Improving my anime body poses

[YRH]

Hi, I’m a hobbyist Krita user, dabbling in digital painting at night. I love all things anime, so my current aim is to draw some fan-art. I don’t really know how to color and shade yet, I want to first get decently good with simplified anatomy and form. I have trouble with consistency and proportions of human body, and I’m looking for advice how to best go about perfecting those things.

I follow a number of great YouTube channels, watched (partially) a few courses online and from these sources got a bit of a conflicting advice. Or maybe advice with some caveats (paraphrased below):

• do not practice, work on finished pieces → but is it a good idea to do colors if my rough looks crooked?
• do copies or studies → however be careful not to turn your brain off or get lost in things like getting the proportions exactly right without understanding the form
• draw what you like, it’s most important to keep drawing → but how to make sure I’m improving?
• try sketching over references (not exactly tracing) to get a hang of the form → however I find it hard given that some characters have very elaborate clothing obscuring the body.

Currently I’m alternating between Drawabox course and random sketches for would-be fanart. I rarely go even as far as cleaned up lineart, feeling like the roughs are still not as good as they should be. I don’t necessarily want to become a “waifu artist”, but I consider drawing accurate and appealing depictions of female characters somewhat of a prerequisite for any other serious work!

I wonder what advice you guys have, what worked for you? I’m attaching a few of my roughs and a bit more finished drawings below in case that helps inform the replies. Thank you for taking the time to read this!

A random maid sketch

Yelan and Shenhe bothering Xingqiu (Genshin Impact)

New Ayaka skin (Genshin Impact) - you wouldn’t believe how long it took me to get it to this stage… uh, let’s see. Yeah, 3 hours.

Amber study (Genshin Impact)

A study of hide channel’s video - 【魅力的なイラストの基本】アクションラインとは何か？実践編 - YouTube

Mikoto Misaka (Railgun T) study, based on a frame from the anime. This is the most polished piece I made, which was about a year ago.

[Guerreiro64]

==> “do not practice, work on finished pieces”

??? Not practicing? I don’t understand this advice…

==> “do copies or studies”

I didn’t see any problems here.

==> “draw what you like, it’s most important to keep drawing”

I would modify it to: "draw what you like and take the time to draw what you don’t like.

In my case, I didn’t like to draw scenarios: I thought mine always came out horrible… but I forced myself to add at least one set object in some drawings. Today my scenarios start to come out a little better.

==> "try sketching over references (not exactly tracing) to get a hang of the form "

In fact, this can sometimes be difficult. Try the opposite way: take some of your characters and, based on references, put clothes on them: it seems more advantageous to me…

[Chrstlz1]

hi, i mainly draw busts ups haha TT but here are some art tips in general :L

• take ur time, don’t force urself to draw, draw when ur in the mood
  • but, yeah, you will improve faster if you step out of ur comfort zone
  • i mean you do kinda want to set urself a timelimit ig
• focus on the bigger picture (save details for later)
  • start with the basics & keep it simple
• referencing is a great way, imo, to get a feel of what ur doing
  • use 3d models?/other artwork)
  • it is ok to reference, just not tracing/doing it heavily
• find ur own style
  • it takes time, and it kinda keeps changing

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here are some of my recents:

this one’s a wip for a friend TT i don’t usually use pastel colors and i’m trying out grayscale + backgrounds help (out of confort zone!!! :L) second one’s the sketch lol TT (i make art by sketching stuff on paper first, then taking a pic & uploading it to color) bruh on a sidenote, the sketch and my progress look really different. but, that’s kinda the point of art, you can always change/modify things to ur taste.

on paper, for a friend (i wish i didn’t do this TT)
lol art honestly just looks better when ur in the mood to draw (i went on and off with this one :L)

i actually did a half body for this one haha
uhhhhhhhhhhh honestly i think this one sucks lol, but, i’m just putting it on here to show that uhhhhhhhhhhhhh it’s fine to mess up?

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some old art:

i believe this is one of my first few digital arts
this was from nearly 1.3 years ago
it’s real cool seeing how you ichange and improve :L

dahymm this looks really bad TT (11 months ago)
this was the only full body that i attempted haha and i honestly don’t like it lol but yeeeeh i prefer drawing bust ups and that’s my own choice

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basically
just do what you want to do and don’t stop :L
ε(´｡•᎑•`)っ

[Michelist]

I have learned in my life that you often don’t notice your own progress, but it happens as long as you don’t stop moving forward, keep going your way.
Among other things, I have completed two vocational trainings, one for three years and one for two and a half years, and at the beginning of both trainings, even before the final exams, I did not see my progress. Strangely enough, I managed to finish both apprenticeships, both times at the top of the class.
It was similar with the two jobs I had to start without training, as a lateral entrant, to earn a living. I didn’t see my progress in either job. But today I know that I even achieved extraordinary things, literally stormed up the career ladder. I also know today why this happened the way it did. I just kept on going, but I didn’t stop or torture myself with excessive learning, i.e. obsessive practicing of something that I didn’t want to succeed in that particular moment, at least not as well as my classmates or later my colleagues at work.

It is simply a fact that we will get better and better at one thing over time, but we must not deny ourselves the opportunity to learn other things, i.e. to move forward on our path, just because we are currently less proficient at one thing.

