My brain is hindering the growth of new skills

[Misomie]

Anyways, I've been drawing ferals all my life and just avoiding drawing people/anthros. I don't have a problem when their anatomy is more animalistic (digilegs and whatnot) but when it gets too human I feel like I suck. XP

I was drawing my fursona as an anthro today and it was so hard to give her human anatomy. My brain kept screaming at my hand to draw the correct feral anatomy (probably because I started on her head, I dunno) and it was legitimately hard and painful to ignore that. I'm not even kidding! I felt like I was breaking all my rules and my hand felt like it couldn't move that way. I did get the picture done though, eventually. It came out decent. I definitely need more practice though.

I'm hoping this doesn't become an ongoing problem. XP

Anyone else have your brain "yell" at you that what you're doing is wrong? XD

 

[Hewge]

I tell myself I'm doing things horribly wrong with everything I draw, as I think most artists do in any medium.

I can sort of see what you mean with your problem. I first began just drawing cartoons and didn't bother with realism or any sort of basic anatomy first, so when I began to study that side of things it was a bit stressful.
Don't worry though, just keep studying human anatomy and you'll get it. Use references.

I think what I did to help me out at first was find photos/pictures and 'trace' over them to get a feel for how it worked, then moved onto trying to draw from a picture, then just keep using references for all of my drawings.
All while looking at anatomy books and learning what x muscle is and how it works too, of course. Eventually you'll understand it and won't even need the references anymore.

If you find yourself getting stressed or finding something difficult, it just means you're learning.

 

[tiggu]

Yea this is normal when you are doing something new and I feel it often. ^ ^
Because you are so comfortable doing it one way, you have a method that works for you.
So when you try something different, this is not your method, so you are not sure about the outcome.
So you instinctively want to do the way you know works.
You will feel it almost every time you try something very new. But not forever. After some practice the feeling will go away. Fighting!!

 

[Konna-ni]

The best thing you can do is trust. Not in a sappy way, but trust that the image will come out acceptably and not let your thoughts override what you know you should be doing. This is a fundamental problem with anyone who draws, especially newcomers. You sit to draw a hand, and the ego of your brain tells you "I already know what a hand looks like. It's a flat thing with four longer things coming out of the top and one bigger one coming out of the side."

So you ignore the perfectly good and accurate lines of a real human hand in front of you and follow this simplistic mental version because you just know what a hand looks like, and it looks terrible because your brain did not have a large enough mental library of hand knowledge to take on that picture alone.

If you research and build a large enough mental library of human anatomy, eventually the things your brain is 'yelling' about will actually be quite accurate, and you will have an easier time working with the new body-type.

 

[Gnarl]

They are mostly correct. You are fighting against two things. 1. What you have trained yourself to do. and 2. What you know.
First it will be hard to train or rather untrain what your eye hands have learned. There are some exercises you can do to retrain your brain.
To avoid the issue of what you know start by trying to draw a simple figure...upside down! Or a standing figure sideways. As long as it is not in a position that the brain would expect to see it in, your eyes have to look in order to draw. If you are right handed then put your left hand at the top left corner of the paper and try to draw it. but try holding your left hand in a fist. You can also hold something in your hand like a ball or a pencil. Now if you are still having trouble get a small mirror and put it next to your hand then only draw the reflection. I do not recommend the tracing thing because that won't help you learn to draw the figure in proper proportion. You may have better luck drawing a sitting figure, upside down. So long as it is not in a position that the brain is expecting. Hope this helps.

 

[Konna-ni]

They are mostly correct. You are fighting against two things. 1. What you have trained yourself to do. and 2. What you know.
First it will be hard to train or rather untrain what your eye hands have learned. There are some exercises you can do to retrain your brain.
To avoid the issue of what you know start by trying to draw a simple figure...upside down! Or a standing figure sideways. As long as it is not in a position that the brain would expect to see it in, your eyes have to look in order to draw. If you are right handed then put your left hand at the top left corner of the paper and try to draw it. but try holding your left hand in a fist. You can also hold something in your hand like a ball or a pencil. Now if you are still having trouble get a small mirror and put it next to your hand then only draw the reflection. I do not recommend the tracing thing because that won't help you learn to draw the figure in proper proportion. You may have better luck drawing a sitting figure, upside down. So long as it is not in a position that the brain is expecting. Hope this helps.

