What are some tips artists could give to us beginners?

[atw0605]

Hi I'm not very good at drawing but I want to improve my art. Any tips?

[Kayke]

Honestly, the best way to get better is to practice. Draw as often as you can and draw thing you're not used to drawing.

So many people get caught in a cycle of drawing the same thing (usually a character) over and over trying to make it perfect, but if you do that you might never be happy with it and you'll never move past that point. But if you draw a lot and don't worry so much you'll find that you're getting better without even realizing it! It still happens to me all the time where I'll be working on something and it'll dawn on me 'oh I guess I can draw bicycles from memory now' or 'wow so-and-so looks so much better now than they did in issue 1'

So just get into it! This might be hard, forcing yourself not to linger, but it's for the best. And most webcomic readers don't mind if your art changes and improves over time, it's kind of expected.

[UzukiCheverie]

Draw other stuff. Don't just draw in your same style and nothing else. If you do this, you're really not bound to improve - you need to push yourself to try new things. Do life drawing, do realism, do sculpting if you really want to go above and beyond. If you broaden your artistic horizons, it'll all come back and add to your skills. You have nothing to lose by learning something new - but everything to lose if you do the same thing every time expecting different results.

This is coming from someone who's seen it happen to other people. I've got friends who always wanted to improve, but because they never challenged themselves to try something new or step outside their comfort zone, their art doesn't look any better than it did when they were kids. It's just a shame to see such wasted potential simply because they were too afraid/tunnel visioned with their style to try something new.

[hades]

Draw for you.
Not for your fans.
Not for who you think likes your work.
For you.

[Houndstooth]

Don't focus on improving.

I'm serious, don't laugh! I work on my comic several pages at a time, and before I started my current job I was pumping out work as fast as possible just in case I wouldn't have time later - and I kept thinking, there's a sort of expectation to improve at drawing between however many pages.
Turns out, that was the thing that most kept me from actually improving. I was so focused on the amount I was drawing, mechanically, day in day out, trying to complete 4-6 pages every fortnight - I wasn't actually focusing on drawing. I ended up not improving as much as I wanted, taking shortcuts, cutting corners - just generally speeding along too fast because I wanted to say "I've done X many pages so I must be better by now, right?"

I took a step back. Started actually focusing on the process of sketching, composing, lettering, colouring etc etc - it made me think a lot more about why I drew the way I do, where the gaps in my knowledge are. And that's when the improvement started to come along more naturally I think. Even basic things like consistency in character design, shading, layouts.... But I couldn't start improving until I stopped trying so hard to improve.

That was long-winded and personal and I apologise (it's late and I've had a loooong day). But I hope it helps, somehow!

[GesuGesu]

Just draw without worrying about it looking exactly lke what you want. Many young artists are worried over their person not looking like a person, or their car not looking like a car. As long as it has the key characteristics and components of what you're intending to draw, it is that object. It's art, not photography.

What you drew has two wheels, pedals, a seat, and handlebars? It's a bicycle. Who cares if it doesn't look 100% like a bicycle, it's a bicycle.

It has two eyes. and a mouth? Whether you drew two dots and a line or something more realistic, nearly everyone can recognize that it's a face.

Especially when it comes to comics and cartooning, realism is not the focus. The aim is to find a style that is simplified enough that you don't feel anxious having to draw them 50 times in a row for the comic, rather than something crazy detailed that would require 6 extra hands to finish even a page within a reasonable amount of time.

[csufranco]

give up, find a real job! Whoever told you to follow your dreams is a liar!

JK

[parceeena]

Art is not a competition. Don't feel down if someone is better than you; get inspired by them instead.
Work at your own pace. Who cares if you're slow as long as you don't stop. And also, Its not in the fancy pencils, markers or watercolors. It's how you make use of them. Now go forth on your art journey!

[punkarsenic]

learn the theory. watch tutorials in figure drawing, looking at gesture and form. look at colour theory. look at composition and cinematography. knowing the 'rules' makes the practice make more sense. especially gesture. honestly, when i learnt abt gesture it felt like the missing link in all my work, its a real eye opener.

I really recommend Proko on youtube for drawing people and learning abt gesture. if you feel like hes going too fast, go back ot an earlier stage, or keep on that step until youre happy with it. feel free to break from it for a while and just draw whatever you can at the time. draw what makes you happy.

be forgiving towards yourself. if you dont think youre good enough, its because you have high aspirations, and thats good. wherever you are is a building block towards wherever you want to be.

[ashriott]

Apart from what everyone has already mentioned, comic making wise - one thing I always kicked myself for not doing was to draw comics even if it wasn't my "main story". To clarify, I always held off making comics until I finished writing my massive story, which took me a very very long time to do. Though I had drawn comics before, I rarely did so with a 110% serious effort. So when I did start actually drawing my comic, I made so many mistakes when it came to anatomy and using art to tell a story. If I had say, maybe done several short stories or one shots to get some practice, I think that would have benefitted me a lot, saving me from having to keep redrawing old pages lol.

[DMBrigman]

Work in steps. There is a tendency as a beginner to start fully rendering and perfecting a face before figuring out what the rest of the character's body is supposed to be doing. This will mean the rest of the drawing looks out of proportion or stitched together. I suggest doing stick figures and rough sketches to work out your posing a proportions before working on the piece. Once you have nailed down a pose then start going back and filling in the anatomy, then do pencils, then clean up, then coloring, etc. This allows you along the way to see if something isn't working, that an arm needs to be re-positioned at the rough stage and not after you have sunk a lot of time into painting it.

[ahhvecadoes]

Study music videos and movies. Keep a sketchbook handy or take screenshots of frames you find interesting, and replicate them the best you can. I do it a lot to work on composition and colors, but it always surprises me how doing studies like that help change my rendering and attention to detail for the better.

If have the money for it, I'd suggest taking a group class at an art center or store that has them. Having a teacher to guide you and having peers who you can critique and receive criticism from helps a lot so you get out of your own head.