Hey, I suck at drawing

[jtbo]

I spend better part of the day drawing as I should not walk much at all right now. Somehow my drawings don't come out very well. Maybe it is my lack of shading abilities or maybe I just need to do it months until it works out, I have had no any kind of training for drawing.

po2g_tigris_warrior_1.jpg

• jtbo
• Jul 2, 2016

fighter1.png

• jtbo
• Jul 2, 2016

I'm trying to write some kind of scifi story now and then so drawings are kind of related to that theme.

Big annoyance is that clicks in Ink Scape does not always get trough, swapping layers etc takes many attempts, same with Gimp, something to do with GTK+ and Win8 with pen tablet drawing thingy.

Anyone else suck in drawing?

 

[Columbine]

Dont do yourself down jtbo . They're stylised/cartoony but look pretty good to me Certainly 10000% times better than I could do :nod:

 

[Winchester]

JTbo, I think they're pretty cool! 

 

[jtbo]

I have short cartoon in my mind, but I think I need more practice until I try to put it together, need to learn a lot of things before that of course.

Monika has written lot of good information for those who wishes to practice drawing:
http://design.tutsplus.com/articles/whats-your-excuse-why-cant-you-draw--vector-18414
http://design.tutsplus.com/articles...xercises-for-complete-beginners--vector-20583

 

[jtbo]

This is made freehand with pen tablet and Gimp, just practicing to draw lines, that is easy part of humanoid and not too great still, but I read it takes 7 years of practice until you get to be good at it, so maybe I compare this to 2023 version

workout.gif

• jtbo
• Jul 3, 2016

 

[Columbine]

It looks pretty good to me already You don't give yourself enough credit!

 

[jtbo]

I don't know, these are not so good, surely there is improvement, but more of that I wish, but sure I'm better than I have ever been at drawing, it just is not too good, at least yet.

I do these kind of pencil sketching, attempting to get images in my head into paper and for getting new ideas from testing how things would look if done this way or maybe that way is better etc. Kilrathi from Wing Commander has quite big influence of course.

po2g_sketches_1.jpg

• jtbo
• Jul 4, 2016

po2g_sketches_2.jpg

• jtbo
• Jul 4, 2016

 

[jtbo]

There is lot of room to improve here too, but I think that it somewhat captures that intense predator hunting look they have when something triggers their interest?

drawing_cat_alerted.png

• jtbo
• Jul 6, 2016

Proportions are difficult, need more practice.

That was pencil drawing I made by eyeballing one photo, changing little bit here and there, then took photo of drawing, drew lines in Inkscape as well as added little color in that too, scanner would be nice as I still like to use pencil over pen tablet to sketch things.

I'm quite mighty proud that I suck this badly at drawing, that gives me wonderful opportunities to learn so much more

 

[artiemom]

@JTbo  , those are really good.

 

[jtbo]

@JTbo
 , those are really good.

There was funny looking cat at front page yesterday so I did try to draw it and come up with (at least in my mind) funny idea, should of perhaps made bit stronger lines for drawing though:

wishing_cat_weights.png

• jtbo
• Jul 7, 2016

 

[jtbo]

I did read that some do sketch with pencil and then ink like a boss, well my inking is not perhaps the best, I tend to change minds of how I want drawing to look while I'm doing the so called inking, this is batKitty, alien creature that is common pet among some parts of galaxy, it should have rest of body with wings and all, but I can't draw them yet, need more practice.

batKitty_pencil_s.jpg

• jtbo
• Jul 8, 2016

It did change quite a bit when I did ink for few hours, it is really really slow and I still spotted some errors that needs to be fixed, but it is quite easy to modify after done once.

bat_kitty.jpg

• jtbo
• Jul 8, 2016

batKitty3.jpg

• jtbo
• Jul 8, 2016

batKitty4.jpg

• jtbo
• Jul 8, 2016

 

[Columbine]

batKitty! I LOVE it Looks really good too - cute and slightly creepy at the same time :vampire:umpkin:

 

[foxxycat]

Keep up the good work! Now you can make up a little didy to go with the batkitty!

 

[jtbo]

I posted earlier drawing that has this character with combat suit of sorts:

po2g_s_front_combat_suit.png

• jtbo
• Jul 12, 2016

I had great difficulties to make side view from that, I ended up drawing casual clothing and place character in one argument scene from story. Hands are quite difficult when drawing to A4 paper scale, I can't even see tip of my pencil, I would need new glasses badly, so it makes it quite challenging to do small stuff. After 1st drawing shown this post I did actually by some erasers, much easier now that I don't need to consider all lines permanent as I had to at the beginning.

po2g_base_s_j_argument.png

• jtbo
• Jul 12, 2016

Proportions and scaling etc. are however one thing I try to practice, it is way too random how things end up still.