Why not? Because we would block the overall progress, but we must “know everything”, at least have done it before to become a good carpenter, draftsman, surveyor, pizza maker or even artist. I would not have been able to pass an exam if, and here comes the important thing, I had interrupted my overall progress for the sake of one little thing, just to perfect that little thing.
These “little things” that I did poorly at first, all got better over time. At the exams I was the only one who could do everything sufficiently well, and so I always became best in class, always best in the district, and once even third best in the whole country, because the others wasted their time on a detail that they would have automatically learned to master better with time.
To conclude with a saying from my homeland: “Everything must have a hand and a foot”, and my addition would be “and of course everything in between”. Nobody would have wanted my furniture if it had been incomplete, my drawings would not have been enough for the craftsman if something had been missing, and with surveying and pizza, “everything must also always be there”, or the customer is dissatisfied.
In the beginning, those who worked on only one thing were “better than me” with this one thing, but I left them all behind with time, because in the end I was the one who could do everything. But my classmates didn’t have the time to perfect every single detail already during the training, the time for that is only offered later in life.

This is an edited computer translation, it is the middle of the night, and I am tired, please excuse this.

Michelist

*** Translated with DeepL Translate: The world's most accurate translator (free version) ***

[Avalander]

If you want to improve your poses, gesture is the fundamental you need to practice. Watch at least the first three or four videos in Proko’s gesture drawing playlist.

I have a few comments regarding the advice that you mention:

@YRH

do not practice, work on finished pieces → but is it a good idea to do colors if my rough looks crooked?

I would say that this is generally bad advice and you should disregard it. There’s a point to be made for pushing through and finishing a piece, but when it comes to learning, you’ll learn more from making six sketches in one hour than over-polishing one sketch in one hour.

At some point you will need to practice finishing a piece if you are serious about art, but as a beginner I recommend studying fundamentals one by one. It’s a lot easier to build a new skill on top of existing skills than trying to develop every skill at the same time. Check out this introduction to art fundamentals. The guy has plenty of videos talking about each of the fundamentals, so definitely check out his channel.

That doesn’t mean that you should never attempt to finish a piece. Do it if you want to, but set aside some time for practice.

@YRH

do copies or studies → however be careful not to turn your brain off or get lost in things like getting the proportions exactly right without understanding the form

Yes, copying other artist’s work and doing studies from photos or real life is a great way to improve. You can’t draw something if you don’t know how it is supposed to look like, and you can’t learn how something is supposed to look like if you don’t observe it.

@YRH

draw what you like, it’s most important to keep drawing → but how to make sure I’m improving?

It all depends on your goals. It is true that it is better to draw anything than to not draw, and you probably don’t need to practice drawing everything, but I would advise to try to draw a subject you’re unfamiliar with every now and then. You will find new ways to apply your existing knowledge and you might find that you like drawing other stuff besides anime girls.

[YRH]

Thank you, that was a great read! No problem with translation. Everything was clear and read smoothly

[YRH]

Thank you all for the responses! That’s some food for thought. I always find it very valuable to learn what worked for others first hand – although everybody’s circumstances are different, it’s still something to take into account and consider in choosing one’s own path.

I’m familiar with Proko’s and Marc Brunet’s channels of course. I don’t think I saw these gesture drawing videos yet, so I’ll definitely check them out. Japanese animators likewise stress the importance of gesture drawing, some of these things are just fundamental.

As for the controversial “do not practice advice”. I believe a similar sentiment could be read between the lines of Michelist’s response. However, I heard it in a few other places, such as various YT channels: Sycra, Yaki Mayuru, Naoki Saito, who all emphasized that working with the intent of producing a “final piece” will naturally challenge you and force you to learn faster than doing “idle” practice. For one, I definitely feel less stressed when trying to copy/gesture draw instead of working on a scene for which I have no direct posing reference. Maybe I should have provided more context for this one. These artists definitely see practice as valuable, but when applied very selectively and thoughtfully. Anyway, I thought I’ll clarify that one!

[kaichi1342]

I remember getting better at hand when i participated in 50 foot / hand challenge way back.

It’s practice but with a purpose of completing stuff. by forcing myself to draw hands and foot indifferent position including once i always avoid I manage to atleast instill in my brain patterns that help make them easier.

Is my hand drawing good now? they still could use a lot of improvement, but i don’t avoid them now and I can now draw it’s form without referencing and only use reference in polishing stage.

I dont think its necessarily “do not practice” kind of thing are what they are proposing. It’s more of draw / create with sort of goal in each session. A piece / illustration sets at the end of it.

Are all our work something that will be publish/ or polish? or posted? some of warm up for other are practically practice… but with purpose.

cause I feel for beginning artist - it get burdensome to expect to always produce something to the level of polish work. [in way most beginning artist will take the no-practice advice ]

I’m more into supporting a “mini-project” approach. Setting a goal at the end of what will be a study session. Producing something not necessarily polish but alot more finish than sketch - and with little less burden of it needing to be perfect.

[Michelist]

@YRH

As for the controversial “do not practice advice”. I believe a similar sentiment could be read between the lines of Michelist’s response.

What is important is not to get stuck in practice, especially not with practicing only one thing over and over again, you should stay in moving forward, and the things will come from “alone” with time. This is the normal way in life. What is won when you are 60 and are capable of painting hands or feet or whatever else perfect, but never have done anything else than this? The truth is, every person, animal or thing you draw or paint has everything, and so you practice everything, including those parts where you want or need to get better.
I think you are on a good way!

Michelist