HOW I STUDY DRAWING

Be careful with flipping, it doesn't JUST give you a fresh eye, it will also make you overthink the importance of symmetry which could result in your art becoming very static and robotic, especially with faces. I was the same, relying heavily on the flipping of the canvas. But one day while drawing I had a curiosity about it, and I decided to grab an illustration from one of my favorite anime which I personally thought looked great and popped it into Clip Studio. Once I flipped the canvas, I couldn't believe my eyes, it looked completely off and bad. If you don't flip the canvas, it's very easy to ignore certain asymmetries, and those may also add to the personality and uniqueness of the image. And when you flip the canvas, your brain looks for asymmetries as the whole point is to find what to fix, so it will often list those off as mistakes when in reality they make no difference or even improve the image. Flipping the canvas also makes spotting actual structural errors very clear as well, so you should still use it. But you need to know what to use it for so you don't overdo it. I've had to learn to like what I'm making, even if when I flip it it jumps at me at first. Things you should definitely still look out for and use flipping for are the balance of the body to make sure that they aren't leaning or falling over when they aren't supposed to be, and certain facial proportions like the height of the eyes and the width of the head. But again, don't overvalue these either, they don't need to be perfect to look good. When you flip them they may jump at you at first but these details are so minimal you don't really see them unless you flip, and they aren't really mistakes so it doesn't matter. Hope this helps. I'm a pretty young artist and this is just something I personally discovered, I hope it helps! Your art is great by the way, keep it up!

So this might be obvious already to some (more experienced) artists, but I want to mention that in order to study from photo reference, you already need to kind of understand the general anatomy of the thing you're drawing. In this video you can see that Niro isn't really copying the reference in the most literal sense, but constructing each drawing. So reference isn't just for replicating a 2D image, but also for understanding the thing you're studying. This is why it makes sense to draw skulls, you will gain an understanding for the underlying 3D shape that's in every head, it's just the base where muscle, fat, skin etc. is placed on top of. Then for understanding what shapes you're seeing, that's where all the box/sphere/cyilinder/etc. practice comes from. If you know how to shade a cyilinder and a sphere from different light source angles, you will know how to get the base shading of for example an upper arm, and it can help immensely to strengthen the 3D depth your drawings have. I don't really think there's a set order in which you have to practice all these different things, since you can just alternate between them whenever you notice you're struggling with how to draw something specific. So I don't think it's generally laziness that makes people avoid studying from reference, but more like the question of HOW to do it exactly is what can make it uncomfortable. There's a million ways to do gesture drawing, it depends on what you want to focus on and what your goal is as an artist. Animators will study poses with a bit different intent than illustrators/concept artists, even though there is a lot of overlap in the method of practice. So in short: make sure you know what you want to learn to draw and define it as concretely as possible. Draw a lot from various sources of reference, study from real life if possible, or high quality 3D models, or photos that show different angles of the same thing, but don't be afraid to learn from various professional artists as well. Every artist has their own way of "problem solving", e.g. how they approach drawing hands and what details they keep or how they stylize or simplify things.

1 Train your eye 2 Fundamentals - shape, form, value, color, texture, perspective, composition 3 References 4.21: YUZURU HANYU 4 References for the head & realism 5 Tracing over refs, Loomis method 6 Consistency: discipline over motivation 7 Lesson 5

Great video man! I think patience is a big factor to getting good. Like you said it doesn't just happen over night so if you stick with it and try to improve anyone can get really good!

Actually I've been searching for this kind of video! I was feeling really lost as to where to start with drawing and how to go forward from that. But your simple straight forward approach has really helped me to set realistic study goals. Thank you so much and I look forward to your next video!❤️

would love to see more content like this!! learning how to draw rn is rough when everything takes so long, but I think stuff like this helps reminds me that i gotta brush up on my fundamentals!

So much helpful information from this 10 minute video! I went through multiple courses and watched many videos for all the tips you mentioned!

i really enjoy this video, i already draw but i don't know the basic stuff and this video helped me a lot to start caring about my art a lot 🥺 i really hope this video gets a lot of views to help many other people to start drawing and enjoy this beautiful thing 💕

Finally, a YouTube who draws as the art style I aim for! thanks for the video,I’ve been struggling with practise and all that, looking forward to more videos

I love your application of values! this was a helpful video, thank you! 💌

This video is just marvelous! And your art are so characteristic, thanks for your sharing, it's really inspiring!

You know I love that I was asking myself how should I start learning the fundamentals and improve my art, and this video came up. Your amazing and it really motivated me thank youuu so much 🥹

Thanks for this video dude! Very helpful and explained things clearly

the quote really got me there, thanks for this helpful guide!

Wow! I really like your art style. Thank you so much for this helpful video, you gave me inspiration I needed ❤‍🔥

you're amazing...thank you for making me inspired to draw again ☘️

This channel is already a must have in my artist playlist, instant sub

Your video helped me a lot,your understanding of the arts is special that benifit me very much!

awesome! I should go back to these studies, they're really helpful, ty for the video ❤

Love the anime art style! Been looking for an artist with drawing tips in this style of art!