Tips for a Newbie

[Luigi]

Hey, I recently started trying to draw comics. Well, first I have to learn to crawl before I learn to walk so I'm pretty much starting at the basics. Drawing shapes and just trying ot draw them 3D. My shading is like crap. Anywayz, any tips for a new guy like how did you guys start off learning to draw?

[Brandon Hanvey]

I would suggest either getting some books on drawing or taking some art classes at the local community college.

[Greg Hatcher]

Start by drawing REAL things. Do not, DO NOT, try to teach yourself to draw by looking at comics. Look at real people and real objects and try to see the underlying shapes they are made of; everything is made of some collection of discs, cubes, spheres, pyramids, ovoids and cylinders pasted together in a unique configuration. (For example, a moving van can be seen as a block sitting on top of four discs, that kind of thinking is what I mean.) Learn to draw and shade basic shapes and you can draw anything.

For what it's worth, the way I walk my beginning students through this is to teach them the shapes individually first, all lit from one light in the upper left corner of the page: this is how that light hits a sphere, this is how it hits a cube, etc., etc.

Then I set up a still life of common everyday objects -- a can, a pop bottle, a box, something like that -- with one strong light on them and make them draw that. Then more complicated objects. And so on.

Work from the simple to the complex. Take it a step at a time. I don't have my students drawing faces and people until the sixth or seventh class. Master shape and light and shadow first and you can work in any area of the arts.

[Jasper]

Drawing books help a lot and you can keep them for future reference. It also helps if you copy photos from magazines. However you do it keep practicing. Just the act of drawing constantly will help you get better.

Also don't underestimate the web. Some good sites I've found from a quick google:
http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/K9-14/introduction.htm
http://www.learn-to-draw.com/
http://www.wannalearn.com/Fine_Arts/Visual_Art/Drawing_and_Sketching/
http://homepages.tesco.net/~p.wilkinson/

[Luigi]

Thanx for the tips you guys!

I'll make you proud!! :)

[taintedcereal]

For years growing up I loved to draw and I always drew starting with the outlining details, never with basic shapes. I kind of blew the whole concept off. However, when I started doing sequential art I found it necessary to draw basic shapes, this is how you figure out where everything is going to go, you dont want to draw an arm and have it look really good and then draw the leg and have it look really good but then have each part come out out of proportion in relation to each other. Shapes are guidelines, they tell you where you're going to go next. When I started drawing basic shapes I found my art improved dramatically. Never underestimate stick figures!