One thing that I would add to this video that is often not obvious to beginners in art, is that you can't "just draw" aimlessly and expect to get magically better with time. You always need to compare your current artwork to your ideal and find ways to improve it. Drawing only from your imagination and not comparing your art with the thing that you actually want to achieve will result in a much more difficult journey.
And THAT is the reason why realistic drawing is a pillar in teaching. The teacher must compare you to a standard... the reality is the only standard that is not inside YOUR head. A teacher's job is almost impossible if he does not establish a reference .
That's true until a certain level, if you're on that level your progress is gonna be really slow. At that level you need to draw from your imagination, I made the most progress as I began to draw from imagination like 2 months ago
@@armirgashi4236 Even if you draw from ‘imagination’ there will always be elements that would still need reference from real life. I’ve worked in the illustration and design department of a gaming studio in Japan and illustrators would still look up real life references all the time. Everyone had two monitors and one monitor usually had a reference up. References for the sword. For the lighting. For the proper hand pose, etc.
i actually copy manga characters in different positions/expressions and as time goes i dont need to look on internet to draw certain things, i can do them from my head at this point, i still use internet to get some ideas but different body positions and angles ere certainly the hardest part for me personally
@tiagodagostini You don't need a "teacher" really. There's a Japanese artist named Ayami Kojima and she's completely self taught. If you look her stuff up you'll know how crazy that is.
I was very surprised when I went to Saito Naoki's channel and discovered that Japanese artists will most often learn how to draw anime by drawing almost exclusively anime and trying to apply the skills they learn directly into their anime/manga style and it kind of makes sense.
Of course. You get better at what you are practicing. Those who preach to learn traditional art regardless probably never opened a manga in their life or are just purists. Sure .. a lot of the fundamentals are the same, but the way you apply them is not. Learning to paint still images of apples or whatever is a huge waste of time if you want to be a mangaka, especially if you want to get good fast.
That does not mean it is the BEST way. it means it is the most cost efficient way. There is a lot of differences. Just think logically . Who has most tools under his belt? Someone that can draw only one way.. or someone that is versed in more than one form and can adapt and create his own style in between any of those points? The response is obvious. That said, if you are an industry you DO NOT CARE if your artists get the best for their own future development, you want them to be able to produce reliably as fast as possible. What is economically sound is ONE type of best. What is more liberating and empowering is Another type of best.
I'd argue that learning to draw 'properly' was the thing that got me to improve the quickest. Sure drawing lines and cubes from drawabox was tedious but it only took me days to see a huge improvement in both the confidence and quality of my lines. Gesture drawings were boring but now I can easily block in characters on a page without having to think too much about it. Color theory is confusing but now I can pick my colors better for an overall better piece. Drawing hundreds of portraits and studies as a personal challenge because I felt like it helped me get used to seeing and drawing lots of different features in different angles and learning to map the features to the face. Those cubes may seem useless but they have sped up my work a ton. Value studies have added depth to my work that I hadn't realized I was missing. I would not recommend anyone skip these exercises to draw only stylized art. That's how you stifle improvement. Maybe they don't need to do oil paintings (I hate oil paints) but I've found so much value in these 'boring' and 'useless' exercises that I recommend them to everyone if they want to improve quicker. I am not a realistic artist, I love manga and heavily stylized art, but the value of being able to look and actually understand what you see in real life is too high to pass up. A lot of artists on RUclips have no understanding about how anything is constructed and never get any better at art (saw a sketchbook 22 tour that looked just like sketchbook 1). A proper foundation makes everything so much easier in the long run
@@ayrtonoddone8209 Drawabox is the first one that comes to mind, there's a website and Uncomfortable has a RUclips channel. I've never actually finished the entire course but I have completed the 250 boxes challenge and it helped so much with perspective and freehand drawing. Figurosity is a good place to get action poses. Daniele Raineri has a fantasy drawing book on kindle that helped me with stylizing people. Chris Hart has multiple books on anatomy and drawing that also helped for more stylized art. I still think Drawabox and regular human anatomy books like the ones from Andrew Loomis were the greatest help with my technical drawing skills but I like to mix study and pleasure
I think a lot of people confuse 'drawing properly' with trying to learn hyperrealism, 'classical' drawing and painting teaches how to 'solve' lines and color, one or two lines or brush strokes solve a nose or lip, in manga or comics it is exactly tje same, you solve a mouth or a nose with a line or two. Classical helps you find your own style I think
My art teachers always said that you have to learn first realistic (and also read that in animation books too) and then turn it into cartoonish, manga, caricature... Do with it whatever you want, and, despite i too think you can learn directly manga because you'll always learn some basic anatomy anyway, there is nothing wrong with learning the "traditional" way first, it can give you a bigger perspective and add up to whatever you want to do in anyway. But that doesnt mean this will work as efficiently for everyone, so just try what works better for you, and if you dont know what that is, just try different ways. I recommend to know to do some "realistic" stuff first, but thats me. I'll always say that if you want to break or bend the rules, you have to know and understand them first! You cant change the world either if you dont know how its working either. This applies to a lot of things. Knowlededge is power, it lets you do a lot of things. Anyway as i said, just find whatever works for you, take any advice as a chance to learn something (or not, sometimes advices wont be for you so dont worry if following them its frustrating). And it is not just practice practice practice, its got to be efficient, and that is not easy. You can put a lot of effort into something that just doesnt work, so if you feel like your progress is too slow, then just try another method, somethings gotta change, dont be afraid. And if you are feeling down dont hide it, people that have been in your place can actually cheer you up, help you, you are never alone in whatever learning path you are walking on. And no shitty Mr. Wonderful mug could have said it better :p
This is such good advice! I just stumbled across your channel, and from this video alone, everything you're saying is stuff I've been figuring out myself over the past couple of years, and was planning to make videos on, but now I think I will just direct people to your videos, because you're doing such a great job of explaining it! I'm looking forward to watching your other videos :D
Hearing stuff like this is encouraging. I want to make a comic really bad but I keep thinking I have to learn more before starting. I think if I just start, I’ll learn along the way. However, I am scared that it will not be good as I want it to be.
