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what's up samurai?

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~~~*glompZ U*~~~

Hiya! staff here

As for facial expressions: I'm still struggling with those myself. But based on my own experience, my advice is (take it or leave it, another approach may well work better for you): Get comfortable with drawing the human head first, and then work on expressions. The reason: if the head looks wrong, it'll distract from even the best done expressions. And since the features are what make the expressions, it's helpful to be able to draw them well.

To get good with heads and features...

1) Check this tutorial (ignore the bit about girly magazines tho):

***** Drawing the Human Head Tutorial by Brian Stelfreeze (hosted by Will Terrell)
-Not so much a step-by-step tutorial as a unique approach to drawing the human head which also works for just about any art/anatomy subject. Get used to going through paper like butter with this one.

2) One approach that really improved my drawings of the head and facial features was this: I asked my sister to model for me, and walked all the way around her, taking portrait photos from slightly different angles until I had a full 360-degree range of photos of her head. Then I did the same thing up and around her head, starting from below her chin, going over her head (so the camera was shooting straight down), and ending at the back of her neck.

Since I used a digital camera, I was able to load the pictures onto my computer and gesture draw off of them. Seeing and drawing her head from all those different angles helped me to understand why features look so different from different viewpoints, and my portrait drawings have improved as a result.

Once you have a fair grasp of the head and features, you're then more free to play around with expressions because you're no longer struggling with basic facial structure. I recommend this book:

**** The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression by Gary Faigin
-An in-depth study of human expressions and how to draw them effectively. It goes into a lot of detail on bones and muscles, so it may be a little heavy for beginners.

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"Do good to all." - Artists' Hospital Doctor - Blue Jean Quilts!

hi!im from artist's hospital. here's a tutorial i made to explain how i think that light works.
[link]
i hope that you find it helpful.

my ideas about clothing is that cloth is a 2-dimensional surface, like paper, that you can fold and cut to make a 3-dimensional piece of clothing, but it still retains its 2-dimenisonal properties. it only gains volume (and wrinkles)when it's around something, or pulled by something, otherwise it flows/is pulled to the ground. (short has folds around shoulders and elbows because it restes/is pulled by them. a skirt has vertical wrinkes, because its pulled to the ground, but is held up by the waistband) learning a little about clothing contruction will help to understand how clothing works, and how to create your own designs. but the main point is, is thta clothing is only given shape by the body underneath, so you need to draw the human anatomy first, and then the clothing on top of that.

expressions, i have trouble with those, but what i found helped was to draw lots of stick figure expressions(with eyebrows), and then imagine how it would translate to a more detailed face. also, yo ucould just look in a mirror and make expressions, so that way you can see how they actually look.

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I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is. (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)
-Member of DA-Networking

Thanks much for the fave on Heavenly Sword

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~= Arkalan =~

~ God saw a tear, and kissed it away with the smile of a friend ~

OK, here I am again, because I am from Artists hospital
You see, I was always fascinated, how somebody can draw with using just three shades. I'm still tryin' this.
But I will go step by step to answer your requests: (I never draw anime so my suggestions need not to be valid for it)
Proportions? We have something inside us, which says, that this is nice (yes, it is because it has harmonic proportions). My sugestion for most of your requests is find a reference. I think best for you will be to find several friends (with different figures to compare), who will pose you the way you want (photo is better, you can train with a square net, which helps to fulfill proportions, and your models do not move). Always ask "why?" when you see something. Maybe while walking down the street, standing in a queque... Why is that shade there? Why is that fabric folded this way? Why this body shape looks this way? Anatomy is difficult, but for artists basics you will need just to know the major muscles and bones right under the skin (For me it is difficult to answer you, I am medicine student with anatomy exams, which really helped me, but it is rare and not necessair knowledge among amateur artists ) So - use references. Noone is able to learn drawing just from the memory because you cannot remember all tha details which you see when you draw while looking at the reference. And brain also get used to deform your drawing to learned move stereotype.
Everything about basic proportions, musculature and bones you will find in random artist anatomy. You have got also your own body, and if you do not have any huge deformities, your body is your 24 hours a day prepared model.

My tip for learning shading is to try at the beginig just to shade stripes from the darkest to the lightest shade, next you can try for example to draw an egg or a ball with various light (natural, artedicial, strong...) untol it will look "3D". You can use different hardness of pecil. Your 2B is standard. For playing with light shadows is good to use harder ones (HB) and to deepen shadows that softer ones (4B to 8B, but soft pencils easily smooth, so it is necessair to fix it with fixative or hairspray)

To get skills is always about practising (to learn drawing needs time compareable with learning to play violin, 10% of talent and rest is travail)

Good luck with your work!

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Give blood. Eight bilion mosquitos cannot be wrong.

lol, thanks for your comment, i don't know if i want to go back to the G4ums, they seem to be corrupt now.

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~~~*glompZ U*~~~

Thank you for the fave!

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Thanks

Did I not add a comment?

I'm surprised.

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On a daily basis, I insult fur-faggies like a basement dwelling troll.
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When life gives you lemons, make apple pie.
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Come read my comic! [link]