Art Resources

[Arkturas]

Aside from just starting drawing, is/was there any resources, online or otherwise, that the ridiculously talented people here used? Any hints?

[Natharai]

Well, one of the biggest things is that in order to learn how to stylize, you need to learn the basic shapes of things. Life drawing is fantastic, if not a little boring, for teaching you the rudimentary skills. Finding art and tracing it also works, because it makes you familiar with the structure and flow of things.

Or learning how to draw basic structures via construction of a skeleton of shapes and lines helps a TON so you can add flow and symmetry to your drawing. But there are still a lot of things that need to be learned like foreshortening and other angles. There are -tons- of books out there that can tell you what to know, but honestly? Enrolling in an art class in a community college would also be great, if you could manage it.

[Cadence]

^ Basically this.


I'll be honest with you, when I got more intent about drawing I started tracing pictures. I didn't ONLY trace, but I traced a lot. It did give me a good sense of how lines come together to form shapes, which sounds really elementary and you'd think that's obvious once you see it, but you'd be surprised how much a difference it makes.

If you're looking for specific links, DeviantArt actually holds a WEALTH of tutorials and guides that can get you started on anatomy, perspective and other pesky concepts that still plague me to date.


Here's a link to a generalized search in the Resources -> Tutorials -> Traditional Art section: browse.deviantart.com/resources/tutorials/tradart/?order=9