do it, little by little and you will see your improvement over time the most important thing an artist needs is to not be scared of failure, you will fail a lot but instead of looking at it as a failure of character look at it as a failure of your current skills, skills that you can and will improve
@@carso1500 yo pls I need help, I've always wanted to be a comic book or manga artist and I have been overwhelmed with studying realism a I have downloaded tons of pdfs and I heard hat was said in this video and I'm looking for further directions
@@Danthe7th You can easily find a lot of guides here on RUclips about any style that you want, a good channel if you want to go for manga style is "draw like a sir" but there are many, just look for stuff like "how to draw faces manga style" and you will have hundreds of videos available Also you can use pinterest to gather reference images, it helps a lot to have an account and create múltiple libraries with the images that you think will be useful separated in subjects The internet is full of references and tutorials, learn how to search for them and it's limitless not only on RUclips but on Google and pinterest too
You need to take the leap before you’re ready. We recently had an interview with a PRO Japanese manga artist with her own anime. She said she started by copying other artists’ works with no grand plan. No plan. No storyboard. She admitted her first manga was pretty clumsy. But she only got better from there. You just gotta do it! 😊
art snobs dont realize just how skilled manga artist are, they can do what western artist take a month to do in a week, and they know ALL the anatomy rules , and can do action and emotions better than any western comic.. not only do they draw the manga they write the manga, the world build, think of all the power systems, they are designers of the costumes, characters, background art, architecture .. which takes whole teams in western comics, and somehow they still do it better
Thank you, Tim, for this absolutely brilliant life-advice disguised as art advice. 'You are in control of your own destiny and life.' Paraphrased, ignore the teachers who are there to take you from your own life into theirs as a confirmation of their authority as a 'teacher'. OMG! I will likely incorporate your video in my next essay, within which I want to incorporate my first manga-like drawings as a OMG! body healing exercise. Drawing is with the body! Muchas gracias. Note: I a 62 going on 63 and I'm approaching manga as a somatic exercise to assist in healing a painful shoulder. Amazing talk. Thank you again.
This is a problem I've struggled with my whole life. I want to make comics but my art doesn't feel good enough to start and I have this constant dilemma: either practice drawing until you're good enough which could take years or start making comics but never improve. 80% on comics and 20% on fundamentals sounds reasonable. I don't know how exactly to do that. My main problem with art is that I'll never know everything so I've been stuck in a never ending cycle of learning but never making any comics.
💖💗💓 I’ve been in and out of the “art world” all my life (I’m 65). This is EXCELLENT advice, and your thoughts and observations ring true in my own experience as well.
I absolutely agree that understanding perspective and properties of light AND learning how to apply them to your particular style of art is a BIG DEAL when added in with capturing the emotion and telling the story. I love, love, love your explanation here. I try not to be THAT teacher, the one who says, "you must do it MY way", because there are so many different ways that work when it comes to telling stories. When a student says, "this one doesn't feel right," and being able to help them understand why an image is off... for instance, "oh, you didn't foreshorten that arm enough, here, let's look at the structure underneath" is a problem that can be solved whether they're drawing hyper-realistic or cartoons. Personally I feel there are just some rules you need to know and understand before you can go breaking them. But once you know them, break them all and have fun doing it!
Thank you so very much for this video. It has given me permission in a way, to do what I want to with my time. I began to lose interest in my project since I was focusing on only fundamentals. Being able to focus on what I want to create, as in the stlye, visuals, etc. make a lot more sense than waiting, to be able to draw a certain way. I greatly appreciate your words of encouragement!
I think maybe the idea behind it is that just trying to copy mangas you like for many people can result in quick stagnation as people don't learn the structure behind their favorite styles or what makes them work, so they end up picking up small things like how the eyes are drawn but have no sense of perspective, anatomy, etc. and While not all manga styles need a high level in all of these, almost invariably the anime style that a person likes drawing will be improved astronomically with the knowledge of things like anatomy, as most anime charcters when compared to cartoons have grounded enough proportions that knowledge of real life can fairly directly apply to improvement in your style. That's just my take, I think it's just a overly simple way to get people to start learning to draw without being constrained by what skills their art style values, or what they percieve as valuable for a target artstyle. for example, i think it would be completely impossible to draw Boichi's style without a knowledge of or at least heavy use of anatomy reference, because even though it is an anime style it is very much taken to an extreme in terms of rendering and muscle detail and form. The advice is not the best, but it does keep a person from ignoring the value of understanding important principles, or from only taking reference form anime and not real life at all, which can be a bit of a crutch for more realistic styles.
I have never read a manga book in my life but I find your advice still very relevant to what I want to do. So far my art journey is just picking out little things to learn at a time. Like rocks. I have mastered drawing a realistic rock from imagination, lol, which seems silly but it's something that I hadn't known how to do when I first started drawing. I really want to draw realistic creatures and environments that don't exist..... which.....is ....overwhelming but videos like this make me feel a bit better about getting there. Thank you.
Thank you for your words, it encourages me. I'm trying to draw better and learn from my favorite manga artist and i made a lot of progress in the last 2 years since i started. I can't help but sometimes feel very frustrated, even with that i want to keep going and i know i got a long way to go. It's just like you said, you need to keep doing what you wanna do and eventaully you'll get there.
Lot of good advice. I think if you are totally new the best thing you can do is copy (study) stuff you want to do. In my case manga. I've gotten burned out in the past working hard on my fundamentals and everything and just not having anything to show for it. Now I can do (fairly bad) manga comics which helps me practice so many skills. I'm also further along and now I'm focusing on fundamentals and also when I see something I want to improve I do lots of studies (and get advice) about it. Honestly I think that a lot of professional artists forget that they had years of copying their favourite characters and the like early teens and so when they talk about 'level 0' skills or the like they often assume a base level of ability to improve on. And while they generally have good advice long term, I can't emphasise enough that if you are totally new, you will just burn out if all you do is grind 'basic' skills and fundamentals.
there is a line where fundamentals, observation and structure can really help you to create your own thing and saying "wElL tHatS JUst mY StYle" and making absolutely dreadful shit I dont have "proper" art education, but I learned the fundamentals and even when my main line of work is not realistic it helped me a lot and I defenitely prefer know how to do it than not
Im trying to learn all the fundamentals of art so I can become a mangaka, I've been drawing manga style for years but I still suck and I know its because I never understood the fundamentals. My dream is to make my manga this year
Watch the world around you, I people watch and watch their expressions, gestures and how the elements effect them. I never studied art in school and learnt my own way, and got better and better the more I looked at the world and applied it to my manga
amazing video, i was discussing this with my online art friends for years. There was one guy that told everony they need to learn blender and 3d in order to improve at form and drawing for manga style art, concept art or art in general. Friendships were disrupted over this topic.
