Looking for Beginner Advice

[Zoi4erom]

Hey everyone!

A couple of days ago I bought my first graphic tablet, driven by the (possibly naive) dream of learning how to draw. Maybe I shouldn’t say "learn to draw" in general, more specifically, I want to draw anime characters, and if I live long enough, even try creating splash art similar to what Riot Games produces. I know it sounds ambitious — maybe even unrealistic — but I’d rather aim high than aim at nothing.

Right now, I’ve started mapping out a sort of learning path for myself. I’d love to get some advice or feedback on whether this makes sense, and if I’m missing anything crucial.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

1) Hand control & line practice – straight lines (horizontal/vertical), curves, spirals, circles, ellipses.

2) Basic shapes & perspective – learning to draw boxes, cylinders, and spheres

3) Light and shadow

4) Anatomy & proportions

I totally understand that this won’t be a fast process — even just getting to a basic level might take months. But I’m motivated and ready to put in the time.

If anyone has suggestions, good resources, or things you wish you'd known early on, I’d really appreciate it. Am I missing anything big in this roadmap?

Thanks in advance!

 

[vzymmer]

If you have enough patience and time, why not try YT?

Try not to go down any time wasting rabbit holes that are called shorts though.

 

[Akaichi]

Practice, practice... If you get stuck, go Learn from the masters, then practice and practice... Always challenge yourself, and in time you will get good.
P.S. A good teacher, course or a youtube course would help a lot and save you a lot of time, but you really have to put in the work!

 

[tiaf]

It’s a good plan!

I’d also say to stare at artworks you like, and I mean like obsessively staring at it. Look at how they do lineart, how they composition a piece later you can look at the coloring, try to understand their process (when you have some basics down).

But much more important is to school your eyes to see differences or small details. Eg. see small color nuances in a seemingly solid colored area, line weight in lineart, differences in artstyles from

Do not fear flipping the canvas. It will look like someone hurt your baby (drawing) but it’s so helpful to see mistakes.

Take breaks, warm up your hands before you start drawing, configure your pen pressure in your art program, adjust the line stabilizer to your comfort zone. Your art will look shit and it’s frustrating if you don’t adjust the program to your hand.

Look at lots of tutorials in different mediums! Some art tips/rules/techniques are not exclusive to one medium and you might find a true game changer when you didn’t expect it.

Reference =/= tracing

When looking at references, do not put your eggs into one basket. You want/need to look at multiple refs to gasp the essence/principle behind it.

Tracing is not bad as part of learning process. To not get art disease and believe that you can/must do everything without copying others. A noob doesn’t know how to cook without a recipe, only by following hundreds or thousands of recipes step by step can one learn and start to variate.

Good luck on your endeavor!