General

[quote=GlobalKorean]hey guys, I'm currently looking for someone to teach me how to draw, feet, hands and facial expressions for anime characters.

I preferably dont want to pay in USD as well haha, if that was the case I'd just find myself a teacher on reddit or something else, however will negotiate once someone is found[/quote]

Any art style is fundamentally a visualization with basis from the artists mind, and we get visualizations based off of our imagination, inspired by things we see.
For instance, [url=http://www.basilmarket.com/MapleStory-MoshiAlice-Drawing-Screen-231100-1.html#comments_list]this[/url] was inspired by [url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Halberdier-corps.jpg]this[/url]

In other words, study gestures and structure from real life first. Then try stylizing exaggerating some features, until eventually, as @jubi points out, you can start drawing anime-style drawings that start actually 'feeling-right'.

Though a lot of my drawings fall into the category 'anime', most of my practices would be categorized as 'realistic'

Well, best wishes to the OP. I hope you find someone ^u^

[url=http://www.basilmarket.com/MapleStory-Guide-BasilMarkets-Art-Class-101-Learn-How-To-Draw-429.html]Should help[/url]

You could also find references on sites like deviantArt and try to find your own style on how to draw whatever you want.

just copying what you like is probably the fastest way to get better at something like an anime style. if you read manga just screencap if you see a nice drawing of a face etc and copy it for practice (just don't post it anywhere). or browse places like pixiv for just anime art to look at for reference. save it all in a reference/inspiration folder. studying anatomy and taking life drawing class like everyone already said will definitely help a lot cause drawing even one part of the body bad will make the whole thing look bad just be patient since it'd probably take 1-2 years for stuff like that to actually start making a difference

i know everyone says to do life drawing first but lets be honest almost all of us started with drawing crappy anime all the time. studying anatomy and life drawing later will save you so...its not the end of the world if you started with anime, i did too. definitely keep drawing it if thats what you enjoy and you'll get better over time

later on though once you get a grasp of things you'll want to try experimenting and using 'anime style' in a way that's unique and eyecatching enough to be used for school etc. ITT kind of sounds like some are saying 'anime style' is a linear art form etc but there's no need to stress over that. keep an open mind to all styles and try them. for example you can have a more western style influenced by anime and still do well in animation.

@AshleyAttacked: l get where you're coming from, but studying human form is more of the purposes of learning anatomy of the human form, rather than teaching you how to stylize your drawing.
Anime isn't just drawing faces and eyes, what about the rest of the body? You have to understand how to draw to be able to branch off anywhere else, no matter what you're doing.
lf you have an ambition to start drawing, and start with anime, you are locking yourself to that realm of systematically drawing this exact shaped head, this exact curve for the eyes, this exact placement; and you will be back to zombie mode. Anime is beyond far from caricature, there is no exaggeration, it's an extremely linear style that you can relate to because all anime looks so alike, which is probably why anime is best known for cutesy drawings and story, rather than having the best animation.
There is no such thing as "anime hands" or "anime feet". You look at it, and you see hands and feet. You don't learn anatomy from watching anime, you go to the source, real life people.
Anime is still art and it is still an artform. Whether you like it or not, it did not just come out of nowhere.
Anime is hard to draw. Absolutely. lt's a unique style that doesn't exactly follow traditional human proportions, but that doesn't mean you don't start from life drawing.
Think about the person(s) that "invented" anime, or started it out. You don't just magically base it off of nothing and it comes to you out of thin air.

Edit: Okay l just saw the millions of other comments above and l don't feel like reading it or 'arguing' any further with this, l'm sure somewhere in those comments someone made a point clear enough for you to understand.
OP: Follow your best judgement and just study stuff and practice practice practice. Everyone starts somewhere.

Go on deviantart and get all the tutorials. There are some good ones circulating tumblr too. Pixiv as well.
Really important to study up on natural posing too.

And don't be discouraged when it all inevitably looks like crap at first. You'll get better.

