hi everyone!!! advice wanted please!
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hi everybody! hope your all keeping healthy and well!!
im a bit shy so please everyone be nice to me!
i just wanted a little advice from all you pros out there... i have sometimes posted things iv done, on the forum but never really introduced myself properly.....
so, im a 20 year old Briton, a real beginner in drawing, but its something i always loved to do-which is why im on SVS!
im jewish and my goal and hope is to eventually, hopefully, draw for jewish children's books, comics and magazines. About a year ago i started looking into learning illustration, and i heard about SVS, which sounded like the best option for me, and i sighed up in October. however, due to working a full day i didnt have so much time, untill now with lockdown, i have more time thankfully. i have done all the classes in Level one of the curriculum, but i want to do a bit more practice before jumping into level 2.i noticed on the forum that some people have mentioned Drawabox.com, and i have actually started that and im now in the middle of the 250 box challenge. the problem is...before starting SVS, i thought i was great at drawing, but now i have changed my mind! because, before this, my artwork was for my high school level certificate, my art GCSE, a lot of which was copying pictures, either of artists paintings, or copying a photo of mine. now that im drawing things not from a picture (and using a Wacom tablet which was also hard to get used to), but drawing things from my head, its very different, when im not copying something, that only exists in my imagination! and it just doesnt seem to work as well....
i hope that drawabox will help me in this area, im wondering if anyone has had a good experinece with drawabox? did it help your artwork to improve a lot?
what other things can i do? do you think its a good idea to do master copies of artists that i like their illustrations? i know it will for sure help me to learn to render and color, but what is the best way to go about learning to draw well-and i mean really well- in the fastest way possible?
thanks everyone!! i would really appreaaciate it if people can respond to me with any advice and ideas!
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@Leah dont feel bad about drawing from reference, you'll find about 99 percent of pro's draw from reference, its a gifted 1 percent that can draw everything from memory, and even they didnt speing up out of the ground like that, they worked at it. Reference is essential. Some pros, get this, even trace! Shock horror! They'll stick a 3d model into their image and just paint over it. Why not? The aim is to produce a good image, quickly. It takes years of daily study to master drawing anatomy from memory, so on the meantime, use whatever tools you have available to help you.
Doing artists studies is good, if done with purpose. For example, i like Jonny Duddle, so i did some studies of how he draws curves, and hands, paying attention, redrawing just parts of his images to try and understand how he does it. But if i just passively copied a few pictures of his, i wouldnt learn much. Thats the problem a lot of people have when copying stuff out, its easy to go into auto pilot mode and then you're not really learning anything.
Either way, whatever you do, you have to do tons and tons of drawing, every day, for years, if you want to be 'really good'. Look at Stan Prokopenko, (proko) i would say hes about as good at drawing as anyone needs to be. Hes been training for over a decade, old school training. He will have easily clocked up his 10000 hours, if not double that, and hes not even that old yet. But if you cut the right corners, in the meantime you can be half decent.
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@Leah hi! I don’t think there’s any quick fix for your situation. Getting better at drawing takes a lot of time, sometimes even years. So I’ll leave you with the same old advice: practice, practice, practice. Draw from life. Do studies or master copies of your favorite artists. Have your work critiqued by your peers. Ask advice from pros, maybe even have a mentorship. It may seem tedious but it will be worth it. And lastly, have fun!
