Transcription
Hi Guys, names marcel. And you guys have been mighty excited for this video, huh? A comment that I got a lot was *INHALE* "WHERE DO I START TO LEARN HOW TO DRAW THERE ARE SO MANY TUTORIALS WHERE SHOULD I EVEN BEGIN-" this one... This video; right here.
So what I'm gonna do today is to give you a whole roadmap on how to learn how to draw and get into art from the VERY start. I don't know if you like to draw manga or if you're more into portraits or landscapes- BUT it doesn't matter! Because after explaining the roadmap I'll give you an overview on different art styles and I'll tell you what kind of skills you will need for which styles. So that after watching this video, you'll know which skills you'll need to level and which ones you can leave on the to-do list for now!
Also.. I DO have one special, EXTRA skill I didn't know where to put in this roadmap; it's less of a "skill" and more of a "tip" or something you should need to look out for. So yeah, I'm gonna leave it at the end of this video. I think you can see how much effort I put into this video, as always this whole video was completely scripted, written, recorded and edited by myself, by only 1 person. I had lots of conventions and workshops lately; I was also terribly busy at my 9-5 job, but I STILL made this video the best I that possibly could - so as always, I would appreciate your support! Help me make more content for you.. :) and if you like to see more of my videos...- join my crew and become my nakama.
Alright then - it's time to learn drawing - from scratch - LIKE A SIR! LETS GO! I need to prepare you guys for this; there are a lot of skills I'm gonna show you all! And, spoiler, but I think it's best if you don't skip any of them - they can always come in handy later on. Otherwise, you will end up like the person from my last video, and you obviously DON'T want that.
Alright, skill number 1 is as basic as it gets. Let's call this one "Linework". Before you're getting into art, I think it'd be best to NOT keep some bad habits... Because they die hard......... like an elden ring boss- TL;DR, you should work on your skill to make some clean strokes with your pencil. This makes a world of difference if you actually compare even very SIMPLE drawings, one by a person who has practised their linework and one who hasn't. I mentioned this before, but I think sketching like that comes from insecurity, because you're not quite sure where to, literally, draw the line. Don't get me wrong, I also use sketched lines when I want to draw lines a bit thicker, but THAT'S... just cosmetics. When sketching, I REALLY only sketch with clean, distinct lines, and so should you. In my business... we call this foreshadowing.
Because now, we're gonna put this skill of Linework to the test! I couldn't think of a name for this one, so I just let you guys decide the name for this one on Insta. NGH! That one sounds professional; that's good!! Anyway's you guys are welcome to, right now, grab a pencil and check if you already acquired this simple "shape-design" skill. I always preach that you should be able to draw the most basic shapes so that you're able to draw a decent human later on by using all of these shapes in the process- but ARE you able to draw the most simple shapes there are? For real; could you make some clean triangles, circles, and squares? Because in order to do this, you would obviously need the previous "linework" skill in order to make these shapes look so clean. Otherwise, you would see a pretty big difference right away, and in case this doesn't work out for you yet... well, quantity's the word of the hour here.
Now, the natural evolution here would be to evolve to the next dimension. If you google something like "Shape sketching practise," you will notice that most results on google images are not simple "2d sketches" but rather, they are almost all 3-dimensional shapes. Again, if you're a long-term viewer of this channel, you all know some examples I showed you before. Sketching out 3-dimensional shapes makes it leagues more realistic than just some plain old squares and circles. Also.. don't think I only talk about comics or manga; this also goes for portraits and anything else; if something looks more 3-dimensional, it almost ALWAYS looks more believable. And maybe, if you paid attention, you saw that this skill isn't called 3d-DRAWING, but more "3d VISION". It's not only about simply drawing a CUBE instead of a rectangle; it's also about seeing shapes or objects... and understanding how and of WHAT shapes they are made up. I wouldn't call this skill "perspective," though. This is more... like, a "baby" version of perspective. Just understanding the 3-dimensionality of shapes and objects and knowing how to draw them.
