I think draw like a sir is a really good example of solid art advice. He gives advice in breaking bodies up into shapes and explains why and how he draws himself and gives examples for different art styles as well! Great guy

As a beginner artist, there were times I'd cry in frustration because I felt like there was no way I could imporve. Because the only tutorials I had access to would teach me jack shit. They'd explain what cel shading vs rendered shading was but wouldn't explain how to actually layer colours well and how to blend naturally. They'd say to think about light source, but not how light bounced or affects different textures and forms. They'd say how to draw a face, but it never looked like me or anyone else I tried to draw. Eventually, I just had to fuck around and study myself and something I was so confused about was "why couldn't they just say you should press lightly as your default and intentionally apply pressure rather than leave me trying to relax my hand mid-line resulting in bad line thickness?" "Why couldn't they just say that warm lighting brings cool shadows but still relfects warm bounce-light and sometimes the edges of your shadows will end up lighter?" "Why couldn't they explain to just blend in small circles rather than straight lines?" "Why couldn't they just say there are more layers than multiply and colour dodge and sometimes, hard light, glow dodge, and add glow look better?" And I couldn't access longer tutorials because they were either way too complicated, too slow for my ADHD, or behind a pay wall. And as a beginner artist, I felt like I'd never be able to do anything right because every critique I was given never provided a solution.

When i was younger id watch so many art tutorials and almost everytime i watched them i either completely forgot what they said or id just give up. Nowadays, im there for tips, not how to draw.

I’m currently self-learning oil painting and i pretty much gave up on relying on youtube tutorials because majority of the videos are just clickbait bs titled “THIS TECH IQUE CHANGED MY ART FOREVER” and then the video just tells you to use references lmao. I then borrowed some books from a friend on oil painting from the 70s and 90s and those books helped me 50000x more on oils than majority of the tutorials online. Books yall. Go get them. There are SO MANY books on art, please dont diss the, just because theyre old and not in a appealing art style.

>art tutorial >look inside >ad for coloso courses This is something that happened to me various times back then and it got to the point to where I thought I would not improve unless i had the money to pay for those resources, obviously thats not the case but good god screw any art youtuber that didn't specifiy that their "tutorial" was just an ad for an expensive course

That's what i always say artists should do. Grab 10 artists you like, or less, i presonally have 6 artists i adore. Analyze their style and compare it to reality. Ultimately you might see some things do not make sense in reality, as i have my fair share of doing semi realistic and stylized eyes behind myself, i quickly learned that artists i like treat them more like stickers, than actual 3D objects, but i do prefer semi realistic eyes with lids going around actual eyeball, line arting the eyebrow ridges, extending one to the nose around central line, it's something i myself found appealing, same with placing hair highlights inside the shadows with watercolor brush, because i found that appealing and did it randomly once and it gave cool effect i liked. It's all about experimentation and understanding to build your own style and your preferences might change. Like if i am drawing a short comic i will go towards more stickery eyes, than if i am drawing personal rendered art piece. Also! Learn rendering by shading statues! I can't stress how much analyzing how shadow values move across different dips and i swear there isn't single good rendering tutorial on youtube. Airbrush on max hardness and 88 opacity will do the trick for rendering, otherwise use hardbrush and blur and try to make the statue appear as real as possible to trick your brain.

I don't usually use KZfaq tutorials because they overwhelm me so much and mess me up, Its hard to learn someone else's technique that works for them, and when I can't get the technique that works for them right I feel like a failure and haven't learned anything. Now what I do is use my art books and art blogs and its been helping me so much more.

I honestly never really wanted to draw realism, so I skipped it and I jumped into the stylized side of art, I usually watch stylized art tutorial and I try to include them in my own art, I learned drawing eyes from a stylized eyes tutorial. Also in tutorial I watched, stuff like eyes are 1 eye apart were mentioned and made it easier to understand why it works well

This feels so.... obvious. I never knew how badly I needed this advice

15:09 actually i was told several times as a kid that i had to fall off the bike in order to learn. It put me off learning to bike til i was 11. But everyone i know disagrees with me and still think it is apparently a good way to teach kids to ride a bike 😭 youre the first one that shares my sentiment

Dude.. I don't know if you've ever been told this before but the way you're able to explain seemingly complicated things in a very clear and understandable way is actually mindblowing. I would've struggled so much to explain what you've explained in this video

