Mystic Muse learns to draw.
Hey everybody, I'm sure some of you know me through some form or another, and if you've seen the other learn to draw threads here, you kinda know what this thread is about already. I'm going to quote Thanqol here from when he was just starting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Thanqol
I know literally nothing about anything. I don't know what shading or cross hatching is, I know you're supposed to do a circle with lines through it but I don't know why, and I find particular difficulty with proportions. I also tend to overdetail what should be simple designs.
So, playgrounders! Please, please, please give me whatever advice you can on how to do stuff. How does one art? What should one do to stop failing at art? What are techniques and pitfalls and the hidden secrets that move pictures out of the uncanny valley? Anything you can tell me, please tell me!
In terms of programs I have available to me, there's Photoshop Elements 9, Autodesk Sketchbook express, and Corel Paint Essentials 4.0. I currently do not have the money for Painttool SAI, or whatever the name of the program used by John Joseco and others is.
I've mainly used Sketchbook, and have pretty much not touched my other programs, but here's the problems I've noticed with it.
1. If you save the image and re-open it later, it will merge the layers since I don't have the "Pro" version of it, just the basic version that came with my tablet.
2. If you use the oval tool to make a circle, it's a different thickness than what I end up making while simply drawing. So, if I want to make shapes, I have to draw them freehand, or they look really odd.
Like I said, I've pretty much not touched the other programs. I don't know which would be best, or anything else. I know Thanqol and Joseco use Paint Tool SAI, but as I've said, I can't afford that quite yet. Whatever could get me used to something like Paint Tool SAI's interface would be nice.
I've been wanting to learn to draw for a while. I got a tablet for Christmas, but then my laptop started being dumb, and I couldn't use it until just a few days ago when I was forced to get a new one, because my old one became so close to useless it wasn't even funny. Now that I have a new one, I'd like to put it to good use.
My Tablet is a Wacom Bamboo Create.
Whenever I finish a drawing, I'll post it here.
This is my first...anything really with the tablet. The flaws are obvious. There's the rather large blank space where the toolbar in the program was, highlighting my unfamiliarity with my tools, there's the overall sort of sloppy quality due to my somewhat shaky hands, there's the fact it looks like it came out of a coloring book, ETC.
I won't necessarily be drawing anything specific. I'll definitely be drawing ponies, humanoids, and the occasional background scene (Like the above, but better. Eventually), but will be willing to draw just about anything that's board appropriate and doesn't squick me out.
While I'm willing to try to draw just about anything from MLP, Discord is a hard "No" period. Please don't even ask. Things from Fanfics may be allowed, but if it involves something bad happening to anypony from the show, please don't ask for it. I may get a list together of ships I'm willing to draw from the show, and others I'm not if there's any sort of eventual demand for it.
Other than that, you can just about go wild with requests. Keep them simple until I learn the trade, and realize it may take me a while to attend to them, but I will accept them, or tell you no and why.
Lastly, here's my Deviantart account where all of my pictures will go up. http://queenmysticmuse.deviantart.com/
Re: Mystic Muse learns to draw.
You should try some of the free drawing programs: GIMP, Inkscape, and MyPaint.
Re: Mystic Muse learns to draw.
Seconding MyPaint as the program of choice for sketches and any other sort of freehand drawing. You'll miss digital editing tools right until you learn not to have to use them.
Re: Mystic Muse learns to draw.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shawnhcorey
To be fair, Gimp, while not bad in editing pictures, is fairly bad for drawing them. Besides, there are a few nice freeware programs, I'll try to find them a bit later as most were fairly difficult to track down ^^"
Re: Mystic Muse learns to draw.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sean Mirrsen
Seconding MyPaint as the program of choice for sketches and any other sort of freehand drawing. You'll miss digital editing tools right until you learn not to have to use them.
What qualifies as "Digital editing tools" that I'll learn to not miss, just out of curiosity? (Can't check the program out right now.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shawnhcorey
Sounds like mypaint would be the one to go with. I don't really like Gimp.
