Linework and Perspective Help || Novice

What am I doing well? What am I doing wrong?

I have tough skin.

I’m new to this whole thing, but very passionate about it. What little background I have in drawing at all is in the realm of comic book style art, and body movement.

I bought “Sketching the Basics,” a year ago and have tried to employ those skills into my practice; which I am not getting enough of. One reason I do not get enough practice is lack of feedback.

Welcome to the forum.

I only know the book you’re referring to by a quick google search, but have read/referenced their first publication.

I would recommend having a go at recreating the examples in the book, starting with the basics (I’m guessing simple perspective, cubes, etc), and moving forwards once you feel you’ve at least got the gist of each exercise, and understood the theory behind it.

This will A, give you a good grounding in the basics, and B, give us more work to feedback on.

The drawings you’ve posted are a little rudimentary, although the main drawing does show correct perspective and an understanding of contour lines.

Welcome to the forums!

I’m sure you can get some valuable feedback here, lets see some more sketches!

Here is what “Sketching the Basics” has taught me about cubes in three point perspective. I don’t get them right all the time, but I will constantly practice. Is it helpful when getting ready to sketch a product with a cube base, to just sketch a bunch of cubes before hand to prime your hands and your mind?

I thin you are doing the right thing by starting simple. keep with the cube/cylinder/sphere to build your perspective awareness. When we started learning to sketch, our prof made us put 2 points on the desk at the ‘horizon’ and these would serve as our perspective points. It gives you something tangible to draw towards. After a while, you wont need those points anymore and you will know how much you need to converge your lines to look correct. One other thing that helped me was just trying to draw a lot of parallel lines. Sometimes these would be a complex curve that I tried to mimic a few mm away. These simple exercises helped build a lot of control, and expose where my weaknesses in line control were.

Also, when doing the lines, you can work on your line weight. Weight is a very important aspect of sketching and can help to add dimension to your image.

j2cervin when you would practice by doing parallel lines how often in a week would you practice, and for what amount of time?

Tried to mimic the sketch in a behance post this morning. Is mimicry a good way to start ID sketching? That’s how I started when I was into drawing comic style art.

Source Link of original: http://www.behance.net/gallery/LIMBO-Transformable-Smartphone(2013)/7531957

Mimicry is fine, as it allows you to raise your standards.

I would carry on with your cubes, cones and cylinders. It may seem a chore, but getting these right is fundamental to good, quick sketching.

I would start every sketching session with just going through exercises. I would take about 5-10 minutes just doing simple things to help. Although, at the beginning oh my sketching, I would spend 10 minutes on each form (or until I felt I could move on). Its just something quick to help gain confidence. If I was bored in another class, I would just do these simple things that dont require a ton of attention.