. "Keep drawing everyday, and you'll improve eventually"-- is the common advice. There's some value to that, but that's not enough. Rather, draw everyday but with understanding, focus and fundamentals training. It's the best way to level up one's drawing skills, in my humble opinion. Otherwise, one is bound to just repeat some bad drawing habits. And never learn some new ways of drawing. Especially in drawing the figure. Which was true in my case.
Being a traditional animator before, I had been drawing everyday for years, but my figure drawings looked a bit cartoony, loose and unfinished. At the time, I thought my drawings were ok -- not great but not bad either. They look terrible to me now. I've only myself to blame for my laziness and complacency that my drawing skills stagnated. I didn't do any personal drawings outside of work that time, and so my drawing style was limited to what the house-style was at work. And so for years, my drawings stayed the same. I didn't even know how to add some tonal shadings properly. Shameful.
Eventually, I realized that figure drawing practice is essential in developing an artist's drawing and observational skills. There's also the design aspect to it that I didn't know of. Actually, there's a lot I didn't know. I just knew that I needed to learn how to do it well.
So for these past few weeks, that's exactly what I did -- signed up for a figure drawing class and learned some new ways of drawing the figure. It was so different from how I used to draw, that it was counter-intuitive at first. But eventually, I learned to adapt this new method of careful, and deliberate drawing of the figure. It's not quick sketching, but a long pose study of the figure. Very similar to how a painter would start a figure painting.
Almost dramatically, my drawings just got better during the class. Looking at the drawing comparisons below, and seeing the big improvement jumps, it is really gratifying and encouraging. Yet there's still more to learn. And I'm sure in a few years time, when I do another comparisons, these 2019 drawings would look terrible to me by then.
Being a traditional animator before, I had been drawing everyday for years, but my figure drawings looked a bit cartoony, loose and unfinished. At the time, I thought my drawings were ok -- not great but not bad either. They look terrible to me now. I've only myself to blame for my laziness and complacency that my drawing skills stagnated. I didn't do any personal drawings outside of work that time, and so my drawing style was limited to what the house-style was at work. And so for years, my drawings stayed the same. I didn't even know how to add some tonal shadings properly. Shameful.
Eventually, I realized that figure drawing practice is essential in developing an artist's drawing and observational skills. There's also the design aspect to it that I didn't know of. Actually, there's a lot I didn't know. I just knew that I needed to learn how to do it well.
So for these past few weeks, that's exactly what I did -- signed up for a figure drawing class and learned some new ways of drawing the figure. It was so different from how I used to draw, that it was counter-intuitive at first. But eventually, I learned to adapt this new method of careful, and deliberate drawing of the figure. It's not quick sketching, but a long pose study of the figure. Very similar to how a painter would start a figure painting.
Almost dramatically, my drawings just got better during the class. Looking at the drawing comparisons below, and seeing the big improvement jumps, it is really gratifying and encouraging. Yet there's still more to learn. And I'm sure in a few years time, when I do another comparisons, these 2019 drawings would look terrible to me by then.
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