So much this. It has always bothered me so much this idea that to draw in any style you have to learn to draw "properly". First because it asumes that "realistic" is the "proper" way to draw and the rest are just inferior variants, which is just so wrong. Realistic is just another style in a sea limited only by imagination. Then this idea that you need to learn realistic to then draw in whatever style you're gonna draw, which, as the video says, makes no sense because it's learning something that you're never use and then it will magically transfer to whatever you're doing? Why does the author of Mafalda need to learn how to draw every muscle in the body realistically? Why if i draw a medieval comic i have to learn how to draw a car? It makes no sense, it's wasting time you could be using in better drawing what YOU are gonna do the rest of your life. My experience in arts school was similar, teachers would just outright hate manga but they never had a solid reason as to why. They always said nonsensical stuff like "it's badly drawn", which can be refuted by anyone who has ever touched a manga. The level of skill those things have far surpasses any arts teacher i've ever had. Or they tell you not do draw manga because "you're copying not creating your own style", but then in a blink they'll tell you to copy x or y european artist ¿? I had a teacher once who created a comic class, but then in the class he said "if you draw manga i'll fail you" and said that Akira was bad; AKIRA. But then his drawings were on such a basic level i could draw better than him as a teenager student. Pure nonsensical bias.
I think there is a balance. Some of the realistic stuff can benefit in making manga like proportions or perspective for example. It just depends what you want out of it
Like what Booleah said, there is a balance. No matter how or what style you draw in, you need to have a firm grasp on the basics of structure and proportion. If you're going to designing characters, then knowledge of character design and anatomy is important. Similar if you want to draw landscape or props (except you know with plants and shit). You don't need to learn how to draw like the old masters (their style fell out of popularity when more portable and more affordable forms of cameras became available) unless you want to go into the classical art field but if all you want to do is draw big tiddy anime girls in compromising positions, then its up to you really.
No.. it does not assume that realistic is the proper way. The teaching uses realistic as a reference because it is the ONLY reference that is not inside someone's head. How can a teacher know if you are improving or understanding the concepts if you focus in a style that is subjective? Teaching is impossible without a reference pillar and reality if the most easily available source of that.
Perspective, anatomy, and expression if you got those down you can do manga style illustrations but panel flow is 100% a necessity even if you got a good story and art style if you can't follow the flow you can make sense of the story
I agree %100 with the premise of this video, but I’m sort of stuck in the middle, I want to know how to draw traditionally so I can apply that to my manga style, am I wasting a my time, and should I just focus on creating my own style without worrying about the “proper” way of drawing?
Thank you so much for creating the content you create, it's absolutely amazing and has helped me improve so drastically!! Keep up the great work, love hearing your opinions and experience with these things :)
This is extremely refreshing and wonderful for me bc I heard all that "make art like the old masters first" advice for a long time lol Also, I feel as if this is why some peoples redraws of old early 2000s type art like sparkledogs or other stuff like that is that , (using the expressions and emotions in manga example) the lines are off and doesn't give off the same vibe because the focus is on structure, does it look right, is it a 'realistic wolf' or dog, etc. And so the original intention of doing something fun is lost
I've enjoyed this video. It got me thinking. One thing which I wonder about is the affect of culture on the perceptions of which approach to art is "better". Although there are likely exceptions, is it possible that the cultural view of art and story telling in the United States is to pick a tone and a style, to commit to that for the duration of the presentation? (Form follows function) Conversely, in Japanese manga, the impression I'm given is that there is far greater willingness to mix and match visual styles to suit the artist and the story, even unexpectedly changing the tone and style of the thing entirely midway through as a sort of plot twist. So, stylistically mixing realism and cartoon within the same manga is unsurprising. (Function serves the needs of the chosen form). Again, my own impression. However, I wonder if this is part of what sparks the debate between the tradition-focused American art teacher versus the young student who's interested in Asian pop art. Kinda reminds me of what prompted the interest of young artists to develop the style which became known as art nouveau. They wanted to do something new and interesting, rather than the same approach handed down from generation to generation.
i actually copy manga characters in different positions/expressions and as time goes i dont need to look on internet to draw certain things, i can do them from my head at this point, i still use internet to get some ideas but different body positions and angles ere certainly the hardest part for me personally
What would you advise perfectionists in a perfectionist household?… instead of improving I fell back for 3 years and it feels like I don’t remember how to do manga or draw proper characters anymore and it’s scaring me.
sorry but if you don't know the proption and value by studying something like loomis method then how can you understand how to shed? how to change proption to make it stylized and something like that?
Very well said bro, it is about the connection with your audience, visually, psychologically, and in other means, but namely, it is not about drawing like Da Vinci Lol. Definitely not. The complexity of art an artist will do, is dependent on the artist, the project to be worked on and offered to the audience, and the audience themselves and or employer if its a job the artist is seeking or if they are instead self employing themselves in todays vast social media world.
Look up Mike Mattessi and the Force series on youtube. Hes a good teacher that helps artists understand tye force and form of a figure and its gesture. What this guy is saying is true, study the old masters.
"Properly" is too vague a word to use, in my view. Better said as, do basic realistic drawing, the basics, which manga is also based on. I think we western-cultured people may not realize that manga was also based on western-style comics and cartoons. It wasn't made in a bubble where it develops its own style without a reference. If that happened, we'd see those things more like Ukiyo-e. Aside from that, basics like value and proportions really need to be learned. Always the basics. Even when people try to learn manga art directly.
