Drawing Tutorial Shilling Document

Every time there's something wrong with your drawing, it's because you're lacking in the fundamentals.
<http://www.sycra.net/TheFundamentals.png>
The fundamentals build on each other and many are intrinsically linked. You'll have to go in order to an extent but you'll also be revisiting fundamentals you've already partially learned.

Every learning resource in this guide is free. You do not need to spend a lot of money to learn to draw, you just need to dedicate the time for serious, structured practice.

OBSERVATIONAL DRAWING

This guide focuses on anime (though the fundamentals are the same for all visual arts) so you probably got into the anime style by copying anime/manga drawings and screenshots. Copying a drawing isn't as hard as drawing from imagination, but it still trains important observational skills and will attune you to what looks correct. But learning by copying works best if you learn to draw what you see.
<https://www.ctrlpaint.com/library> Ctrl Paint videos in section 2 "Traditional Drawing" will show some techniques in five minute chunks.
<https://www.proko.com/drawing-measuring-techniques/> Proko combines the skills into one lesson, which is too fast for your first time through, but it's good to see another take, and you can read it instead of just watching videos.

With visual measuring and related techniques, you can copy - not trace - an anime image reasonably accurately, which will help anime studies.
This is good practice, but don't post it online. It's permissible to post it in private chats like Discord if you include the reference, but there's not much point in getting feedback, since all you have to do is compare your drawing to the reference yourself. (On digital, you can literally superimpose and resize the drawings to see how far off you were.)


ANIME PROPORTIONS

Anime characters can vary in proportions based on style but the standard anime styles are based on reality, keeping in mind proportions between parts of the body. These will only be perfectly visually accurate in extremely static poses from the front or side, but you must know the "real" proportions of what you intend to draw.
These guides assume you fundamentally know what anime characters look like, but not to mathematical precision. Combine this knowledge with observational skills from the section above.

Head/Face: <https://pastebin.com/NbAqE8nV>
Body: <https://pastebin.com/W3Dq585h>


CONSTRUCTIONAL DRAWING

Learning constructional drawing in 3D is one of the biggest leaps in improvement you can make, and it's essential for drawing from imagination. You can construct complex objects by breaking them down into simple building blocks: boxes, cylinders, and spheres. This means you can draw *anything* if you learn constructional drawing - you just have to study the reference and figure out the forms the object is made of.

Here are some optional demos on how it works:
<http://ctrlpaint.com/videos/simplifying-form>
<https://www.ctrlpaint.com/videos/constructive-form-pt-1>
<https://www.ctrlpaint.com/videos/constructive-form-pt-1-5>
<https://www.ctrlpaint.com/videos/constructive-form-pt-2>
<https://www.ctrlpaint.com/videos/form-not-shape>

And here is a lesson on how to apply it:
<https://www.proko.com/structure-basics-making-things-look-3d/>

You can even draw an entire human body with this, by constructing a mannequin that's pretty similar to the human body.


ANIME FIGURE DRAWING

Pin2D is an excellent resource for drawing anime-style characters specifically. The figure tutorial shows you how to draw a mannequin that is essentially how your final character will look, only requiring you to add the hair, clothes, and facial features. The anatomy is close enough to the real forms that you can just trace the outlines of the sketched mannequin to get a decent-looking character.
Hair and clothes lay over the human body, so they can only really be learned after you can draw the head and body beneath them. Learn figure drawing first.

(Pin2D) Digital Drawing Correction Playlists:
Figure Tutorial
<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd9YlgrhwWqCSiGwPwA_N_nqKfTLY1Kn8>
Hair Style Tutorial
<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd9YlgrhwWqDg-O1kdp84Py30Tev8W4Ch>
Folds Tutorial
<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd9YlgrhwWqDYEC3rgA1G479-6hxLIEok>

Moderndayjames also has a good video explaining folds, especially in regards to movement <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz7SdRoMhT4>.

Pin2D's mannequin is pretty good as something immediately usable, but as a simplification based on anime it's not perfect. Most of the information is close enough to correct (except the kneecaps don't actually point inward) but it's designed to be simple. To get really good at anatomy, you'll have to learn the real thing <https://www.proko.com/library/>.

Drawing the human figure well requires that you can think about them in 3D using simple 3D forms. Just by knowing how to apply construction, the tutorials above can drastically improve your character drawing. But once you get into poses, you'll keep making mistakes if you don't know how to correctly draw simple forms in perspective. That's where Drawabox comes in.


DRAWABOX

<https://drawabox.com/>

Drawabox is arguably the most important lesson on this list. Learning to draw in 3D will change your whole mindset about drawing. But this whole website is about putting in the work to learn the fundamentals, so it requires a lot of self-discipline to get through. You do have to do the exercises, but you shouldn't force yourself to do them all at once.

The Basics: Mandatory. These are the lessons that teach you the basic forms and a few other essential skills. Pay special attention to the lessons on ellipses and boxes in Lesson 1. I consider the 250 Box Challenge and the 250 Cylinder Challenge to be part of the basics, because that's how you'll actually learn to draw the forms. These will be worth revisiting later on.
Constructional drawing: Recommended. This section teaches you to actually apply the forms to constructing complex objects. The varied topics mean you'll get comfortable with constructional drawing as a whole, if you want to draw a variety of things. The subjects increase in difficulty, so it's a good build-up to human figure drawing, and it's also an excellent way to continue practising your forms.

