Where did you learn to draw Amelius?

[Awakened]

What books did you study by to help you learn? I am looking at drawing for a new hobby so I was wondering if you could give some advice.

[Amelius]

Mmm, I can certainly dispense any advice you may want, but as far as books go I'm not sure I can reccomend any since I really was self-taught in regards to drawing. Practice really does help, as well as recognizing both your strengths and weaknesses. I tend to focus a lot on my weaknesses so I am constantly in a struggle to improve things, which may or may not be showing but I'm trying. Also do the things that are fun, experiment! Observe things around you and most of all draw what you want, I find it helps the best when you are having fun. When it feels like a chore you just don't want to practice, when practice is the best thing you can do. I'll tell ya what, if all I had to draw only still life of plastic fruit to improve all fronts on art, I don't think I'd be into art right now ^_^ But because I spent so much focus drawing silly things, cats and dogs and goofy-haired people that came out of my imagination, I wanted to do more with it. And while I did mention practicing on weaknesses, don't let those discourage you but certainly try not to hide them. There is a well-known artist in mainstream comics (Rob Liefield!) who hides the feet of his characters because he can't draw them. They are hidden behind obstacles, dust, grass, off the panel, extreme angles/foreshortening, you name it. Instead of approaching it apparently he rather cover it up and move on, which is not the best approach. I have a weakness in the several areas, one being shoulder/neck/arm areas. I'm trying to get over this by drawing shirtless guys (Daray, K'ale) not just to be eye-candy but because it's helping me (I gotta work on torsos overall) people point out the errors and I make due to fix them the next time around.

As for getting started, I suggest always pencils first, then pen. For loose, quick sketching try to hold the pencil a little further up than you would, it helps you from being too heavy-handed and making marks that are hard to erase. I tend to forget to do this ^_^
If you want clean pencil lines and don't intend to ink that may be helpful as the light lines are easy to erase without smudging your darkened "final" lines too.

If I'm working on something particularly difficult, I go in steps like so for sketching:
1:light loose lines to lay out where parts are going, postitioning and angles and whatnot
2:go over them again to define what I'm doing, erase where it may look out of place. Basically "tweaking" it further to push it toward what I want to see
3:if they look right, solid but still somewhat loose lines to bring the drawing out of the scribbles
4: if it's clear enough Ill just ink it ^_^

My process is a little hapazard though, a good pro will tell you to use "guides". Now these are basically a wireframe for you drawing, like a stick figure if you will. Except this goes beyond the basic stick frame and lays out where things will settle. The most useful area for guide use is the face, guides will basically be the shape of the face with lines dissecting it for placement of the eyes, nose, mouth etc. This isn't so much always a set of rules to tell you where to put these but a way to keep things consistant and even. Guides will help you keep both eyes on an even level. Even good guide use will help keep things looking proper if the drawing was flipped over. Often times distortion happens if things are uneven in a drawing and you look at it in a reverse view, like in a mirror. I know a lot of my stuff would look awful if it was flipped ^_^ but of course these all depend on what you are drawing, guidelines for the proper "placement" of things may not apply to more cartoony characters.
Eeh, sorry if I am rambling here, still a little under the weather. If you have any specific questions I would be glad to answer them ^_^