I dont know why but hearing the "you only live once" really rubs me the wrong way. We dont really know that. But most likely true. And yet people dont bother doing anything. I want to learn how to draw manga and i want to go to Japan, learn the language and maybe get the chance to work and Live there. I am 30 and havent hade a full time job my entire adult life but i dont want to give upp on this dream i have. Even if it takes me my entire life to get there it will have been worth it. 😊
Probably a great video but what I know is that Visionaries and avant-garde artist dont need this advice. there creative drive is the. answer to reinvention of manga - manga is to me the purest of story telling that comics lost in the 60s with there formulaic ways
This will be a very popular video because what's being promoted is "the easy way". There's nothing wrong with Manga, but what if later on you want to change, and do something different? You will likely lack a foundation to do that. So, it's better to be able to draw any style you want, AND REALISM, than just one style. Also, it's better to draw and understand what's real in the World than what's simply a collective cultural stylization. Why do so many young people get attracted to and swallowed up by Comics & Manga? Because it has very little to do with Reality, it is in a sense an escape from it. What makes up you, your body, muscles, skeleton etc is worth knowing about in detail. My own Art instruction is personalized, but I never encourage students to take the easy way, or to limit their techniques and understanding. Art is a way to enrich the experience of living, not to "stay put" in a toybox.
Admittedly, 10-20 years ago, learning to draw from Manga and Anime was terrible in America since the access to decent manga for cheap was very difficult, with most of the only sources for learning to draw it were absolutely GARBAGE "how to draw manga" books which looked like they were drawn by 5 year olds. Japan is BRIMMING with manga and for DIRT CHEAP. You can pick up Shonen jump for 3-4 dollars there, which would be PACKED with all sorts of different artists at the top of their craft, on top of other publications with different genres and styles, and while that wouldn't necessarily make you better, the reference material quality, price and abundance means learning to draw from Manga is much more practical and you can retroactively learn how to represent things in the world in a visueal form (such as different kinds of tone and how to utilize it to imitate hyper realistic rendering or how to effectively simplify silohuette). You LEARN through intuition why certain styles do certain things, instead of it just "being that way" without understanding why. It's similar to how Americans can learn to draw muscular and dynamic forms from super hero comics because of their abundance and (relative) inexpensive nature (compared to manga). The ways eyes are represented with lines, the ways to shade in different ways to highlight forms. It's why American comics and Manga were so unique in their styles, and likely why both are starting to blur in their styles as there is a LOT more cross pollination with the advent of the internet and both sides having access to the others work. TL;DR: I wish I had the same access to manga as a kid as I do today, maybe my art wouldn't be as shitty since I didn't like drawing from American comics lol
Find an artist you love and start copying them. Ethan Becker has a ton of videos about this. What do you want to draw, who are the artists that you like in that subject matter, I have a Pinterest board with five artists that are generally similar but each has something unique. I break down their work like yoshinari yoh. If you like characters, learn how to draw a simplified skeleton or drawing mannequin and draw some poses, use references. Don’t worry about anatomy until you can feel comfortable just with a simplified body - like tubes for arms, etc
You can't break the rules if you don't know them. That is why traditional figure drawing is so important. If you don't understand the core of how manga looks the way it does, it's going to be incredibly hard to improve. Once I had a really good mastery of the human figure, my style fell right into place.
The way this guy teaches/tells us stuff is amazing. Gives me that bob ross vibe where I know everything is going to be ok. I also thought about going to a art school. And that’s one of the things I was afraid of. Teaches just teaching because of money.
lol i watched this just to see if it'd be relevant advise to a friend of mine starting out. (IT IS) I'm laughing bc personally i Never had this problem and i'm mostlu annoyed that you'd decide Not to do the fundamentals when they're offered to you in school. But ig that's a perspective coming from a person who rly loves learning the fundamentals and had a great relationship with all my teachers. For me it's almost painful to teach or guide someone who dislikes studying art. They just wanna do this or that without Understanding it. It breaks my heart a little bit. But given that teaching is Not about me, but rather about sussing out the direction a student would benefit from taking based on what they want to do (WHICH IS HARD) .. i kinda need to suck it up and admit that No, you don't need to learn Any of this extra curricular cool stuff that i love. You need to draw the things that You love!! And most importantly, I've always learnt best by applying myself first and studying second, so that is indeed a good advise. It's more fun and helps me stay motivated for longer and i'm more in control of my curriculum. I also need to realize that a studen't standards are more important than my own. If i think a drawing is bad, that means very little. What matters is if they're happy with it, and what they want to draw next and wether or not they want to be a proffessional artist At All. (Stdents need to learn this as well. Wether or not a teacher or parent or peer likes what you've drawn means less than what their reaction means to you. Noone is an objective metric for quality).
you should probably learn how to write compelling or somewhat believable stories first before jumping into manga like One(author of MP and OPM) he doesnt have that "godly" artstyle but his stories are very good
I do get the idea of "proper" though. The proper drawing skills are the ones that let you draw absolutely anything. While improper ones limit you, often severely.
i think the reason alot of people try to steering beginners from cartoons/anime is because you'd be trying to immitate an end point. Cartoons and anime are exagerations of the human body, or perspective of an object. Improving your fundamental understanding of those things would make you a better at drawing cartoons or anime.
One thing that I would add to this video that is often not obvious to beginners in art, is that you can't "just draw" aimlessly and expect to get magically better with time. You always need to compare your current artwork to your ideal and find ways to improve it. Drawing only from your imagination and not comparing your art with the thing that you actually want to achieve will result in a much more difficult journey.
And THAT is the reason why realistic drawing is a pillar in teaching. The teacher must compare you to a standard... the reality is the only standard that is not inside YOUR head. A teacher's job is almost impossible if he does not establish a reference .
That's true until a certain level, if you're on that level your progress is gonna be really slow. At that level you need to draw from your imagination, I made the most progress as I began to draw from imagination like 2 months ago
@@armirgashi4236 Even if you draw from ‘imagination’ there will always be elements that would still need reference from real life.
I’ve worked in the illustration and design department of a gaming studio in Japan and illustrators would still look up real life references all the time.
Everyone had two monitors and one monitor usually had a reference up.
References for the sword.
For the lighting.
For the proper hand pose, etc.
i actually copy manga characters in different positions/expressions and as time goes i dont need to look on internet to draw certain things, i can do them from my head at this point, i still use internet to get some ideas but different body positions and angles ere certainly the hardest part for me personally
@tiagodagostini You don't need a "teacher" really. There's a Japanese artist named Ayami Kojima and she's completely self taught. If you look her stuff up you'll know how crazy that is.
I was very surprised when I went to Saito Naoki's channel and discovered that Japanese artists will most often learn how to draw anime by drawing almost exclusively anime and trying to apply the skills they learn directly into their anime/manga style and it kind of makes sense.
what?
