How'd ya'll learn to draw?

[redmancomics]

Just wondering how many folks on here are either self-taught artists, or have received some kind of formal education on the arts! Or, you know, got concussed really bad one time and once they came to realized they could draw really well. Honestly curious!

EDIT: Thanks for the responses, everyone! I appreciate it.
Just to throw in my answer. Self-Taught, just got into the habit of drawing comics and stuck with it!

[kip]

Self taught here!
Just... by drawing a lot? I searched out artists I liked and kept tabs on them, always tried to copy their styles, which eventually lead to a mishmash which, with some more practice, became my style.
The really important part is just actively trying to improve and being willing to work a lot for a couple of years to reach those artists you admire at first haha

[vworksart]

When i was 9, a former friend in elementary school would draw his own stick figure DBZ comics and everyday he would have an update for me to read.
Can't say why but i took an interest in creating my own content but i took to it and ran with it. I would record my favorite cartoons and pause on scenes that i really liked and would try to draw them myself. I didn't really care how they turned out then, i just enjoyed drawing my favorite characters the best I could.

I drew at home. i drew on the bus, and in class i drew some more. Aside from an MMO addiction i had at the time, it was all i did really.
Over the years I combined styles and techniques i learned from others and here i am today.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I have always been self taught in my entire artistic journey. I'm mainly hobbyist so my improvement rate isn't as good as those professional or formally taught one.

Unlike most others, I never have phase of directly copying or referencing, may it be the entire drawing or style. I just absorb what I see, and practice it in my own craft with my own way. The topic of my childhood drawing is often my original creation (nothing good, just weird long-eared bunny fairy)

I got rather serious in drawing when I know deviantArt, my close circle of friends there are my influence and my inspiration to work on more art. Long story short, my art is improving because of I draw more often and exposed to resource of learning because if the artistic inclination of social media I am joining.

It's still lackluster to be honest but yeah you get it the formula to grow: draw often, have the right environment, and stay inspired.

[Kann]

I'm self-taught. I just put elements I liked in other styles into my own since I was a kid watching dubbed anime in TV. I draw a lot and if something doesn't look like it should, I try to figure out a way to draw it better.

[c0ldw1nter]

Self-taught, like most (probably). Used to trace things, which proved useful in understanding proportions.. Then moved on to copying from eye, and finally I can sort of draw from imagination. Still doing lots of backtracking and ctrl+z'ing... If i streamed my drawing process, it'd probably be a laugh to look at.

[lil-sea-salt]

I learned in high school, but I was always told my art wasn't that good so I actually went to college for something else. I had a huge just epiphany that I missed it so I started again after not doing writing / art for 4-5 years. I wouldn't call myself self-taught as I do read a look of art books and take online writing / art classes. The main hard thing is finding the classes which are relevant to me and what I want to get better at.

[Azifri]

With few exceptions I'm mostly self taught.
As a kid I grew up doing oil painting. Then, as a teenager, my parents were going through financial struggles so I decided to stop paintings (oil paints and supplies are expensive! You also need a dedicated space for it because of the solvents) and tried drawing. College, vet school, and grad school didn't leave much time for serious improvement, but I think I'm slowly getting better.

[Rhonder]

Mostly self taught. The art classes in middle and highschool provided a decent base with some of the fundamentals, but like many I ended up going to college for not-art (architecture instead, loosely related).

I drew a lot w/o much care for improvement as a kid, but around 6th or 7th grade I made the mental connection that drawing was something I enjoyed doing enough such that I'd like to put effort into actually improving and getting better, so that's around the time I started slowly trying to learn proportions better, got some of my first marker sets to learn some about color/color theory, etc. I always used to joke that part of the reason I went to architecture school was to learn how to draw backgrounds better xD;;

It's been a slow burn, but if you compare work from the various periods of my life, you can see the definite improvement at each step,

[LCT_m_a_d]

Both self-taught and formal. I can't say either one because both were equally important to me in specific ways. Wouldn't be where I am with just one

I started off self taught. Basically sketched cartoons and did portraits of animals. I eventually learned a lot of fundamental art theory from art school and drawing books. As of recently I started to learn how to bring them together from having a few mentors and studying my influences.

