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feel free to go wild on this, random ass doodle i did in like 10 mins

I assume you have a better grasp of proportion than this, but I want to really point out the shading. Its obvious to me that you've placed the shading just where you've always placed it, with minimal attention to the light source and almost no understanding of cast shadows. The nose suggests the light is directly above, but the body suggests the light is off to the side. It's a very common mistake for artists to shade parts of the body under different light sources, so I assume you do this often. An artist of your supposed calibre would benefit to pay some attention to those details, otherwise it would never hurt to return to the fundementals, which would help you find shadows and cast shadows on simpler forms and geometries.
A cast shadow is the shadow thrown on an object by another object blocking its exposure to the light. You shaded the bottom of the nose but you didn't cast the shadow the nose would give to the face below it (though you did cast the shadow of the head (somewhat) and hair (though not entirely correctly)). If the light is above the nose, the space above the lip would be in shadow, also.
Some tips: cast shadows from the same LS are always of the same value. Cast shadows are sharper nearer the object casting them, and blur as it moves further away (the cast shadow from the hair/nose would blur and lose sharp form-- except in extreme light-- as it travels down the face). Light rays from a far off light source are to be treated as parallel lines.

If you know what perspective is, light behaves with similar vectors.

For you I recommend form studies (and maybe figure drawing)

I know it doesn't look that good, but I used mostly only the brush tool, with a tiny bit of line tools. I also STILL use MS Paint.

You tried to mimic the shapes you see of this character, which is good, but you're about 10,000 drawings away from getting it right. Dont treat every image like a masterpiece; the difference between a master and a student is that the master studies more and produces less masterpieces.

A0xis a dit :

I assume you have a better grasp of proportion than this, but I want to really point out the shading. Its obvious to me that you've placed the shading just where you've always placed it, with minimal attention to the light source and almost no understanding of cast shadows. The nose suggests the light is directly above, but the body suggests the light is off to the side. It's a very common mistake for artists to shade parts of the body under different light sources, so I assume you do this often. An artist of your supposed calibre would benefit to pay some attention to those details, otherwise it would never hurt to return to the fundementals, which would help you find shadows and cast shadows on simpler forms and geometries.
A cast shadow is the shadow thrown on an object by another object blocking its exposure to the light. You shaded the bottom of the nose but you didn't cast the shadow the nose would give to the face below it (though you did cast the shadow of the head (somewhat) and hair (though not entirely correctly)). If the light is above the nose, the space above the lip would be in shadow, also.
Some tips: cast shadows from the same LS are always of the same value. Cast shadows are sharper nearer the object casting them, and blur as it moves further away (the cast shadow from the hair/nose would blur and lose sharp form-- except in extreme light-- as it travels down the face). Light rays from a far off light source are to be treated as parallel lines.

If you know what perspective is, light behaves with similar vectors.

For you I recommend form studies (and maybe figure drawing)

i had trouble shading nose yeah, couldn't figure out where to place the shadow exactly. i guess i should try putting shadow on above of lip then
i really placed the shadows on a whim, which is why they look somewhat wonky. sorry about that
i don't understand what you mean return to fundamentals specifically. what exactly am i supposed to go back to
i'm not sure what you mean't by LS. (what is that) but the shadow part is interesting. i'll try keeping that in mind because i dont know where it should be sharp and where blurry. what do you mean parallel lines
what do you mean by form studies. what exactly am i supposed to be studying
ive read about figure drawing, loomis specifically, they already talk about the shit i already know. maybe i should try a different book/author. i will see

