/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

[Anonymous No.3374425]

I'm currently reading this book as my first dive into teaching myself how to draw better. Would I be better suited in reading through the book then starting over and drawing his examples, or should I draw what he's talking about as I go through?

Really, I just don't know what I should be doing to implement what he says. Any advice from someone whose learned this way would be nice.

[Anonymous No.3374438]

Books just are another meme of this site, just draw and you'll be fine.

[Anonymous No.3374439]

watch his videos too btw

[Anonymous No.3374441]

>>3374439
This or skip to something more beginner friendly. Hampton's book is pretty garbage unless you are intermediate or supplement it with his videos.

[Anonymous No.3374449]

>>3374438
Sometimes I feel this way. You might be right. I'll draw some stuff I wanna draw instead of practice tonight.

>>3374441
I feel like I sort of am intermediate but I've never really read & paid attention to any formal drawing book before. My biggest issue right now is I have to erase my drawings a lot and retool them and it takes me hours to even make a decent lineart. Attached is pic related - it took me 5 hours to draw and I erased her head, body, hair, legs at least 4x each. And it's still not quite what I want. I then watch youtube's of good artists and they just bust out amazing lineart in 30 minutes and I'm trying to get there. Do you think I'm wasting my time reading this and I should just "draw more" until I'm more accurate the first time?

This shit is really open ended.

[Anonymous No.3374450]

Tbh I'd just go with loomis figure drawing, and just copy and reference this manikin figure to start off with. Hampton is a bit difficult to get into if you don't know what your doing, also just doing book excersizes doesn't work for everyone. For me I open up to a page like this for example, and study a irl photo reference.

[Anonymous No.3374458]

>>3374449
Your not a intimediate, if you took 5 hours to do that and it still looks bad you are a beginner. No shame in admitting that.

[Anonymous No.3374461]

Don't just copy the examples, most of them are there to illustrate the concepts he's writing about. Lots of concepts are better learned by trying to practice them flexibly with other subjects, not just copying the examples out of the book. Not to say you should never copy a drawing out of a book, but don't mistake it for understanding concepts. You'll be wasting a lot of time if you're just copying every illustration in his book because you think the act itself will teach you the concept by osmosis.

IMO the best way to learn from books is to regularly test yourself on the content by actually closing the book and trying to apply what you learned in a piece. Then you actually need to recall and apply what you learned, not just reread / copy it.

[Anonymous No.3374465]

>>3374449
>I wanna draw instead of practice tonight.
That's your biggest mistake, no matter WHAT you DRAW. You have to ALWAYS be concious on what your creating, just drawing for the sake of it isn't going to help you improve. If anything itl make you deluded and worse, even if it's a shitty warmup or a fun artwork. You still need to have a hardworking mindset too it, you always need to think " does that look correct?" " is that a position someone will do in real life " " can the human figure extend that far" ect ect

[Anonymous No.3374473]

>>3374465
>You still need to have a hardworking mindset too it, you always need to think " does that look correct?" " is that a position someone will do in real life " " can the human figure extend that far" ect ect

I do that, I just take forever since my initial lines are terrible.

[Anonymous No.3374477]

>>3374458
The problem is I know what I want to make in my head it's just really hard to get the lines right on paper the first time. I don't want to make really rigid looking drawings by going through the whole skeleton process everytime.

[Anonymous No.3374498]

>>3374425
It's a good book but may be a bit difficult for beginners. The leg and feet section is lacking imo. I think the Vilppu Manual is better suited for beginners.

If you're having trouble with line quality, try to do Peter Han's exercises before drawing. It's on youtube just search dynamic sketching.

[Anonymous No.3374520]

>>3374498
>Peter Han's exercises before drawing
I just found it, watching it now. Thanks for the tip

[Anonymous No.3374544]

I fart a lot when I eat linguine

[Anonymous No.3374558]

>>3374477

it's going to look rigid anyway if you're constantly erasing and redoing parts of it.

You don't need to 'go through the whole skeleton process everytime' but some gesture and construction knowledge goes a long way towards confidently laying in a drawing.

[Anonymous No.3374566]

>>3374558
Understood. I'll keep reading the book and work along with it.

[Anonymous No.3374721]

>>3374498
>The leg and feet section is lacking imo

He added to the legs section and some other parts in the 4th Edition (2011) which is different from the old one you can easily find online. Flip-through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz3vuO-ph5k

>>3374425
I would recommend going through Steve Huston's Making Every Mark Count book first. The second section of that book gives you an easy and fluid method of simplifying the body and there are exercises at the end of each chapter. Then you could go to Hampton's book for a deeper understanding of anatomy and structure.

Both books are a great first choice though. Your process should be a cycle of: Reading while both copying the pictures and applying the process to photos of real figures (and anime). Just don't slow down and copy every little detail for the more detailed examples; focus on getting the big shapes and overall proportions first and later on you can focus on smaller shapes.

[Anonymous No.3374818]

>>3374449
>dahling!
Adorable. Have any more art?

[Anonymous No.3374829]

>>3374425
Don't even read it, just draw what you think looks good.

[Anonymous No.3374843]

>>3374721
Where can you find the new version of Hampton's book? Is it posted on the artbook thread?

[Anonymous No.3374858]

>>3374818
you know he didn't invent lum right?

[Anonymous No.3375004]

>>3374818
Thank you! After I finished drawing her I started doing a lot more "practice-style" drawing so I haven't finished another piece in a while. I really want to speed up my process - I'm happy with the end result but I don't like how it took me 5 hours to get there.

[Anonymous No.3375768]

>>3374858
It's not lum.

[Anonymous No.3375825]

My fucking god this board. I come here from time to time, just to see in the front page shit like this.
>intermediate
MY FUCKING ASS!
Brother, you're just starting, dont fool yourself. Look for Watts attelier online program in some torrent site, download that shit and eat sleep and piss watching that and doing its exercises. Then, AND ONLY THEN, you go grab a book that is mildly complex; I know this shit became a meme after so many years of /ic/ but, if you cant even understand the drawings of the cover of this book in some way, dont even try. Take a step back and get a solid base.

[Anonymous No.3376092]

>>3374843
As far as I've seen it's not online. You have to buy it.

[Anonymous No.3378415]

>>3374425
Read the book but rather than drawing the examples directly find reference that applies to the part of the book your reading and try draw that using the same method as the ones in the book.

[Anonymous No.3378448]

>>3374425
copy it cover to cover, then do it again.

i dunno why so many people overthink studying, they probably the type to hit a wall after learning how to hold a pencil. made it anon here.

[Anonymous No.3381140]

>>3374425
The whole point of getting a drawing tutorial or any textbook, is to memorize the material to the point.

Test yourself: Can you reproduce the learned techniques in the book without looking in it for reference? If you can congrats you have fully consumed and learned the material.