Drawing tips?

[MooseHorns237]

This is for me, as well as other novice artists, to get tips from some of you guys (I know there are good one's here, you can't hide!)

I just got an XP-Pen deco v2 digital drawing tablet and use FireAlpacca (a free and powerful art program). If anyone has logistical tips on how to shade, color, and outline things that would be useful. I'm interested in 2d animating as well.

If anyone has tips about traditional art methods that would also be cool.

Share your darkest secrets that unlock the force that is art.

 

[FitzOblong]

My deepest secret: Dozens of layers, and constanslty redrawing the whole thing, until it looks somewhat reasonable.

In the end, it's a lot of muscle memory. You only get better by doing. Playing around with different setting (like input smoothing, or "weighed pencils" can help with better linework.

Shading is really just making a flat colour multiple colours. Start with making things in the foreground brighter and in the background darker, use a soft pencil, and if needed, use the tool that "smear" the colours, to get it even smoother.

For colouring, I usually make it on another layer, that is below the linework. That way, you don't need to be pixel precise for it.

Layers for me are like game saves. If I mess up, I simply delete the layer and start over. You just need to be careful to always select the right one you want to draw on.

 

[Jazz]

Tidbit I like to give people outside of drawing techniques & tips is to get used to your tablet (& art program). Have it plugged in and use it instead of a mouse. For your program, spend that couple of hours with keybinds/shortcuts. Once you’ve done that, the rest will be practice and muscle memory. It’ll make you more comfortable with digital art and you won’t have as much a barrier to break through!

As far as a tip directly to art, stay zoomed out when sketching out ideas & make sure to form a habit of flipping the canvas

 

[Khafra]

My deepest secret: Dozens of layers, and constanslty redrawing the whole thing, until it looks somewhat reasonable.

In the end, it's a lot of muscle memory. You only get better by doing. Playing around with different setting (like input smoothing, or "weighed pencils" can help with better linework.

Shading is really just making a flat colour multiple colours. Start with making things in the foreground brighter and in the background darker, use a soft pencil, and if needed, use the tool that "smear" the colours, to get it even smoother.

For colouring, I usually make it on another layer, that is below the linework. That way, you don't need to be pixel precise for it.

Layers for me are like game saves. If I mess up, I simply delete the layer and start over. You just need to be careful to always select the right one you want to draw on.

Funny thing, the tip I was given most often is the opposite of that - don't use digital, learn to draw on paper, and draw with a pen as an exercise from time to time.
The idea is that it forces you to visualise what you're attempting to draw better, since you can't just erase and try again. Erasing or using multiple layers makes you do too much chicken scratch.
Figure drawing too, back when I was still consistent about drawing, helped me make a lot of progress in drawing natural looking poses without caring too much about the details. There are some cool websites that have models do weird poses that you can then try to roughly recreate, focusing on proportions and the flow of movement throughout the body, but google images also works well enough.

Side note, it would be nice if we had the art subforum back for those kinds of threads, as well as writing and all the other stuff.

 

[FitzOblong]

Funny thing, the tip I was given most often is the opposite of that - don't use digital, learn to draw on paper, and draw with a pen as an exercise from time to time.
The idea is that it forces you to visualise what you're attempting to draw better, since you can't just erase and try again. Erasing or using multiple layers makes you do too much chicken scratch.
Figure drawing too, back when I was still consistent about drawing, helped me make a lot of progress in drawing natural looking poses without caring too much about the details. There are some cool websites that have models do weird poses that you can then try to roughly recreate, focusing on proportions and the flow of movement throughout the body, but google images also works well enough.

Side note, it would be nice if we had the art subforum back for those kinds of threads, as well as writing and all the other stuff.

I guess that's true. If you REALLY want to get good, you need to start studying the theory, too. But personally, I lack the patience for that. I just like brute forcing things, I guess...

 

[MooseHorns237]

Thanks for these responses!

I have been drawing with pencils for years, but more recently I've become more dedicated to art, but hate coloring pencils, pastels, watercolor is hard to use, I don't like painting... so I decided that the best way to draw colored things is with digital art because I dislike every form of colored art otherwise XD.

Thanks for the tips on shading, @FitzOblong, very useful.
Figure drawing is a good idea, and yes, @Khafra, an art subforum would be great (I think this was requested in another thread as well?)
@Jazz, I'm still learning to use the shortcuts effectively, and that's a good suggestion.

Something that a professional artist friend of mine, Zach Johnson (check out his art, it's cool. Too bad I didn't talk to him more back when we lived close) did is draw a sketch with pencil on paper and then scan the drawing and then digitally color it.

Now to figure out how to draw a tail on my canine sketch without it looking extremely awkward (I forget to even draw tails half the time, lol)