"I don't understand what you mean return to fundamentals specifically. what exactly am i supposed to go back to,"
You go back to where it all begins; Spheres, Cubes and Cylinders (and How to Shade Them). Every figure and object in the universe can be broken down and understood by mentally building them with variations of those three shapes. The face is a combination of all sorts of mushy, cascading spheres of fat and muscle interspersed with spokes of rectangles (the bridge of the nose, jaw, ect.), the arms and legs are basically cylinders and the form of the head is cuboid (many professional artists depict the entire form of the head as a cubish rectangle thing, which is easier to work with than building the head from the circle of the skull). The fundamentals aren't the fundamentals because you just learn them and move on with your life, they're the fundamentals because they should exist in every drawing you ever draw. You don't know how to shade a face because you dont know how to shade spheres and cubes and cylinders working together in an environment.
LS is shorthand for Light Source (It's very important)
"i dont know where it should be sharp and where blurry." Turn your light on in your room and put your palm high against the wall. Where the shadow is close to your hand, it is sharp, and you will see how it blurs and loses form as it travels downward. To know, always, where to blur the shadow is simply a matter of reference and conscious practice with rendering and shading, but it's better to draw it wrong for now than to ignore it forever.
"what do you mean parallel lines."
It's not really important for you to know the specifics right now, but at least know that at high noon, when the sun is shining through a window, the light ray from the top of the window is parallel to the light ray at the bottom of the window. Any far-off light source works the same way, just imagine it hitting every point on the light side of the object in exactly the same way.
"what do you mean by form studies. what exactly am i supposed to be studying."
When you do form studies, you study the forms of the three fundamental shapes and any of their infinite variations, and you study how light interacts with those shapes and what values and shadows are created under different environments and light sources. Only because of form studies do you begin to build three-dimensional references in your mental library to which to turn to in your mind as you draw (as opposed to turning to flat images in your mind that you only vaguely remember-- this is why art professors don't like students learning to draw from photographs, they want you to build mental models and complex shapes so that you could handle drawing (and rendering) absolutely anything from life and your imagination.)
"Ive read about figure drawing, loomis specifically, they already talk about the shit i already know. maybe i should try a different book/author. i will see."
Loomis seems a bit above your level at the moment, the problem isn't your learning the vocabulary, the problem is you haven't been building a reference library or actively putting Loomis' constructions and measurements to use. You're like an athlete preparing for a marathon who read the book about running but didn't actually get out of the house. You've got to put every neuron in your brain to use if you're going to learn anything at all.

I suppose I should mention, I'm not harsh on people because I'm a hateful person, I'm harsh because I believe you all can improve, if you want to and if you try to. My advice isn't for people who want to eat the cake and draw their dumb OCs for tumblr followers, my advice is for people who genuinely want to improve and need someone who wont coddle and won't compliment failure and ignorance of light and proportion and anatomy. You can learn anatomy in six hours by utilising medical training websites and Youtube, not by drawing abs wrong 5000 times. You can then practice anatomy and fundamentals by figure drawing from references, and there's a dozen sites entirely devoted to providing you the best reference poses on the internet. You can watch countless character creators walk through the steps they take to make good, interesting characters and listen to hours upon hours of art professors critique and physically fix renders and user submitted drawings. You can even join communities entirely devoted to pointing out what shit you're doing wrong. You just. have. to. bother.

hello there, I don't know if this is the place to ask something like this but,
I finally have some free time, so I'd like to start learning human anatomy, can someone tell me where to begin?

https://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV >Go to the channel's videos tab to watch his videos in order, so you aren't overwhelmed. He has a video for the basics, every main muscle group, and he even does a shortened critique video of art submitted for his online anatomy lessons. You can pay for the premium content but you dont have to.

This is a link to Proko's introduction to anatomy, but he has vidoes for gesture and all that jazz that comes before the anatomy stage also

https://line-of-action.com/ A site full of model photos you can use to study the muscles in human flesh and their interactions and changes between sexes and body types; you should really use it for gesture practice but we're trying to go around Proko's paywall, really-- Watch his videos first so you understand what it is you're looking at.

http://learninganatomy.tumblr.com/. Just a fun blog
Good articles about anatomy and art
Some more helpful articles

*NOTE: Learning anatomy will force you to think about the realistic forms of the body, but that doesn't mean anatomy is only important in realistic drawings. All motion is dependent on anatomy, it's best to learn it now and get it in your brain so you can draw fun stuff even better.

A0xis a dit :

wew

me right now

i can shade cubes and cylinders on their own easily actually, but i think not when they're stacked together in a bunch i guess? i guess should practice that.
form studies paragraph seems interesting, but you didnt really lead me in the right direction of what i should be studying/reading specifically. what do you recommend?
i dont understand what you meant by loomis paragraph

a dit :

You can learn anatomy in six hours by utilising medical training websites and Youtube, not by drawing abs wrong 5000 times.

could you please link some thnx

also can you please keep your replies short and sweet if possible. i know you are very enthusiastic about art but reading long paragraphs in the end confuses me more than helps. and please keep your replies neutral towards people because if you dont, you're just going to turn other artists away. not trying to sound like a sent but its something i noticed

I guess I am a bit over enthusiastic.

Anatomy links


To lean what and how to do a form study, check out the master of form studies herself here
-> X, X, X<-
This artist is Istebrak; she's not God and she doesn't think herself as one, but she IS an art teacher and a great artist. Her Critique Hour video series touches on absolutely everything from character design to the glorious fundamentals.

Cute, funny reaction.