I wholeheartedly agree with recreating another drawing upside down. It forces your brain to be quiet and focus on the lines and curves in front of you instead of trying to chime in and 'correct' things. I would also suggest, for original work, flipping the image repeatedly during the drawing process. This also forces your eye, but in the opposite way. Things that you thought looked perfect because your brain told you they were accurate may actually look incredibly skewed the other way around.

Flipping is easily done digitally, but you can also just turn your sheet of paper over and hold it up to a light or window (or a lightbox, if you have one).

 

[tisr]

Most of anthro anatomy is about 80% human and 20% animal. The human proportions still mostly stay, so it seems you need to work on your human anatomy.

Try drawing a gesture of the figure before getting the details in, so you can tell if the pose looks right.

 

[DragonFU]

What would work for me in this case is to draw pictures from reference, if you can find a picture of a body pose along the lines of what you're imagining you can still create the pictures you want while also learning and practising. What Konna-ni said about the mental library is spot on. You could also take time to do quick sketches of specific things or do 30 second - 5 minute sketches of reference pictures over like 20 minutes or so.

When I was young I copied (not traced) other pictures, this helped me with two things: one is recreating lines (proportion and length/curves of lines in relation to each other, so I can do still life very well) and the other is learning and observing humans/anatomy. Also just drawing lots in general helps you over time. ^_^

 

[Gnarl]

Practice is the key! I use drawing tablets that have 100 pages to them. I would say that in the boxes in the basement, my bedroom, the living room, and beside my favorite chair, I probably have at least 150 to 200 of those tablets. When I get too many they make great fire starter for the fireplace.
If you want to make a (make shift light table) then pm me and I will tell you how without spending any money.

 

[Konna-ni]

My "lightbox" is just a glass coffee table with a bendable desk lamp under it.

 

[Gnarl]

That works! nothing wrong with using what you got!!!!!!! As an art student way back when, I learned many tricks that way. One of my favorites to take the picture of my parents out of the frame and use the glass (in the frame) with a standing lamp sitting on the floor in front of me.

 

[Misomie]

I have no problem when it comes to referencing. Just free-handing. Blah. XP

I was going to try again but this time leave out drawing in the animal traits until later because they just make my brain focus on them instead.

I guess I'll just have to keep practicing. Practicing people is no fun though. XP

 

[Konna-ni]

It would probably be a good idea to focus on the human anatomy without the extra distraction, yes. Practicing may not always be fun, but the results are.

 

[Misomie]

I went and drew a character of mine that's normally drawn as an anthro. Surprise surprise, no brain telling me I'm doing it wrong. XD

Pretty much means I'm better off practicing with my already anthro characters for awhile before messing with my ferals. XP

 

[DragonFU]

Practicing people is no fun though. XP

I agree so I thought of another way to look at it. If you practice drawing people then you get better at drawing people but not colouring people or backgrounds or clothes, fur, etc. Every picture I do is a full piece but every part of it is simply practice. With every picture I practice all of these elements and in the end I get a complete picture and it fills my gallery.

Sometimes you can see people are really good at drawing animals but there's an obvious huge gap between their drawing skills and colouring, shading, lighting, etc skills. Or vice versa, because they practice certain things much more than others. I was massively helped when I took a little bit of time to watch a few youtube videos on drawing anatomy, that was probably my best investment aside from all the practice and stuff. ^_^

 

[Ayattar]

I have similar problems when I'm applying cartoony proportions. Everyting I draw comes out naturally in perfect human proportions (doesn't matter if legs are digitigrade or normal) and every cartoon-like adjustment must be worked on separately. So if I want cartoony-style image, I first need to draw anatomically correct character (or at least a sketch) and then expand arms, legs and head. But it's getting better as I'm practising it.

As it was already said, it all depends on practise. If you drew humans, you'd struggle with ferals and cartoons. And vice versa.

Shit. I should try drawing a feral. Just to try it out.