I'm no longer a beginner artist (more amateur at this point), but every time I look at these sorts of videos I feel shocked at how much beginners struggle and fall into these traps. To share my own experience, my way of learning to draw was practically a death-wish to most. >Zero tutorials >Practically zero people giving me advice (I was a lonely boy online) >Forcing myself to draw literally every day for one year with no breaks >And only using references of myself for anatomy. Only using the internet for things I couldn't capture with a camera...like the female body I don't even know how I made it out of there as an artist, I wouldn't even recommend this to my worst enemy. I barely made it out of that pit of hell in one piece. Though, I will say that the one thing I found the most useful when learning how to draw is to examine your body, take pictures often, screenshot your favourite cartoons, and examine the crap out of it. You will not believe how much you can learn from just a bunch of pictures and looking at yourself. "Drawing what you see" is like a stupidest answer to give to a beginner, but it's also the best answer.

i've been struggling to figure out what exactly helped me improve my art significantly this past year and man this laid it out for me perfectly. i had an extremely bad habit of just trying to replicate what i saw in stylistic tutorials and not wanting to learn the basics because they were scary, which got me nowhere for years. now here i am, relearning everything from square one (+ some experience), teaching myself how to properly use references, and letting myself draw things i actually like drawing to make practicing technical skills more enjoyable ^^ plus i've been able to build my own style and STICK WITH IT (which i've never been able to accomplish) now that i have better fundamentals to build upon, and that makes me even more motivated to work on my basics, and the positive cycle continues also the coloring for kaito is so nice to look at T^T i found myself kinda zoning out sometimes while watching the speedpaint sfjkhdjhk

I suggest you don't make art tutorial but instead, you should make art educational facts. Like fun facts. I just learned some facts while watching this video.

The *volume* of the hair isn't actually the _reason_ why hair highlights they look the way they do, it's a _rule of thumb_ (and a very good one). Glossy surfaces have a narrow angle of spread that they reflect light through. When the surface is *convex* (bulging outward), the reflection is spread outward enough that it can hit your eye without you needing to look at it from a specific angle. It isn't necessary to know the nitty-gritty details for 2D art, but it is useful for figuring out how to make hair highlights more visible in photography and 3D art.

"Because you can't just slap references together and expect it to look right without an understanding of what makes those references look good in the first place." Insert how AI art literally tries and fails to do this. LOL

I’m 18 and I have tried to take art classes in high school and I feel still self taught in some ways. I didn’t really take art classes, I used the internet and drew from there, I want to take art classes in college so I can improve. I’m a bit nervous since I don’t feel like I can use references correctly either, this video is helpful and I hope this can help me use references better. I hope I make sense, I’m tired😂

This video definitely help me look at my practicing differently. I have ADHD and I have been struggling not saying I haven’t grown because I definitely have, but I’ve been studying wrong so even though I’ve grown I didn’t understand why they were doing it like you said, and eventually it led me to get overstimulated because I didn’t understand why the things I did didn’t look right but when someone else did it, it looks good and it all boils down to me not understanding how it works so I’m thankful that this video brought that to my attention because I probably would’ve never thought to understand, instead of imitating

What I see a lot of these days is a video titled "how to make money" or "how to start a business" etc and then the video is just their life story with no "how." I'm sorry to all artists who want to talk about their journeys, but I clicked for help with my own pursuits, not yours. Also I'm sick of artsy, overproduced videos that say literally nothing while showing footage of nature

For other artists reading the comments like me, something I do is look at art styles I don't even want to replicate but still enjoy, and try to see what I like about it so I can try and apply it to my own art. For example, if I like the color scheme an artist has used, but their art is photo realism, which isn't an art style I want to draw specifically, I'll focus just on the colors and try to figure out what makes me like them, and how I could try and do the same in my own art style. I hope that makes sense, and I hope that helps a bit :D

Thank you for this video. It will help many people's. I personally have been getting frustrated at "how to" videos because my brain can't understand why they are doing what they are doing. Either that or they are using very vague terminology to give analogies for us to understand. At least now I'll try to remember the "why" to make sure I'm teaching myself regardless of what I'm watching. I think this is what my brain was looking for all along but couldn't put it into words because I was overriding my process with how they wanted to me to understand when I already can't understand them. Thanks for the great reminder & shout out to all artists who are trying to help in one way or another regardless of how it comes across. It's definitely my responsibility to try to learn why instead of getting frustrated at the people I'm watchinglolz Enjoyed the video & have a nice day everybody.

