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doggyji
Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Location: Toronto - Hamilton - Vineland - St. Catherines
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 Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:55 pm Post subject: The best internet sites for self-learning pencil drawing? |
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I'm a beginner. I think I don't totally suck for a person who was never trained in this but I have zero theoretical knowledge to improve my skills. I guess here we got some artsy people. Please share some good info! Thanks in advance.  |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 6:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Dunno of any websites but a friend who draws pretty well recommended the book"drawing on the right side of the brain", and it's gotten me from bad stick figures to recognisable people |
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doggyji
Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Location: Toronto - Hamilton - Vineland - St. Catherines
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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| peppermint wrote: |
| Dunno of any websites but a friend who draws pretty well recommended the book"drawing on the right side of the brain", and it's gotten me from bad stick figures to recognisable people |
That seems like a good book. I just checked it on amazon.ca. I'm ordering it. Thank you! |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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yeah...it's for particularly right brained people (ie...people who aren't so artsy). My wife got it and she has noticed a drastic improvement in a matter of days. She hasn't read it in a while though.
It's definately worth the money. |
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doggyji
Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Location: Toronto - Hamilton - Vineland - St. Catherines
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:25 pm Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
yeah...it's for particularly right brained people (ie...people who aren't so artsy). My wife got it and she has noticed a drastic improvement in a matter of days. She hasn't read it in a while though.
It's definately worth the money. |
It sounds like the right book for me. I'm an engineering student. Cool. Thanks. |
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twg
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Getting some fresh air...
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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Okay, I'm gonna tell you something that you may not want to hear:
Go outside with a pencil and sketchpad. Preferably one with a hard back. I remember Kyobo having some good stuff.
Draw what you can for as long as you can as often as you can. Ask people for a critique. Filter the advice from the noise (A skill in itself) and try to apply it.
Repeat until you stop sucking.
Doing is far more important than theory. Theory may give you some ideas, but it doesn't make you better. |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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problem with that is that you don't know what to improve. You can take advice but unless it's from a trained professional you won't know how to actually do it.
That book teaches you how to use your brain in a way that you can understand to draw something that left brain person can whip up in a breeze.
Trust me, that book will help you more than any self instruction could (assuming you are predominantly right brained). |
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doggyji
Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Location: Toronto - Hamilton - Vineland - St. Catherines
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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| twg wrote: |
Okay, I'm gonna tell you something that you may not want to hear:
Go outside with a pencil and sketchpad. Preferably one with a hard back. I remember Kyobo having some good stuff.
Draw what you can for as long as you can as often as you can. Ask people for a critique. Filter the advice from the noise (A skill in itself) and try to apply it.
Repeat until you stop sucking.
Doing is far more important than theory. Theory may give you some ideas, but it doesn't make you better. |
Thanks for the advice. I've been interested in drawing and lately I decided to put my time for real. I'll try to draw as many as possible. It's just bad I don't know any professionals like you around me. Let me just show you my recent drawing. I drew this from pictures. I used a 0.5mm mechanical pencil with HB lead. Drawing the thick outline was not very hard but interpreting the true visible spectrum that my eyes see into the narrow range of black and white was pretty hard and I failed it badly. And expressing the details of the hair was almost mission impossible. Any comments, sir?
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 10:02 pm Post subject: |
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Man, you're getting good already. Much better than some I've seen in classes for years.
Hmmmm, maybe I should pick up that book. |
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twg
Joined: 02 Nov 2006
Location: Getting some fresh air...
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| Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 1:15 am Post subject: |
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| doggyji wrote: |
Any comments, sir?
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I think it's great portraiture. That's assuming you're basing the sketching on real folks, and not flawless models. Hell, the hair is tonnes better than I usually do.
BUT~ If you're aiming for realistic pencil renderings, you need to drop the outlines and work in tones. Note that even the highlights on a face aren't pure white, so don't be afraid to smudge lead all over the lady's face.
... That sounds kinky.
| khyber wrote: |
| problem with that is that you don't know what to improve. You can take advice but unless it's from a trained professional you won't know how to actually do it. |
I disagree. Everyone can tell when you're screwing up.
For example, this page here. I got a few complaints from readers because it wasn't clear, even with the dialog. And they were right without being pros.
I do agree that a pro can help you avoid the mistakes that they learned to avoid, but there's absolutely no substitute for hard work. |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 10:26 am Post subject: |
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| twg wrote: |
I disagree. Everyone can tell when you're screwing up. |
No one's saying that the book by itself will make you great. Of course we know we're screwing up, the book just helps us figure out how to NOT screw up, and then the hard work that you're advocating actually becomes effective. |
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doggyji
Joined: 21 Feb 2006
Location: Toronto - Hamilton - Vineland - St. Catherines
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| Posted: Thu Feb 15, 2007 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
| Man, you're getting good already. Much better than some I've seen in classes for years. |
This from another pro. That's encouraging. Thanks! 
| twg wrote: |
I think it's great portraiture. That's assuming you're basing the sketching on real folks, and not flawless models. Hell, the hair is tonnes better than I usually do.
BUT~ If you're aiming for realistic pencil renderings, you need to drop the outlines and work in tones. Note that even the highlights on a face aren't pure white, so don't be afraid to smudge lead all over the lady's face.
... That sounds kinky.
| khyber wrote: |
| problem with that is that you don't know what to improve. You can take advice but unless it's from a trained professional you won't know how to actually do it. |
I disagree. Everyone can tell when you're screwing up.
For example, this page here. I got a few complaints from readers because it wasn't clear, even with the dialog. And they were right without being pros.
I do agree that a pro can help you avoid the mistakes that they learned to avoid, but there's absolutely no substitute for hard work. |
Yeah, of course, hard work should be the fundamental. I'd like to learn how to do the fine renderings first.
Thank you all for the good inputs! |
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Old fat expat
Joined: 19 Sep 2005
Location: a caravan of dust, making for a windy prairie
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 3:05 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, don't think line.
Try to feel the change between the surfaces.
Make some lines soft and wide, or long and sharp, or use one of these to link to similair lines. Continuety ... and lines should be able to communicate emotion. Lines do not do that with much complexity. Hats off to Disney (although Disney achieved complexity by making the lines in different (emotional) colors)
See Gibson for a psych rundown on why. |
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deadman
Joined: 27 May 2006
Location: Suwon
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| Posted: Fri Feb 16, 2007 3:45 am Post subject: |
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In Homeplus the other day I found an interesting sketch book in the stationery section.
It has a landscape photo and a pencil sketch of the photo opposite each blank page, the idea being to learn to do pencil drawings by example.
It might help you if you examined the pencil work of the example, the strokes, shading etc for ideas to play around with. |
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