[quote=QinusAxia]@AshleyAttacked : i think you're realllllly off track this time around, haha. do you happen to be an artist yourself? if you aren't, then i completely understand where you're getting your standpoint from. but if you are an artist to a higher degree, you really should understand that having a strong fundamental understanding is crucial for stylization and everything else. for what it's worth even though it's a terrible example, the 'style' of screens that i've submitted are all derived from the fundamentals that i've learned. anyone who knows me knows that it's not even remotely close to how i usually draw at all- i just wanted to experiment and have fun for a bit.[/quote]
Nope, not even remotely an artist, at least in the visual sense. I write poetry, etc, tho and I guess that's considered art to a degree. Anyways, I'm probably failing to express what I'm trying to as eng isn't my first language and part of the reason I post here is to practice it. Basically my understanding of the situation was that a guy who otherwise spends a lot of time doing art, to the point where he's trying to make it his career. As he wants to do this for a living he was reaching out to find someone who could help him learn how to draw anime that actually looks like anime. To me, I see anime as a highly specific style of drawing that does not just follow the body as its basis, but rather a reinterpretation of the body itself...and bc of that I don't see how everyone can just expect someone to learn that highly specific style without having a bit of guidance on what the basic rules are for it...for what it's worth I completely understand this notion with cartoons and caricatures...bc those are actually based around a basic understanding of the body and then developed from there. But anime just doesn't fit that mold from what I can see.
Again, I'm not a visual artist, etc. I'm not saying he doesn't need to practice and work on fundamental basic concepts involved in drawing, etc...from what I read here he's basically acknowledged that he is doing just that and his question is to find help about one specific style. He never said he's not working on those fundamentals o.o

Idk what I'm missing in the words here. lol. Eng is so frustrating sometimes.

[quote=LiliKoby]@AshleyAttacked: I never gave him a hard time what are you even talking about. I told him that the best ways to improved, I don't know why you're all offended lmao[/quote]

Meh, maybe I misread your tone. Was just trying to defend his goal since he obviously cares a lot about it...somehow read your message as being dismissive and condescending towards him. Sorry.

@AshleyAttacked: I never gave him a hard time what are you even talking about. I told him that the best ways to improved, I don't know why you're all offended lmao

[quote=LiliKoby]@AshleyAttacked: It doesn't matter if it's derived from the real world or not, you aren't going to gain experience drawing what you visualize without using real models, and yes, you can improve your writing by writing more, again, I'm way to lazy to argue with someone who obviously isn't a great artist (or a great writer for that matter, I presume)[/quote]
He's just looking for someone to help him learn the rules used to create something that looks like anime. He's already said he intends to be an artist so I'm sure he already knows to practice practice practice. But idk why you're giving him a hard time about not understanding the way people do anime that actually looks like anime...its obviously bound by a few unintuitive rules and guided with a certain intent or spirit...its definitely something that needs to be taught to do it just right...

@AshleyAttacked: It doesn't matter if it's derived from the real world or not, you aren't going to gain experience drawing what you visualize without using real models, and yes, you can improve your writing by writing more, again, I'm way to lazy to argue with someone who obviously isn't a great artist (or a great writer for that matter, I presume). If you can draw real humans well, I promise you that you can draw anime people well (with maybe the exception of the face, but facial expressions wouldn't be a problem, it would just be adapting your style)

[quote=LiliKoby]@AshleyAttacked: I'm too lazy to argue, but you're wrong. Every mangaka who draws anime is actually a great artist in general; how do you think they draw all the realistic backgrounds? (yes there are assistants but you only get them once you have established yourself). The exceptions are gag manga artists.[/quote]

Anime is not derived from the human body as it exists in the real world. It is derived from some weird ideas that fundamentally alter the body and its various features in a way that's not simply intuitive. Idk why you think art is different from writing in that certain types or styles of writing are not arrived at simply by practicing to write but by learning the rules and 'spirit' of the style and then working from there to do it yourself.

Art is no different. People can easily develop their own style creatively by working on it and perfecting it...and then to emulate it you have to understand their intent as well as the rules they set for themselves when developing it. Art, like anything else, can and does have styles limited by rules to help guide and define it. Every thing is not arrived at by just sitting down and drawing over and over.

@AshleyAttacked: I'm too lazy to argue, but you're wrong. Every mangaka who draws anime is actually a great artist in general; how do you think they draw all the realistic backgrounds? (yes there are assistants but you only get them once you have established yourself). The exceptions are gag manga artists.

[quote=QuackOutLoud]@GlobalKorean: l understand you don't want to draw realistically and that's totally okay, but think about what anime characters are based off of; people! Real life. Real life people. Drawing anime is simply an art style, everything goes back to the basics.
Anyways, take a look at the masters (of anime) and study them. Learn how they came to interpret eyes into the way they draw anime eyes.
l'm just saying the worst thing to do is to religously follow some book or bs tutorial online to draw this line here, than this line, than shade this, etc. in a mindnumbing process like a robot.[/quote]
I disagree with that assessment. Anime is far from being simply caricature derivatives of the real life representation of the human form. There's a reason that theres absolutely no other style of drawing that even remotely resembles Anime...and it's for that same reason that virtually the entire world can see cartoon after cartoon, on TV, in newspapers, in books, magazines, etc...everyone in the developed world is firmly familiar with the concept of cartoons and caricatures...yet if you show anyone just a single anime drawing, they will immediately recognize it as a distinctive style...there's nothing like it and it just doesn't follow any sort of intuitive caricature style. It's just it's own thing that developed in essentially a vacuum within Japan, it was not influenced directly by any other cartoon style and to that end, its development is just bizarre. There's never been a cartoon that looks anime outside of drawings done explicitly and intentionally in the anime style.
I have a friend who is a paid artist and she actually just told me that she doesn't know how to draw anime characters...and she's tried. She said 'they just come out like cartoon drawings.'