When I need to reference a pose or similar, I draw (or sometimes trace) the reference so I can get an understanding of what I'm drawing, then freehand it, and then finally draw it again but using my own style and proportions. It helps me a lot! I've noticed a lot of novice artists will copy a pose/reference as is and you can see the huge style difference between their non-referenced works (such as having a chibi style, but suddenly having this weird amalgamation of chibi and human-accurate proportions???)

I love how you take a simple topic but twist it in unusal way I have never thought!

I learned "by doing", I did try those "learn to draw" books when I was a kid, but I've always hated step-by-step directions when drawing. I always considered aq waste of time and would rather just try to copy the finished product and learn on my own...

This is what I usually did but not on watching YT videos... Back then as I was still a beginner at drawing. I look up on references and use other ppl's art to see how they drew and learned from them. I ofc didn't think I needed to watch YT tutorials. As an intermediate artist, I know now that to use these references, I have to ofc use them wisely and carefully. Following them step by step.

Honestly, I don't know if it's my attention span or lack of comprehension skills, but I can't understand tutorials. I don't know what people are saying or what they mean, I can’t learn from them 😭 When i watch Proko, it's like he's speaking another language. I'm messed up

I honestly do not remember how I learned to draw people always ask me how I learned and I honestly don’t remember I just remember somehow becoming able to draw

I’m only like 9 minutes into the video rn but your wording so perfectly explains my problem with most art tutorials and what I try to look for when I wanna learn something. I remember when I completely gave up on stylistic art tutorials cause I wasn’t learning anything that was gonna improve my art lacking in my low understanding of fundamentals (I ain’t realize that was the reason at the time but I do now). Eventually I started to learn about things like elements/principles of design, composition, character design, anatomy, etc. that led me that what I wanted to actually learn and really improve my art. Thanks to going to college for art, I now have an easier time finding more educational tutorials or books of what I want to learn exactly. I hardly watch stylistic ones anymore unless I really want to incorporate something that I like from another artist. Also your point about breaking the rules while learning them was something I was thinking the whole time I was in college, but my professors wouldn’t allowed me to😭

I love your content it really helped me out

And the fact for some art tutorials when using different art programs make me confused like Medibang having rare art tutorials

I AGREE! I subconsciously do this when I reference pictures or other drawings, but not so much when I was a beginner. Thats why. Some people may feel like failures when they don’t understand what Marc Brunett or Ethan Becker say.

I love your videos ❤ i always learn something useful and never get bored throughout

Finally got around to watching this, great video Celestia! But also THANK YOU FOR DRAWING KAITO you did my husband sooo much justice

YESS NEW CELESTIA VIDEO!!!

This video was such an eye opener, even though i learned the fundamentals when trying to stylize something i kept permanently thinking of said fundamentals instead of understanding how and why the art i was referencing looked the way it did

OHHH I LOVE THIS !!! YOUR STYLE

I see pikat i click

So I found your video because the algorithm pushed me to it but regardless I have never learned to draw and I have never had the chance to fail however I had a panic attack today because of perfectionism and the fact that both sets of tutorials make no sense for what I’m trying to draw and my particular style. In fact I want to give up because my anxiety is taking over but your explanation of why I’m struggling so much makes perfect sense as I can take the blame but so can these useless videos. I struggle with social communication as is and when they list concepts they make sense in the moment but afterwards when I go to draw they make no sense. Anyways rambling done but fantastic video!

needed to hear this

I like "Break the rules (and fail) to understand why they exist in the first place" as another option because I'm a masochist. Works wonders with properly understanding the rules, but is a lot more painful and slower than getting a full-on explanation on how things work Definitely agree with needing to understand the "why" behind how these things work. It's the most basic fundamental that I wish people would have taught from the start -- I only realized that when I got some obscure art book that was bi-lingual in English/Chinese that talked about needing to study and observe the objects you were drawing for patterns and such, such as how branches on a tree grow with a specific example showing how the branches protrude from the trunk going upward in a spiral Thanks for the depth of explanation on the hair highlights. I actually just started picking out a few details on that with why they were placed certain places on another video I was watching from you when you were putting them in. Missed the part on the blending and shadows though -- was only just starting to understand those sections, but it would have taken me another... few months, probably, because I don't use highlights the same way and do things differently so I'd only realize it much later when watching another person draw/paint

