Frankentoon Sketching For Beginners PDF

 

 1

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

One of the hidden benefits of  sketching is that it takes our  stress away; so once we are are  ready to start doing the actual drawing, our brain and our body  are fully relaxed and completely open for creation.

 2

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

One simple technique, thousands of possibilities…

 3

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

Doodling daily, apart from helping your hands, wrists and forearms to warm-up, allows you to gain confidence whenever you got a new sheet of that scary blank page in front of you. If you’re not used to sketch very often, you’d probably need to exercise those drawing muscles. Let’s start by creating ellipses (and I mean filling up pages) doing circular movements, using your elbow as a pivot point  without lifting up the pencil. Alternate clockwise and anti-clockwise directions. These type of circles need to be tackled-down with some speed, otherwise they will look all shaky and non-natural.   The thing here isn’t about creating perfect circles (there are templates for that dude!) but to get your muscles used to the mere act of drawing. Take a look at the looseness of the ones I drew above. I just ran over the same line a couple times without lifting my pencil, keeping the energy of my elbow’s movement. We aren’t going after pretty lines here, what we want is to send this message: I’m not afraid of you, piece you, piece of SHEET !  4

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

Drawing ovals or ellipses isn’t an easy task, so take your time until you feel comfortable doing it. If you feel that moving around your forearm is not helping too much, you can try to draw while rotating your wrist; which is not “academically” correct, but what really matters is that you find a way you feel comfortable to work work with.

In the picture above you can see how I go about changing the shape of my ellipses, the idea is to have some variety and try experimenting with di#erent forms… you’ll find fin d out why later later..   Another thing you may notice is that I’ve traced two lines across my ellipses, following their own curves...

Don’t buy those fancy hard-cover-look-I’m-an-artist sketchbooks...  it’s  it’ s less intimidating intimidating to start sketching sketching on some some cheap paper paper using a  ballpoint pen or any other inexpensive tool you may find find at your local local dollar store.

 5

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

The importance of getting used to draw center lines, wether you have an idea of what you’re going to draw or not, is to keep your mind thinking in a tridimensional space. Even if you create flat artwork, you’ll always need to give a hint of volume and space. In the example above, just by drawing center lines, you can tell which direction my ellipses are pointing to.

Now, you can start working out of the simple ellipse constrains and draw more fluid shapes. The magenta arrows above, indicates the flow of your hands while drawing. The more you fill pages with simple ellipses, the easier will be to pull out these relatively complex shapes later.  6

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

Combine ‘em all!

 And this is what we’ve been training for a thousand sketches ago... now it’s when creativity enters the game and things get really interesting and fun. By combining two ellipses together (to get started), now we’re able to brainstorm simple characters, without even thinking about it!

Don’t let your imagination stop a second! To keep things flowing, add a pair of sticky arms and legs to round up our new characters a little further. Notice how easy is to pull out many quick ideas using just ONE basic technique. Aren’t you excited yet?  7

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

 Add some character  Let’s flesh up these little weirdos by adding some simple human (or nonhuman) characteristics. A couple ears, round eyes, a simple nose... etc. See how easy this is? Try Try drawing some caricatures of people you know, even if they haven’t any resemblance to the ones you’re trying t rying to copy, you’ll acquire the super power of SIGHT. SIGHT. Which is something you need to practice everyday.

The more you observe people and their personalities, the more you’ll be able to come up with many and better ideas for your sketches. Observation will improve your drawings by 500% even if you’re just creating sticky figures for now.

Co! ee ee shops are one of my favorite spots to look at di !  ! erent erent kind of  people, they just sit there there allowing you you to capture capture the most  interesting  interestin g ones in your your sketchbook. sketchbook. Just avoid to keep staring  awkwardly at strangers… that’s weird!

 8

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

 As I mentioned before, in this eBook we’ll be learning just one  out of a thousand  sketching techniques. But boy, if you master this simple ellipses/sticks method, you’ll improve your sketching abilities in no time. I recommend you to sketch at least 15 minutes daily. I wake up everyday at 5 a.m. and sketch anything before I even take breakfast.  Also, as I said at the beginning, sketching or doodling Improves not only your drawing skills, but also helps to keep your brain healthy,, because you’re healthy always thinking about anything while drawing. It’s unavoidable, the moment you start scribbling down lines, your brain starts working and solving problems.  As you can see, you don’t need nee d the best tools or the most expensive e xpensive art classes to get started. You just need perseverance and have lots of fun while doing it.

 9

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

When you feel more confident with your drawings it’s time to scale the di$culty level one notch. Instead of drawing sticks to depict our character’s extremities, we’ll be replacing them using some ellipses.

 10 10

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

Once you have your basic shapes defined you can play around adding features and accessories to your character and give it more personality. Do this gradually, in a way you feel comfortable. If you practice these steps, one at a time during several days in a row, you’ll see how natural the process will be. I don’t care if you spend 6 months just drawing sticky figures, what I do care about, is that you draw everyday and put a bunch of  YOUR OWN  ideas on paper each time.

No monkeying around 

By making this method your everyday habit you’ll find yourself going beyond you imagined creating before. Animals, plants, monsters, creatures, aliens... you name it. There are no limitations once you’ve grasped and practiced the core fundamentals. If you feel stuck at any point, just go back to the first exercise, trust me... this like a Karate Kid movie, you’ll develop apparently useless techniques first in order to achieve greater goals later. So... repeat after me: ellipse clockwise, ellipse anti-clockwise, ellipse clockwise...  11 11

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

If there’s one thing I cannot stress enough is my previous advice on keeping very few and cheap sketching tools. If you’re able to draw using a crayon, you’d be able to do it using a 2K dollars Wacom Cintiq... the pressure of drawing something pretty on some expensive material can become a thousand times more stressful than doodling around using some recycled print paper from your o $ce. If you feel that you’re drawing like shit today, then you need to take out that shit from you, as soon as possible! How? Drawing more and more and more... one day, all shitty drawings will be finally gone and the great ones, will start to appear... it’s a nice (and shitty) metaphor I’ve been following for many years now, because it creates a huge urge of keeping drawing no matter what!

 12 12

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

Examples and Inspiration One simple technique, thousands of possibilities!

1

2

3

 13 13

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

Examples and Inspiration One simple technique, thousands of possibilities!

1

2

3

 14 14

 

FRANKENTOON

SKETCHING FOR BEGINNERS

Hopefully this little technique will encourage you to grab a piece of paper everyday and keep working out those sketching muscles whenever you can and wherever you are. Don’t wait for inspiration to strike out of the blue, because that isn’t gonna happen unless it finds you working hard…

See you next time folks!

 15 15

 

Check out Frankentoon’s Store today and grab one of our cool toys for A !nity Designer, A !nity Photo and Procreate!

 Advanced Illustration in  A $nity Designer

Nomad Brush Pack  A $nity Designer/Photo

Realistic Charcoal Set for Procreate

Pattern Painter 2 for  A $nity Designer/Photo  16 16

 

Thank You! For supporting the Frankentoon Project by reading this eBook. You’re helping us to create more free content  for  for our website and exciting  products for independen independentt illustrators. Don’t forget to save www.frankentoon.com to your favorites! f avorites!

Follow Frankentoon:

@frankentoon

@frankentoon

 17 17

frankentoon