Of course. You get better at what you are practicing. Those who preach to learn traditional art regardless probably never opened a manga in their life or are just purists. Sure .. a lot of the fundamentals are the same, but the way you apply them is not. Learning to paint still images of apples or whatever is a huge waste of time if you want to be a mangaka, especially if you want to get good fast.
That does not mean it is the BEST way. it means it is the most cost efficient way. There is a lot of differences.
Just think logically . Who has most tools under his belt? Someone that can draw only one way.. or someone that is versed in more than one form and can adapt and create his own style in between any of those points? The response is obvious. That said, if you are an industry you DO NOT CARE if your artists get the best for their own future development, you want them to be able to produce reliably as fast as possible.
What is economically sound is ONE type of best. What is more liberating and empowering is Another type of best.
@@tiagodagostini well said, good advice as well
@@frontallappen4981 WELL SAID
I'd argue that learning to draw 'properly' was the thing that got me to improve the quickest. Sure drawing lines and cubes from drawabox was tedious but it only took me days to see a huge improvement in both the confidence and quality of my lines. Gesture drawings were boring but now I can easily block in characters on a page without having to think too much about it. Color theory is confusing but now I can pick my colors better for an overall better piece. Drawing hundreds of portraits and studies as a personal challenge because I felt like it helped me get used to seeing and drawing lots of different features in different angles and learning to map the features to the face. Those cubes may seem useless but they have sped up my work a ton. Value studies have added depth to my work that I hadn't realized I was missing. I would not recommend anyone skip these exercises to draw only stylized art. That's how you stifle improvement. Maybe they don't need to do oil paintings (I hate oil paints) but I've found so much value in these 'boring' and 'useless' exercises that I recommend them to everyone if they want to improve quicker. I am not a realistic artist, I love manga and heavily stylized art, but the value of being able to look and actually understand what you see in real life is too high to pass up. A lot of artists on RUclips have no understanding about how anything is constructed and never get any better at art (saw a sketchbook 22 tour that looked just like sketchbook 1). A proper foundation makes everything so much easier in the long run
Where would be a place to start? Any websites or tools in particular that some beginners should use?
@@ayrtonoddone8209 Drawabox is the first one that comes to mind, there's a website and Uncomfortable has a RUclips channel. I've never actually finished the entire course but I have completed the 250 boxes challenge and it helped so much with perspective and freehand drawing. Figurosity is a good place to get action poses. Daniele Raineri has a fantasy drawing book on kindle that helped me with stylizing people. Chris Hart has multiple books on anatomy and drawing that also helped for more stylized art.
I still think Drawabox and regular human anatomy books like the ones from Andrew Loomis were the greatest help with my technical drawing skills but I like to mix study and pleasure
I think a lot of people confuse 'drawing properly' with trying to learn hyperrealism, 'classical' drawing and painting teaches how to 'solve' lines and color, one or two lines or brush strokes solve a nose or lip, in manga or comics it is exactly tje same, you solve a mouth or a nose with a line or two.
Classical helps you find your own style I think
Also, proper shadowing and color theory.
You also get to know drawing artists as Schiele or Lautrec and learn from the
My art teachers always said that you have to learn first realistic (and also read that in animation books too) and then turn it into cartoonish, manga, caricature... Do with it whatever you want, and, despite i too think you can learn directly manga because you'll always learn some basic anatomy anyway, there is nothing wrong with learning the "traditional" way first, it can give you a bigger perspective and add up to whatever you want to do in anyway. But that doesnt mean this will work as efficiently for everyone, so just try what works better for you, and if you dont know what that is, just try different ways.
I recommend to know to do some "realistic" stuff first, but thats me. I'll always say that if you want to break or bend the rules, you have to know and understand them first! You cant change the world either if you dont know how its working either. This applies to a lot of things. Knowlededge is power, it lets you do a lot of things.
Anyway as i said, just find whatever works for you, take any advice as a chance to learn something (or not, sometimes advices wont be for you so dont worry if following them its frustrating). And it is not just practice practice practice, its got to be efficient, and that is not easy. You can put a lot of effort into something that just doesnt work, so if you feel like your progress is too slow, then just try another method, somethings gotta change, dont be afraid. And if you are feeling down dont hide it, people that have been in your place can actually cheer you up, help you, you are never alone in whatever learning path you are walking on.
And no shitty Mr. Wonderful mug could have said it better :p
This is such good advice! I just stumbled across your channel, and from this video alone, everything you're saying is stuff I've been figuring out myself over the past couple of years, and was planning to make videos on, but now I think I will just direct people to your videos, because you're doing such a great job of explaining it! I'm looking forward to watching your other videos :D
Thanks Sycra! That’s high praise!!
Hearing stuff like this is encouraging. I want to make a comic really bad but I keep thinking I have to learn more before starting. I think if I just start, I’ll learn along the way. However, I am scared that it will not be good as I want it to be.
do it, little by little and you will see your improvement over time
the most important thing an artist needs is to not be scared of failure, you will fail a lot but instead of looking at it as a failure of character look at it as a failure of your current skills, skills that you can and will improve
@@carso1500 yo pls I need help, I've always wanted to be a comic book or manga artist and I have been overwhelmed with studying realism a I have downloaded tons of pdfs and I heard hat was said in this video and I'm looking for further directions
@@Danthe7th You can easily find a lot of guides here on RUclips about any style that you want, a good channel if you want to go for manga style is "draw like a sir" but there are many, just look for stuff like "how to draw faces manga style" and you will have hundreds of videos available
Also you can use pinterest to gather reference images, it helps a lot to have an account and create múltiple libraries with the images that you think will be useful separated in subjects
The internet is full of references and tutorials, learn how to search for them and it's limitless not only on RUclips but on Google and pinterest too
You need to take the leap before you’re ready. We recently had an interview with a PRO Japanese manga artist with her own anime.
She said she started by copying other artists’ works with no grand plan. No plan. No storyboard. She admitted her first manga was pretty clumsy.
But she only got better from there.
