New to drawing, need suggestions

[Cait]

Hello! I have really gotten into drawing, except now, I'm not so impatient as I used to be and foolish with stupid ideas. I have begun to draw manga style drawings and while I'm not extremely well at it, I'm getting better with each passing day. My one weakness though is hair and was wondering if there was a tutorial out there that explained the various ways of doing manga style hair. With pictures of what it should look like, but not video, I am in despirate need of a step by step method so I can visually see the process without having to pause something every few seconds to make sure I'm doing it correctly.

What I am not interested in:
hearing about how you might dislike or loath manga and anime style, and how I should learn realism. (>.<) I have my likes and you have yours; I respect that. Just please respect my likes and if you can help me find, if not. (_ _) thank you

I searched google found videos, MU (Manga university website) and a couple of others, but I can't really find a tutorial on hair that shows the different ways of doing hair, how to do them. Thank you for your time, and hopefully someone will have a one I could use. I want to know if anyone has suggestions on how to shade, is there a difference in how you shade an object like something round than a flat surface? Sigh, my two biggest weaknesses, so yeah, i need some advice.

 

[Daxis]

http://lillydmg.deviantart.com/art/Tuto ... r-92896809
http://markcrilley.deviantart.com/art/m ... -158482871
http://strawberrycake.deviantart.com/ar ... orial&qo=1
http://bommie.deviantart.com/art/Tutori ... orial&qo=3
http://icyookami.deviantart.com/art/Hai ... orial&qo=5

and so on

 

[Cait]

d(^_^) Thanks! That should help quite a bit.

 

[moxie]

It's not a matter of disliking manga, it's a matter of disliking the bad techniques that form because of drawning nonstop manga before learning basic techniques. There's a reason why we hammer on people to practice realism and learn basic anatomy, lighting, composition, and structure. Unless you establish these basic skills and use them to create your own stylization, you're just going to be drawing derivative manga that's just like every other DeviantArtist's derivative manga. If you don't want to ever draw anything besides The Adventures of Inokanawana-san, samurai vampire for hire~ then good for you I guess, but if you're serious about improving your art you can't be so close-minded.

to reiterate; we don't hate manga, we hate the bad techniques that develop from not practicing the basics beforehand because you want to be an anime pro

 

[Cait]

Yeah, when you draw it's about keeping things so they looked like they are real, make you imagine real life or see things are real that aren't real. I already have the important tools, but need to make sure I understand if there is a difference in the way you shade things (I know about round and the light source). I am doing two things to improve...

1. Drawing already drawn manga characters (I do this so I have something to compare to)
2. Drawing stuff in real life, like my laptop and a piece of carrot cake (which I failed at (_ _), because I couldn't get it right and then, well ate it.)
3. Drawing my own characters from my head, but realized that I am still not good with hair. So I needed to learn that.

Trust me, I practiced eyes, ears and need to practice other poises as well. To me, if you want to learn manga, you study manga and you practice. I know most people want to create their own art style, to me, I think the story should be more awe inspiring than the artwork, but if I have have both, it would be awesome. I just need to draw I can't draw anything fake, it's not me, but at the same time, I can't and won't draw this...
http://bored-bored.com/wp-content/uploa ... awings.jpg
If people are into that kind of art, I am pleased because to me, each person finds his or her own path in life. The only thing I can do is to practice, practice and then, as time goes on, I'll find what style suits me most in the manga form of drawing. After all, in art there are no right or wrong answers.

 

[Daxis]

I already have the important tools

I don't know, feeling random
Tools in no way make the art better. It HELPS. But it doesn't automatically make the art better, or the artistic skills of the artist.

Hell. You think paint has limitations and you can't do anything good on it? you'd be wrong

Trace. Get a picture, trace it. Get manga, trace it. Trace until your body memorizes it.
Then have shit model for you.
Then start drawing.

 

[moxie]

Oh, no, I'm not trying to say that everybody should do all realism all the time - I'm suggesting you learn the fundamentals, and then move on to the style of your choice, be it manga, cartooning, w/e. You see people on DeviantArt and the like that couldn't care less about basic composition, structure, lighting, color theory... they just jump straight into emulating their favorite anime or cartoon, and their art is clearly bland and derivative at best, and downright laughable at worst.

 

[Cait]

When I was trying to locate a good sight, I found one that was teaching the style, but I didn't use his site, because well, he didn't show how you got there. From step one to step two. I mean, I think MU has good tutorials, but I have no desire to mimic what I see on someone else's manga. That being said, I consider everything you say very important so much so that I call them the important tools. I mean, paper and pencil are nice, but heck people used to draw on cave walls, so what does that tell you? As for emulating, well, I love too many mangas to do that, and mostly those pictures I do just to compare. When I know the style enough, I plan on creating my own characters and looks my creations. Right now, I don't know the style of manga I really want to do, there are a couple of school of thought when it comes to manga.

