I know that i should know about how to draw, i’ve been trying to learn it for 3 weeks now, i’m a pretty low learner, i can only make faces now. My question is, which drawing skills should i learn? I’ve been focusing on observational drawing, but should i do that? I really like to draw, and will have a lot of free times starting next week.
since you have focused already on observational drawing, focus on composition, style, and concept.
You don’t really need to be able to draw but modeling and drawing fundamentals have a lot in common.
http://www.davidrevoy.com/article242/what-skills-are-needed-to-draw
No. Observation as a skill is important in both (as with everything visual) but drawing from observation doesn’t translate well.
Modeling is about understanding forms in three dimensions, same when drawing things that don’t exist. If you want to be able to draw anything, concentrate on understanding 3 dimensional space (perspective), construction of simple forms (sphere, cone, cylinder and box) in it and using those to build more complex forms.
In modeling you would add understanding of model structure, how that relates to forms, and being able to abstract them helps too.
@Modron I see, i’ll look up on those right away
@JA12 Thank you for the link! It’s really helping and easy to read!
I have another question, how good should i be at those? Should i just get the basics or more then that? I’m trying to be better at chara modeling and i don’t want to be dependent on blueprint images.
The more time you spend on ‘observational drawing’ or drawing from life, the more you train your eye to actually see what you are looking at. Human beings have a strong tendency to ‘see’ symbols rather than actual things, so it takes a lot of training to overcome this natural tendency. Also, if you intend to model realistically, you will never get over your need for reference drawings or photographs.
BlenderArtists also coaches some traditional art. Open a “Sketchbook” thread in the Traditional Artwork forum to get some feedback on your pencil drawings.
Welcome to BlenderArtists 
So your goal is to design your own characters and model them?
Design/concept process is way different than technical modeling. By technical modeling I mean the point forward in the process when you start building optimized model structure for the forms the way it serves the next steps (texturing, rigging, animation) and the final purpose.
Everything before that is more or less creative process that either support the design or prepare for the modeling, or both. Use whatever means you can think of to describe the design decisions fast. The medium and workflow should be fast because it undergoes changes rapidly. If you’re drawing your ideas, this would be the sketching part. Make a mess.
Next would be refining the sketch until you’re ready to describe the forms with value structure and lighting. If you don’t know how, you could move to 3D sculpting to do that. Do not start modeling until you can see and understand the forms. If you used sculpting for that, you can build the model structure on top of it (retopology step).
So what to learn depends on how you organize your design process, what views you want and what options you are able to use. If you sketch character design in front/side/back views, you could basically ignore the perspective. It would be like taking a photograph of someone with a really long lens. But if you want 3/4 views, then it’s important to know perspective, as well as when using photographs to help.
Since it’s character design, proportions and anatomy are important. Even fictional characters and creatures should have skeletal structure and muscle system based on reality, even if just loosely. Makes much more believable characters.
The list for bare minimum then is
- come up with design and pull ideas from somewhere (story, references/inspiration, seeing forms in other forms),
- concept, style and communication points in David Revoy’s list,
- to be able to scribble,
- know the basic proportions and know how to observe them,
- basics of skeletal system, contains the hard points for proportions and movement,
- basics on how muscles work, main muscles/muscle groups that generally affect forms the most (they contract and extend, and the extending work is done by another muscle, muscle groups work in union depending on movement/pose)
- how to describe form with value and lighting for 2D, or how to do blocking and/or sculpting in 3D
More complex drawings and presentation requires more of the points in the drawing skills circle. They’re all also needed in 3D.
@Orinocco Thank you! I’ll be sure to check it!
@JA12 Wow, your replies answer all my questions so thoroughly! I’ll be sure to check all those things on the list thoroughly too!
Thank you for the awesome replies guys! I didn’t think i’ll get the answers this fast!
I’ll make another thread if i have another problem. :yes:
Stay awesome!