I know this is outta topic,which is why I posted here.But people like @Splash are such good drawers and I really want to know how they draw like that? Any tips? I only started drawing just now.
It’d help a lot! Probably a link to the site,also,can someone give me some motivation to start ld’ing again?I’m officially in a lucid dry spell.
Thanks
¬Emperor Thanatos(aka TheAstralDreamer)
-Commander Of Every,IzPyschicYa Daily Commander
My advice can actually speak to both your questions!
Drawing is like lucid dreaming. To improve you’ve got to put in consistent practice, and passion will push you to keep going! I’m motivated to draw because I want to express myself and show the world how I see things. I feel like I can express myself more complexly through art.
Realize what you see artists put out is often like a “highlights real.” I won’t deny my love for rough unfinished sketches, but it’s not something I often share with the world [[Although maybe now I’ll put a sketchdump together haha]]. I have hundreds of unfinished pieces and rough sketches that never get shared; not everything is a masterpiece and not everything is meant to be a masterpiece. Honor the process.
A lot of people will tell you to “start with the basics” and draw circles and squares and cubes and stuff. I say that’s boring. No one would ever stick with drawing if they had to fill pages with spheres for the first year.
I would say start with drawing what you like. I started by copying and or tracing other people’s work (Usually shows I watched like Avatar or video game art out of Nintendo Power. ((Does anyone remember Nintendo Power?))). Of course it’s never right to claim someone else’s work as your own, so if you copy, give the original source credit! But it’s a great way to start and learn. Mix “the basics” into your practice alongside just drawing what you really want to draw. Occasionally I’ll fill a page in my sketchbook with a specific thing, like hands or shoes or something to practice.
Drawing stuff from you head is much more challenging as a beginner but I would encourage you to try that too.
Now that I have more experience, I reference more from life and photographs, but that takes practice too. Part of learning how to draw is also learning how to see.
Now let’s talk about the intersection of art and a lucid dream dry spell. 
I think the best thing to break a dry spell is to invoke your passion for your dreams. A good way to do this is remember why you started in the first place and find that original passion, but another way is to build a new passion for your dreams. For me, I can invoke passion through art.
I actually mostly draw my DCs and things from my dreams. I do this because I love my dreams and my DCs and every art piece feels like an emotional testament to that love (my art is guided by my emotions, I suppose). It’s like I can express some of my passion through the art. It makes me want to be involved in my dreams. Art is how I share my passion for my dreams with the rest of the world.
If you are able to involve some kind of passion to dreams with art, you might be able to boost your dream motivation.
So, why don’t you try drawing some things from your dreams? I notice you have a reoccuring DC, why not try drawing her?
Would love to see any dream related artwork you create!
Thanks for the reply @Splash !
Drawing is like lucid dreaming. To improve you’ve got to put in consistent practice, and passion will push you to keep going! I’m motivated to draw because I want to express myself and show the world how I see things. I feel like I can express myself more complexly through art.
Aaah,good ol’ consistency does the trick.Passion will keep me going indeed!I just used to draw by tracing it out but when I retry drawing the picture without trying to trace,i’d always flop!Hah
Realize what you see artists put out is often like a “highlights real.” I won’t deny my love for rough unfinished sketches, but it’s not something I often share with the world [[Although maybe now I’ll put a sketchdump together haha]]. I have hundreds of unfinished pieces and rough sketches that never get shared; not everything is a masterpiece and not everything is meant to be a masterpiece. Honor the process.
I get you,not all masterpieces would be finished,but at least they’re something!
A lot of people will tell you to “start with the basics” and draw circles and squares and cubes and stuff. I say that’s boring. No one would ever stick with drawing if they had to fill pages with spheres for the first year.
I agree,I got told that from a friend who draws as well,turns out it did not help at all.
What I do is I trace a picture,and then I try copying it,sometimes,if my work is similar,I also edit it to make it look more realistic,but the only piece i’ve done with that is my naruto piece,except my own naruto,I’m not sure on what to start drawing first.
Drawing stuff from you head is much more challenging as a beginner but I would encourage you to try that too.
Now that I have more experience, I reference more from life and photographs, but that takes practice too. Part of learning how to draw is also learning how to see.
Agreed,I sometimes try it but it comes out as a scribble!
Aaah,ok,I see 
That is actually a smart idea,i might do that as well.Just the hard thing is i’m not sure if i can actually ever draw them as they look in dream life.
Aah,if you are talking about violet,then yes!I have already tried drawing her but my work goes into the trash can,because I cannot really draw her.
As soon as I finish working on my artwork,i’d definitely make sure you’ll see it!
How long would you think it takes me to start mastering drawing?How can I improve drawing?As far as i’m concerned right now,I can’t draw a thing yet!
