i have a few things i've been struggling to understand, and i'd really like to hear your point of view on them.how are you supposed to draw without a constructive approach?for example, in this frame:"https://youtu.be/cZGhrwpk-p4?t=9"you can see that the artist doesn't seem to draw a single construction/contour line before starting to define the figure.i personally use construction and contour lines quite a lot to figure out the volume of a form in 3D space, its orientation, placement, and the relationship between different parts. so when i see someone start drawing directly like this, i honestly don't understand what information they are using to decide where the lines should go.from experimenting with this myself, i've started wondering whether some artists simply don't use volume as the primary foundation of the drawing. perhaps they use shape/silhouette as the primary foundation instead, with volume being something secondary, implicit, or even something they don't consciously think about.i'm not sure i'm explaining this very well, so i'll try to illustrate what i mean with the image i'll attach.in the image, most of the drawings outside the red square are made with overlapping strokes. in some areas, you can even see large curves being broken down into several smaller consecutive segments. at the same time, there seems to be virtually no explicit construction underneath them.but what do i mean by "construction"?the drawings inside the red square are some of my own examples of what i mean by construction. i use things like axes, simple or customized geometric volumes, and contour lines to establish the orientation and placement of forms before defining their final shapes.
>>8009608of course, my interpretation could be wrong. perhaps some of the artists in these examples did use construction on another layer and simply hid it later. but then i'm still confused by what happens in the videos themselves. in the first video, for example, the artist appears to start defining the figure directly, without first establishing any visible construction.and this doesn't seem to be limited to a single artist. here are some other examples that made me wonder about the same thing:"https://youtu.be/w8qqEGyXLcs?t=12s""https://youtu.be/6LTuhXmcIiQ?t=74""https://youtu.be/YTqJ9-C7xks?t=889""https://youtu.be/nZ1-bK-tDHM?t=1248""https://youtu.be/IrvsWZDyS00?t=58""https://youtu.be/QmPy4AVo2RM?t=63"look at those lines. they seem to be approaching the figure directly, without the kind of construction i'm used to seeing.and then there's this one:"https://youtu.be/HDbWKh9Pbhw"would you consider this a shape-first approach?and this one:"https://youtu.be/8r_G-DgZiCo?t=596"i would say her approach seems to lean more toward shape/silhouette than volumetric construction, although i realize this is primarily gesture practice.so i guess my main question is:if you aren't explicitly constructing the volume with axes, geometric forms, or contour lines, what are you using as the basis for deciding where and how the lines should go?is it primarily the silhouette/shape? anatomical knowledge? mental visualization of the 3D form? visual memory? or something else entirely?i'm genuinely trying to understand what is happening between "i know what this figure should look like" and actually putting the next line on the canvas.i hope you understand what i'm getting at.
>mental visualization of the 3D formthis, unless theyre smyboldrawing, then its>visual memory
>>8009608>if you aren't explicitly constructing the volume with axes, geometric forms, or contour lines, what are you using as the basis for deciding where and how the lines should go?Intuition. You visualize and project an already constructed figure on the page. I'm not capable of that and still rely on construction, but what from what I understand is people who draw an absurd amount of figures can draw them from imagination with just a rough sketch.
Just draw more, anon.
>>8009608You're asking the right questions but you'll find the answers by drawing for 100s of hours and experimenting with different methods to find a process that works for you personally.
>>8009608>you can see that the artist doesn't seem to draw a single construction/contour line before starting to define the figure.That’s probably because they’ve drawn that angle and pose so many times it’s become intuitive> i personally use construction and contour lines quite a lot to figure out the volume of a form in 3D space, its orientation, placement, and the relationship between different parts. At your level that’s the right way to go about it> from experimenting with this myself, i've started wondering whether some artists simply don't use volume as the primary foundation of the drawing. perhaps they use shape/silhouette as the primary foundation instead, with volume being something secondary, implicit, or even something they don't consciously think about.Volume and shape are both abstractions of something, which is to say they are secondary. What matters firstly is a real knowledge of anatomy that comes from observation and studying. Many artists today make the mistake of copying ready-made conventions that better artists will have gotten to after abstracting and simplifying for years and years. Studying an anatomically correct (plastic) skull from life will pay off 100 times more than drawing loomis heads in a void.>if you aren't explicitly constructing the volume with axes, geometric forms, or contour lines, what are you using as the basis for deciding where and how the lines should go?It’s possible to internalize all of that stuff over several years of drawing
>>8009718>Studying an anatomically correct (plastic) skull from life will pay off 100 times more than drawing loomis heads in a void.Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe some classic Renaissance painters studied individual bones and segments of the skeleton BEFORE studying real people and painting figures. Nowadays, classical art training involves studying plastic bones and plaster casts before studying real people.
