Practicing drawing by hand is an excellent way to improve your skills with a paint program, even if you plan to create your drawings inside the paint program itself. I highly recommend this book; it’s not very expensive, and it’s got some great stuff in it. Get yourself a pencil and some paper, and have at it. The more you do something, whether it’s drawing, painting, Blendering, or anything, the better you’ll be at it. 
Well, if its about sketching and you want to do it digitally (as I prefer myself) then there really is no other way: get a tablet. You’ll never be able to sketch with a mouse.
Of course, then you do have to be able to sketch in the firt place…
You’re right, AndyD, but look at it this way: it’s not about Kansas15.
It’s really about all the other lurkers who don’t post much but do read threads looking for good advice. I know I’ve gotten good advice from you, Captain Jack, IanC and others that you all have posted in one of Ixoco’s threads.
The Dragon Boy’s particular genius seems to be in asking the right questions (although he does seem to rely more on quantity than good judgement) and then disagreeing with the advice he gets, which elicits both derision for his attitude (a cautionary tale for others) and occaisionally explanations as to why the advice is good, which may motivate others to follow the advice the Cyborg wannabe is so resistant to.
Every village has it’s idiot, every class has someone who just doesn’t “get it” that the others in class attempt to train up to standard. If you consider BlenderArtists as a virtual village or art class, Cyborg Dragon is filling a useful role.
I have to admit though, I’ve traditionally stumbled when it comes to hands (it’s the same for Dragon ones).
I admit I can barely get them right no matter what medium I use. Sometimes when I have drawn hands on paper then end up looking goofy.
So draw them more. Find some anatomical diagrams of the musculature and skeletal structure, and see why they look like they do.
Grab a pen and paper, now. Very quickly draw the bones in the hand. Very quickly, spend maybe 30 seconds on it. Now flesh it out a little, again only spending 30 seconds on it. Dont worry if it doesn’t look good, unless you are really good it will look a bit bad. The secret (here it comes) is to not care, and learn from the problems in it. If you stop because you don’t think you are good, you’ll never get better.
Come up with a list (on paper or just in your mind) about what makes the hand look wrong. Now draw another one, trying to correct the mistakes. You won’t get them all, or will make new ones, dont worry. Just keep repeating this, and looking at your own hands. See how they move, how they fit together, proportions, texture everything.
Thanks, that means a lot. I’ve learnt a great deal from your work and comments too.
You should really get a tablet if you’re serious about drawing on the computer. A small one is just fine, and new they still cost less than $100. You may even be able to get one used. Trust me, once you’ve used a tablet, you will never want to go back to drawing with a mouse. The tablet is a far more natural and realistic drawing experience, plus you get extra benefits such as pressure sensitivity. Spring for a tablet, you won’t regret it.
Also, download GIMP and Inkscape if you haven’t already.
Hmm, maybe I should get one. I was thinking I would suspend all cartoon making until I do get one.
Come to think of it it may be a good idea, when you combine all the money I got for my birthday and the money put into my savings account because it just sat there I should have enough.
BTW: Anyone know of a good video I can see of one in action?
Sure, go to You Tube and search on “drawing tablet”. You’ll get links to a few dozen different videos that may be helpful. 
I just watched this video
And I was amazed, seems like tablets are very natural and allows for natural drawing techniques. I should see into this so I can make cartoons or drawings, paintings, whatever.
You should try upgrading your version of Paint Shop Pro. I think that PSP 11 is out now (I can’t upgrade because I have dial up :(). If you can’t upgrade either, try using Gimp in combination with PSP (that’s what I do)
I got a bit confused with this thread
CD, your currently talking about vector work rather than painting from what I can tell so a tablet isn’t much help with vector work, (but thats open to debate since it’s each to their own). Mouses give better point of percision, so it’s somewhat easier to actually click on a perticular pixel.
Painting, however; tablets are great. I find the pens very hard to hold (badly shaped, too big etc…) and the plastic to plastic a bit too slippery. In addidtion to that I get pains from it… but its still a fantastic tool.
Just remember that a mouse and pen are both tools. We have differernt types of pencils, pen, feltips and what ever for a reason…, so there are times you will use both a mouse and the tablet pen; it’s learning when to use them with you’re own style. There’s no reason to rush out for a tablet, I know many great artist that use mouses alone, they jsut find certain parts harder.