I know there is a logic to the hair, but how do you create something that is both messy and neat at the same time?

 

[zchin]

Well I've been through about exactly what's happening now (I'm not an expert at all). You just have to be patient and all, like when your watching a manga, study how the head shapes are and how the hair is and also the shading too. You can go online and look up a bunch of anime pictures and study off of them. You should copy some eyes and stuff into a book or something. Then later on you can easily see what is all the same about the eyes and you will be able to create your own original eyes.
When you start out just stick to something simple like busts and stuff, then work up. I find that whenever I use a reference my drawings always turn out better (this person used a reference and made this), and when you make a thread for people to help and comment on your drawings it's a lot easier and faster to improve.

Spoiler

I did this after I felt like it was one of my best drawings at the moment... It is horrible isn't it?
But I made my avatar I'm currently using... I don't know where I'm going with this but the deadline is that you need to observe other drawings and find something that you like. There are many different shapes of the head... Well anyways, you should post some of your drawings, even if it's horrible (especially if it's horrid, you will get some more feedback) post it and you will be able to fix all the problems and stuff. I'd suggest getting a manga book or whatever, it might cost around 10-20 dollars but it's worth it, I've learned so much because of mine.
Hope everything goes well with this.

Thank you and have a nice day!

 

[trebor777]

You draw people from every day life, when you're in the bus or whatever, scrapbook and go go go ! don't spend more than 30s/1min on someone that's a super good exercise!

if you can, go to Figure drawing with naked people !! It's a bit hard but you do so much level up it's crazy !!

Also a very good book to read to help with composition and such !: "drawing the marvel way" by stan lee :p it's a bit old but it's awesome, it teaches a lot !

Then finally, go manga style :p...
the problem with starting manga, it can give you some bad habits in your drawing. especially with proportions.

 

[Venetia]

It is never a bad idea to trace when you are learning the ropes. Any professional cartoonist will tell you that.
But you have to make sure you are tracing a wide variety of things. And after you trace it, try to draw the traced subject in a slightly different pose--you will be teaching yourself the proper strokes used to achieve the different positions, angles, musculature, etc.

I cannot more strongly suggest that you don't start out with anime or manga drawing. Or any cartoonized style. You need to learn proper anatomy first. Then, find your own means of stylization. Otherwise, all you're doing is copying someone else's style, usually in a much poorer way, since the person you're copying off of probably learned via the proper methods first anyway!

 

[Cait]

Okay, the one thing I agree with and disagree with. One, I agree that with drawing you need to learn the basics, but unlike you guys I don't look at this like a specialty art that you need to learn ALL OF ART KIND to learn to draw manga. I mean, by that logic you'd have to learn how to write ALL OF LITERATURE BEFORE YOU COULD LEARN POETRY! I don't think so. But.. and I mean, but you do have to learn how to write and you do have to learn how to whisk an egg, even if you NEVER LEARN THE TERM FOR IT. If in manga, there is a realism, which I do believe in; but I am not going to learn to draw super realism just to draw something like NARUTO, for example! One of the biggest manga artist to date doodled before she went to university, but she went to a manga school where she learn to draw manga. I've done some research into the art field, you guys think it's a sin to only do one kind of art form and frown on it.

Just to make sure I understand you guy correctly. I have to learn to draw this: http://www.janefraserstudio.com/images/mb_frame.jpg to draw this: http://www.orble.com/images/skip-beat-manga-scan12.jpg

But if you guys just mean to learn the basics, such as shapes, angles and learn how lightening might makes something darker one side side on objects, or people's faces... I appologize, and I am working, while I am practicing. To be honest, I've only drew on manga character; haven't done it since. But my biggest weakness has always been people, that's why I'm practicing on that first, cause I've been pretty good with objects, they're just lines really.

Sigh, I think I am going to buy that book after all. (-_-)

 

[Chalupa]

Okay, the one thing I agree with and disagree with. One, I agree that with drawing you need to learn the basics, but unlike you guys I don't look at this like a specialty art that you need to learn ALL OF ART KIND to learn to draw manga. I mean, by that logic you'd have to learn how to write ALL OF LITERATURE BEFORE YOU COULD LEARN POETRY! I don't think so. But.. and I mean, but you do have to learn how to write and you do have to learn how to whisk an egg, even if you NEVER LEARN THE TERM FOR IT. If in manga, there is a realism, which I do believe in; but I am not going to learn to draw super realism just to draw something like NARUTO, for example! One of the biggest manga artist to date doodled before she went to university, but she went to a manga school where she learn to draw manga. I've done some research into the art field, you guys think it's a sin to only do one kind of art form and frown on it.