### NOTE: Do it properly
You shouldn't do the lessons just because I'm telling you to do them. You should do the lessons to learn 3D forms. You're a self-taught artist, so you should never be treating things as obligatory homework assignments you just have to get through; these are exercises that will help you learn something important to you. That means no half-assing it! If you mindlessly do exercises without paying careful attention to the lessons, you won't learn what it's trying to teach you. If you're getting burned out, take a break.

### NOTE: Drawing in pen
This site is to teach you forms, perspective, and construction as the most important lessons in drawing. This means that line control isn't the reason I link the site, so the drawing in pen aspect isn't totally mandatory unless you're submitting it to the Drawabox community for critique. But having the technical skill to draw smooth, controlled lines and curves will be pretty important to good-looking finished lineart later on, and if that's important to you, then it would help to learn to draw lines properly from the start, because that means you'll have months to years of practice by the time you need to be good at it. (In particular, anime lineart is drawn as 1.5-2 pixels, aliased, black, uniform width, and this is pretty unforgiving to imperfections. (n.b. if you want to actually use this: After colouring, add smoothing blur to the lineart layer for post-hoc antialiasing, and lighten it a bit for final presentation.)) Digital drawing has tools that let you skip this, but then you'll be stuck using those tools as a crutch. So I recommend doing at least the basics and 250 box/cylinder challenges in pen, using proper technique.


PERSPECTIVE

Drawabox is a good start to perspective but it mostly focuses on construction. But a few other tutorials can bridge the rest.

Moderndayjames has a good series on perspective that will help with the concepts learned in Drawabox and take it a bit further. I'd recommend doing the basic Drawabox exercises before going through this playlist, but Moderndayjames is good at explaining concepts, so these lessons might help make the lessons from Drawabox click.
<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgKJMTFp_25iQVZ6ItpZKTSN9Yo44YSTs>

Marshall Vandruff has a good intro on perspective as well: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R60e9_ofV68>


DIGITAL ART

<https://www.ctrlpaint.com/library>
Ctrl Paint is a library of 5-minute videos teaching you how to go from absolute beginner, to making digital art.

To do digital art you must first be able to draw. So sections 2-7 take you through the drawing fundamentals and show you how they can improve your art. You don't have to grind a lot of homework on these videos, but you should take some time to grasp the lesson instead of bingewatching. Sections 18-19 also describe the mindset you should have when learning to draw.

Digital art has some limitations that analogue doesn't, but also offers functions and entire workflows that are impossible in the physical world, immensely increasing efficiency. The digital art videos (1, 8-17) will continue showing you how to draw and paint while demonstrating the vast array of tools available to you as a digital artist. The videos teach Photoshop specifically, but other art programs should have most of the same tools used in digital drawing/painting; names may differ, so you might have to google for the equivalents in your program.

For your actual art program, I recommend Clip Studio Paint, which has essentially all the features you'll need and is a one-time payment of 25 USD. (Its base price is 50 USD but it goes half-off four times a year.) The exception is if you want to draw on iPad; it's a monthly subscription for iPad, so just go with something that isn't.
<http://www.clipstudio.net/en/>

Also, definitely invest in a graphics tablet instead of drawing with your mouse. You don't need a fancy screen tablet to draw, and you don't need to go with Wacom for a graphics tablet. Huion and XP Pen are perfectly fine on a budget.


HUMAN ANATOMY

<https://www.proko.com/library/>
Proko has a large library of free videos leading you to drawing the human body. He focuses on realism, but if you want to make your own style, draw muscular characters, or improve your anime drawing, it really helps to know the real things that stylistic simplifications are based on.

Anatomy is pretty advanced in terms of things to draw, and there are a lot of prerequisites for doing it well. The first section, Drawing Basics, goes through important fundamental concepts you'll need to draw the human body. The lessons are good, but it's deceptive: you won't get good at these just by going through the lesson, you need to practise them. In particular you should be able to draw basic forms before you get into Figure Drawing, so visit <https://drawabox.com/>.
Learning Figure Drawing is a must before getting into the detailed anatomy lessons. If you've done the Pin2D tutorials above, note that all of Pin2D figure drawing is contained within a single topic, "Mannequinization", which means that there's still a lot to learn.
Once you can draw a decent mannequin, you can jump around to work on the face or learn aspects of anatomy that interest you, and simply graft your new knowledge onto the mannequin. But if you just want to get good at anatomy in general, the lessons are in a highly sensible learning order; in particular, the three major masses (skull, ribcage, pelvis) connected by the spine form the core of the body, so it makes sense to learn these first.

Of course, some things are worth learning early on:
Hands (base): <https://www.proko.com/how-to-draw-hand-bones-anatomy-for-artists/>
Hands (details): <https://www.pixiv.net/fanbox/creator/25310139/post/299975>
Feet: <https://www.proko.com/simplifying-the-foot-for-easy-drawing/>

Another approach to figure drawing:
<https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXkHosWORUv6bxfPGz31WESqw_87adQ5r>

NSFW warning: Note that some pages and reference photos on this site use nude models - it's hard to learn real anatomy if you're shy about looking at the actual human body. But if you watch the Youtube videos instead of reading the pages, they'll be censored.