>>8009608Generic drawings doent really need construction just repetition
>>8009608>drawings based on basic shapes dont have constructionanon...also construction, the modern idea and application atleast, is a very recent idea in terms of art, many illustrators pre construction are far more technically skilled than the ones you posted just from contour drawing and drawing from reference alone. draw from life.
>>8009608it's amazing the lengths the westerner will go to to avoid copying from Japanese settei. it's like the westerner has self-sabotage as a core part of their identity and they will do ANYTHING as long as it's socially acceptable in terms of the art learning meta and as long as it's not tackling the core issue of drawing 2D anime that Japan already has solved decades ago. Sometimes I do pity the westerner, but then I realize I'm no different really because I'm not Japanese and they could be like me if they wanted to.
>>8009718>mistake of copying ready-made conventions that better artists will have gotten to after abstracting and simplifying for years and yearsit's legit insane how the westerner will say things that are the exact opposite of truth. you could probably learn art just by logically negating everything a western meta appreciator say.conventions developed by anime artists are actually MORE complex than western anatomy even though it's derived from reality. if you have 10,000 hours to spend on deriving it yourself, be me guest, but the smart individual will just take everything that's developed so far and make it his own for free.
>>8009608I use Loomis construction mainly, but there are certain things I developed an ability to freehand in inkI can draw a lot of simpler cartoony things, and if I'm warmed up and I've been drawing recently I can usually do a comic style head in profile. I would sometimes do decent ones from the front tooThose are easier things to tackle, and I started doing them because I got used to doing a lot of construction foundation over a long time. Also if you mess around doodling fragments in pen and you don't care about making a finished product, you start to notice you can go further than you think without the pencil training wheels and little cartoony ink doodles start looking good. I can still sometimes mess things up though.I'm not Jim Leehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H19sElbIQj0Jim Lee uses different amounts of light pencil construction depending on the piece. He does a rough outline for Batman hereI've seen him do great inks after doing only a head circle and a body circle in pencil, then he cuts right inHe said that he used to do more construction, but he saw an experienced industry artist who does the bare minimum, so he wanted consciously to try and get thereHe is someone who was drawing as his real job for 12 hours a day emulating a similar career guy, so you can see how that works. If you've drawn the anatomy of a muscled thigh 100s of times, ands you've drawn figures in twisted action poses 100s of times, then you know what's coming, you subconsciously know what it is supposed to look like as an intuitive outline.
>>8009608Well in the youtube video you posted he had pretty much the entire sketch done by the time the video starts so it’s not a good example to look at for understanding someone’s process.If you really want to know someone’s process you have to see them start from zero on a blank page. There are some good videos on hide’s channel where he does this
>>8009811>conventions developed by anime artists are actually MORE complex than western anatomy even though it's derived from realityThat’s beside the point. The artists who developed those conventions started with observational studies of casts and models. This isn’t about reinventing the wheel. You’re free to use whatever tools you find, but without a developed sense of anatomy - which comes from drawing from life - you’re effectively drawing blind. Take pic related as an example. Can you spot Hampton’s errors? You can draw it, memorize it, turn it around in space and even impress some autists, but without reference to the real thing all that you have is Hampton’s erroneous idea of what a head looks like. But if you think wasting years building up a library of simulacrum is the smart move there’s really no helping you
>>8009942>but without a developed sense of anatomy - which comes from drawing from lifeThat's a false western presupposition. Anime artists in 2026 start with preexisting anime. A real understanding of anatomy comes from seeing high level solutions to anatomy in context. Proko tier western le anatomy is trivial compared to this and is exactly why it's pushed so hard, it gives you a feeling of progress like it's the "right" thing to do but is infinitely easier than anime.>library of simulacrumThe conventions developed in anime actually ARE the real thing you want to be drawing. Knowing about the body irl is necessary in that it helps you understand the designs of better artists but it doesn't help you actually draw it in anime. A naive 2d projection of anatomy is the simple thing, anime is the complex thing. >Can you spot Hampton’s errors? To me there is nothing but errors because it's not a good anime design.
