Does drawing realistically improves an artist?

[joannekwan]

Yep, that's why life drawing is required for all BFA majors at my college, even if you're doing graphic design. You gotta first learn the rules of anatomy/perspective/etc. before you can break them (by exaggerating features/cartoonifying/etc.)

[zoonland]

If you are comfortable with your style, you don't need to try other styles.
If you are still searching your personal style, yes, you should try. You can always learn something trying new things... it's like having a different point of view.
Realistic style helps you improving the anatomy, the perspective, etc.
This doesn't mean is mandatory to being able to draw realistically.

[abbastudios]

It's called Life Drawing or Figure Drawing.

I suggest it for every artist. You may find an evening class nearby that only charges $10 to $15 per session. If there isn't one, then start one.

If you start with reality as your base of understanding then you can stylize in a very convincing way.

We each invite the reader into the reality we draw. Even that reality abides by the rules we set up. If you don't know what you're doing the reader gets confused and doesn't accept the world you've created.

[Menbung]

Here's the thing, "drawing styles" are usually made up on exaggerating or simplificating things. In cartoons you get usually exaggerations: big noses, big hands, big heads; while in manga you get simplifications (or stylizations) of things, small or no noses; look at the mouths, they're usually just a line, no upper lip, maybe they will add the lower lip or no lower lip at all.

But all of these things are based on something, a realistic human figure. I once heard a pro artist saying that if you want to draw cartoon, manga, whatever, you should first learn to draw a realistic figure, why?, because of what I stated above, once you know how everything works you can twitch things up: stylize the figure for a more manga-like approach, exaggerate things for more of a cartoony look.

Real life drawing won't do you any harm, on the contrary, it will help you tons.

Another thing, it's hard, nearly impossible to improve without references, you need to know how things look/work to translate them into "paper". And I'm not saying that you always need to copy a photograph to draw a good pose. I'm saying that you need to observe (a lot) and gather everything you can, how a girl body changes when she's sitting, how a body turns when pitching in a baseball game. Practice drawing from photographs, draw your own hands, your feet, draw your brother. Man drawing from real life it's great coz you have the references in front of your eyes (literally).

Real life it's the base. 8_8

[danitasibert]

drawing realistically or fine art is a great way to improve any artist skills, i love to draw characters and cartoons. When i when to art school learning how to draw more realistic was and at first, it teaches you more then proportions and perspective but how to look at color, and the way things are forms geometrically and organically. I started to understand the elements and principles of design. there are so many benefits you can learn from drawings realistic and/or fine arts.

[HVOICE]

Age doesn't matter! Experience does! I've seen artwork from 12 year olds that would put the pros to shame!
It all depends on how often you practice your art. Do you draw everyday? How much do you draw everyday? Do you constantly work on weaknesses in your art? -for example, things you don't like to draw because they always come out looking wrong. That happens to everyone, but those weaknesses will never look right unless you keep drawing them!-
Nothing worth having comes easy!

Life drawing is boring as hell, but believe me it will help you immensely.
Here's a good figure drawing website if you need help with drawing bodies http://artists.pixelovely.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing/
I try to draw at least 5 figures everyday, and you don't even need to go into detail. Just quick sketches to help you get the structure of the figure. Once you get that down, you'll be able to break it down into your own unique style.
Just don't give up, no matter how complicated it feels.
I agree 100% that an artists life can feel like hell sometimes, and it's okay to be frustrated by it, but you have to be able to pick yourself back up and keep working!

[arkholt]

Drawing in a realistic style can help, but the utility of it can be oversold. Being able to put something on paper that looks exactly like what your eye sees is a skill, but it isn't the most important skill. What your eye sees is more important than what you put on the paper. When practicing drawing, the majority of your time should be spent looking at the thing that you want to draw. This can be either something in real life or a photograph, but you have to study all the details of it and know what it looks like. After you're more familiar with it than you would really care to be, then you can start drawing. If, at that point, you want to draw it in a realistic style, you can, but there's no shame in simplifying or abstracting it in some way. Because you know all the details of the object, you should feel confident in this, because you'll know what's important to leave in and what isn't.

[SpavVy]

Drawing realistically does help a lot, it's good to know human anatomy even if realistic isn't your normal style. I don't like drawing realistic but I have had to do it for commissions in the past and later on it helped me develop my style better. Since I basically have an anime style I had to study anatomy, heck I still study anatomy from time to time. A good way to also help you improve is draw what your weak in, I used to be really bad at drawing hands and feet so I drew them multiple times by looking at my own hand and looking up hand drawing tutorials, now I have no trouble when it comes to drawing hands and I did the same thing for feet. I must have drawn hands and feet over 50 times alone. The only way you are going to get good is if you practice! age has nothing to do with it! I saw this one kid on a talk show about 12 years ago, she was about 10 years old, she was around my age actually and she was already drawing realistic paintings that would put most of us to shame.

EDIT: FOUND IT!
She's vary religious too and even though I'm agnostic I find her story to b vary interesting.

[GlanceReviver]

A cartoonist's style is more how they choose to simplify an object or person in order to to express their joke or long-form story, or whatever they want to make. It shouldn't be viewed as the point where the artist stopped learning to draw.

When you practice artistic basics like life drawing , it will increase your ability to express yourself however you choose to do it. I also suggest gesture drawing, which is a practice in capturing the shape and motion of a subject very quickly. The idea is not really to care about the final result (which will probably look like random scribbles) but to train your eyes and brain to interpret some of the more elusive elements of a subject into two dimensions on paper, like their posture or direction of movement.

