So I've decided to learn how to draw.

hey, if that's your first effort, not too shabby at all.

Yeah that doesn't suck. A lot better than I could have done. Good job!

Solid effort! I like it!

-Cub. =o)

me too

You definitely have a budding talent.

Thanks for the compliments! I still feel like I have a lot of room for improvement, but, from what I hear, the more I practice, the better I'll get. That's the theory anyway, and since quite a few people seem to believe it then maybe I'll give it a shot, too.

Aside from my own novice stature and the silly silhouette, there's a couple things I know for certain that I should improve on. Maybe one more than the other. The lesser is the cursive handwriting. It's been a while since I knew it, but then again, attempting to recreate it at 3-4 in the morning is going to lead to mistakes.

The second is the coloring. Photoshop is expensive, so I downloaded gimp instead. Except now it wants me to learn how to use it. Pssh! Whatever! Also, I forgot to color in the base of the right door. Another lesson against waiting until 3 AM to start drawing.

I still like how the moon appears lit up, though.

Good work, looks great. I can see you've used vanishing points- though they're missing some depth, if you learn how to use 2 and 3 point vanishing points you'll get a lot more depth in your drawings.

Another thing I can advise you on is learn how to add tonal gradation to your drawings, by this I mean when drawing a 3d object, shade the colours from Dark (pressing hard) to Light (pressing softly), this'll also give you lots of depth.

Lastly learn how hatching works, it'll greatly improve the quality of your images. If you're going for a niore/old look this is the way to go. For more modern looking imagery the smoother the better so you don't have to do this- but for things that are 3d in nature this greatly helps create depth.

You're doing great though. Keep it up, practice practice practice.

Eventually some day you might be able to transfer this into digital, you'll discover quickly that digitial will greatly improve the speed and quality of your imagery. This is how I work now, I'm 100% paperless and in all honesty I'll probably never go back to classical media- but granted this is because I invested a lot of money into the tools I'm using (I use a Wacom Cintiq, its very cool- but not for everyone.)

I actually bought a legit copy of photoshop, its expensive definately, but I had to buy it. You can get a free trial of photoshop if you're just playing with it.. There's also an academic version which is more affordable (and in all honesty, since you're just doing your own personal stuff, you should be able to get a copy.) Photoshop is $200US for the academic version so that's a lot better than the $1000 for the commercial, which I paid for- but in all fairness its worth it, the alternatives give no where near the sort of workflow- hence why I refuse to use gimp and got fedup with pixelmator.

*takes some notes*

Thanks for advice! And I didn't actually use a vanishing point for the drawing. I just kinda guessed that it would angle out farther to the right and farther to the left. That's one of the reasons some of the lines in between the sides of the building and the doors are hokey.

And I've been messing around with shading to create depth. There's another drawing I put up on my deviant art account of a suburban street, as seen through a window. The window and blind is penciled in darkly, the street and nearby homes penciled in lightly, with the hope of creating an illusion of distance. For this one the major shading things that I wanted to do was the shading around the moon and the Ritz sign (didn't work out on that one).

A trial version of photoshop doesn't sound like a bad way to start learning the program. There's not much of a point in trying to learn how to use freeware software if I'm hoping to be good enough to justify the purchase of the premium brand.

Cyberpunk gives some very good advice.

I'll reiterate the advice about practising. I was once told a great line in reference to my cartooning. "It's impossible to get worse at something you do every day". The more you draw, the only way to go is up.

If you're interested in character drawing/cartooning, i could link you to some good resources.

Any chance of linking us to your Deviantart account so we can see your progress? I'll link you to mine ^^

Keep at it

Sure, I'm interested in links to resources! And: http://montezule.deviantart.com/ as requested.

I like it, I like it a lot

The only constructive criticism I offer is that you reconsider your materials. The colours seem a bit off. In terms of shape, rendering and effect, your technique is fine. It's just the colours aren't giving you the depth or mood that you're going for. But once you apply those changes, you're set. I'd love to see some more.

I really like the hand drawing you've got on your Deviantart page. You're improving already

The greatest resource i ever had was in 2006 when i discovered John Kricfalusi's blog. In particular his set of lessons on how to draw. I went through them all, drawing everything out of that book and i improved by leaps and bounds in months.

http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/05 ... ourse.html is a link to the first lesson of his online course.

Joel wrote:I like it, I like it a lot

The only constructive criticism I offer is that you reconsider your materials. The colours seem a bit off. In terms of shape, rendering and effect, your technique is fine. It's just the colours aren't giving you the depth or mood that you're going for. But once you apply those changes, you're set. I'd love to see some more.

Yeah I agree that the materials are a problem, this is why I've never been a fan of using colored pencils. Using charcoal, pastels ect can help sure but can be rather messy when using in large quantities (they tend to shed). Digital eliminates those factors though. If you want a real world approach that classical media (or materials) uses then use Corel painter because it can emulate actual real world things like paint, water colours, pastels ect, even paper damage.

If you don't require that and want a more slick look then photoshop is the way to go- in the end though they are pretty equal because its more reliant on what the artist can do not so much on what the program itself can, this is why you pay the money for the software because it provides you the workflow- the fewer chances for mistakes the better the program.

Photoshop is pretty much fool proof now, Corel painter not so much- since you can screw up really badly- I'd say Photoshop is easier to master hence why its my tool of choice. I think now that photoshop has brush emulation (which was just added with CS5) it makes it a bit closer to what corel painter can deliver on.

Also if you're doing anything in regards to computer graphics, Wacom tablets are a MUST. After I bought a graphire years ago back in highschool I came to appreciate just how helpful they are, so much that I bought an Intuos and a Cintiq. (I take the Intuos to work, and use my Cintiq at home- good thing is that all the parts are compatible between the two) Understandably high end graphics work is expensive, if you're just starting out get yourself a cheap Wacom Bamboo, they're usually $50-$100 and should be sufficient for practice. This will eliminate the need for paper- which can be more expensive (back at Uni paper alone was costing me $20+ per class, then having to buy brushes, paints, charcoal, erasers, pencils, pastels ect.. it wasn't cheap.)

With that said, theres something about working on an easel that the Cintiq can't replicate. I hope someday they produce a larger 40" version some day that can free stand- since this would replicate the experience you get from drawing in a proper art studio.. However that said, the cost of the bloody thing would be easily into the $10k mark- so I can see why the Cintiq has been so popular for so long lol even at $3k its expensive but its worth it if you're doing high end graphics (which I am). There's a smaller 12" version of the Cintiq but in all honesty it kind of defeats the purpose of having the screen- granted it is portable which is good, but the reason you use a Cintiq is for the resolution- this is why its better than the Intuos series.

The bamboo will be a good tablet, but the thing you'll notice on the smaller ones is that you'll have to be zoomed in up close in order to draw properly. Whereas on the Cintiq I don't have to do that, I can draw pretty much like I normally would. The Intuos requires a bit of zooming but for the most part not that much, its a good tablet but not for everyone due to the price (if you're lucky you'll get them on special for the price of the bamboo, which is what I did).

Wow, not bad. Of course my drawing skill is limited to stick figures, so I'm not sure that compliments from me mean much.