You just gotta do it! 😊
@@Danthe7th Next step? Just do it! 😉
Start drawing and practicing.
art snobs dont realize just how skilled manga artist are, they can do what western artist take a month to do in a week, and they know ALL the anatomy rules , and can do action and emotions better than any western comic.. not only do they draw the manga they write the manga, the world build, think of all the power systems, they are designers of the costumes, characters, background art, architecture .. which takes whole teams in western comics, and somehow they still do it better
Haha. Right on. I agree with everything here :)
Thank you, Tim, for this absolutely brilliant life-advice disguised as art advice. 'You are in control of your own destiny and life.' Paraphrased, ignore the teachers who are there to take you from your own life into theirs as a confirmation of their authority as a 'teacher'. OMG! I will likely incorporate your video in my next essay, within which I want to incorporate my first manga-like drawings as a OMG! body healing exercise. Drawing is with the body! Muchas gracias. Note: I a 62 going on 63 and I'm approaching manga as a somatic exercise to assist in healing a painful shoulder. Amazing talk. Thank you again.
This is a problem I've struggled with my whole life. I want to make comics but my art doesn't feel good enough to start and I have this constant dilemma: either practice drawing until you're good enough which could take years or start making comics but never improve. 80% on comics and 20% on fundamentals sounds reasonable. I don't know how exactly to do that. My main problem with art is that I'll never know everything so I've been stuck in a never ending cycle of learning but never making any comics.
You've just gotta go for it! Take what you've got now and go for it. Good luck!
💖💗💓 I’ve been in and out of the “art world” all my life (I’m 65). This is EXCELLENT advice, and your thoughts and observations ring true in my own experience as well.
I agree with you. However, life drawing help me a lot with learning exageration and observation. That help me a lot in my stylized art. :)
I absolutely agree that understanding perspective and properties of light AND learning how to apply them to your particular style of art is a BIG DEAL when added in with capturing the emotion and telling the story. I love, love, love your explanation here. I try not to be THAT teacher, the one who says, "you must do it MY way", because there are so many different ways that work when it comes to telling stories. When a student says, "this one doesn't feel right," and being able to help them understand why an image is off... for instance, "oh, you didn't foreshorten that arm enough, here, let's look at the structure underneath" is a problem that can be solved whether they're drawing hyper-realistic or cartoons. Personally I feel there are just some rules you need to know and understand before you can go breaking them. But once you know them, break them all and have fun doing it!
Thank you so very much for this video. It has given me permission in a way, to do what I want to with my time. I began to lose interest in my project since I was focusing on only fundamentals. Being able to focus on what I want to create, as in the stlye, visuals, etc. make a lot more sense than waiting, to be able to draw a certain way. I greatly appreciate your words of encouragement!
I think maybe the idea behind it is that just trying to copy mangas you like for many people can result in quick stagnation as people don't learn the structure behind their favorite styles or what makes them work, so they end up picking up small things like how the eyes are drawn but have no sense of perspective, anatomy, etc. and While not all manga styles need a high level in all of these, almost invariably the anime style that a person likes drawing will be improved astronomically with the knowledge of things like anatomy, as most anime charcters when compared to cartoons have grounded enough proportions that knowledge of real life can fairly directly apply to improvement in your style. That's just my take, I think it's just a overly simple way to get people to start learning to draw without being constrained by what skills their art style values, or what they percieve as valuable for a target artstyle. for example, i think it would be completely impossible to draw Boichi's style without a knowledge of or at least heavy use of anatomy reference, because even though it is an anime style it is very much taken to an extreme in terms of rendering and muscle detail and form. The advice is not the best, but it does keep a person from ignoring the value of understanding important principles, or from only taking reference form anime and not real life at all, which can be a bit of a crutch for more realistic styles.
I have never read a manga book in my life but I find your advice still very relevant to what I want to do. So far my art journey is just picking out little things to learn at a time. Like rocks. I have mastered drawing a realistic rock from imagination, lol, which seems silly but it's something that I hadn't known how to do when I first started drawing. I really want to draw realistic creatures and environments that don't exist..... which.....is ....overwhelming but videos like this make me feel a bit better about getting there. Thank you.
yet another awesome video Tim! So refreshing to hear your take on these things
Thank you for your words, it encourages me. I'm trying to draw better and learn from my favorite manga artist and i made a lot of progress in the last 2 years since i started. I can't help but sometimes feel very frustrated, even with that i want to keep going and i know i got a long way to go. It's just like you said, you need to keep doing what you wanna do and eventaully you'll get there.
Lot of good advice. I think if you are totally new the best thing you can do is copy (study) stuff you want to do. In my case manga. I've gotten burned out in the past working hard on my fundamentals and everything and just not having anything to show for it. Now I can do (fairly bad) manga comics which helps me practice so many skills. I'm also further along and now I'm focusing on fundamentals and also when I see something I want to improve I do lots of studies (and get advice) about it.
Honestly I think that a lot of professional artists forget that they had years of copying their favourite characters and the like early teens and so when they talk about 'level 0' skills or the like they often assume a base level of ability to improve on. And while they generally have good advice long term, I can't emphasise enough that if you are totally new, you will just burn out if all you do is grind 'basic' skills and fundamentals.
wow.. Where was this advice when I was in highschool and college. Im glad to have it now but this will definitely help a lot of younger folks.
Learning the fundamentals is a must in the sense it will help berak through a skill cap. Composition helped me dig deeper in some drawing.
there is a line where fundamentals, observation and structure can really help you to create your own thing and saying "wElL tHatS JUst mY StYle" and making absolutely dreadful shit
I dont have "proper" art education, but I learned the fundamentals and even when my main line of work is not realistic it helped me a lot and I defenitely prefer know how to do it than not
Im trying to learn all the fundamentals of art so I can become a mangaka, I've been drawing manga style for years but I still suck and I know its because I never understood the fundamentals. My dream is to make my manga this year
Watch the world around you, I people watch and watch their expressions, gestures and how the elements effect them. I never studied art in school and learnt my own way, and got better and better the more I looked at the world and applied it to my manga
This video was extremely helpful. More artists need to watch this.
Well you have a point…But going back to the basics is for myself and work buddies a essential key…Best to you Nicky C Walt Disney Imagineer
amazing video, i was discussing this with my online art friends for years. There was one guy that told everony they need to learn blender and 3d in order to improve at form and drawing for manga style art, concept art or art in general. Friendships were disrupted over this topic.
So much this. It has always bothered me so much this idea that to draw in any style you have to learn to draw "properly". First because it asumes that "realistic" is the "proper" way to draw and the rest are just inferior variants, which is just so wrong. Realistic is just another style in a sea limited only by imagination.
