New Mibba & Artists, could I ask you a question? - Comments

You should go check out some of my work in my photo gallery. I focus on drawing people and nature. Another thing is that practice makes perfect, it's taken me ten years to get where I am today and I am by no means amazing at it yet.

When you're drawing something for the first time from a picture, I suggest you use what I like to call the 'checker box' method. Basically what you do when you find a picture you like, is edit its size. Measure the piece of paper you plan on drawing it on, and cut the actual picture down to half the size of the paper you're drawing with.

For example: you have a 8x11 piece of paper (standard size), you find your picture and you edit its size down to 4x5 (or 4x6 if you're willing to lose a bit on the edge of your picture).

Now you make your checker boxes. Get a ruler and draw lines every two inches on your paper from edge to edge very lightly. When you're done you should have perfect 2x2 boxes on your paper. On the image you're going to do the exact same thing only you're going to go ever inch so that in the end you have perfect 1x1 squares. You'll notice that you have basically double what the size of your image will be; you can choose to go bigger than doubling, just keep your proportions.

Label your boxes (like battleship, remember: the way you label your picture boxes must be the exact same way you label your paper boxes):
1 2 3 4 5 ...
a
b
c
...

So then on the picture you'd find box b3 and draw what you see in that box on your paper in the same box. This way, instead of concentrating on the whole picture, you're learning to look at just one spot. What I normally do is make the outline of my image on my paper, and then I end up jumping around from box to box drawing in the details. You don't have to finish a box in order to move on to the next one, you can draw half of it and the move to the one next to it if you want. (Just as long as they're all finished in the end!)

... This is a way of starting that a lot of drawing teachers will suggest you if you're new. Eventually, once your skill has grown, you'll find that making boxes begins to become unnecessary. :) Go check out my work and drop me a comment/message if you want to talk!

v. I honestly have no idea what I want to focus on. I just want to draw. I never know what to draw, though. Thank you. I think planning to focus on a certain thing will help me with being creative all together. I mean, I like the concept of music, but how exactly am I supposed to put all that on paper? It just such a broad thing and the only thing that comes to mind when I think of it is music notes.

I'll try to think about what else interests me. Nature could be a good start for me, I suppose? I like water/oceans too, so maybe I'll try that.

It depends on what you plan to focus on.

I specialize in living creatures. Mostly horses and humans.

If it's things of that nature which you want to pursue, then I can say only one thing: anatomy. Anatomy, anatomy, anatomy. Study the shit out of it. Know every edge, every angle, every curve, every bone and ligament, every muscular function, every rhythm, every correlation between one body part and another.

I've yet to have a sufficient grasp on human anatomy. I'm still a bit awkward with it.

But, oh god, horses.

I can't even tell you how or why I know every inch of them like the back of my hand.

It's weird that I physically understand equines more so than my own species.

But, yeah.

That's about all I can tell you. Anatomy. Cannot stress it enough.

Best of luck to you.