, then move the pencil over to my drawing to check it. Most of the time you'll try to auto-correct angles to be closer to 90 or 180 degrees. It's the same deal as fixing a tilted picture frame, we like perpendiculars and parallels. If you can learn to ignore the urge to straighten up angles your drawings will be way more dynamic.
I don't really have advice for improving line quality on a tablet specifically, I always had a hard time with that and prefer drawing traditionally. How big is your tablet? If it's very small you might want to consider getting a bigger one. I started using paint tool sai for lineart because it has a smoothing function that helps make nicer lines. I've heard manga studio is good for lines too.
I don't think you really need to worry about rendering at this point, focus on values and perspective and construction. I think you should do some more stuff from imagination too. You gotta make sure you're studying with a purpose and applying what you learn from the studies, otherwise you're just practicing how to copy photos.
Don't ever just copy a photo or painting. Think about what you're studying, why it looks like it does, and learn something new that you can put in your own drawings.
Good luck!
Really nice to see you're getting back to posting, you're making some good progress with these studies.
Don't think of your drawings as failures, see them as stepping stones to better drawings! Making ninety nine bad sketches is sometimes what it takes to make one good drawing. Nobody makes stuff they're totally proud of all the time, so don't feel bad if your drawings don't match what you want them to be, it means you're improving.
You asked about line quality and measuring angles, one exercise I started doing all the time was drawing straight lines on paper. Sort of like this:
http://www.carrie-lewis.com/demonstratio...ght-lines/
I prefer doing these in pen on paper and usually draw them a few inches long. The idea is to train your arm into a machine that makes straight lines using muscle memory. Oh, you should focus on drawing with motion from your shoulder and elbow instead of your wrist. That will keep you looser and will help prevent carpal tunnel and other nasties.
As for measuring angles and proportions, the first key is to draw simple to complex. When you're looking at a figure draw a quick sketch of the whole pose, then start defining the larger shapes and masses, then limbs, then features and details. You draw the biggest shape you can first and whittle down the shapes, making sure they're all related to each other. If you draw a fully finished head and then get to sketching the body, the body and head will probably wind up being different sizes because you don't have a way to measure. You need to build up the entire drawing in equal steps, get all the general shapes and measurements correct before going smaller.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthr...nguage!%29
I think that's a good example, see how the drawing starts out very sketchy and loose and only after the perspective and basic shapes are decided on does he draw smaller shapes like the spine or bones. That should help you measure proportions.
Drawing cylinder or box forms for your figures as was suggested is also SUPER helpful. Don't worry too much about drawing the right shapes, just use really basic boxes for the rib cage and pelvis and cylinders for the limbs. Getting those forms in correct perspective will help you make sense of the figure and see what parts of the body are closer and which are further away. When you get them looking right then you can add on muscles and anatomy and squishy parts, but if you draw those first the drawing will lack structure.
One trick I use for measuring angles is to actually hold up a pencil and match the angle of my reference, then move the pencil over to my drawing to check it. Most of the time you'll try to auto-correct angles to be closer to 90 or 180 degrees. It's the same deal as fixing a tilted picture frame, we like perpendiculars and parallels. If you can learn to ignore the urge to straighten up angles your drawings will be way more dynamic.
I don't really have advice for improving line quality on a tablet specifically, I always had a hard time with that and prefer drawing traditionally. How big is your tablet? If it's very small you might want to consider getting a bigger one. I started using paint tool sai for lineart because it has a smoothing function that helps make nicer lines. I've heard manga studio is good for lines too.
I don't think you really need to worry about rendering at this point, focus on values and perspective and construction. I think you should do some more stuff from imagination too. You gotta make sure you're studying with a purpose and applying what you learn from the studies, otherwise you're just practicing how to copy photos.
Don't ever just copy a photo or painting. Think about what you're studying, why it looks like it does, and learn something new that you can put in your own drawings.
Good luck!