Then this idea that you need to learn realistic to then draw in whatever style you're gonna draw, which, as the video says, makes no sense because it's learning something that you're never use and then it will magically transfer to whatever you're doing? Why does the author of Mafalda need to learn how to draw every muscle in the body realistically? Why if i draw a medieval comic i have to learn how to draw a car? It makes no sense, it's wasting time you could be using in better drawing what YOU are gonna do the rest of your life.
My experience in arts school was similar, teachers would just outright hate manga but they never had a solid reason as to why. They always said nonsensical stuff like "it's badly drawn", which can be refuted by anyone who has ever touched a manga. The level of skill those things have far surpasses any arts teacher i've ever had. Or they tell you not do draw manga because "you're copying not creating your own style", but then in a blink they'll tell you to copy x or y european artist ¿?
I had a teacher once who created a comic class, but then in the class he said "if you draw manga i'll fail you" and said that Akira was bad; AKIRA. But then his drawings were on such a basic level i could draw better than him as a teenager student. Pure nonsensical bias.
I think there is a balance. Some of the realistic stuff can benefit in making manga like proportions or perspective for example. It just depends what you want out of it
Like what Booleah said, there is a balance. No matter how or what style you draw in, you need to have a firm grasp on the basics of structure and proportion. If you're going to designing characters, then knowledge of character design and anatomy is important. Similar if you want to draw landscape or props (except you know with plants and shit). You don't need to learn how to draw like the old masters (their style fell out of popularity when more portable and more affordable forms of cameras became available) unless you want to go into the classical art field but if all you want to do is draw big tiddy anime girls in compromising positions, then its up to you really.
No.. it does not assume that realistic is the proper way. The teaching uses realistic as a reference because it is the ONLY reference that is not inside someone's head. How can a teacher know if you are improving or understanding the concepts if you focus in a style that is subjective?
Teaching is impossible without a reference pillar and reality if the most easily available source of that.
Perspective, anatomy, and expression if you got those down you can do manga style illustrations but panel flow is 100% a necessity even if you got a good story and art style if you can't follow the flow you can make sense of the story
I agree %100 with the premise of this video, but I’m sort of stuck in the middle, I want to know how to draw traditionally so I can apply that to my manga style, am I wasting a my time, and should I just focus on creating my own style without worrying about the “proper” way of drawing?
Thank you so much for creating the content you create, it's absolutely amazing and has helped me improve so drastically!! Keep up the great work, love hearing your opinions and experience with these things :)
This is extremely refreshing and wonderful for me bc I heard all that "make art like the old masters first" advice for a long time lol
Also, I feel as if this is why some peoples redraws of old early 2000s type art like sparkledogs or other stuff like that is that , (using the expressions and emotions in manga example) the lines are off and doesn't give off the same vibe because the focus is on structure, does it look right, is it a 'realistic wolf' or dog, etc. And so the original intention of doing something fun is lost
Drawing Berserk is good enough for me. Beyond that is diminishing returns.
thanks for the fast anwser ur a genuis
can you make tutorials?
I've enjoyed this video.
It got me thinking.
One thing which I wonder about
is the affect of culture on the perceptions of which approach to art is "better".
Although there are likely exceptions,
is it possible that the cultural view of art and story telling in the United States
is to pick a tone and a style,
to commit to that for the duration of the presentation?
(Form follows function)
Conversely,
in Japanese manga,
the impression I'm given is that there is far greater willingness
to mix and match visual styles to suit the artist and the story,
even unexpectedly changing the tone and style of the thing entirely midway through
as a sort of plot twist.
So, stylistically mixing realism and cartoon within the same manga is unsurprising.
(Function serves the needs of the chosen form).
Again, my own impression.
However, I wonder if this is part of what sparks the debate
between the tradition-focused American art teacher
versus the young student who's interested in Asian pop art.
Kinda reminds me of what prompted the interest of young artists
to develop the style which became known as art nouveau.
They wanted to do something new and interesting,
rather than the same approach handed down
from generation to generation.
What I struggle with is drawing different perspectives and poses and backgrounds but it’s also hard to come up with the writing
This content is excellent. Thank you so much and keep up the good work. Congratulation on a great channel. I think it's going to be a popular one.
Thank you so much for this video!
i actually copy manga characters in different positions/expressions and as time goes i dont need to look on internet to draw certain things, i can do them from my head at this point, i still use internet to get some ideas but different body positions and angles ere certainly the hardest part for me personally
I had no idea Ewan McGregor had so much knowledge about art!
What would you advise perfectionists in a perfectionist household?… instead of improving I fell back for 3 years and it feels like I don’t remember how to do manga or draw proper characters anymore and it’s scaring me.
Thank you. This video answered my questions
sorry but if you don't know the proption and value by studying something like loomis method then how can you understand how to shed? how to change proption to make it stylized and something like that?
Most jazz players can't play classic music and viceversa.
8:19 Making PEOPLE FEEL SOMETHING!
Very well said bro, it is about the connection with your audience, visually, psychologically, and in other means, but namely, it is not about drawing like Da Vinci Lol. Definitely not. The complexity of art an artist will do, is dependent on the artist, the project to be worked on and offered to the audience, and the audience themselves and or employer if its a job the artist is seeking or if they are instead self employing themselves in todays vast social media world.
ok. now i got it!
Look up Mike Mattessi and the Force series on youtube. Hes a good teacher that helps artists understand tye force and form of a figure and its gesture.
What this guy is saying is true, study the old masters.
hey, i want to start drawing manga, what should i start with to learn "faster"
"poorly drawn" is funny to say about manga when people like takehiko inour or sui ishida exist.
Indeed :) I don't know why this idea is still out there.
I was lifting some weights and when he said “mAnga” I frickin threw them across my bed😂
"Properly" is too vague a word to use, in my view. Better said as, do basic realistic drawing, the basics, which manga is also based on. I think we western-cultured people may not realize that manga was also based on western-style comics and cartoons. It wasn't made in a bubble where it develops its own style without a reference. If that happened, we'd see those things more like Ukiyo-e. Aside from that, basics like value and proportions really need to be learned. Always the basics. Even when people try to learn manga art directly.
The west: You have to learn technique in order to have a chance in art.
