Thursday, April 7, 2011

Learning to draw

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd post part of a discussion I had with someone today. My friend at work was asking me how to "learn" how to draw. My suggestion was to start with a character where you can clearly see the construction. I told him to spend a month or so every day just drawing one character. Something like the examples below:




Later, artist found clever graphic ways to hide the construction, but if you've learned the earlier style, you can find it under the surface. That's why I recommended not starting with something like this. It's harder to find the construction.

10 comments:

  1. I do believe you've nailed it! I can really relate to this right now. I did character design for a bunch of different characters for a game at work. They all have similarities in the construction so theirs some unity. But I've been drawing hundreds of them for several months and now I can see the character in any position.

    Great tips! It's something I wish I'd known years ago.

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  2. Nice post Rad. Something I definitely need to work on.

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  3. sounds like a challenge. One month, huh? I think I'll give it a try. (love your advice!)

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  4. Great advice rad, learning basic construction is the foundation of great character design.

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  5. Does your friend do any drawing already? I have taught from the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and found it great for teaching beginners how to draw what they see. Drawing cartoon characters is a whole other discipline though...I'm not sure which would be best to learn first.

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  6. Would you think 1-2 hours a day would suffice? I don't want to spend to little time doing my studies.

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  7. nice post, been trying to learn how to draw but it didnt really came the way i wanted it to be.. LOL

    keep it up

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