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Description
The other day, I asked the members of one of my websites if they wanted to contribute designs for Miasmon for the samely-named game that I'm working on; they'd provide the descriptions, which I'd sketch. While trying to actually sketch concepts from their ideas, though, I quickly became frustrated by my skill level; like what I'd produce just wouldn't be impressive at all.

I sat down with my sketchbook, and thought that I'll 'just draw' for a bit in order to warm up or something... but then the frustration kicked in again, because I realised that "I can't draw anything!"
I mean, if I sit down to 'just draw', either to relieve stress or even impress people, there's nothing that I can actually, well, draw. From imagination, I mean. I've never focused on any one thing - faces, figures, dragons, wolves, or whatever - for long enough to get comfortably good at it... So instead anything I try just comes out really ugly.

I often try to draw faces, but I'm just not satisfied with how they look at all, and if anything, they seem to be getting *worse* the more I draw them, rather than better. Like I'm falling into bad habits.

ANYWAY, I decided to FIX this rather than merely feeling frustrated about it!
I've been spending the last couple of days doing loads of tutorials and experimentation and stuff to refine my understanding of human facial features! Annoyingly, most of it is stuff I already learned months ago, but it still felt new because it'd never really sunk in properly before, or I'd forgotten it due to lack of use or bad habits developing or whatever.

I feel I learned a lot, and not only did my understanding of each feature improve, but I also feel like my approach to drawing saw some improvement as well.

Most of these are done from these excellent video tutorials on YouTube: [link]
I'd really, really recommend them to anyone who wants to learn the things you can see in this image here!

Some notes:
The women with blindfolds were attempts to draw faces where I only had to worry about the nose and mouth, where I could ignore the eyes! It felt sort of creepy though?
And at the bottom, I tried to use my new knowledge to copy from reference photos (found via Google) with a new understanding of what exactly I was drawing... THEN, I hid what I'd drawn and tried to draw the same thing from memory, to see how much it'd sunk in! I think that's a really good exercise, and I should do it more often. The one right at the bottom on the right was an attempt to draw the referenced face from memory but in a stylised way.

SO YES. Congratulations if you read this immensely long and pointless description!!

Description
The other day, I asked the members of one of my websites if they wanted to contribute designs for Miasmon for the samely-named game that I'm working on; they'd provide the descriptions, which I'd sketch. While trying to actually sketch concepts from their ideas, though, I quickly became frustrated by my skill level; like what I'd produce just wouldn't be impressive at all.

I sat down with my sketchbook, and thought that I'll 'just draw' for a bit in order to warm up or something... but then the frustration kicked in again, because I realised that "I can't draw anything!"
I mean, if I sit down to 'just draw', either to relieve stress or even impress people, there's nothing that I can actually, well, draw. From imagination, I mean. I've never focused on any one thing - faces, figures, dragons, wolves, or whatever - for long enough to get comfortably good at it... So instead anything I try just comes out really ugly.

I often try to draw faces, but I'm just not satisfied with how they look at all, and if anything, they seem to be getting *worse* the more I draw them, rather than better. Like I'm falling into bad habits.

ANYWAY, I decided to FIX this rather than merely feeling frustrated about it!
I've been spending the last couple of days doing loads of tutorials and experimentation and stuff to refine my understanding of human facial features! Annoyingly, most of it is stuff I already learned months ago, but it still felt new because it'd never really sunk in properly before, or I'd forgotten it due to lack of use or bad habits developing or whatever.

I feel I learned a lot, and not only did my understanding of each feature improve, but I also feel like my approach to drawing saw some improvement as well.

Most of these are done from these excellent video tutorials on YouTube: [link]
I'd really, really recommend them to anyone who wants to learn the things you can see in this image here!

Some notes:
The women with blindfolds were attempts to draw faces where I only had to worry about the nose and mouth, where I could ignore the eyes! It felt sort of creepy though?
And at the bottom, I tried to use my new knowledge to copy from reference photos (found via Google) with a new understanding of what exactly I was drawing... THEN, I hid what I'd drawn and tried to draw the same thing from memory, to see how much it'd sunk in! I think that's a really good exercise, and I should do it more often. The one right at the bottom on the right was an attempt to draw the referenced face from memory but in a stylised way.

SO YES. Congratulations if you read this immensely long and pointless description!!