I think that says a lot. If someone that doesn't know how to draw anime already wants to learn to do it correctly...they do not just go back to the basics of the human form. That's just ALL wrong. It's not based off the human form like that, it's not like a caricature. It's virtually alien and involves distinctive alterations to the human body that are not intuitive. You actually need to learn the rules and practice of the style in order to do it, in the same way a wirter has to learn the rules for Haiku before they can write one themselves.

@GlobalKorean: l understand you don't want to draw realistically and that's totally okay, but think about what anime characters are based off of; people! Real life. Real life people. Drawing anime is simply an art style, everything goes back to the basics.
Anyways, take a look at the masters (of anime) and study them. Learn how they came to interpret eyes into the way they draw anime eyes.
l'm just saying the worst thing to do is to religously follow some book or bs tutorial online to draw this line here, than this line, than shade this, etc. in a mindnumbing process like a robot.

Drawing anime isn't that easy. It's hard to just pick up and do well if you don't have any artistic history - practice, experience, and instruction gives you the motor and visualization abilities in order to become a good artist.

For hands, I don't have the time nor do I wish to teach you explicitly myself, but the best way is to look at your own hand and practice. If you need a certain hand position, position your hand in that way, and try to imitate it. You can take a picture if contorting your arm gets in the way of you drawing.

For feet, the most important thing is proportion and angle. For proportion, just remember that males tend to have larger feet proportionally to body size than females, but make sure you don't draw feet too small, it's a common mistake. For angle, once again, use models and practice.

Facial expressions are the hardest. My biggest piece of advice is, be bold. I remember when I was learning how to draw faces, do shading, and postures, that I would always be conservative in order to not make mistakes, but by stepping out of that comfort zone, was I able to improve. Make your expressions over the top, and then slowly adjust. Don't be afraid to scrap and restart. Eyes are very important in expression, btw. Since you're doing anime-style drawings, I recommend you take a look at your favorite animes/mangas and imitate a few mangakas.

@QuackOutLoud: Thanks for the inspiration
@AshleyAttacked: You're pretty much correct on that, I wanted to know how to draw the style of anime eyes rather than human eyes XD (nothing wrong with human eyes though!) just wanted to know how to draw anime eyes to match certain characters that i drew

[quote=QuackOutLoud]You do not want some braindead method to draw parts, even if you're doing anime stuff. Drawing is not some technical thing you can do to just follow some method and it will work every time. That will only get you so far before you hit a barrier.

Use references, use the best reference in the world, yourself! Take up life drawing, draw people on the bus, on the street, your siblings, anyone.
Just keep practicing, that is the best thing you could ever do for yourself. No one will be able to teach what only you're able to do, people can guide you in the right directions, but that's really it.
Practice makes perfect!

Edit: Now that l know you're a creative individual doing this for a career like l am, you need to take up life drawing. You will learn how the body moves, and how the body stretches, etc. lt will really help you when you're drawing storyboards, and setting dynamic poses for animation.[/quote]

You're right about your first point, however, in this situation, the target is to draw a specific, defined style. Theres a right and a wrong way to do it and perhaps this guy is just trying to learn the objective rules that make something anime-like vs not? Iono for sure, but thats my impression of the situation.

You do not want some braindead method to draw parts, even if you're doing anime stuff. Drawing is not some technical thing you can do to just follow some method and it will work every time. That will only get you so far before you hit a barrier.

Use references, use the best reference in the world, yourself! Take up life drawing, draw people on the bus, on the street, your siblings, anyone.
Just keep practicing, that is the best thing you could ever do for yourself. No one will be able to teach what only you're able to do, people can guide you in the right directions, but that's really it.
Practice makes perfect!

Edit: Now that l know you're a creative individual doing this for a career like l am, you need to take up life drawing. You will learn how the body moves, and how the body stretches, etc. lt will really help you when you're drawing storyboards, and setting dynamic poses for animation.

[quote=AshleyAttacked]Just curious, whats your motivation for this? Any plans to use the skill?[/quote]

im currently studying Interactive Digital Media. (so pretty much art, 2D/3D animation, graphic design, etc) so getting a job within one of those categories is my motivation i guess.

Just curious, whats your motivation for this? Any plans to use the skill?