Saphira's Art - Back from the dead

**butternut** · 01-14-2011, 06:07 AM

I've always drawn by instinct. Never had any kind of formal training up until 3-4 years ago, around when i found MT. So before all that:

And then, I did some copy-drawing of pictures from the internet. I dont have soft copies of those, so i'll upload them later.

After reading lots of tutorials, i still draw by instinct i.e. i don't really follow stuff said in those "how-to" texts. But it sure has helped me a lot in anatomy and proportions.
One of my more recent stuff:

I copied this from an actual photograph. It was so beautiful.

A fan-art I did:

And finally an OC:

Most of these images and some more can be found in my gallery and deviantArt page: saphira410.deviantart.com

I have some doubts: Is learning realistic drawing absolutely necessary? because I haven't done any at all, except taking some references for hand poses or stuff like that. And in general too, how should I go about now other than keeping on drawing?

Thank you!

**alxsmpgmr** · 01-14-2011, 09:23 AM

your drawings are pretty good

the last one on the list is missing a little bit of depth, but it looks good all around.
keep up the good work

**butternut** · 01-14-2011, 09:29 AM

Thank you, alxsmpgmr! yeah..that was like...a first draft kind of thing. I'm thinking of developing the character, so when i'm done with the improved version, i'll post it here.thank you for commenting!

**alxsmpgmr** · 01-14-2011, 09:53 AM

np

**nisaren** · 01-14-2011, 09:58 AM

Very nice progress, I really like the second to last picture you did. The anatomy and proportion look very well done. I agree though that the last picture is lacking. I think the main problem is that you drew the clothes without figuring out what the body looks like underneath. If you want more natural looking clothes you need to make sure you sketch the character's figure and then draw the clothes over top. I know it's more work and it can be tedious, but it really does help.

As far as your doubts go, I began similar to you. When I was in middle school I really like comics (traditional western comic style though) and I wanted to draw those. So that's all I drew. But there's only so much you can learn from copying that type of art. I took traditional studio art in high school and another studio art course in college and it definitely helped a lot with understanding contours, positive and negative space, color theory, along with general technique. Was it boring? For me, not really. I enjoy art in all of its forms, however, it wasn't what I really wanted to do with my art. Still lifes can only stay interesting for so long.

Some of the drawing exercises we used to do were: Blind contour drawings, 30 second to 5 minute gestural drawings, negative space drawings, still life drawings, etc. I'm sure you can find how to do most of those on the internet if you do a quick search, but if not I'd be happy to try to explain them a little further. Hope this helps. Remember though that the most important thing you can do is to keep drawing. The fact that I stopped drawing for so long is one of my biggest regrets.

**butternut** · 01-14-2011, 10:34 AM

Yeah, I'll try that out for sure next time (sketching the figure and then dressing it up).

Well, i'll check those exercises out right now and practice as much as I can. I really want to take a formal art course,at least for a short while. But I'm already in college and am gonna graduate in a year. I can manage only about a drawing per week maybe with tests and hectic schedule. Once I lose focus, I take a very long break. Well, I have to try and do my best.
I'm planning to take a formal training in art as soon as I earn enough.

Thank you for the advice! I'll post some more pictures soon after practicing those techniques!

**Ryousukethehappy** · 01-18-2011, 06:21 PM

I think the fan art is the best the second one has really good shading now let me ask you do you draw shonen shojo or another style?

**angel_dreamer13** · 01-18-2011, 09:24 PM

studying from life is a MUST, for anyone. it's very important to use references until you're completely comfortable working from your imagination.
that said, I can see youve improved a lot since you found the site

keep it up.