Also the west: Abstract art
I dont know why but hearing the "you only live once" really rubs me the wrong way. We dont really know that. But most likely true. And yet people dont bother doing anything. I want to learn how to draw manga and i want to go to Japan, learn the language and maybe get the chance to work and Live there. I am 30 and havent hade a full time job my entire adult life but i dont want to give upp on this dream i have. Even if it takes me my entire life to get there it will have been worth it. 😊
Probably a great video but what I know is that Visionaries and avant-garde artist dont need this advice. there creative drive is the. answer to reinvention of manga - manga is to me the purest of story telling that comics lost in the 60s with there formulaic ways
May i ask how long did it took you to be a good comic book artist?
This video saved my life.
Awesome, I'm glad! :)
This will be a very popular video because what's being promoted is "the easy way". There's nothing wrong with Manga, but what if later on you want to change, and do something different? You will likely lack a foundation to do that. So, it's better to be able to draw any style you want, AND REALISM, than just one style. Also, it's better to draw and understand what's real in the World than what's simply a collective cultural stylization. Why do so many young people get attracted to and swallowed up by Comics & Manga? Because it has very little to do with Reality, it is in a sense an escape from it. What makes up you, your body, muscles, skeleton etc is worth knowing about in detail. My own Art instruction is personalized, but I never encourage students to take the easy way, or to limit their techniques and understanding. Art is a way to enrich the experience of living, not to "stay put" in a toybox.
some people don’t *want* to draw realistically. And for me, I can’t focus or be motivated long enough to do that
that's good you don't have the curse! @@Kallensayz
I wasn’t a dragon ball z guy as well I as was more Saint Seiya guy lol
love this
I used to be so good at drawing manga, i suck now. Idek remember how I did it..
I think to temper the sentiment down for the aspiring artist is...
"Do not draw Eichiro Oda before drawing something like Naoki Urasawa!"
Admittedly, 10-20 years ago, learning to draw from Manga and Anime was terrible in America since the access to decent manga for cheap was very difficult, with most of the only sources for learning to draw it were absolutely GARBAGE "how to draw manga" books which looked like they were drawn by 5 year olds. Japan is BRIMMING with manga and for DIRT CHEAP. You can pick up Shonen jump for 3-4 dollars there, which would be PACKED with all sorts of different artists at the top of their craft, on top of other publications with different genres and styles, and while that wouldn't necessarily make you better, the reference material quality, price and abundance means learning to draw from Manga is much more practical and you can retroactively learn how to represent things in the world in a visueal form (such as different kinds of tone and how to utilize it to imitate hyper realistic rendering or how to effectively simplify silohuette). You LEARN through intuition why certain styles do certain things, instead of it just "being that way" without understanding why.
It's similar to how Americans can learn to draw muscular and dynamic forms from super hero comics because of their abundance and (relative) inexpensive nature (compared to manga). The ways eyes are represented with lines, the ways to shade in different ways to highlight forms. It's why American comics and Manga were so unique in their styles, and likely why both are starting to blur in their styles as there is a LOT more cross pollination with the advent of the internet and both sides having access to the others work.
TL;DR: I wish I had the same access to manga as a kid as I do today, maybe my art wouldn't be as shitty since I didn't like drawing from American comics lol
So where do I actually start then
Find an artist you love and start copying them. Ethan Becker has a ton of videos about this. What do you want to draw, who are the artists that you like in that subject matter, I have a Pinterest board with five artists that are generally similar but each has something unique. I break down their work like yoshinari yoh. If you like characters, learn how to draw a simplified skeleton or drawing mannequin and draw some poses, use references. Don’t worry about anatomy until you can feel comfortable just with a simplified body - like tubes for arms, etc
@@littlecurrybread alright thank you for the direction
Obi wan kenobi teaches me how to draw manga? Count me in
You can't break the rules if you don't know them. That is why traditional figure drawing is so important. If you don't understand the core of how manga looks the way it does, it's going to be incredibly hard to improve.
Once I had a really good mastery of the human figure, my style fell right into place.
The way this guy teaches/tells us stuff is amazing. Gives me that bob ross vibe where I know everything is going to be ok.
I also thought about going to a art school. And that’s one of the things I was afraid of. Teaches just teaching because of money.
Thanks so much!
lol i watched this just to see if it'd be relevant advise to a friend of mine starting out. (IT IS)
I'm laughing bc personally i Never had this problem and i'm mostlu annoyed that you'd decide Not to do the fundamentals when they're offered to you in school. But ig that's a perspective coming from a person who rly loves learning the fundamentals and had a great relationship with all my teachers. For me it's almost painful to teach or guide someone who dislikes studying art. They just wanna do this or that without Understanding it. It breaks my heart a little bit. But given that teaching is Not about me, but rather about sussing out the direction a student would benefit from taking based on what they want to do (WHICH IS HARD) .. i kinda need to suck it up and admit that No, you don't need to learn Any of this extra curricular cool stuff that i love. You need to draw the things that You love!!
And most importantly, I've always learnt best by applying myself first and studying second, so that is indeed a good advise. It's more fun and helps me stay motivated for longer and i'm more in control of my curriculum.
I also need to realize that a studen't standards are more important than my own. If i think a drawing is bad, that means very little. What matters is if they're happy with it, and what they want to draw next and wether or not they want to be a proffessional artist At All. (Stdents need to learn this as well. Wether or not a teacher or parent or peer likes what you've drawn means less than what their reaction means to you. Noone is an objective metric for quality).
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you should probably learn how to write compelling or somewhat believable stories first before jumping into manga
like One(author of MP and OPM) he doesnt have that "godly" artstyle but his stories are very good
So no?
I learned the proper way, now I can’t do anime
yes thank you! Ive wasted time because of this dumb concept and advice.
The question is a broad one. If you're a stylized artist... There are no limits. So no
I get the title is click bait but damn “properly” is kind of offensive
I do get the idea of "proper" though. The proper drawing skills are the ones that let you draw absolutely anything. While improper ones limit you, often severely.
i think the reason alot of people try to steering beginners from cartoons/anime is because you'd be trying to immitate an end point. Cartoons and anime are exagerations of the human body, or perspective of an object. Improving your fundamental understanding of those things would make you a better at drawing cartoons or anime.
put timestamps next time. 30 minutes of a whole lot of NOTHING.
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