>>8009952>nothing but errors because it's not a good anime design
>>8009952nta but idk where you are coming from. most artists just guess and figure shit out on their own, like sure spam construction or dont, but if we dont have your work to go on then what are we even debating here? "anime" is so general you could be talking about manga like attack on titan where the art fucking sucks and is symbol drawn crap, but the story is enough to entertain large swaths of teenagers, or akira where the illustrations are of a high quality and focus on shapes and forms with detailed use of perspective and environment for scale.anyways it seems like youve got it figured out here, copy anime and anime construction, so whats the problem?
>>8009952>Anime artists in 2026 start with preexisting animeThat’s why they so many of them suck. Anime that only references other anime results in inbreeding >it doesn't help you actually draw it in animeRidiculous statement. Knowing anatomy is immensely important, even for drawing stylized people. What the fuck do you think Yoshinari is referencing here? Anime skeletons pulled out of the ether?
>>8009952you're either completely retarded or a gigagenius. hard to tell without seeing some of the anime you've worked on
>>8009964I mean the best anime, the stuff done by the most experienced character designers and directors and the stuff done by the best illustrators.>anime constructionIt's not really a well defined thing. It could mean anything, and usually it's not going to mean anything good if it's in a western meta context because literally everything surrounding anime is weaponized language, not even kidding.>>8009971>the yoshinari namedrop>someone who can already draw anime is drawing new anime designs with his anime drawing skill!!! it's just like proko!!!Kek, works every single time man. Can you quote and namedrop Miyazaki next? Gotta perfect my algorithm a little.>Knowing anatomy is immensely importantIt doesn't tell you how to draw it well. Anime is all about execution, not abstract proko tier simplified data points.>>8009973If that doesn't read as obvious and trivial info to you then I'm afraid your mind has been corrupted by proko.
>>8009979>If that doesn't read as obvious and trivial info to you then I'm afraid your mind has been corrupted by proko.maybe it has, doesn't seem obvious that studying anatomy directly is too easy and the superior way to understand it is to reconstruct the anatomy from a million symbolic interpretations. sounds crazy to me, but if you post your work I might never watch another proko video
>abstracting and simplifying for years and yearsTo sum it up, this the CORE western misconception that stops the faux anime to anime pipeline from being established in the west. Anime is NOT an abstract or simplified translation of reality, it's a concrete execution based on design inspiration from reality that is solving a COMPLEX artistic problem in context.The westerner has this unhealthy obsession with focusing only on what is the design inspiration (that doesn't have ANY info on how to actually execute it in terms of CONCRETE lines/shapes) instead of learning the conventions that ACTUALLY and CONCRETELY enable you to draw anime. It's like they don't care about anime. That wouldn't really be a bad thing on its own, but they need to corrupt everyone else to be unable to do it as well.>mistake of copying ready-made conventions>mistake of copying anime aka the one thing the western anime fan will never ever doYou have to be malicious or psyopped to believe this type of stuff.>>8009986Proko is extremely simplified compared to anime in terms of the actual lines and the way he draws. Do some deep copies of anime anatomy and try to make the copy look legit to the original.>reconstruct the anatomyNo, you learn the symbolic interpretations and the rules behind them to create your own thing within that framework. You're already doing anatomy when you are doing non-faux anime. Read the above paragraphs to understand the PROPER place of Proko tier anatomy. You don't even have to drop him. Still consume Proko for what it's worth but don't accept the whole psyop around it.>sounds crazy to meYeah because basic truth is crazy in a culture where nobody can do anime. That's normal, if you're not raging and coping like the other guy you might not be completely psyopped yet.
>>8009608They are copying reference hidden on their second monitor. Don’t need to construct when copying ref. It’s all a performance
This deranged faggot has been here for years and is yet to post a single piece of his work btw
>>8009992>bro has been doing anime for years B... based? Might motivate the faux anime bros to finally start too.
>>8009988No one has mentioned Proko except for you. Why does he make you seethe?
> 8009810> 8009811> 8009988I think there is a misunderstanding about what I'm actually asking, and also about what I mean by "studying".I'm not arguing that anime artists should derive everything from anatomy, nor am I refusing to study Japanese anime conventions. I already study artwork and reference material when I don't know how to solve something. But I don't just copy the image; I try to understand the solution, extract a more general idea from it, and then see whether that idea can generate other solutions that aren't present in the original image.That's actually why I'm asking this question in the first place.I also don't think anatomy should be treated as the answer to every drawing problem. Studying anatomy from life can teach you a lot about the body, but anatomy by itself doesn't solve gesture, foreshortening, perspective, shape design, silhouette, composition, etc. Those are different problems that interact with anatomy.And there's another issue with simply saying "study from life": sometimes you don't even have the conceptual category necessary to recognize what you're looking at.If someone doesn't know what "gesture" is, for example, they can look at thousands of figures from life without necessarily isolating the particular relationship that the term refers to. The same applies to shapes, rhythm, construction, overlaps, planes, etc.This is why I think labels and explicit concepts can actually be useful. They give a piece of otherwise diffuse visual information a structure. Once you have a word and some examples associated with it, you can recognize the phenomenon, remember it, compare it across drawings, and deliberately test it.So when I study an image, I'm often trying to do exactly that: identify some regularity, give it a conceptual form, and then test whether I can use it to generate something else.
