something that young artists miss

back in 2007 when i started drawing like any young immature artist with no proper guide I jumped right into drawing muscles and trying to achieve details and even when I do the drawing looks like it had a dislocated shoulder or a bad leg, etc...

2009 when I went to animation college they started with us giving us art foundation but the mistake they did was they told us to do without explaining why, even when we ask they had problem communicating or maybe them self they didnt know, they just gained things by experience by following what others told them.

but for me am just a little annoying creature always want to do things his own way! :D I didnt follow what they said, some times I did and improved my drawing but it was just a long hours training time with not much of understanding.

Practice does makes perfection but most important is understanding what you practice so later in the future you can pass down this knowledge you gained to some one else? or at least answer properly if someone asks you.

so here I will give you a lesson if you are a beginner artist, take care of the foundation of your drawing, if a character understand how to balance your character by making small thumbnails and STICK FIGURES! yes! stick figures! those little figures can actually tell a story just by a pose, not much details, just a pose an angle you can use, maybe a hand gesture, it is important.

if you can tell a story just by the way your stick figure standing other things will come out well and believe me, dont take em lightly, they are hard to do! simple few form to express a feel or intention of a character is one of the most basic yet super important step in constructing a well drawn character, just like composition to a landscape painting and talking about composition, it also applies to characters, looking for balance between negative and position  spacing ( black and white areas or where to place a hand in your framing or guiding the eyes to a certain place in you artwork.

anyway I went down another road...lol sorry, back to the main point! :D

stick figures if you draw em perfectly other stuff is just details, just like a house if you dont have a good foundation the house will fall apart easily, same in a drawing after you spend a hell lot of time on it, it ends up a bad drawing or a drawing that shows that you dont have the basic structure right ( a weakness )

so focus on your stick figures they are important and there is not such thing as you spent too much time on something, practice makes perfection, the more your practice the more you gain speed, bruce lee once said * I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.*

you see the point? now go practice! :D