My first ever finished drawing of a character o.O

[KingArturia]

Well, King have never been a talented artist, but yesterday I decided to pick up a pen to at least finish one drawing of a character at least once and not just give up after drawing one eye. Well, it didn't end up too well, but it is not unrecognizable either...I know there are many talented artist on ASF, I wonder whether I could get some pro-tip from them.

One thing I know is the face ratio is weird, I acknowledge that, but is there any tip on how to draw better?

Since I have a habit of drawing one eye, then fill in the rest of the picture? Is it better to start drawing face first and then fill in the rest?

1. Is there any pro-tip on drawing eyelashes? I cannot seems to get it right...
3. Actually, this aren't the best eye but I find it hard to draw the complementary eye after drawing the first one, any tips?
5. Can anyone give some advice on how to shadow the face as well?
7. Should I go and buy a set of different pencils? (Since I just used HB for this one, I know you can get other pencils, would it help?)

Thank you very much for your time reading and thank you in advance if you left me any tip :3

Cookies for those who know who she is without looking at the name :3

[P.S.] King know that sometime apparently people cannot actually see the image (since I suck at uploading images), just give me a visitor message at my place :3

Spoiler

 

[Ein]

Your highness, you should really consider using more than 1 kind of pencil specially if you plan on emphasizing details and shadowing.

HB is for outlines and drafting, while pencils like 2B and above are the ones used for shading. I don't use the sharp H kinds and just start with the HB or 1B pencils.

Like what orisa said in the other member's thread before, using the skeleton or stickman pattern helps a lot specially with the alignment of the face and stuff like eyes, nose, etc. If you're just starting our or learning how to draw anime, try to get a good and clear picture of the anime or model that you want to draw first and attempt to replicate the drawing by yourself. This is where you learn the basics including proper shading. (At least this is how I learned to draw, I first started out by copying pictures of anime characters and drawing them myself as how I see them and just kept on practicing by doing that. After getting the hang of it, I tried drawing my own characters and so on.)

Of course, the shadows and shading should be in accord with the direction of the light source to make it more realistic.

And about the eyes, avoid making them very "sqaure" like what you did there but do not to make it very round too.

If you also plan on doing some coloring, try using Fabre Castle's watercolor pencils 'cause you can blend and manage the colors easier with that. Just don't use too much water.

I hope this helps. XD

 

[orisa]

Before you read my post you should know that I've never taken any drawing classes. Things I say here are what I found workable for my particular style of drawing, but it might not be for yours. It SHOULD give you a basic idea though.

Eyes have one of the longest learning curves in drawing, but it's not hard.
If you find that you have difficulty in aligning face elements, you should draw guides first. When doing this, it's important to think in 3D since the guides will change depending on which way the character is facing. For the eyes, you can draw 3 guidelines; one for top lid, one for bottom lid, and one for the middle. The eyelash will be just above the line for the top lid.

Here's an example from the rough of one of the drawings I have on my Pixiv page:

Spoiler:

You can see the faint guidelines. Notice how the face elements are placed on them.

Another one with similar position but different perspective (work in progress):

Spoiler:

Notice the way the guides are placed on this one, and the direction the eyelashes are arching compared to the first one.

When you get used to it you can omit the top & bottom guidelines and just work with the middle line.

Here are couple of good-to-know facts about drawing eyes:
- They will always be the same height, unless the situation asks otherwise (black eye, winking, etc.). This is one of the problems with the eyes on your drawing. The only factor that changes in your case should be the width of the eyes (further away from vanishing point -> narrower, closer to the vanishing point -> wider).
- Typically, the length between the two eyes is approximately another eye.

As for how to draw eyelashes...
I find it easier to draw them as lines rather than one entity. So instead of drawing its outline entirely, make a bunch of strokes across the top lid, and then erase parts that look unnatural or too long. To be honest I'm not entirely set on drawing eyelashes myself either.

Can't tell you anything about shadowing since I do them in Photoshop, and I was too lazy to shadow anything while I was still working with pencil and paper.

Other than that, what Ein said.

Good luck.

 

[Ghost Kitty~]

I havent really drawn anime so i will go off of what limited knowledge i have on this and draw on my knowledge of fine arts somewhat~. As was said already, you should find the basic placement of the features on the face first. Draw lightly to start out with and expect to make changes. A decent eraser is quite important (I like kneaded erasers cuz theyre fun to play with and you can mold it if you need a sharp point). Some basic information on the art pencils is that H pencils have harder lead and the higher the number the harder the H pencil. B pencils have soft lead and the higher the number the softer the pencil. The chart goes from 9H-H F HB B-9B. I usually use 2B 4B and 6B because thats quite enough for most purposes (varies from person to person). You should shade later on in the drawing (cuz its more annoying to erase if you made any mistakes). Shading for anime (from what i see) tends to happen with highlights in the hair, under the hair, cheeks/side of the face, and if they bother to add shading on the face it depends where the light source is.