-Emperor Thanatos(TheAstralDreamer Or IzPyschic)
It took me literal years to figure out how I wanted to draw Carol, STEVE, and Recovery to get it to “look like them.” It’s hard because we can only reference our memory or characters/people that might slightly resemble them. Took me a long time to identify in my dreams and WL what features really made it look like each of them, not only in their physical appearance, but also capturing their energy too. (For Carol, it’s more in her long features like her narrow eyes and tall nose. For STEVE, the big eyes + tiny pupils and the smile have it.)
Don’t throw away your art! Get it out of the trash right now if you can. I’m serious. Keep it. I think you’ll be glad you did.
When I am discouraged with my work it helps me to go back and look at where I started and how much I’ve improved. Redrawing old work is very encouraging when you feel terrible about the current state of your work. Also it’s helpful to improve your next attempt at drawing her. You can look at the old one and sometimes identify what’s off and better know how to change it on the next try.
I hate to tell you this, but…you’ll probably never see your work as good. Ask any artist you admire if they think their art is good. Many people whose work I admire would tell me they think it’s bad or that they need to do better. I will tell you personally I can point out 30 things in every piece I do that I think could be done better or needs changing despite others telling me it’s good. Hating and judging the things we create is something we learn.
Ask a roomfull of children if they can draw, most of them will say yes of course they can draw. Ask a roomfull of adults if they can draw and you’ll have people say terrible things about themselves. Be kind to yourself.
The question behind your question isn’t “How long until I’m good,” It’s “how long until I learn to accept my art for where it’s at rather than where I want it to be.”
And that’s up to you.
Thinking of your art as bad can be discouraging and self defeating, although it can also be a motivator to keep practicing and improve.
I’ve only recently started to learn to appreciate my art for its current level knowing that younger me would think I’m great although current me can look at any piece I’ve done in the last 6 months and tear it apart with a harsh critique.
The best way to improve is to practice. There are no shortcuts to this, it takes time. You just have to keep drawing. There’s no endgame as an artist where you cross the finish line shouting “I’ve done it! I’ve done it! I can draw now!” It’s a lifelong marathon and it’s nice to respect the place you’re in and appreciate how far you’ve come instead of only aching to be further. A little bit of that desire to go further will help you keep moving, though. It is always better to compare your work to your own old work instead of comparing it to other artist.
So get those drawings out of the trash! If you don’t like them put them in a folder somewhere you don’t have to see them everyday. Just put the pencil to the paper and draw. Keep trying to copy what you like, it sounds like you have a great start. Instead of focusing on the outcome, see each drawing as an experience that progresses you down the road on your artistic journey. AND. DON’T. THROW. THEM. AWAY.
Thanks a lot for this!im taking it out now
Edit; @Splash
Thanks a lot for the motivation!I just did a piece o drawing which is not good,but I am going to practise,which is the only way to continue.I’ll post it tomorrow in the garden of fruits and thanks a lot for the advice!
Do you or anyone else have any other tips for me?Like,what to start drawing and some advice on how to draw?
-Emperor Of All,IzPyschic
I’m probably not as serious as Emperor_Thanatos about this, but I also considered giving drawing a try because there are some things I’d love to be able to put into images. And my self confidence on this is really low, so just trying and see what I can achieve might give me a different picture if my skills and talents.
Now my question related to the topic is this: I’d prefer to use digital tools to do the drawing. Does anyone have any experience or advice on this? I know a friend of mine uses a drawing pad and said it worked quite well for him, but he’s on the same bloody amateur level as me. So if somebody with a few years of experience could give me an opinion, that would be appreciated. ^.^
@Lumiscnt if you search in youtube you’ll probably be able to find a lot of great tips and tutorials from other artist. I particularly enjoy bageldenizen (Brooks Eggleston), although he mostly talks about character design he has a lot of great tips for the art in general. And again, I would just start with drawing what you like. Like anime? draw anime. Love cats? draw cats (I used to draw a TON of cats haha).
@Marvin I consider myself a digital artist and I love my art tablet. Wacom is a reputable brand and it’s what I use (I’ve got a medium wacom intuos pro and have used it for the past 8 years). My drawing tablet isn’t a screen tablet, so it took a while to get used to drawing on the tablet and seeing it on the screen, but I’m used to it now. They are not cheap though. Recently wacom has released a lower price screen tablet (the “Wacom One”) that I’ve heard good things about, but it’s still $400. ((Although, over time you’ll get your money’s worth out of the tablet because you don’t have the recurring cost of traditional media like paint))
With digital art you’ve also got to choose an art program. I use a free open source program called GIMP. A lot of people hate this program but I think it’s intuitive.
A lot of people also use an ipad instead of an art tablet with those special ipad tablet pens made for art (and often in a program called procreate). I don’t have much knowledge or any experience, but have seen people create nice work with these materials.
coincidently, Bagel Denizen has a nice video talking about starting digital art:
In my experience, digital art has a little bit of a steeper learning curve than traditional media, but you’ll quickly fall in love with the undo button and in time you’ll figure out how to best utilize your art program.