Before that, I have another skill I would like to introduce you to... I don't think this is going where you think it does, but yeah, basically, learning how to draw humans is obviously important. I actually DON'T suggest you read into things like DETAILED anatomy right away because that's also something that people flood my Instagram DMs with. "WHY does my drawing of a human body look like a shriveled-up blow-up doll??" Believe me, that's a kind of message I basically get at least once per day; people see detailed artworks and are like "yeah, I need to draw like that as well"- so they desperately try to add all of these different muscle groups without even knowing how to draw THE most basic human proportions; that's why your characters are getting this dehydrated-corpse drip. You're already trying to learn skills from way up in this skilltree; detailed anatomy is something you shouldn't be even touching with a 10-foot pole right now. What you need to learn are proportions, basically meaning how a body is constructed and what the size of the individual parts are. That's why I also call this skill "simple anatomy," but you might as well just call this one "proportions". Also, a little tip I have for y'all, if you can't stop your ADHD-brain from drawing details, you could at least use some space for that. This really gives you some room to breathe and can make some huge difference.
In case you never dabbled in the topic of perspective, this is the point where you could get your feet wet. Just like before, these are still the simple basics because at this point we're still at the beginning of your art journey. So I think it's best to still stick to the basics. While drawing with perspective, you need to know about vanishing points. You could have three in total. Drawing an artwork with one vanishing point's kinda easy, while having one with three can be kinda challenging, so for now I think it's enough to learn how to use at least one vanishing point. Otherwise, this could be a bit too much input for starters. If you learn how to use this 1-point perspective, you'll be able to draw some more advanced 3d scenarios. If you break it down, it really is exactly what we learned up until now! A couple of 3d shapes and boxes with clean linework that point toward one perspective, one vanishing point. So it's still kinda basic, but it at least doesn't LOOK incredibly amateurish if you go about it the right way. At least this artwork right here was good enough for me to print it into the second volume of my manga, so yeah! Simple doesn't have to mean bad! You can take a look into the manga-series I publish on my website, by the way.
But yeah, enough of that! We're almost at a point where we're going into advanced territory, so let's take a look into the next skill you could practise if you've come so far - and that would be dynamics. I think dynamics are what differentiate an okay-ish drawing from a really good one. I-I mean look at this! It's the same character, the same knowledge and the same skills here. The only thing that's different here is the dynamics the character is laid out with. My subscribers are probably already familiar with the "dynamic line". And I think at this point, right before we're going into advanced territory, is THE perfect timing to learn about this. You're not an ABSOLUTE beginner when it comes to drawing, so it's not TOO early, but you're also not TOO advanced. Wait, you can be "too advanced"? Just wait, I'll show you what I mean by that. It's the same as with the anatomy-example from the beginning - y-you remember that one... r-right? Please don't tell me TikTok already destroyed your attention span that much- h-hey?! You're supposed to WATCH this video; I've worked on these animations for weeks now, goddamit- For those who remember, it's basically the same example as before. If you're too absorbed in the details, you neglect the basics. And dynamics are something you implement at the VERY start. That's how dynamics work as well! Dynamics are something you plan out before you draw in all of those details. And since we're still in the beginner territory, this is basically the best timing to practise drawing those simple mannequins you've learned to draw before with some dynamic poses.
Now, that we basically finished the simpler beginner topics, some of you might wonder what kind of timeframe would be realistic for this kind of knowledge? Could you learn all of this within a day? Or maybe a week? The answer is... there is no correct answer. Never has been- With my videos on drawing perspective, anatomy and dynamics and all this kind of stuff you could EASILY learn about this in one day, but that doesn't mean that you've ACTUALLY acquired all of these skills. It's just like watching a tutorial video on differential equations... and then actually solving them yourself. Watching tutorials won't be enough; it can take weeks or months of actual practise until you can actually do this yourself. Take your time, learn the basics; pressure is absolute poison to your creativity. So don't rush things; after all - you don't want to be that guy.