Whether you use vectors or hand (tablet) drawn art probably depends on what sort of picture you’re making.
For a cartoon, I’d almost definately use vectors, as they work very well for clean shapes. Using Inkscape, I would draw a shape with the freehand tool (as quickly as possible, to minimise the number of surplus points). This would look a mess, so to get it looking good I would go in and edit it. Try to work with as few points as possible, as it creates much smoother, more natural curves. Drag points and handles around, adding where absolutely necessary, until you have the shapes you want. References are handy.
One of the major advantages of vectors is that they’re scalable, they will keep their curves and shapes accurately when increased in size - which makes them handy for images that will need to be resized a lot.
For realistic images, however, I would use a raster image (probably drawn with a tablet, if I happened to have one, which I don’t), as unlike many vectors there is a lot more colour variation than simple gradients. It would take a very long time to make all the detail on, say, a human face well with vectors, as you’d have to drag points around for many miniscule shapes, as opposed to a raster image in which you would just press to make a dot. It allows for many more small shapes. However, these become pixellated when scaled up and blurry when scaled down, so you’re pretty much stuck with one image.
Since I lack a tablet, a lot of my ‘realistic’ drawings are actually using traditional art.
In both cases, it helps to have a reference - if imaginary, a sketch, otherwise a photo (or diagram, or whatever).
Anyway, vectors can are easier with a mouse, while rasters are easier with a tablet. Hope that all helps.
A great video to watch is this:
http://fcmx.net/vec/get.swf?i=003702
Demonstrates the usefulness of drawing and thinking about underlying features.
CD, how are the hands coming along? Post progress!
The GIMP actually works quite well for painting. Just not out-of-the-box, so to speak. There are a lot of commands that can be binded to hotkeys but that aren’t by default (such as brush size increase/decrease).
If you want to paint in the gimp, spend an hour or two figuring out how you can customize first.
Aside from that:
- You will need a tablet. The Wacom Graphire tablets are good and relatively inexpensive.
- Learn to draw/paint. The computer will not make you good at drawing or painting. If you suck with pencil and paper, you will suck just as much (if not more) on the computer.
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I am not that good at any art, but I thought a lot that being an artist was soemthing you just were, that if you needed to practice, you wern’t a geneous at art. But, practice does help. But, put your heart into it, and chances are it will become better.
And try to be original. I might as well start a new paragraph, I think I’m going to go on about this for a while. Anyway, I see a big problem with most art, and that is that it’s not original. They are just air-headed or just to boring. Nobody seems to realize that moderation and practicality within your art is what can realy make it interesting.
When I say practicality, I mean, for example, you were to make a door. Now you have a peice of wood with some hinges. How will you open it? A doorknob. It may not be original at first thought, maybe. But, if you think more, you may see that it is pretty original. A ball thing that you can turn to be able to open a big peice of wood, that keeps out the cold and bad guys. But, whenever people, especially kids because they are naturally more clumsy, come up to open the door, they keep kicking it with their feet!!! Making nasty marks. You might have a peice of metal that is at the bottom, to keep that from happening. Now it looks more compact and stronger, thus having more depth.
Here’s another example.
This ninja trident, actually called a Sai, “are often believed to have originated as an agricultural tool used to measure stalks, plow fields, plant rice, or to hold cart wheels in place.” But, they started using them as weapons when they wanted to start arevolution, because they were tired of the junk the government was pulling. But, the governemnt took away their weapons! So they used sticks, small logs tied together, things you plant rice with, and other things. They emerged to an art type thing from practical appliucation, and are well liked because they look really neat and unique.
But, there’s something just as bad as copying everyone else’s ideas, and that making up really stupid ones. Were they are air-headed and really just too far away from reality to have any type of impact other than a, “Your an idiot.” This type of stuff is really dumb and doesn’t make any sense. It opens it’s heart but doesn’t have anything to look at, It opens it mouth, but has nothing to say.
To be honest, I wasn’t really having, “Give my opinion to maybe help this guy” in my mind, but it’s been somethign that’s been bugging me for a long time. Really, I think peoples standards are too low. I’m not sure if I should say that. I hope I don’t lock your thread or anything.