Heh yeah happens to me too, and often, the more I try to fix individual parts, the more I lose the eye for the bigger picture…and getting eye proportions right without basic color is also quite hard for me, usually I’m like “woow they’re much bigger than I thought”…
What I think happened in your first attempt is that the perspective isn’t very well defined, different parts suggest a slightly different viewing angle, and as a result, it all looks a bit skewed. Also, the ear doesn’t look very natural, I’m afraid.
That second one sure looks much cuter and less worried…I personally avoid gaps between iris and eye lids for “normal” expressions, it’s super hard to not make characters look worried, surprised or even scared that way…but I have a very hard time making tall eyes (like e.g. K-ON! characters have) to not look freaky in general…so weird how you need to deform them to make it look good.
Agreed. The ear is messed up. I lost the sight of some guidelines and the ear doesn’t look like it’s growing from the side of the head, where it should be. I knew it must be attached close to where the jaw ends, but it really is all about the subtle differences. If you mess up in a few places along the way, it just won’t come together in the end.
I’ve been grinding some study sketches from Mieruko-chan manga (it’s awesome, and so is the anime) to practice heads and faces. Below is a mix of digital in Krita and traditional done over a few days.
What I’m trying to do differently this time, is to really build up the character from the base shapes rather than just measure and draw what I see. This makes it more difficult to stay on model, but I feel like is a much more effective way to learn.
Another big thing is the mileage, of course. I try to be careful with the lines and try to capture the most important ones, to eventually be able to get the character down quickly and move to the next.
I also tried inking some of the sketches, to make sure I was able to pick the “good lines”. Sketches often look deceptively good, because the lines are vague and our brains interpret that mess favorably
Man, I need much more experience with inking. Especially the pure black is so unforgiving.
From the four small drawings above, the last one at the bottom is the best (to me), because I changed how I draw depending on the detail. Previously I just tried to focus on smooth long lines and that’s… well, a far cry from being optimal
I’m still practicing characters – heads, eyes, hair, etc. I think I’m seeing some modest improvements, but alas I don’t draw as regularly as I should… Also, I wanted to do a simple (maybe even very simple) illustration every now and then, but yeah, I just can’t get anything interesting going lately.
Like this, for example. For the last few days I was drawing Taoqi (a character from Wuthering Waves), but as I refined the sketch I liked it less and less. I just settled on a too boring pose (because better poses are still a challenge). I stopped at the inked rough (I wanted to practice inking a bit, which is likewise pain), and added basic (timid?) shadows.
Sigh, it sucks when your observation / awareness gets ahead of your current ability. I can see that what I drew isn’t too great, but I lack the knowledge, skill, stamina, tenacity, and whatever else to draw it correctly. Welp, there’s more practice to be had tomorrow
Hey I saw your cake drawing from 2023 that was featured. I have to say you have the knowledge, skill, and tennacity… stamina isn’t that necessary I think since you can work as slow as to not put too much strain on yourself. Just need to be a bit more consistent with the practice so you don’t forget what you did mid study.
A bit of tips and trick on how to practice without too much pressure on having to do everything greatly/perfect. Lower the scope of the illustration. Say you drew a bust size figure like the one on June 2024, you could transfer the sketch for the eyes only into new group layer, and paint it the best you can. When it is finished, you can decide if you want to continue for the other parts. The purpose other than to practice is to build confidence, a streak of it, because if you have enough confidence you’re less prone to second guess your action.
In the beginning it will take a while since the experience always felt like “a blind person trying to find a way somewhere without a guide(mentor) telling him where to go and how to get pass the obstacles”, but eventually you’ll remember the layout of the “room” and create your own guide. Sorry with the strange metaphor, part of me likes to talk like that, sometimes it annoys people.
Hey, thanks for stopping by to look at my stuff and offer advice! No worries about the language, it does not bother me and I’m in general not easily annoyed
Yeah, as you can tell from the dates, my uploads dried up a bit… What I definitely need the most is to draw more, much more, but alas, as usual the time is a precious resource and I’m using it for other activities, some relevant like making small contributions to Krita, some unrelated like playing games and doing life stuff.
I got better at assessing the quality of the pictures and I see flaws more easily and I’m much more critical of my work. I know I’m lacking in fundamentals like basic character drawing (pose, structure, anatomy), so I see no point in finishing a painting that I know has basic draftsmanship mistakes. I do have a stack of flawed sketches that I made in the last few months (maybe I’ll share that for laughs), but I want to get better before I go back to doing something more finished.
I’m currently working through the Hide Channel’s Coloso course on character drawing. I like it a lot, but it’s going really slow at my turtle’s pace. At the very least I want to finish it before getting back to free drawing. I’m still at the stage where I can’t really express myself artistically because the struggle with the technical side is too distracting.
A technically flawed drawing can still be expressive. Sometimes a drawing someone put their heart into despite lacking skill can be better than a technically skilled drawing with no heart.
So when you hit that wall of ‘this is flawed’, you can decide to keep going anyway and accept the flaws if you still want to make it work. You learned how to draw to draw stuff you like, not just to ‘get good’, right?
It’s great that you have a proper guide/course, it should be much faster to understand the concepts of things with guidance. Also if you can say which part of the fundamentals you lack of, then maybe it is true that it’s just the lack of practice in that area that makes it slow to improve. Although, this actually reminds me of something, that give me quite a good of understanding about artist learning journey.
A Vtuber I watch from time to time who is also a great artist called Ninomae Ina’nis, told her viewer that many people has this frustration when drawing because most people has a much better observation skill than the actual technical skill of drawing. Their observation skill is maybe around 5+ years more advanced than their drawing skill, she said. That’s why many people can see that something is off with their drawing but couldn’t tell what it is and how to fix it.
I think the frustration will be different from people to people, but man I consider myself the one that got hit hard with frustration when drawing for study. I edited my sketchbook post a lot to tone it down . But hopefully you still consider posting your progress here. I don’t think many people realize how important for artist study to see other people’s sketchbook, just for the fact that people with less experience can see the sketchbook as a checkpoint on what to achieve in the near future, and people with more experience can see it as a test on how to device an improvement.
so you don’t forget what you did mid study.
. But hopefully you still consider posting your progress here. I don’t think many people realize how important for artist study to see other people’s sketchbook, just for the fact that people with less experience can see the sketchbook as a checkpoint on what to achieve in the near future, and people with more experience can see it as a test on how to device an improvement.