I'm not happy with feet, looks too bird like, I need to practice more of those so I would get more catlike look, but tiny bit of birdlikeness would be nice too.

It is not very easy to get character in your mind to paper, needs a lots and lots of practice.

Next I try to do some inking in Inkscape so I would get those to digital format and maybe something usable, might take bit more than a day though, it took me over 2 hours to draw that drawing from side view and before that more than 10 attempts at several days that were complete failures.

That is how you learn, by failing, failing miserably

 

[plan]

I recently got one of those tablets you're talking about -- it's basically a pad with a stylus, and I use it in combination with Corel, so I can literally pick from several hundred different types of pens, pencils, paints, watercolors, oils, airbrushes, etc. You can adjust the point size, you can draw thin or thick lines depending on how hard you're pressing, just like IRL, and of course it's digital so drawing and editing is completely non-destructive. The "undo" tool is a great thing to have.

Of course, it also takes getting used to. I found my brain adapts quickly to drawing on a digital pad and seeing the corresponding lines form on a screen, but I still struggle a bit with control and knowing exactly where the "cursor" is before I press the stylus.

I recommend you take some time playing with the various mediums -- pens, pencils, airbrushes and so on -- and the various tip types. There's a TON of stuff you can do that's not readily apparent. Then there are graphics staples, like layers, layer FX, color manipulation, processing and so on. And Youtube has an endless number of instruction videos. It can get overwhelming, actually, but there's no rush.

 

[jtbo]

I recently got one of those tablets you're talking about -- it's basically a pad with a stylus, and I use it in combination with Corel, so I can literally pick from several hundred different types of pens, pencils, paints, watercolors, oils, airbrushes, etc. You can adjust the point size, you can draw thin or thick lines depending on how hard you're pressing, just like IRL, and of course it's digital so drawing and editing is completely non-destructive. The "undo" tool is a great thing to have.

Of course, it also takes getting used to. I found my brain adapts quickly to drawing on a digital pad and seeing the corresponding lines form on a screen, but I still struggle a bit with control and knowing exactly where the "cursor" is before I press the stylus.

I recommend you take some time playing with the various mediums -- pens, pencils, airbrushes and so on -- and the various tip types. There's a TON of stuff you can do that's not readily apparent. Then there are graphics staples, like layers, layer FX, color manipulation, processing and so on. And Youtube has an endless number of instruction videos. It can get overwhelming, actually, but there's no rush.

My problem with tablet is perhaps most that I have not found pressure settings that would provide anything near pencil "feel", another thing is that rotating paper is easy, screen+pad not so easy, anything left and up ends up very badly misshapen then.

But most of that is lack of practice of course.

One of the best things I have used tablet is Clip Studio, but of course I have not used Corel, not since 90's, Corel Draw was something really nice back then.

It is made for Manga, but of course any other cartoon like drawing is very close to it, I'm still testing trial version if I would buy it, kind of would need to know if I ever get to level that would justify the cost, but there is great pencil feel what little I have managed to try and looking trough features it is quite nice looking software.
http://www.clipstudio.net/en

50 dollars is of course not huge sum from what you get, but it buys lot of pencils and paper.

Corel is around 100 dollars for X7 home & student version, graphics suite is something close to 700, quite expensive tools for my budget.

I use mostly Gimp and Inkscape for digital drawing for now and I don't like Gimp much, also Inkscape leaves lot to be desired, but don't know much other tools that I could afford for vector drawing.

 

[plan]

My problem with tablet is perhaps most that I have not found pressure settings that would provide anything near pencil "feel", another thing is that rotating paper is easy, screen+pad not so easy, anything left and up ends up very badly misshapen then.

But most of that is lack of practice of course.

One of the best things I have used tablet is Clip Studio, but of course I have not used Corel, not since 90's, Corel Draw was something really nice back then.

It is made for Manga, but of course any other cartoon like drawing is very close to it, I'm still testing trial version if I would buy it, kind of would need to know if I ever get to level that would justify the cost, but there is great pencil feel what little I have managed to try and looking trough features it is quite nice looking software.
http://www.clipstudio.net/en

50 dollars is of course not huge sum from what you get, but it buys lot of pencils and paper.