Great to hear your process is exactly like what I was wondering about. I guess I could go for a cheaper version of a tablet at first and if I stick to the hobby, then go for a higher class one.
The software would have been my next question. I use paint.net for almost everything related to digital image manipulation but I think it will reach its limits for drawing applications.
It is absolutely beyond me though how you can find GIMP intuitive 
I wouldn’t say I hate it, but I can understand that many people give up quickly. It was intuitive when I started using it many years ago, but now I really struggle doing even anything simple with it. But I guess studying a little on it as well wouldn’t hurt my skill stack
Thanks a lot for the replies @Marvin and @Splash
With drawing,I know for a fact,that every drawing I do,can be improved for over 1000s of times.
I don’t know how good I am,except I know that I can partly draw anime,if you want,I can link you to some photos after.
While it may be good to draw by watching tips on youtube,I think that every artist has their own style,so using their style of drawing would count as copying?
What I want to try and draw is anime.Or some type of realistic character like Splash does.Of course,this to be on my sketchbook.
-Commander Of Every,IzPyschic
@Marvin I would opt for one of the smaller tablets from wacom if I was choosing one for a friend that just wanted to get started. Less reputable brands don’t have great responsiveness. Some of the smaller wacom tablets are under $100, although the drawing area is small I think they’d make a great starter tablet. You have to do a little digging on their site to get to the less expensive options (because of course they want you to buy the $2000 cintiq) but my experience with the brand is so good that I’m willing to endorse them.
oh! Paint.net! I have it downloaded even now because it’s a little simpler to do small edits (and its text tool doesn’t crash the program like GIMP ) I do think GIMP functions better for drawing, although I haven’t tried to draw in paint.net for a number of years. GIMP is glitchy (save often), but I just can’t help but love it after using it for almost 10 years
As far as free open source programs, there’s also FireAlpaca and Krita. I’ve only used Krita because it has a somewhat decent animation abilities and it was very different than GIMP but I think in time I would be able to get used to it.
I’ve also used photoshop which is a lot more like GIMP than people want to give it credit for, but gosh dang it I just can’t make the switch to anything other than GIMP because I’m so comfortable and familiar after using it for 10 years I just know how to make it do what I want it to do! 
@Lumiscnt would love to see what you make!
I don’t think it’s wrong to draw in other people’s styles as a way of growing your artistic skill. Your own style will emerge naturally over time as a collection of your artistic influences. Style theft occurs when you take the way someone draws (style) and use that to render your own art every time. But say I like the way one artist draws noses, maybe I’ll try that, then I’ll try the way another artist draws hair because I like that. Studying other artists’ styles just expands your skill library.
Sometimes I intentionally copy another artist style as a study or exercise to see if I can do it, because it’s actually quite challenging to copy another artist’s style exactly with your own character.
If a youtuber specifically puts out a tutorial on how to draw a specific way, they’re not going to mind that you copy their tutorial. They want you to learn!
I don’t think it’s wrong to draw in other people’s styles as a way of growing your artistic skill. Your own style will emerge naturally over time as a collection of your artistic influences. Style theft occurs when you take the way someone draws (style) and use that to render your own art every time. But say I like the way one artist draws noses, maybe I’ll try that, then I’ll try the way another artist draws hair because I like that. Studying other artists’ styles just expands your skill library.
Sometimes I intentionally copy another artist style as a study or exercise to see if I can do it, because it’s actually quite challenging to copy another artist’s style exactly with your own character.
I see,I guess I can see where you are going,and also what you are saying.
Carol, drawn in the style of video game Psychonauts (off topic, but as a lucid dreamer this game resonated with me) and a sketch of STEVE in the style of Adventure Time
Did you draw this or did you do this on a pad?It looks so cartoonish,which is what I want to aim for,which is also why I want to learn tips from you!
If a youtuber specifically puts out a tutorial on how to draw a specific way, they’re not going to mind that you copy their tutorial. They want you to learn!
That is true!
I’ll upload it later today,although it isn’t what I expected.
Edit:I’ll have to send it later as somehow,it isn’t working
Anyone want to see my drawing?
[color=darkred]-Commander Of Every,IzPyschic[/color]
I’m not quite sure what you’re asking, but I drew both of those on my computer with an art tablet (the first one is ‘finished’ unlike the second one, which is just a sketch). I mostly do digital art, but sometimes I do pen/ink or watercolor, but most my traditional art doesn’t go past a sketch.
@Marvin I thought, just for giggles, I would give it a go to see how it did. Here is a summary of my experience:
Well, a picture says more than a thousand words is what they claim
I see,that is so beautiful.
I don’t know why i am losing motivation to draw now…
Don’t know if you’re still looking for advice, but I’m currently working my way through a set of lessons from a website called drawabox.com and I’ve been loving it so far. I like their approach and the fact that they seem to give you a good jumping off point for learning the fundamentals. And good luck finding your motivation!
aah thats cool, thank you so much! Will check it out now 
