Please give advice and critique

[Maurice]

My goal is to draw cutesy anime stuff at a proficient level. I'd like to be able to draw whatever I want from imagination and have it look pretty enough. How can I make that happen?  Drawing it just a hobby, so I can't spend 10 hours a day on it. 

These were all referenced and I'd really appreciate some critique and general direction for where I should go from here.

[xelfereht]

Hey there,

well you can either learn certain anime faces at specific angles and draw them till they are stuck in your head

Option 2 would be to study the figure, head and face structure till you have a good understanding of it and are able to find ways to represent it as you please

then there's option 3, doing both. you learn from life and learn from how others have simplified it in ways that appeal to you.

Option one is the fastest if you just wanna be able to draw a decent character from a few pre-determined angles.
option two and three, at least on average take years of practice

I can guess from your studies that you aren't taking away much from doing them yet.
they don't look like very conscious studies, and thats not an attempt at a put down

I would recommend at this point, doing more studies that focus on getting the structure and face parts organized well and proportioned fairly accurately.

you can do allot of quick head studies that just get the general perspective and feature placement well



This kind of quick study will be more bang for your buck, especially if you're strapped for time.

and for poses you can get more learning of the basic composing in 3d space by composing many rather than taking longer to render out from a photo study.


 
and when you do study from photos,
the more you are aware of what information you are trying to absorb, the faster you can take it in
be mindful of what youre actually observing 


hope that helps somewhat.
drawings real hard
theres manga artists in their 70s and 80s that struggle everyday to draw a nice anime girl 

[Maurice]

When doing a "study" (I don't know if I could call what i'm doing that) I always do it the same way, some circles and lines, and then putting stuff on top. All eye-balled. I think I've learned a few things from it, but like you said i'm not getting much bang for my buck. With head studies and stuff like that, should I try doing it from my imagination, or by using a photo? If I don't reference anything, how will I know if i'm getting the placement right? Also, people seem to use boxes a lot, would that benefit me? 

[darktiste]

Maurice you only get what you put in let try to be honest here.It not because you think your effort aren't paying of that they are not.You will learn to ask yourself the right question as you develop your understand of the concept necessary for your progression and everytime you will find something to improve you will have the possibility of doing so but you need to develop the curiosity of problem solving.It easier to do the same thing over and over without changing anything and saying why i am not going anywhere... we all need to be brave and try new approach not be afraid of the unknown.Not gonna lie it not easy.

[xelfereht]

When doing a "study" (I don't know if I could call what i'm doing that) I always do it the same way, some circles and lines, and then putting stuff on top. All eye-balled. I think I've learned a few things from it, but like you said i'm not getting much bang for my buck. With head studies and stuff like that, should I try doing it from my imagination, or by using a photo? If I don't reference anything, how will I know if i'm getting the placement right? Also, people seem to use boxes a lot, would that benefit me? 

when you eyeball stuff as long as you critique your efforts your'e training your eye, so that's good.

you want to do both from imagination and referenced.
you try to take some information from the referenced study,
you may for example focus on the general gesture, anatomical landmarks, weight, basic forms.. any number of things

then you do some from imagination sketches
you compare the two and see where you are still lacking and there is your guidance for what to be more observant of.

some people prefer boxes, wont hurt to try and if it feels like a nice approach, incorporate it.

peoples approach varies, try them all and see what sticks then try them again once you've grown and you may find use in what you previously did not.

[Maurice]

It easier to do the same thing over and over without changing anything and saying why i am not going anywhere... we all need to be brave and try new approach not be afraid of the unknown.

That's why I made this thread. I'd like to improve by doing things differently, but I want those changes to be informed. I don't even know exactly what's wrong with what I put on the page and how I can avoid those issues, just that my skill level or something isn't high.

[xelfereht]

It easier to do the same thing over and over without changing anything and saying why i am not going anywhere... we all need to be brave and try new approach not be afraid of the unknown.