Corel is around 100 dollars for X7 home & student version, graphics suite is something close to 700, quite expensive tools for my budget.

I use mostly Gimp and Inkscape for digital drawing for now and I don't like Gimp much, also Inkscape leaves lot to be desired, but don't know much other tools that I could afford for vector drawing.

That's crazy, is Corel really that expensive?

TBH I got it for free with my drawing tablet. I guess that was a much bigger perk than I thought it was. It's actually my first time using a Corel product instead of just using Adobe Photoshop, but I really like the customization options.

I know what you mean about the page rotating...that drives me crazy! But you can change that in the settings. I dunno what the path would be for your software, but you can lock the canvas so it doesn't rotate, but still allows you to zoom in/out, which I find very useful for sketching detail.

 

[jtbo]

That's crazy, is Corel really that expensive?

TBH I got it for free with my drawing tablet. I guess that was a much bigger perk than I thought it was. It's actually my first time using a Corel product instead of just using Adobe Photoshop, but I really like the customization options.

I know what you mean about the page rotating...that drives me crazy! But you can change that in the settings. I dunno what the path would be for your software, but you can lock the canvas so it doesn't rotate, but still allows you to zoom in/out, which I find very useful for sketching detail.

Oh, problem with rotating is that to rotate canvas I would need to enter to menus choose rotate, then input number of degrees, figuring out which way to rotate, then it rotates.

With Photoshop I guess there is single key solution to that, which makes it a lot nicer already.

With Corel it sounds like it is being somehow automated?

It might be that your bundled Corel has some functions less than those versions they sell, I would be actually happy to buy such limited version if price would be below 50, but haven't found such offers, so I'm considering Clip Studio, I'm just not sure if vector part would be as nice as with Corel, but it is quite nice what little I have looked into it with Clip Studio.

There seems to be lot of tutorials about clip studio on yt too and many things from more common tools apply of course, exact way to do things might differ, but idea behind technique should be quite similar between different software.

It seems to be that in Clip studio, you hit Shift+space and keep those down while using stylus to drag canvas around, seems to be easy enough.

There is also quite a lot of materials and other support stuff available to download, so I guess that with price of 50 this might be my best bet to get things straight to digital format. Erasing is so much nicer when doing digital sketch as well as seeing what I'm doing because I can zoom in.

I think that my drawing tablet did cost less than 50 almost 10 years ago. Plastic cover it has is too sticky, my hand sticks to it badly, so I'm taping often paper to it so my hand can slide on it, without that it is almost useless.

I'm really starting to like this Clip Studio, trial version can't save work and canvas was quite low resolution, but I took photo of my drawing with camera, then cut character only to image and imported it to one layer into clip studio, after that made new Vector layer and did some testing, it is quite easy to work with from there, simplify tool helps a lot in cleaning, I still need to figure out how to connect different lines, but I'm kind of leaning towards buying it, much more fun to work with than Inkscape+Gimp, that is for sure.

clip_studio_trial_test.png

• jtbo
• Jul 12, 2016

Doesn't make my drawing much better though, only practice helps with that and I guess some reading about anatomy, I want to make better limbs.

 

[foxxycat]

yes Corel Draw really is that expensive for the full version. I too used Corel Draw in the 1990s. I also learned layout and printing with another program that allows graphics and text- it was 1997 and I forgot the name of that software but it was very user friendly. It was one of the graphics arts courses I took eons ago. I was bored to tears with graphic arts. I prefer fine arts. The problem is I don't have any imagination for snappy sayings or unique designs. I can only copy what I see-I can't draw from memory. I since backed away from drawing but I should really try again. I keep making excuses and being lazy.

 

[jtbo]

I remember one program from time of Corel, it had really lot of clipart images and it was vector based, really easy and intuitive to use, but can't remember name of that.


Some days ago I did this kind of drawing, complete failure, nose ended up way too far from eyes and many other fails so lost interest as correcting all that would of meant making it again from scratch, but I might try some later date again, failing alone does not teach much, trying again part is of course needed :

failed_drawing_two_cats.png

• jtbo
• Jul 12, 2016

Found also great offer from Clip Studio, less than 37 euros, so thought that I could pay that.

There is of course free alternatives like Krita, but I don't like it, based on Gimp and has some weirdness of Gimp, where as Clip Studio is so intuitive to use that I don't need to battle with it all the time. Also I don't like how Gimp and Krita are going to colorless buttons/icons, I recognize buttons by colors, not by symbols, so it is really difficult for me to use such program that has no colors, only two shades of gray.