Non-Zombie Related Skills

[jmfargo]

Does anyone out there know of a good tutorial to help me learn how to draw?

Like so many people these days, I have what I think could be an awesome idea for a webcomic or similar, and just don't think my stick-figure drawings will cut it. They could, as my stick-figure style is similar to Order of the Stick and a few other popular poorly-drawn strips, but for the seriousish tone that I want the strip to have, it just doesn't work well.

So, do you know of anywhere I could look to get a good idea of how to draw a human head/face? How about bodies? Backgrounds? All done, of course, in a comic-like style. What that means, I have no idea.

Also? I've had caffeine this morning because today's going to be very busy learning about how to help stay "Green" and save the Earth. If I use up the extra energy from the caffeine, I'll be fine. If I don't, I'll get cranky. If I forget why I'm cranky, and post something to that effect, someone please remind me that I'm being dumb.

Thanks.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/eryn_/]

Try the library. Then you can read a dozen books and decide which ones are deserving of space on your shelves.

Most art classes try to teach you to look and really see. There are different techniques to divorce students from drawing things how they know they look without looking. The one I got was "draw without lifting your pencil", sometimes that looks like a contour map, and it never looks right because nothing is shaded, but documentaries on tattoo artists show them doing something very similar for their stencils.

The best way to learn to draw is to do it. You need to learn to get what you see onto the paper. So first you need to learn to see. Muscle control to guide the pencil or pen is not likely to be hard, though it might take practice and be frustrating.

There are days when I sit and draw junk off my desk. Nail polish bottle, vitamin jug, coffee cup on a stained coaster. Cup with pens and scissors in. Some days I draw something out of my head. Acorn. Alien with no feet. I like drawing eyes off photos of celebrities. (Just the eye part, so they look unrecognizeable and like everyone else.)

So, some advice on how to get started won't hurt you, but you'd be better off making a full-fledged drawing on a sticky note every day. (I really like sticky notes for daily drawing exercises because they don't have lines, they're everywhere, and it's easy to hang a collection.) You will need practice to get better. Books will not make you practice.