Mb true for other types of tutorials, just realized now - it's so true

Great video topic think this will change how I approach art

Key words for the difference between Educational and just teaching how to draw in their style How to draw --- in my style Learning how to draw ---- Personally if I I’m changing styles and I see someone I like that draw eye good or something like that I will watch a how to draw eye in my style instead of how to draw eyes

About 2 years ago, I used to watch a youtube tutorial showing me tricks on how to draw the faces (those with circle and line), I used to not care about why they did certain things, why they put this line here or there. Because of this, I fall into this repetition trap where if i fail, I would just try to redo it and hope that it would be correct, which lead to frustration and burnt out, It doesn't help that some tutorials ask you to repeat the trick over and over again "practice".., it just lead to frustration. It was until around last year where I finally get back to art and learned that observing what the artist doing is the answer, not some useless repetition hoping that one picture would look great.

Well this video explains a problem I noticed I have. When I make fanart, I can actually do it Well since I'm basically imitating it as best as I can. When I draw my own characters, it doesn't look as well since I actually don't know how shading or other stuff works and it shows a lot in my non-fanart stuff.

The whole time you talked. All i could think is she drawing the vocaloid kaito v2 or v3 design xD idk if its the base design but certain short haired males with a ling coat, scarf, and badge always makes me think of kaito

Thank you for your wise words.

Drawabox is the goat🐐

Do you have any tutorials that fall in to the educational kind that you can recommend?

I feel smarter now

13:07 THANK YOU this is what i've been saying

So what do I do? I like sketching, I got some supplies the other day and for about a weeks now have been practicing everyday. I know that isn’t much time, but I don’t know how to get better. I know that if all I want is to get into art as a hobby then I shouldn’t worry too much and should just enjoy myself. But I want to have something to show people, I don’t want to hide the things I make. Perfection isn’t possible but I want to be as close to it as possible because the past few months i’ve become more of a perfectionist. If I can’t become good at this within the next year then I wish there was some way of me knowing now. Im so busy, and if I spend so much time and energy into something just to give up then I might not ever try at this again and that really scares me

Are there any good tutorial makers on here? Like channels

i highly recommend jacob from drawfee's drawclass on how to approach study since its flexible and works well for any level imo

This got me thinking now.... Well I just accept I'm never gonna be good

Here`s my Process so far, still feel like a beginner but apparently making fast progress. Step 1 Think of thing to draw. Step 2 Look at Specific References of base or "Default" positions. Step 3 Imagine those References as what you envision it to be. a good example is imagine a hand forming a fist or Peace Sign, do it with your hand if you need to but really think about the Process. Step 4 Begin drawing said thing as a rough sketch and or whatever starting process you have. Step 5 Compare to your references and see what has either changed or not and what you would rather keep vs what you would like to adjust (and i don`t mean be 100% accurate to the Reference). Step 6 Try and focus on a particular part of drawing ie anatomy, perspective, design etc but give yourself a treat once in a while and draw something you know how to draw or just a simple doodle of something as to not drain ALL the life out of it. that's all I got for my drawing process. i apparently have been quickly getting better and seem to do better every drawing I do but i know i am lacking a lot of things. perspective and anatomy are next on my Grim Reapers Sprint of art (tbh i can probably get one to two point perspective done in like a month but anatomy feels way more intimidating).

The best advice I've ever gotten is that in order to do the stuff you want to do, you have to learn to draw. Drawing is the mother of all the mediums we love: comics, animation, painting, design, etc. It's all just drawing. To quote the great Vilppu, "Why traditional figure drawing? First, let us look at what skills are needed in good animation drawing. At the top of the list is the ability to communicate movement and personality through drawing. By using simple lines an artist should be able to give a figure a real sense of life and individuality, not just an action pose or stereotypical expression. Next on the list is to be able to draw three dimensionally, to make the characters feel like they are not only individuals, but that they exist in a real world. Since the characters we create and work with are products of our imagination, the animation professional has to be able to draw from his imagination. Next on the list is the ability to consistently draw the same character using the same forms, proportions and details in the particular style that has been set for the production. As you can see, the list is asking for a high level of skill, and we haven't even touched on imagination, story telling and inventiveness yet." (source: www.awn.com/mag/issue2.3/issue2.3pages/2.3vilppu.html)

For me. I don't see there nothing wrong that i drawing type tutorials reference style and shape to different always. comic to anime mix eyes shape. End of day. It about fun and reality. Pretty nothing looks same level. I'm personally. Taking time and i have going through lots correct drawing.