Just to make sure I understand you guy correctly. I have to learn to draw this: http://www.janefraserstudio.com/images/mb_frame.jpg to draw this: http://www.orble.com/images/skip-beat-manga-scan12.jpg

But if you guys just mean to learn the basics, such as shapes, angles and learn how lightening might makes something darker one side side on objects, or people's faces... I appologize, and I am working, while I am practicing. To be honest, I've only drew on manga character; haven't done it since. But my biggest weakness has always been people, that's why I'm practicing on that first, cause I've been pretty good with objects, they're just lines really.

Sigh, I think I am going to buy that book after all. (-_-)

What everyone is saying is true. You can't just jump into drawing anime/manga. You have to learn how to draw realistically before you decided to start drawing cartoony styles. There's important anatomy and proportions that even anime characters and cartoon characters have to follow (most of the time). As far as your comparison to learning all literature before you learn poetry and learning to draw, drawing and literature are completely different. It IS a good idea to learn how to draw a wide variety of things besides just ANIME.

 

[moxie]

Good structure is the difference between something decent like this and this. The inability, or in most cases refusal, to draw outside your comfort zone means that your art will stagnate be derivative forever. But, I'm done trying to convince you - you're the one who posted a VAA thread or advice without any art to critique, and then disregarded 90% of the advice.

 

[Venetia]

Just to make sure I understand you guy correctly. I have to learn to draw this: http://www.janefraserstudio.com/images/mb_frame.jpg to draw this: http://www.orble.com/images/skip-beat-manga-scan12.jpg

no. you are making a classic novice mistake by saying that.
shit it's an uphill battle for me to draw extreme realism and i've been doing that for years and years and went to art school.

drawing extreme realism is, in a way, a stylization.
look at a thing. anything. any ol' thing. do you see black lines around it, tracing the outline? do you see cross-hatching for shading? are the lightest parts actually pure white?
probably not!

we're not saying you need to work up to extreme realism to draw anime-style. we're saying you need the fundamentals of anatomy and a knowledge of blocking, proportion, line movement, etc to draw anything in any style.

if you want to make art and be good at it you need to learn art and work at it. if you want to draw mediocre crap and you're satisfied with mediocre crap, then by all means--just don't expect for anyone to gush over it or to be able to call yourself an artist!

 

[Cait]

Sigh, I disagree with the whole I have to learn how to cook American food, to learn how to cook French food attitude that is in art today. By me posting this, it is no way shape or form, me changing my ideas; but it's only practice. I don't have a scanner, but I do have a webcam.

This is where I got the picture: http://www.beauty-and-the-bath.com/imag ... rstyle.jpg

 

[Daxis]

More accentuation could be used on the hair, as the bottom of the hair looks simply chopped off and fake.
I think you could use more shadows, the shadows right at the nose and beneath the eyes.

For some reason, her tongue looks stuck out. There was this guy in the sketch thread, makasu, that did realistic very well, and I learned how to (generally) draw lips from him.

the right side of the picture, where her neck connects with her body, looks very 2-D-ish. Check it out.

Eyes are ever so slightly crooked, and combined with the mouth, makes the picture not look happy at all.

 

[moxie]

except those are ridiculous analogies. american/french foods are specialties, but you sure as fuck need to learn basic skills and terminologies before you specialize. and literature? bet your ass you need to learn the subtle nuances of the language and literature if you want to create poetry worth a damn. you're just strongly opposed to drawing outside of your comfort zone for whatever reason, and it's silly.

e; i'm telling you this stuff because i grew up with the same attitude as you. "I just want to do cartooning, what do I need that other boring shit for?" and i drew myself into an artistic rut as a result. now i'm busting my ass to get out of it and improve, because i actually care about my art. if you just want to draw shiny prettyboys from glorious nippon~ and you don't honestly care about it, then go ahead. but we're trying to help you.

 

[Cait]

I still need work on hair, but my faces have gotten a lot better. Although, work on eyes is something I need to practice on.

Note: When I can I am going to get a nice scanner, no matter how cheap it is. Of course, since I've f***ing given in, not that I see how this is going to help me when I'll just have to learn how to draw manga next. I may have to start a new thread, because this one is finished, as it served its purpose.