#art be Hard and frustrating af even nowadays but!! it be so rewarding too

[mondaijo]

god they way you draw anatomy is *chef’s kiss* and the way you colour is brejhfdkdb *big chef’s kiss* really admire your work!! if I may ask, do you have any tips on how to improve on drawing anatomy? ;u; totally cool if you don’t feel like it tho!

I'm sorry it took so long to reply, anatomy anon!!! I ;A;

Okay, so. First of all - you're too kind and both these asks gave me like a 300% boost in dopamine and it really makes my day to read things like these ;;;A;;; really, this is a very sweet gesture. thank you so so much!

So, onto the good stuff!! Mmmmm I might have a couple, yeah! I started learning anatomy early 2018 (I did draw and paint before that, but it was a more contemporary approach to some of it so despite me learning a lot about traditional painting itself, in the drawing department per se I was definitely.... lacking.... I had never drawn male characters before!), and I think I learned a couple things since then! My art is definitely not where I want it to be and I still have many issues my so-called ~art style~, but I think I learned a couple things along the way that might help. This might be kind of long, sorry!

1. Doing gesture drawings. I recently picked up gestures again thanks to  @/aruurara on Twitter, who's responsible for the #kemonogesture hashtag. I still suck quite a lot at it but I think it's helped me improve a lot! Croquis Cafe on Youtube/Vimeo has hundreds of videos of short gesture sessions with AMAZING models for free. Doing 30s/1min drawings will be really tough at first, but once you get the hang of it it's not too bad! This will teach you what should usually be the first (and arguably most important) step of every drawing (that focuses on characters, of course), which is putting down the idea quickly with broad strokes, focusing on movement, composition and gesture. You'll need to learn how to simplify the human body, so it might be a good idea to look into how people do that - Michael Hampton's Figure Drawing: Design and Invention and Proko's videos (proko.com) are some that I can think off the top of my head, but there are many many other great resources out there!

2. Learning anatomy fundamentals/basics. You really don't need to learn ALL bones and muscle groups, but the only way to properly learn anatomy is, well.... sitting down and learning anatomy. Unfortunately we can move in SO many different ways so it's Hard to know exactly what goes where in any position, BUT that's also what makes it beautiful, I think! Go slow and focus on small areas at a time. For example - start from the neck, then go to the shoulders, arms, upper back etc etc. It is a lot so it's no use to try and learn everything in one go! A lot of it you'll learn as you keep drawing and drawing and looking at references (which I'll talk about below). I've drawn some poses/angles so much that the knowledge kind of stuck to me and I can draw these without reference. That will happen with time, too, and become more and more frequent! Some good resources on anatomy are Proko's lessons on anatomy; I used the free ones when I started and they are SO good! I always recommend them. There's also this amazing book called Anatomy for Sculptors, which has a LOT of references about lots of muscle groups! It's a good reference book when you're unsure of how this or that muscle go.

3. References references references. Fill a folder with pics of people in different angles and poses, preferably with different body types! I have so many saved photos of beefy dudes it's insane, lmao. That way, if you don't know how to draw something in a certain angle you can check them! You can always take photos of yourself, too. References are a MUST. Pro artists use them, so why shouldn't we? It's not cheating! And it'll help improve your art so so much. Even if you’re not aiming for realism, if you do know your realism, you’ll be able to draw anything you want, in any art style you want. This is definitely not family or work-friendly, but if you're okay with it, gathering p/orn screencaps/photos and studying from them is really good! It helped me so much when I was starting out and had no idea what to do. P/orn usually has some weird angles and limb positioning that will definitely force you to learn. Not to mention, it was what kept me interested in learning anatomy - I wanted to draw beautiful men in not so sfw situations, so hey, profit!  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

You might ask me, why do I need to learn how to anatomy if I can always look at references then? a, if you know anatomy you'll use these references better, since ideally you won't just look and copy, but analyse and interpret what you see, but also b, if you know anatomy you'll be able to morph those references into what you want. It's rare for me to find a perfect reference, so most times I'm creating poses that I don't have references for. I'm also not beefy AT ALL so I can't just take photos of myself when I need to know how to draw muscles... I have to learn it so I can change it at will and draw whatever I want ♥ (that’s the ultimate goal, at least lmao)

4. Practice! The you in a year will be SO much better than the you now. Keep that in mind! Learning art is so hard as everything takes time... But try not to fret too much and think of failures as just opportunities you had to learn - maybe they didn't end up as you expected them to, but you definitely learned along the way so in the long run that's what really matters. Stay positive, be kind to yourself and try to have fun along the way. It’s not easy, but it can be so so rewarding! ♥

And I think that’s it! I tried not to digress too much as I tend to do that, but hopefully these tidbits will cover most of it and at least give you some pointers on how to start/advance on your crafts! If anything doesn’t make sense I blame adhd just hit me up! Wishing you the best of luck ♥