Another issue I have with art tutorials is that they’re kinda… mean? Even if they’re not roasting art, they always have this vibe of “you have to get better/do this technique/follow this tutorial, or you’re a bad artist”. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel uneasy when I try to watch an art tutorial. I want to make art that I like. It’s better to appeal to someone than to appeal to everyone. Edit: I think I misinterpreted this video 😅

Kaito!!!!

so are the tutorials in the thumbnail examples of good tutorials or bad tutorials because i really like pikat's videos.....

4:07 xD Fr

it is for this reason i'm happy i didn't start drawing until college.

Rodgon is a good artist to learn from

finding out that theres a lot of stuff ive been doing correctly and a lot of things ive been doing so so wrong lmao

This is exactly what i wanted to say, vut didnt have the words to say, when trying to explain why the refrences i was being given were unhelpful. I wanted a refrence yo understand how antlers grew, and why they look the way they did, but the only references i was finding and being given were "how to draw antlers" and hunting charts of horns. Helpful for someone who wants to draw antlers in that one specific head-on position, but not helpful for someone who was trying to draw those antlers in a stylyzed 3/4 overhead perspective.

So what I’m hearin’ is: Learn the fundamentals first, then study the art style you’d like understanding what they did with the fundamentals to understand WHY they did it. Why? Because style is essentially a different way of establishing those rules, or how they reduce a fundamental. By understanding what is being taken away, you learn how to reduce while keeping that form, shadow, etc. Implied or intentionally taken away. To FURTHER SIMPLIFY: Seek to learn the “why” something is done.

I'd hate to say it, but I'm gonna say it: take some in-person art classes at your local community college. You don't have to go to a fancy art college!!!! My community college art professors were awesome--and they were strict, which is a very good quality if you actually want to learn something. Not all art professors are created equal, though, you'd just have to take the class and find out. You would also get to hang out with other students and make friends and have a blast! I know I did. Going to college art classes was the best thing I ever could've done for my skill and I can tell you guys that online tutorials just aren't the same! I'm also not saying you can't take online tutorials. I'm doing that now, at age 39, to brush up on my cartooning skill because I'm interested in animation. And I will not accept any arguments about not having money, because I'll tell you that I had 0$ when I went to school. I was also married and my husband and I struggled, but it was worth it because art is the center of my life--I did it so I could complete myself. How invested in yourselves are you guys? People today, young and old, are buying all sorts of expensive shit--just save your damn money and take one cc art class at a time if you can't get financial aid. Once again, I'm not poopooing on online tutorials, but they're more like the nuts sprinkled over the ice cream sundae. I'm just tired of hearing from people who refuse to go outside and have great learning experiences. That is all. 🫡

I would learn the fundamentals but they're so boring to learn and people usually overexplain/overcomplicate things which makes it unbearable to learn, if someone could teach the fundamentals in a way that isn't over an hour long and will keep my goldfish attention span that would be great

i just use thumbnails for inspiration, I rarely actually watch them

I am not recommended tutorials that are sooooo shortcut!

I’ve been avoiding Art tutorials cause they make me feel kinda incompetent lol

My education tutorials recommendations : Ethan Becker and Mac Brunet

I completely agree! Especially with the "learn the rules before you break them" bit. I've been using art tutorials on YT pretty much since I started becoming even a little serious about art, not knowing any free, but also good art classes, and I definitely did NOT learn the rules before I broke them. I did both simultaneously. I more so watched videos explaining fundamentals, absorbed the information in them, and tried to implement what I watched in a stylized way, because I've never wanted to draw realism and what not. I also did this with more stylized videos, taking what I thought was good and what I wanted to implement, and tried my best. Of course this won't work for everyone, but I've been pretty proud of my art recently! I've only recently learned how to work with a side perspective, my 3 quarter views could probably use some work regarding the face, and no matter what I pick up about clothing folds or bounce light, I can't implement it into my art in a way that looks good and that I can understand to save my life, so obviously there's a few negatives (ignoring the fact that with where I am, the basics are so uninteresting to me and I just wanna experiment even though I know I need to just sit myself down and work on them) but I definitely have learned a lot, despite not exactly learning the rules before stylizing anything.

dam'n I'm early for once

Me who copied free hand for most of my life. Me who's also 44. 😑

i had this realization very recently (i’m impressed my algorithm is so spot-on)! learning *how* to learn is the missing piece in a very frustrating puzzle every self-taught artist feels like they’re perpetually solving. thanks for this video 🤍