>>8010056This is also why I'm interested in Japanese conventions. If anime has developed specialized solutions for representing anatomy, perspective, shape, etc., then I would absolutely want to study those solutions. But I want to understand what the underlying operational knowledge is.For example, if I study 20 drawings of torsos and notice that the artists consistently make certain decisions about the ribcage, pelvis, silhouette, overlaps, internal lines, etc., I can formulate a rule or hypothesis from those examples.But that still leaves my original question:When an experienced artist is drawing a new pose and they don't visibly construct the figure first, what information is actually guiding the next line?Is it:* an internalized convention for that specific shape?* visual memory of similar poses?* anatomical knowledge?* an implicit 3D model?* direct perception of the reference?* a library of learned 2D relationships?* gesture?* some combination of these?Saying "they internalized it" or "they copied Japanese settei" doesn't really answer that part. It only tells me where the knowledge may have come from.And "study from life" doesn't answer it either. Life drawing can provide the information from which those concepts are learned, but there are still intermediate representations and concepts that determine what information is extracted and how it is used.That's the part I'm trying to understand.My original question was basically:> If there are no visible axes, primitive volumes, contour lines, or other construction marks before the artist starts defining the figure, what is constraining the placement of the first lines?I'm not asking what the artist *should study*. I'm asking what the artist is actually *using* when drawing.
>>8010059Also, copying a finished image and generating a new pose are two different problems. I'm interested in the latter. If I learn a convention from existing anime, I want to know what makes that convention generalizable to a pose that I haven't seen before.So I'm not really arguing for "Western anatomy" against "Japanese conventions". I'm trying to understand what kind of internal representation allows an artist to go from knowledge/examples to a new drawing without needing to explicitly externalize the construction every time.
>>8009608Why?Everything on pic related is dogshit and made by two ic retards except for the drawings on the table right.
>>8009810>>8009811Not wrong. The thing is, if we observe manga over time, the art quality and aspects changed a lot. These changes come from MANY artists that did go down the path of learning everything to then stylize it/distill it.The current anime/manga industry has the most amount of resources already crafted and diluted in many styles and flavors. It is better to just build your visual library directly from it.Of course, fundamentals are always important, and even the Japanese learn the basics of it. But they often go directly to the stylized versions, copying their favorite mangas and utilizing the fundamentals upon that. As a matter of fact, many of these artists are completely self-taught and never grinded Bridgman or any of that.Sketching Manga-Style (https://e-hentai.org/g/541372/e64278318e) is a type of resource more suitable to learn from. Anything you need to supplement, you can use content such as Taco (https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/70834530).But in the end, copy a lot. Do what your favorite artists do. Adapt to your own way. This is how much the medium of art evolved over decades.
>>8009971>YoshinariGod-level animator, not representative of average. Also, animation requires more by the nature of the field.
please post your work i really want to see what comes from your powerful mind
>>8010079>>8010088you are not answering my questions. if you don't want to do so feel free to leave the thread, you don't have to criticize the works i used to make my point, they might not be the best out there but it was what i had at hand...
>>8009608Experienced artist don't simply need them once you draw thousands of characters you know how to draw them from your head zero issue.
>>8010101>fundamentals are always importantAgree with everything in general, but the western way of categorizing what's fundamental in the first place isn't very good. They place simplified anatomy into this category while ignoring everything about the execution of the drawings themselves that makes anime what it is. Somehow they can't realize that settei by realism style animators exist and that you don't have to reinvent the wheel by playing around with simplified abstractions. You can't ever copy the real thing or you're going to get cancelled and unal*ved, but Proko and Bridgman is cool and gives you brownie points.
Jesus some of these animefags sound as deranged as the concept artists who used to post on here in the early 2010s
>>8010163shhh...
