How to draw: or at least, how I started getting really good.

These sorts of blogs always start out the same way; smug self aggrandizing post + 1, 2, 3, Dragon illustration diagram x an artist's ego = look how much better I am than you are. Ha!

Lets get this out of the way now: I am a shmoe. I am a classical nudnik. I don't know my butt about anything and -think- I have maybe one or two things figured out. Out side of the fact that I am a little further down the road than you when it comes to art, I have nothing on you. And what I most want to give to you here, is the courage to try doing the things that have helped me accomplish the successes that have recently made their appearance in my work. If I can learn to do this, so can you. And this is not going to turn into a tutorial on how to draw ponies. I would rather you learned how to draw only to come and draw ponies -with me-

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9444/firstevermolly.gif

Too big to post here, this is the first pony art I drew back when I started in the middle of the First Season. It is rough, it is hardly 'on-model' and clearly copied rather loosely from the show. Still, it is serviceable as an illustration to learn from. As you can see, I was experimenting from the start with complex poses, forcing myself to try and figure out the geometry. I wanted to learn the fundamental shapes that went together in order to become a pony. After all, arranging these objects differently or changing their size in relation to one another would not derive a show accurate pony. Enough messing around and referencing from the show allowed me to start doing this:

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/5562/foxytailsmugflank.gif

Closer and Closer. Foxytail still has this Avatar from the first days I arrived on the site. The Newbie Artist Training Grounds were still going at EQD so I finished that out but was doing better art. I arrived here because, in the first stages, I concentrated on learning the volumetrics of the ponies first, then forcing them into exotic arrangements to find where the shapes broke down or what they were supposed to look like at odd angles. By constantly checking back with the show and illustrating from reference taken from the show itself, I started to get ponies drawn that looked right more often than not.

Although it was never 100%, it was closer: http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9472/gilsonsmoothbeatheat.gif

Right around the beginning of the second season something began to change in my working body. I wasn't just learning how to draw ponies correctly, I was starting to learn how to draw what I saw regardless of what it was. I would dabble in other styles of drawing from other cartoons and surprises came one right after the other.

Several Styles unrelated to ponies: http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/1310/virgilstyle.gif

Because I was so focused on finding the volumetrics that made up the ponies, I had secretly taught myself to find them in all other characters. Now that I'm so confident in locating these mass shapes, I've expanded it into the last realm of drawing I'd been trying to avoid all along.

Still not great, but improving: http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/1447/humanponies002.gif

This is a drawing of a model from UKHairstyles.com. It's still missing some things and could use a lot of improvement, but its coming along nicely! Remember, I only started getting deadly serious about drawing a year ago in the middle of the last season. We're coming up on Two years now and, seeing as I have only been drawing ponies and some pony related stuff on the side, it is no surprise that I am turning out better and better art. I started correctly.

Congratulations for reading this far, I want you to have these tips that have allowed me to achieve this skill in this short a time:
1. Focus on studying the volumetrics of an object (the Mass Shapes) first.
2. Experiment with exotic poses to teach yourself how the shapes are arranged in as many varieties as you can think of.
3. Refuse to have a 'personal style.' Insist on drawing what is uncomfortable as-you-see-it!
4. Don't be ashamed if you want to draw nothing but ponies at the start. Once you have them down and are drawing show-accurate-art, expand slowly into buildings and objects for the sake of fun. You'll be surprised what you find yourself able to draw!