I am learning to draw, I'm starting with pencil with the intention of moving on to pen and ink. I have recently learned that when writing I should try to keep my wrist and fingers still and use my forearm and shoulder more, is this the same with drawing? I would like to know early on so I don't need to fix it later.
check out joe kubert’s school , its packed with all kinds of help with comics ……. also draw your pics in pencil bigger and you can shrink them down to classic block size later
that way you get more detail in every panel……
You’ll move your wrist and whole arm. Learn by copying the greats. Start off just sitting down with some Jim Lee comic ( or whoever does it for you) and just copying a wolverine or batman. After a day or two, if your good, you can draw in their style without seeing their work and then move onto another good artist and chose things you like from them. You need to get your own technique down though.
As for the pen, if your serious I’d get a WACOM instead. It takes about a week before you can draw on it like you do on paper. It can be much better, you get fantastic detail, and you can also learn colors and other textures. Nowadays almost everything is done digitally, and theres a reason for it. I’d check craigslist if your in Los Angeles, San Diego, or the Bay Area. You can get a good sized one for under $200, or pickup a generic tablet pen from FRYS for under 50.
technics in movement, what’s that? if you’re comportable in your movement that’s it. what’s important is how good you are. practice is still the best. you should have a vivid imagination. you are director, the actor and camera man in drawing comics. for the inking take rob l advice. now i only use 2b mech pencil then scan it in the computer for coloring. for more details you can e mail me at: sanjo009@yahoo.com – i’ll be willing to help you for free.
the technique of a skillfull illustrator is to use your wrist to create freeflowing figures. unlike the use of your forearm and shoulders, which i consider as elementary, produces stiff, mechanical illustrations not ideal for the comic book industry. this technique is commonly used by architects and engineers when drafting and designing.
This will be subjective for alot of people, but here are some good habits you can develop.
Your drawing area or board should be positioned so that you are looking at it head on and not at an angle. The more extream the angle of your drawing area is, the more distortion will occure.
Keep in mind to keep your head straight, tilting it from side to side will change perspectives.
Learning to draw from the elbow is important. You wont ever give up your wrist and finger movments for the details of a drawing, but broad, longer and more expresive strokes, can really only be done well , and consistantly through the use of your entire arm and not just the wrist or fingers. Good practice would be to get learge newsprint paper, and keeping wrist and fingers still, but not tight, draw straight lines with your elbow. Then dot the paper all over, and start to pick dots to draw a straight line and try to hit those dots. then draw elipes with your elbow. These lil exercises will help train your arm to do certain things that will be very helpful in the long run.
When using a reference picture or drawing from life, try and position yourself and your subject in a way that you dont need to twist your head to look at it. Keeping your head pointed at your drawing board and using only your eyes to turn to your subject is a good habit to have.
The only other advice I can give, is to not be afraid to make bad drawings. Skill will continue to improve with the more drawings you make. People somtimes get so scared to do a ad drawing that progress slows down to a snails pace. Quicksketching and thubnails are a good way to feel confident about using a pen and pencil without feeling like everything has to be a masterpiece.
GL.