*threads I mean, not boards

You first, OP!

inspiration on left

>>7145 Oh, nice work Anon!

> Cute girl study gen finally, a place for me

>>7166 Very kawaii desu!

>>7168 Damn, what a Stacy

Been working on a small project, but I have watercolors I never posted. How do I get a cool icon in my name btw?

>>7145 >>7166 Lovely smiles!!! >>7168 Those are some fabulous digs!!!

>>7176 Very cute, nostalgic art anon, your work reminds me a bit of that which proliferated on the early days of the internet, somehow To get a thingy on your post just expand the options hidden behind the arrow here; they're called "flags"

>>7107 How are you supposed to study art? I keep being told to study artists I like but whenever I ask how all I get is vague nonhelpful bs. I've been running in place for years with my drawings despite trying to improve, it's so frustrating

>>7180 Thanks, anon! :) I do enjoy watercoloring a lot, even though it doesn't come out 100% perfect (I definitely bungled the mouth on the left OC) >>7217 For me, it's a mixture of studying IRL and the styles of artists I like. You study IRL to understand the forms and underlying anatomy of what you're drawing, and then you study the artists you like by analyzing what they do and trying to recreate it in your own works. For instance, if you have an artist whose colors you really like, you'd try to replicate their color schemes in your own work, but you can do this with any artistic aspect from lineart, to brushstrokes, etc. Study lots of artists you like, and, unless you're trying to intentionally become a 1:1 of your favorite artist, your style will develop naturally on its own with time and effort. Figure out what works for you and what doesn't. I hope this helps!

>>7217 My advice rejoins >>7220's. I'd try to copy the drawings accurately as if I were doing a photo study, like that one anon is doing with mossa's drawings. On a technical level, this requires reverse-engineering the brushes and paper used, perhaps even the drawing program or the physical tools; looking at the local (= within a singular stroke) variations in brush size, smoothness, curvatures; looking at the global (= within the entire image) variations of brush size, smoothness, etc.; looking at picture composition, framing, color, themes, and all that jazz. To reuse what you've learned from copying and studying the artist's art, you could take explicit notes (use x brush with y settings on program z, draw the nose in x or y way, etc.). I don't do that and I forget half of what I've learned but it's fun and I can feel I've incorporated a bit of studies in my own art. As an example of me trying to follow the guidelines above, I've drawn picture 2 after studying picture 1's style (Shirimoto's).

>>7220 >>7221 Thank you both! Yeah I was told multiple times to analyze the stuff I'm supposed to study but even that is too vague for my brain..I did a lot of copies over the years hoping they will help in some way but they never did and I'm starting to get really desperate

>>7222 Those are pretty good studies. What do you mean that they didn't help? Have you also been training drawing from imagination?

>>7225 Thank you >What do you mean that they didn't help? I'm not exactly sure what am I supposed to get out of them and I feel like they ended up as brainless copies >Have you also been training drawing from imagination? Not really https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB9yTNfE3go&t I was recommended to follow this video for it but I just ended up as confused when I tried to I keep getting stuck whenever I'm told to "analyze and study" things. It's just so vague and unhelpful..

>>7226 What you should be asking yourself is not "What should I be getting out of them" but "What do I want from them?" What's your endpoint? Do you have a goal? Do you want to do comics? Do you want to draw like a certain artist? Don't think about studying like some kind of math teacher trying to tell you a right way and wrong way, when you learn alone you have no teachers. All you have is your own goal and intentions. Figure out what you want.

>>7227 I want to get decent at drawing cute girls and make my own 4koma one day eventually but I feel like I get stuck every time I try to study something. For example >I'm bad at drawing faces and eyes >I try to study them for a couple weeks >Realize I don't know how am I supposed to "study" in a way that actually helps me on the long run >Give up >Repeat the same process with something else Sorry, I don't know how to explain it properly. I feel like I'm missing something very basic that's been holding me back for years..

>>7228 Start your 4koma right now, it'll come together

>>7228 "Get decent at drawing cute girls" is pretty broad. When studying another artist it's good to have a more specific goal. So you identify some aspect of their art that you wish you could do, and focus on observing how they do that particular thing, and how it differs from your work. If I wanted to learn how to do line art like in the OP image I would look at it and observe the properties of the lines. How thick are they, what color and value, where does the line weight chance, how sharp are they... Etc. Cross reference with your work and try to apply it until you nail it. You can get more analytical about why they made certain decisions if you want but on a basic level that's all there is to it. Going by your work though you must already be doing that, if just intuitively. I'd say you're even quite good at it, there are many elements you would only have arrived at through study. If there's something you feel that you're struggling with I don't think it's specifically to do with studying other artists. If I were to venture a guess I'd say it might be compositional principles, that stuff is pretty abstract and I found it a difficult threshold. I sort of recognize the struggle in taking away something logical from your observations. Unfortunately I haven't found any comprehensive guides to it, your best bet there is to just think about what elements a picture has and try to break it down in smaller concepts. There are a lot of tutorials floating around that can give you an idea though. I think the Etherington brothers illustrate some things pretty well. https://theetheringtonbrothers.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-to-think-when-you-draw-character.html Sorry for how lengthy this got. I agree with the other guy though, you definitely should give the comic a shot right away. Even if you don't feel that your art is up to snuff you can just draft some pages and see how they read. No pressure to make something polished immediately.

>>7228 The only way to learn how to do comics is by doing them. Unfortunately, comics and even simple 4komas require a completely different set of skills mostly learned through trial and error. And also, the funny thing is that 4 komas don't really require you to be good at drawing anything so long as you're funny, and if you're not even slightly good at being witty, well...

>>7235 100% true! Drawing figures is one thing, but making them interact in panels forces you to think a bit about composition and whatnot. >>7228 Not my taste at all, but I don't consider your work to be bad. I agree with the anons who said you should try comics. It's a great way to improve for anyone at any level. Picrel is just an example, but, when you're limited to a box/panel, you have to consider how to properly use your space.

>>7236 Is she homestuck XD

>>7239 No, these are my OCs, but everyone looks off-model as shit cause I also struggle to make comics

>>7229 >>7232 >>7235 >>7236 Thanks for the tips! I'm a bit nervous about it but I guess I can try to draw a simple comic short comic or something..