well i dont get it. how do u do the art i see every1 do. i cant do it its just so hard. please give me your tips on how to make em. i did try making a man but it looks like a stick men then manga

The key to producing good art is practise practise practise. I've had photoshop for a little over a year and I STILL produce shameful art xDD

Try looking through a few tutorials on DeviantArt, they can be really helpful :)

I find looking at other works and artists gives me inspiration to make my own. Though I think the most important thing is to find your own style. How you work. What floats your boat.

Yep. Dawn is totally right... Practising is the most important! Also, you have to change your way of thinking a bit... When you see people on the street, try to remember how fe. their noses look like, look at proportions..

And don't get caught on staring at someone's cheek or something :D people sometimes doesn't like that ; p

I'd have to agree with nearly everone in here already on the Practice practice practice part.. i mean go and look at the other thread in here showing improvements... no one started out being a fantastic artist, we all have to work to improve.

i might suggest trying to practice little things like apples and oranges and such, still lifes make for great practice. that or reading and following tutorials. there are a ton of really good books out that teach you how to draw the basics, as well as the hundreds of tutorials on Deviant art ^^

One of the biggest pains ever in getting better at art... is looking back. If you enjoy it enough, you get up to speed. The hard part is improving and looking back; you look at your older stuff and you're shocked at how much better you are now. (It's actually a good part, too. xD) But if you look back on stuff and you don't think you're getting better, like everyone's saying; it really is practice. Draw on everything, and all the time. Drawing books help a lot of people.

*sighs* Practice and drawing books is what helped me. Lots and lots of how-to-draw books ^^;;;

Perseverence, and investing some money in an education. Yeah, that drawing class at your local uni? It'll help. Trust me.

ah i have to agree with Fongmingyun on that last comment. classes in a uni for art fore you to do stuff you may have never done before or something you really dislike. and after doing the whole class you'll see that it really improves how you draw and broadens your style and how you look at things.

Originally Posted by Dawn Crest

The key to producing good art is practise practise practise. I've had photoshop for a little over a year and I STILL produce shameful art xDD

Try looking through a few tutorials on DeviantArt, they can be really helpful :)

i've been drawing sense grade school XDD i'm a high schooler now. just practice, like dawn crest said. its the only way to get better. Plus anatomy references and stuff help a lot too

Just keep practising. I know you're probably tired of hearing that tip over and over again, but trust me, it really makes you better. ^^

Originally Posted by Anamei

One of the biggest pains ever in getting better at art... is looking back. If you enjoy it enough, you get up to speed. The hard part is improving and looking back; you look at your older stuff and you're shocked at how much better you are now. (It's actually a good part, too. xD) But if you look back on stuff and you don't think you're getting better, like everyone's saying; it really is practice. Draw on everything, and all the time. Drawing books help a lot of people.

here here! i luv looking back at my old stuff from 6th grade. it took me 3 years to get where i am now and probably even longer than that xD. once you pick up your own style -which i finally am- you go quickly and improve

Trace pictures by popular artists and call it your own work.

Practice is definitely key, and looking at other artists' work. But don't copy them, simply look and say, "Oh, that's how they do hands, interesting, I'll have to try that style" etc etc. Personally, I've fused little tidbits of other artists' styles into my style and have since tweaked them enough to call it my own. But yes, practice practice practice.

I've been drawing for well over 5 years now, and have vastly improved from when I started just because I kept at it, looked at other artists and listened to critiques/criticisms/advice from other people. Don't be afraid to show your work, and don't be upset when people don't think it's the greatest (you're just starting out after all ^^) Keep a strong will and a determined attitude and you'll do great. <3 Good luck!

As eveyrone said, pratice is the key. I'm passing lots of time on studying people around me, seing how they move, how theirs clothes folds, how the light goes on their face, how they bend their hand.
Analyse everything around you. If you have artist you like, analyse their pic to understand why they did and that. :)

Originally Posted by Jawful

Trace pictures by popular artists and call it your own work.

^^;;; Really hope this was just a joke..

One thing I found is balls and sticks. Or rather, cylidrical shapes.

Use balls where joins should be. Connect with cylinders.

Adjust the cylinders later, to add muscle. A class in anatomy and physiology would help tons but it's not necessary--there are plenty of humans all over the place that you can stare at as well as those in magazines etc. You don't really need anything else for models too much. Don't pick incredibly thin people to be what you draw--you'll never learn muscles well that way. You can worry about thinning people out later, but when you start try to figure out what connects what, what bends which way, etc. and to what degree.

Also, notice things. I'm not sure if you're trying to do realism or anime, but notice things about people.

Ears, for example. Look at ears. A lot. They're hard to draw. Same with hands. Pose your own hands, draw them when you get time. Notice things like the fact that most women are 5 head-lengths tall or so. Waist is not thinner than head, for example. But, like they said, most of it is just a lot of practice.

When you draw people, I don't think you should start by looking at other people's drawings necessarily; sometimes they are faulty or biased and you will carry those mistakes. I think it's better if you start drawing on your own, then critique your own drawing. "Why does mine not look like the real thing?" Learn to look over your own lines. Then when you get that down, you can start worrying about other people's stuff--usually what you learn from them is not necessarily the basics, but how to do certain effects.

But first, learn the basic shapes on your own. Draw it as you see it, not as people tell you it is, or as you think it looks from TV. Draw it exactly as you see it. Then figure out why TV did this or that--Oh, the anime made eyes larger...why? Because it's cuter, it holds expression easier, blah blah.. But first, learn to draw what is true, what is real. Then go into figuring out the effects that people do and why. If you don't even learn how to do what is basic though you can't understand really, the why's...and then you just know you draw eyes like this because the anime does them this way...but you won't really know how to create something that is truly your own, because you don't understand what doing this or that does. Instead you have dots...you have certain things you can do..and that's it....you don't have all they grey area, the line that connects and is the intermediates between those dots, because you don't understand it entirely.

I dunno, just my two cents. :)

Originally Posted by Mnyonywaji

Yep. Dawn is totally right... Practising is the most important! Also, you have to change your way of thinking a bit... When you see people on the street, try to remember how fe. their noses look like, look at proportions..

And don't get caught on staring at someone's cheek or something :D people sometimes doesn't like that ; p

i totally check people out for ideas for art, or for reference!! XD how sad. but true.

*gapes at ScarletStratholme comment* wow mate.. that.. inspiring *goes to try it out*

That sounds slightly weird, what I said, but the problem I reach from using that method is that I don't really have an OC's or a particular style of my own. I could develop a style I guess, if I sat down long enough and figured out what the heck I like exactly..but for the most part, I'm able to dabble in a bit of this and that because rather than to start out with one spot on the far left or far right of space, you kind of start in the middle and branch outwards, and because you have several branches, you can locate everything else relative to things you've done before. o.O'

I dunno, it's prolly not the best of ways, but it is one way to go about doing stuff. ^^'