[Jenny-Toons]

Self-taught all the way, with a dash of art classes here and there.

Started from pausing my VHS tapes so I could redraw scenes from my favorite cartoons, and then slowly went into making personal fandom works (characters, comics, etc). I began to truly post my works when I was 11 years old on Deviantart (The HellSite for some XD).

[punkarsenic]

i did art in highschool, and right now im studying art full time! but until last year i did most of my learning by myself - lots of throwing myself at it, and online tutorials. proko proved really helpful

in terms of formal practice - being able to draw - what ive done on my own has been most helpful, whereas art school has let me rocket forward conceptually

[ryoko]

I always just liked drawing. Although my parents didn't discourage me to draw, they did make me feel like pursuing art as a career was bad and pressured me into choosing getting a degree in something 'worthwhile'. I do wish I had gotten an education in art, but at least now I am doing what I love whenever I have spare time after work.

So I guess I just drew and drew and learned stuff on my own as I went along. Sarah Andersen (Sarah's Scribbles) illustrates it best:

[ZombieOwl]

Self taught from all the "how to draw manga" books I could find in the library

Eventually, I started to take inspiration from my favorite artists (eg: I love how they added that color in there, I love how they draw noses etc). I could never directly imitate them, but I always learned something by trying

[qwerty]

I'm basically self-taught, or rather, the Internet has been my teacher (^-^)

I just watched / read a LOT of tutorials online, and then tried to put their advice into practice. Also, if I ever see someone's work that I really like, I try to study it to see what they did and why it works so well, then maybe try to incorporate my favorite elements from it into my own art.

[gh0stcr33p]

I'm self taught and I started drawing for fun in 3rd grade or so. I really sucked at drawing until this year though

[Luminosophy]

Self taught xD

Though this Sunday I will be taking my first ever proper art class through CGMA! Storyboarding and animal construction drawing courses. I think my strategy was heavy observation. When I was in my early teens I spent a lot of time trying to reproduce panels from mangas but changing some things like putting my own characters in and such. So I learned a lot about ink and line that way lolol, but the rest was all just style I was picking up mostly. When I moved to digital and discovered Deviantart later I moved to studying tons of photos and portraits because at this point it clicked for me that I really wanted to be a comic artist as a career. So I try to do as much real life study as possible. For painting I try to find a lot of paintings by fine artists to glean some techniques off of them. : 0

By the way I found this really cool site if anyone cares for it. It's all free lessons, probably the best place for a beginner looking to start with direction. Otherwise are still great exercises for anyone looking to strengthen their fundamentals.

https://drawabox.com/

[baasinsimple]

I'm self-taught. I put heavy research on anatomy. I want to still learn more officially because I am strongly lacking in some regards, though.

[Lennart]

A lot of copy pasting manga / comics by redrawing everything when i was a kid, now i'd say i draw everything from a library of shapes and personnalized shapes coming from all that "training" and i barely ever take any reference for anything, wich, i know, leads into a variable quality in what i draw, i like it to draw from a projection of what i have in my mind even if my drawings ends up not being the most "right" or proportionally accurate from time to time, even if i draw the same characters in the story.

I just find it more , i don't know... "honest" ? in terms of situating my own real skill at actually drawing.

I don't know enough about colouring or doing proper background / greyscale in comics tho...

[Hodge]

Generally self-taught. Got a wacom bamboo tabet when I was 11 cause my best friend at the time got one. Messed with it for a few months then dropped it. Picked up art again at 17 because of a high school art class, which didn't teach me much but oh well haha. Then got pretty serious about it after graduating high school and been on it for a bit over 2 years. I don't know much about my skills yet honestly. Like the better you get, your eye also gets better and you keep on realizing that this a journey that never ends. Which is also why I recommend getting critiques and outside perspectives often because they can really help in telling you exactly what you need to improve on. Also - time. Art takes a long time, especially when you get better because your tool box keeps getting bigger. One can render till the end of days, but still need to have those fundamentals down. Another thing that I'm lazy with is properly visualizing something before I draw instead of chicken scratching my way through it or repeating bad habits. And anatomy anatomy anatomy, so much can be learned through the human form - value, perspective, structure, colors, line quality, lighting, shapes, etc.