So, y'all ready? Let's get more advanced. And the first one I would suggest is to learn Advanced perspective. Like I said, you can learn to draw perspective with 2 and 3 vanishing points as well, and this can get pretty challenging, depending on your subject. Obviously, people always associate Vanishing Points with landscapes, but that's not ALWAYS the case. You can also use vanishing points to check if the perspective of your objects match up. "But WHY would I draw random cubes anymore, isn't this advanced territory?" Well... yeah, because these cubes you've learned to draw at the beginning are now useful for actually containing objects in perspective. So by using 3-point perspective you get to draw some PRETTY crazy perspectives. But it's also useful for just... being able to check the perspective of your basic shapes. That's why I put it at the very start, because it all depends on how you use it. Vanishing points are a very helpful tool for pro-art, but it's also something you could still use earlier on for more basic art.
The next advanced lesson would be Shape design. You've learned to draw some easier 3d shapes, but if you would manage to draw some REALLY hard shapes and objects, you can basically... well, draw ANYTHING. From out-of-this-world Lovecraftian objects to a coffee mug- If you truly master this skill, you can just combine it with your 3d-vision skill from earlier, and you can literally draw ANYTHING just by looking at it. This obviously takes a ton of practise, but you have the tools right at your hand! 3-point perspective to check the perspective, 3d vision to understand how it's made up, being able to draw any shape in order to copy it and also the very first skill you've learned, some nice linework. That's why this skill is still a bit earlier into advanced territory - not because it's easy, but because it's SO useful! Doesn't matter if your portrait-model's wearing some weird necklace you need to draw or maybe you want to draw a certain statue from a building - with this skill you can basically draw.... EVERYTHING. I didn't make a video about this topic yet; I just think the best course of action here would be to just google some advanced shapes and try to practise this way.
Now, here's the elephant in the room; anatomy. Yeah, alright, if you're someone who's ONLY into drawing headshots or humans, you could learn this earlier on, of course. A lot of things here depend on preference, but I just think it's a lot better to accumulate the skills I already mentioned; I think I listed off enough reasons. This part here completely depends on if you actually care about drawing human faces at all; I guess landscape artists really couldn't care less here, but otherwise, this is the point where I would say the floodgates are off and you should learn anything about the human face there is. There are a lot of different methods for learning about human faces and heads, like the Steve Huston method, the Loomis method, the Reilly method and so on. I personally think they are a good way to get started in this topic and learn it, but with time you'll probably develop your own method anyway, just like I did. But you'll arrive at that point once you know the ins and outs of the human face.
Once you're able to draw shapes and faces and all of that, you could finally advance to giving your art some depth. Of course, you could always read into this earlier, but I think everything else I mentioned so far is FAR more important than shading. After all, what good is shading if you're not even able to draw your base correctly. Like I said, this is where you could get your feet wet; you could learn it in the most simple way with simplified planes that tell you where to shade darker and where to shade lighter. At least that's how I showed it in my tutorial about that topic. I think that's a nice way for beginners to get into this topic and get a grasp on how shading works.
There's one more skill before we split up our roadmap. And that's anatomy. Since I don't want to treat you all the same, this skill here could literally mean anything. If you're an artist who focuses on animals, study the everloving heck out of the animals you're drawing. Same goes for fantasy creatures and anything else. If you've come this far with your art, I think you're good enough to pick for yourself what kind of anatomy you would want to learn, be it animals, fantasy creatures, men, women, or whatever. But, at least with human anatomy, I mean the whole nine yards. You could learn how to draw anatomically correct hands, how the muscles of a human body interact with one another and so on. This skill alone basically takes a lifetime to complete; you'll never really be finished learning about this stuff. The most important thing though, is that you're tackling this after learning about the simpler version with proportions. Otherwise.... yeah-
And now, here's... where things get interesting. I honestly don't think it matters which of these skills you'll learn first; it honestly comes down to preference. Just be prepared; these are also advanced skillsets, so they also take ages to master. I'd even dare to say some of them are topics that take a lifetime because you just never stop learning. You could level up your shading and get to the "advanced shading" skill, for example. Instead of just plain black and white, you'll learn how to shade with multiple light sources and how light interacts with your subject. This also kinda goes into colour theory, so you can bet this can take ages to fully master. Same goes for rendering; this is basically the art of adding details to your art. Some famous examples are crosshatching or smooth blending. There are many different styles of rendering your art, and which one you should pick depends on a lot of factors. Like, for example, what medium you're using, are you working colour or black and white, what art style do you prefer and so on. Truly THE most individual topic. And, last but not least, Composition. This topic is incredibly underrated, yet so vast. By learning and mastering composition, you basically never really have problems with picking backgrounds anymore, because abiding by these rules means you already know what kind of background fits which subject or motive. I wrote articles about this and how I'm using composition in my art, and I REALLY want to make a video about this, but like I said, these topics are so vast; a composition video would be pretty much as long as this video right here. But I will upload it eventually; just subscribe to the channel and you'll get notified when I upload- oh yeah, right. I did mention this "hidden skill" at the beginning, didn't I?
