Should you study art from the basics?

Like, boxes and circles kinds of basic

  • YES

    Votes: 8 53.3%
  • I guess so...

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • Maybe?

    Votes: 3 20.0%
  • No

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Nahh just blitz through everything and figure out anything along the way

    Votes: 3 20.0%
  • How DARE you contaminate expressive art with rigorous and machine like training! Hell no!

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    15

Jerynboe

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 16, 2023
Messages
522
Points
133
Is it possible to make good artwork without rigorous technical skills and a basic understanding of things like perspective? Yes. People were doing it for millennia before the renaissance masters started codifying things.
However, technical skills help you with the process of taking the picture in your head and getting it onto paper or screen. Refusing to learn how to make basic shapes is a bit like refusing to learn proper grammar before writing a book. You can certainly do it and it’s theoretically possible you will make something awesome, but you have decided to play on hard mode for very little expected benefit.

One major caveat. Never fall into the over-preparation trap in art, where you feel like you can’t try to make anything until you have met some arbitrary standard of quality first. This can work if you have a benevolent mentor figure there to help you avoid bad habits and give you a thumbs up when you’ve gotten good, but it’s very unlikely that you have an objective view of your own skill level so you might as well just start now.
 

tiaf

ゞ(シㅇ3ㅇ)っ•♥•Speak fishy, read BL.•♥•
Joined
May 29, 2019
Messages
3,150
Points
183
I do them as warming up exercise before I start a drawing session. You never not need them even if you have solid art basics down. To draw complex things you break them down to simpler shapes. That doesn’t only apply to the object itself you want to draw, you also break down the negative space into this simple shapes so that you can map out your target object.
 

Vitriol

Active member
Joined
Nov 25, 2024
Messages
40
Points
33
Anything is a box and a circle if you try hard enough, but if I get real I pretty much use em all the time when I sketch a pose bc it’s just… easier to get the angle/proportions.

To be fair, I never started out with the basics, and still don’t know them lmaoo, but they certainly help.
 

Worthy39

The protagonist's third cousin, twice removed
Joined
Aug 6, 2025
Messages
683
Points
93
Man, I played Gartic phone last night and asked myself this very question when I was trying to draw Peppa Pig.
 
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