Also, if you don't have a live model or other such pose source, try posemaniacs.com. It's full of generated images of the human body, male or female, in various poses often viewed from strange angles.


And if you really want to test yourself go to the home page, under the "Tools" heading should be a 30 Second Drawing link. That will display an image for 10, 15, 30, 45, 60, or 90 seconds and then change it to the next image. You do a quick sketch of the image and see how good you can do. Its nice if you want to practice capturing poses quickly and getting all the essential details in.

The easiest way is to just draw from life. Still lives, portraits, whatever. Just take a sketch book out and draw everything you observe.

In my life drawing classes (which I took eons ago) we had these quick exercises we'd do to improve our skill. It was a five minute quick sketch. You need a big piece of paper to do it. You get your subject ready. Loosen your wrist, and just sketch as quick as you can for five minutes -- try not to look down.

There's a bunch of exercises like that you can do. That was just one of the ones I benefited from the most.

hmmmmmmm... i see i see

not a bad idea at all =)


I shall go try it out =)

hahaha ^_^


good to know i'm not the only world's clumsiest person alive!


anyway back on subject...


(ponders how do I improve on drawing realism)

oooooh Noacat =D


you sound like a master indeed!

(bows) sensei-san!



I've actually tried oil painting at my friend's art studio back in my high school years... yea..

i'm a VERY messy person >_<



if you tell me to eat a small piece of cake with a little frosting, the table and the corner of my mouth will be filthy..

I'm the same way! Horribly messy. I once found a big ol' smudge of paint underneath the shorts I was wearing -- funny thing, the shorts weren't stained. I somehow managed to get the paint UNDER my shorts! WTF???

don't worry, I spill everything on myself. It's actually impressive.

I've used both. I'm more partial to watercolors because they're harder to master than acrylics. If you want a real challenge try oils for realism. Oil painting is a real bitch to master, worse than watercolor in some respects, but it is worth the pain. The colors are so much richer than any acrylic and the texture... the texture you can achieve with oils is just beyond. I personally wish I had more time and more space so I could pick them up again. A tiny apartment with an overly curious cat is no place to do oil painting -- I have no place where they can dry safely! ARGH!

i see i see..

i admit i'm better with hands on painting/sketching..

but since it's digital, less mess and easy undo buttons ^_^

This is true, haha:P

ah silly me, i meant Digital Painting...

^_^


the beneath it all cover i did was with digital watercolor.


i'm about to sketch something and paint it with acryllics...

not sure if it'll work out.

Oh, lol, I don't know all the photoshop lingo. My bad. When I did some stuff in photoshop I didn't really know what I was doing, it took me just as long to fix all my mistakes as it did to make the darn thing lol.

Yes... i'm torn into two between watercolor or acrylics..

yes yes practice makes perfect but it still doesn't help me choose whether to paint the sketches with acrylics or watercolor.

i love them both so much..


and i'm thinking of using watercolor for anime style, then acrylics for realism.

my realism needs a whole load of work, but i'm willing to put in the effort.


so, any dokugian uses both acrylics and watercolor?

Hmmm, Acrylics are good if you think you're going to do a lot of tweaking to get it to look right. You know, you can just paint over your mistakes and stuff.

Water colors are good if you want a soft look and don't care about strict lines. But once it's painted it's pretty permanent.

In my painting class we did a series with watercolors, acrylics and oil sticks. I like oilsticks best, but that's not really helpful lol, but acrylics was probably my second favorite.

I use watercolors in general, whether its realism or anime-esque drawings.

Acrylics, I use for customizing shoes, bags, and whatever I can tamper with.