That's why I made this thread. I'd like to improve by doing things differently, but I want those changes to be informed. I don't even know exactly what's wrong with what I put on the page and how I can avoid those issues, just that my skill level or something isn't high.

whats off about the individual images are things like, proportions, anatomy, values, lighting consistency, use of line weight, quality of lines, shape design and control towards appeal

if they are in service of improving and for ingraining observations to help you progress, nothings wrong with them 

good on you for seeking ways to improve, the answer, sad or encouraging is, there's so much to do 

for the goal you mentioned, at this stage, quantity of simple structural and gestural sketches probably has more benefit than longer renderings, maybe you could spend time at this moment 50% observational structural and gesture 25% from imagination 25% longer rendering (with concious observing)

[darktiste]

Your problem right now is not that you leak the ability to improve it that you leak the vocabulary to have a dialogue that give you the mean to improve.

If you know nothing about the vocabulary necessary to build your skill how will you be able to ask people to help you?You don't even understand what area of your skill set your trying to improve your only conscious of wanting to improve but you don't know what or maybe it not the what that you don't know it the how but for most begginner it not any of those that is important for them it where to begin... the answers is where do you want to go?You probably can't answers that precisely yet and that ok.You simply have to start somewhere the more you do the more you know where you don't want to go and this give you direction.

Someone can give you direction all your life but it won't help you find your own direction.A good start is to find people who are going in similar direction as you so you can compare your approch and change direction as you go.

I would say right now your on the second step of the pyramid.Because you actively seeking help something someone who would be unconsciously incompetent would not even do.

[John]

It easier to do the same thing over and over without changing anything and saying why i am not going anywhere... we all need to be brave and try new approach not be afraid of the unknown.

That's why I made this thread. I'd like to improve by doing things differently, but I want those changes to be informed. I don't even know exactly what's wrong with what I put on the page and how I can avoid those issues, just that my skill level or something isn't high.

This might very well be me just babbling.

If you want to have informed decisions working towards your goal, it's also a good thing to clearly define what this goal is. It's very difficult to hit a target that's abstract such as 'cute' since there's a million ways to interpret what that word even means. Maybe a goal is to define what that word even means by exploring it through your art.

Drawing from imagination takes a really long time. I take that from Artgerm's adage of "you can draw what you don't know." That's why people make studies of things (by copying, sculpting, etc...) to get a better grasp of things.

Aside from the gold these two gentlemen have dispensed, I believe you can make your goals happen when you're:
- patient enough with yourself, accept you're going to fail a lot, and that's okay. No one is excepted from bombing. Everyone falls flat on their faces. 
- having fun. I believe that's what's keeping me in this field. It's just fun to make lines, slap colors on it and make something.

[Maurice]

This is what I did today, poses sketched gesturally and structurally. The last three poses were from my imagination. I'm not sure exactly what's the difference between a structural and gestural sketch. The gestural ones I made seem like rough outlines and the structural ones the same thing, but more blocky and with shapes. Drawing from imagination was tough for the first pose since I wasn't sure how a bent leg would look from that perspective. Is this type of practice in the right direction?

[darktiste]

The general misconception is to consider gesture to be a contour drawing a gesture is more base in the essense of a pose.For example the direction of the limb the weight distribution those are fairly hard to grasp concept that require a large amount of gesture to start to actually feel those thing like they should.A gesture depending on it duration aim at different thing.Shorter one tend to be more simplified expression of the subject will longer one can start to look like proper drawing sessioon.Gesture as far as i understand it is life drawing applied to the human figure but it can discard some aspect of the fundamental depending on the duration of the gesture study.In term of duration we talk about 30sec gesture 1 min gesture 5 min gesture anything past that for me begin to be more an exercise in observation that what i would consider proper gesture study.I think gesture is also the relation of balance between the different part of the body.The general action we are look at is the action of the spine but not necessarly the spine itself but the gesture coming out of the spine.Think of a pole artist who pole is is own body how would he distrubute is himself as to not fall.