Drawing Tips? Help Me to Draw Better? Answer Art Questilons?

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Hi, I'm Blacker.

I have questions pertaining to drawing and would love to look here or there for tips or advice. I also have some questions.

When drawing wildlife heads should I start at the eyes?

What are some good techniques for drawing proportions that are static?

Any tips for getting texture of animal fur realistic?

And should I draw from others drawings or stick to photos of wildlife?

Please, any and all answers are welcome. Questions too.

My skill level is enough to draw realistic drawings from some photos and drawings. I cannot draw my own pictures.

Now, I'm only a beginner artist, but I'll try to express my thoughts on this topic.

- When drawing wildlife heads should I start at the eyes?

I think this is up to you and how confident you feel in getting the distance between the eyes and their size correct. Personally I like to draw a faint basic outline of the head first so I can compare the size of the eyes with the size of the head. I have a habit of drawing eyes too large, so I prefer to work with an established head and body.

- Any tips for getting texture of animal fur realistic?

Consider the direction of the fur - does it sag down? Does it stick up? Are certain areas darker? Lighter? Fur is something that varies depending on the animal - sometimes it is short and slick, other times it is heavy and appears as more of a giant mass than individual hairs upon first glance. How does the fur move when the animal is in motion? Does it thin out at certain areas?

Is there a particular area you struggle with in regards to animal fur? (Such as shading).

What kind of wildlife do you draw?

Hi. I make a living from drawing. (Mainly storyboards and animation - only rarely drawings where people stop to admire one single drawing. So my focus is slightly shifted towards how to draw for quantity and temporal cohesion, i.e., the thing has to be recognizably the same on every drawing).

For animals: ideally you'd draw from taxidermied animals in a museum, really.
And get some anatomy books, so you understand the shape of the bones, where the muscles are going, and how the fur softens the underlying shape.
Don't start with the eyes, start with a rough sketch of the large shapes of the head/body.
I go so far as to start with the skull, when animating, because it's the solid part that the soft and furry bits are going to be added onto, but I find it hard to get the feeling of volume consustent across several drawings, when drawing the movements... I loose track of where things should be. So I draw the skull on every other frame, to make sure everything is going where it should eventually end up at.

When practicing fur, look at photographs and drawings. learn how other people have done it, steal their technique and when you feel confident, improve on it.

I'm an amateur, so don't take what I say as ultimate truth. Also, different artists have different styles.

Nope, don't start with any details, start with the whole animal and when you see that all proportions are correct go into more and more details.
It may be useful to start with thinking of different parts of the animal as cylinders, cubes, spheres etc.

I'm not sure I understand, but one trick to get proportions right is to compare details by "measuring", typically by holding the pen/brush att fully streched out arm. So you "measure" the head, then compare the measurment to the length of a leg.
It is also useful to learn some rules of thumb, like the golden ratio.
I'm not too good at drawing animals, but I'm sure there are similar things to what is usually true with humans (eyes in the middle of the face, destance between eyes the same as one eye etc).

For concrete tips, if you're comfortable with it, consider uploading a drawing or some drawings!

/Mats