Especially with comics, even if you draw very cartoonish and blobby characters for your comic, as you learn to express the world around you in drawings, it becomes a lot easier to add dimension and emotion to your scenes from what's in your head.

[keac]

Oh glob, my low self-esteem just got lower and lower...

But I'll try improving as I can!
It just stresses me out when we take art too seriously...

[dfujita67]

Don't beat yourself up. I have a friend who started out late drawing gag cartoons for a living. I don't think he ever tried to learn to draw realistically. However, my friend kept on drawing using his simple cartoon style which complemented his great sense of humor. He eventually ended up working for Hanna Barbera and I've seen his name in the credits of a couple of great animated movies at the theater.
So take heart and keep on doing what gives you the most pleasure. You may not end up in animation like my friend but if you keep on drawing and learn from the cartoonists you admire you will get better.

[keac]

beating myself up.

[punkarsenic]

honestly, theres a place in art for everything. realism is nice and really admirable and can be beautiful, but boring, really. surrealism? like, i dunno, picasso or anselm kiefer? effing awesome! theres a famous(ish) artist that just draws like, biro stuff around random objects like bows and sandwiches. art is whatever the hell you want it to be.

and then, youre making comics over here! if you do every panel in perfect realism, youll never finish! the most realistic comic art ive ever seen is ultimate spiderman (the new stuff) and really, the shading is simplistic, and its all about the lines (a lot of comic styles are line-focused) and most styles are unrealistic in every way except correct anatomy. and even that is optional to a degree.

[HVOICE]

Even if its something you really want to do in life, it's never going to be 100% fun and easy.
I love making comics, but trying to bust out a page every week is stressful as hell! (i can't even imagine what its like for the pros)
The only difference between doing something that you want to do and doing a job that you hate is that after going through all of that stress and effort, it will be much more worth it in the end.

[Redthic]

Honestly, Figure Drawing/Life drawing is an important thing to study. You don't have to master it but it would probably help you learn aspects to use for your characters. When I think of cartooning, I think of simplifying forms and trying to translate all of that into a form which the viewer sees as a "person", "item", etc. etc. It is an intimidating prospect but even if you never master it, you will grow as an artist. For example putting human qualities on an animal to make them a specific archetype.

As for age---I got bullied out of art until I was in my mid-20s and didn't make my first comic until I was 29. I'm 30 now. It's a scary prospect but anyone at any age can start and follow their dreams to at least do something they care about.

You can do it. Just try to grow and work at your skills. Most importantly, do your best to believe in yourself---which is the hardest thing for me at least.

[Alexandritea]

When i was younger i had the constant thought that i would never need to use references, or work with realistic styles. but when i had been drawing for about 2-3 years, and not noticing much of a change in the right direction in my drawings. i thought i might as well give it a shot. so as a beginning i looked up how (for example) the face was built up. also how and where shadows and light would hit. also along with this knowing how contrasting the shadows would be. for example the face would cast soft shadows while metallic surfaces will make it much sharper. i'm not really a teacher in this, so i have a hard time explaining myself professionally.

but since i looked these things up i've gotten much better at drawing than before, and all of the practicing really pays out in the end as you can deliver a much better result in the end.

sorry for my unprofessional answer, but i hope it helped a little bit c':

[yartzanaserenade]

learning how to draw ''realistically'' takes years of practice , but don't get overwhelmed , it doesn't have to be perfect, as long as you start understanding how things really work you'll improve at drawing that in no time. Just ask yourself why a particular thing looks and moves in a certain way, find the answer , move on to the next object

[keii4ii]

start understanding how things really work

This is the important part. Some people can produce photorealistic results by copying a photo without understanding a thing about what they're drawing. Those people cannot draw without relying on photos like that. Don't fall into that trap (unless photo reproduction is your ultimate goal as an artist, I guess).

[DynamoToon]

Here's my advice. If you practice enough in one art style, you will improve in that area. In addition, some techniques you learn in that style can help you in other styles. For example, if you specialize in realism and you draw great hands, drawing cartoon hands will come more easily to you because you have a base to start from. What I'm saying is every style is unique in its own way, and being diverse in different styles helps you improve in them.

[Zanreo]

It can probably help, but persoanlly I've seen improvement from just learning about proportions and stuff, and trying to incorporate that into my drawings. I still have a way to go, but at least I'm way better than just 3-4 years ago... So for me, I didn't actually have to sit down and draw a realistic drawing to improve, just learning about the basic proportions and stuff.

As for drawing realistically, it's honestly not something that interests me. I might do it just as an improvement thing, but drawing "realistic" in itself as a type of style you do just seems kind of... boring to me, personally? There's so much fun you can do with stylized and cartoony styles. Though i guess I could do it to improve if I got the time...

I admit, I kind of got burned out on trying "realistic" from art tutorials I read as a kid basically saying "look kids, if you want to ever not suck at art you have to COMPLETELY STOP DRAWING CARTOONY (also hint hint that ESPECIALLY means That Damn Manga Style) and only ONLY practise realism for years until you get decent at that, THEN you can go back to stylizing it". And I was just "well, why not both? Why not continue drawing the way you already do while also drawing realism on the side and incorporating some of those techniques?" Which I guess would be the best way to practise it, really, especially if you're not too interested in realism drawing. And well, I don't suck at drawing now, so I guess that got proven wrong.