Hello all! So im going to be taking drawing one at my school next semester, but I want to get a head start on my art skills. Problem is I suck at drawing. I know the best way to improve is to draw daily and practice, but I dont know what to practice! I picked up Drawing on the right side of the brain at my library today, but its not what I am looking for. Im not interested in "realistic" potriat drawing, I want to draw animated cartoons. Pixar, marvel, disney, and dreamworks style cartooning is what I want to do. So how should I approach this? Are there anybooks you guys recomend? Should I just find pictures online of various cartoons and just draw them everyday hoping to get better as time goes on? Because right now my drawings are bad, I tried to draw some cartoons but I cant even get the eyes to be the same size! Please help!
There are some excellent books for beginners. You will also need to draw every day.
Can you tell me some of the books you recomend?
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Here is something I drew today, just a quick sketch and only a face. The other is a barbarian type of fighter. As you can tell I need ALOT OF WORK!
file:///Users/amarnagra/Pictures/Scan%208.pdf
Any tips, tricks, adivce?
Go to Barns And Noble and check the titles. Try the one that look good to you.
The problem with that is that the books seem to be cookie cutter. It will help develop the authors style, but wont that be counter productive? I got action cartooning by Ben Caldwell, should I just keep drawing all the sketchs in that book until I become good?
There are other titles that are more about drawing technic.
Drawing: A Complete Guide and The Fundamental of Drawing
Keep drawing and you will develop your own style.
If you want to be a cartoonist the best thing you can do is to draw from life. Some of those "cookie cutter" books you're overlooking might be exactly what you need. My advice is to not ignore the content because of the style. Style is what you should be bringing to the table! You might like "Dynamic Anatomy," or "The Figure: The Classic Approach to Drawing & Construction" as a starting point.
The thing is, the drawing techniques you learn from more "realistic", drawing will absolutely apply to your cartoony, stylized work. Style is the veneer. It's the finish. If you get a good grounding in the basics your cartoons will be so much better. (Okay, that said, I think you might enjoy "The Illlusion of Life." It's not a drawing how-to book, mind you, but you can see how Disney animators map out character acting and movement, and use squash and stretch and exaggerated poses. Just keep in mind that the animators who created all those images studied classical drawing first!)
There are also drawing tutorials on youtube, deviantart, tumblr. You aren't limited just to books, especially if you're finding them too stodgy for your tastes. Search engines are your friend! For example, here's a video on gesture drawing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HR59yFZ7Y
Just bought drawn to life and will be getting it in the mail soon. I will also be picking up ; "The figure" and "Drawing for life" come monday at my school library. Thank you guys so much, and looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me. Time to get busy.
One way for getting better sketches is to recreate your favourite designs, try visit some art forums for gallery views. Works everytime.