This skill isn't really part of the roadmap per se, so let's tackle this last. But I ALSO promised to give you guys an overview on what skills you would need to learn with the style your pursuing, so let me just give you an overview on the most common styles here. The most important part is that it doesn't matter which style you're pursuing; you WILL need the basic skillset I mentioned. Until that point, I'd really urge you to master all of these skills because they can all come in handy in every style.
Now, let's start with the one you're all probably familiar with; portraits. I think portraits are kinda self-explanatory, but I'll say it anyway; facial anatomy and shading should be absolutely mastered skills here. Also, since you need to deliver THE most aesthetically pleasing outcome with portraits, you should be able to render it the best you possibly can. And something else - composition. You, it's not absolutely mandatory, but knowing where to place the face on your page, how big it should be, which corners should stay blank, where to push the weight and so on could elevate your portrait to another level. Devil's... in the detail after all...
With landscapes, you obviously won't need any advanced or detailed anatomy. I think the basics should be enough to add some basic humans to your scene. Something you should absolutely max out though, is composition. Also, Perspective is also absolutely non-negotiable here. I know there are artists who just paint some loose shapes without any perspective at all, but since this video is more about drawing, I'll just ignore this point. Shading, and by extension Colour theory also is a must-have - you should definitely max that out. And other than that... I think rendering is important here, but AS important as composition, for example. Shape design also couldn't hurt, but this only goes for art where you have some tricky buildings or statues.
I know most of you are into comic, webcomic or manga, so I want to prepare you; that's not gonna be an easy pill to swallow, but you basically need to be a jack of all trades here. There's NO skill you won't need, be it advanced shape design for objects like swords, anatomy for action poses, composition for arranging your panels, perspective so that your comic's not just from one perspective and so on. I'd say you don't need to MASTER all of these, but you need to be at least good at them. But after all, since there are so many different styles, it's kinda up to you which skills you MASTER. Depending on which skills you level, your manga or comic's gonna look completely different. But yeah. I'd say level as much as you possibly can here. By the way, I've made videos about ALMOST all of the topics I mentioned here, from shading to rendering and dynamics, and many more; maybe you would want to take a look at them.... but... there still was that one thing,... right?
Yeah, it's a... skill I couldn't really find a place for. And that's because it's kinda the most important one, yet it's... nothing you can "practise" per se. It's something that evolves over time - It's the "observing skill". It's the skill to analyze an artwork and to understand what makes it so good. Is it the way the artwork's composed? Is it the way it's shaded or the way the anatomy is handled? Maybe the pose implemented has a unique dynamic? So this analytic-skill allows you to learn from other artworks. This is also how you're able to develop your own style, by learning from other artworks and implementing what makes them so good into YOUR artworks. This autodidactic skill is what makes you evolve infinitely. Without this skill, without being an autodidact, you will always be depending on books, tutorials and classes. But if you truly acquire this skill - you will be able to learn from ANY artwork you're seeing. And learning just by LOOKING at something helps you to level your skills even WITHOUT actively trying. THIS... is the ultimate skill every artist should be aware of. There's always something in art that you can learn from. Just like the old master said, Ancora Imparo.