>somebody (most likely tranny OP) reported my postThank you for proving my point, retarded weeboids.I'd tell you to go draw but you won't do that anyway you'd rather babble on about le japanese conventions when all it is is just shit recycled from loomis, hogarth etc. and a bunch of russian artbooks.
>>8010380>when all it is is just shit recycled from loomis, hogarth etc. and a bunch of russian artbooks.
Schizo threads used to be interesting to read, nowadays they're just a slog to sit through.
>>8010116Kek, he won't
NO NO NO WHAT IS THIS SHIT WHERE ARE THE SECRET JAPANESE SCROLLS WHY ARE YOU HIDING IT FROM US
>asks for work from anime-chads>however them themselves have never provided their own anime art created from all their traditional anatomy constructions retardationFaggots.
>>8009608top left guy litreally uses construction tho, here is a timelapse he posted in the beg thread: https://litter.catbox.moe/gq1dkd.mp4
>>8010823That’s why his anime doesn’t look Japanese. He should stick purely to Japanese conventions
>>8010891>his anime doesn’t look JapaneseSometimes I wonder if they can't actually see that or if it's just too uncomfortable and they pretend not to see it?Idk if it's just me growing up with anime but I always felt the difference intuitively even before drawing.
>>8010823>>8010905>>8010891You realize how bad this makes you look right? What's wrong with psychopaths, could've stayed quiet, not fooling anyone that's not a kid or indian.
>>8009608construction is not real. As in, good artists don't use construction and didn't learn with construction.Construction was invented after, by teachers trying to explain how good artists draw. Its just a theory, but there isn't a single example of a good artist shown to use construction to learn how to draw or even still use construction once good.
>>8011028And to add to this, construction is not real in good artists because by DEFINITION, if you need to construct something, then you can't draw it. Meaning the drawing is not as good as someone who knows how to draw it.
>>8009608who is the artist for the art in red rectangle
>>8011030>>8011028then how the fuck am i supposed to draw then?
>>8011148OP
>>8011028I went to a museum that had a few unfinished paintings and it surprised me to see that even the old masters used perspective lines and very crude construction that seemed like it could very well be from /ic/.
>>8011208yes, some bright minds caught on before it was ever established theory.
>>8009608Easy. I just follow the guidance of our lord and savior, Cade Sok. You're welcome.
>>8011243Based, fellow percentage enjoyer here
>>8011243kek
>>8011243This guy deleted all his videos (except the one that got 1m views of course...) and changed his name and is now uploading again kek
>>8010101A lot of Americans really don't understand that the look of anime/manga is incredibly derivative. Tezuka copied Disney cartoons and comics, followed by everyone studying Disney and Tezuka in the 60s. The 70s and the 80s had artists pulling from American and European sources of inspiration on top of Japanese sources, with things reaching a cultural peak in the 90s.I think it's a uniquely American problem where people are embarrassed to do hard work and deliberately believe that originality or brilliant results come out of nowhere because admitting otherwise would mean no longer having excuses for being a lazyass.If you pay attention to American children's behavior, they do this with everything and not just art.
>>8011243>>8011310Cade Sok did nothing wrong. Cade Sok was right all along. I'm following his teaching and it's revolutionary.
>>8011389you're refuting your own point. if anime/manga is so derivative, then there's no point in hard work when you can just copy copy copy and never use your brain. if someone wants to be original, it's because they have a strong work ethic, because it takes a lot more work than simply being derivative, which is easy
>>8011722Amen, brother. Look at this masterpiece of a step-by-step. An absolute beauty in educational quality. Truly revolutionary stuff.
>>8011769Forgot the pic.
>>8011771This is not real, right?
>>8011771>you know exactly when and what mistakes are made when drawingBros... what if I don't?
>>8011771Gonna be completely fair with he kid, there are guys with 10 plus years of experience that still draw starting with eyes and then the contour of the face.>but i have le eyeball experienceYeah form being shit at drawing, kid's on his way of repeating the same shit drawing for 10+ years too
>>8011885It's completely real. I saved the PDF for a good read every now and then, whenever I'm feeling in the need of a pick-me-up in regards to my artistic capabilities. That's just from page 26 out of 114, and it only gets worse from there.>>8011919:(>>8011921There are tons of people like him on reddit making art progress posts. His art is not that different from them.
>>8011921>>8011921>Gonna be completely fair with he kid, there are guys with 10 plus years of experience that still draw starting with eyes and then the contour of the face.So you going to pyw and show us how a face is made then?
>>8009608Just so you know, you're not supposed to delve too deeply into constructive drawing until you've mastered observational drawing.
