Real life drawing boring?

[Sebastian Agresti]

Ok so, I am 17 years old And i would like to be a cartoonist, ive been asking around for tips, and everyone tells me to draw from real life. The thing is, I find it really boring to draw from life, drawing nude models and objects. But I quess to be a good cartoonist you need to know alot about anatomy and stuff.

I just wonder if there are people who did real life and alot of anatomy studies more because they need it, then because they enjoy doing it.
Now this doesnt mean im not motivated in drawing whatsoever, I just really like cartooning.

Now looking at alot of superheroe comics its obvious you need alot of knowledge about anatomy. BUt what about Chris ware comic books?

No flaming please, just wanna know what people think : )

[thirdeyeh]

I think at some point we all need to come to grips with being a student and just learning. Drawing from life isn't always the funnest thing in the world, but it gives us the grasp that we need to be better cartoonists. My main focus right now is drawing from life. Doing portraiture and so on. But I've come to a place where I've really found a love for interpreting the world and people around me. But even still, the only reason I can be any good at it is by learning things and applying it. Something artists sometimes forget is that art is in many ways a discipline. It isn't always fun. If fun is what we want it falls more into hobby. But to be an artist that really wants to excel you have to care enough to study. Then you take those priciples you've learned and apply them to your work and create a voice for yourself. Not saying you can't achieve success without this, but even Picasso could paint the socks off of most realist artists in history by the time he was thirteen, then he branched out. So while many times learning isn't very fun, it is pretty cool when I see the results in the quality of the work that I do do on commission. Hang in there and work hard.

[Sebastian Agresti]

I think at some point we all need to come to grips with being a student and just learning. Drawing from life isn't always the funnest thing in the world, but it gives us the grasp that we need to be better cartoonists. My main focus right now is drawing from life. Doing portraiture and so on. But I've come to a place where I've really found a love for interpreting the world and people around me. But even still, the only reason I can be any good at it is by learning things and applying it. Something artists sometimes forget is that art is in many ways a discipline. It isn't always fun. If fun is what we want it falls more into hobby. But to be an artist that really wants to excel you have to care enough to study. Then you take those priciples you've learned and apply them to your work and create a voice for yourself. Not saying you can't achieve success without this, but even Picasso could paint the socks off of most realist artists in history by the time he was thirteen, then he branched out. So while many times learning isn't very fun, it is pretty cool when I see the results in the quality of the work that I do do on commission. Hang in there and work hard.

Thanks, its good to hear someones opinion about it. I quess also when you see progress in reallife drawing it becomes more fun.

[angeldevil]

My grandfather was a really serious commercial artist and a fine-art oil painter. When he retired he became a high school art teacher. It is from him that the bulk of my training originated. I did not like life drawing. Or still life compositions, or shadow studies or any of the billion things he taught me. I wanted to draw comics. But I did learn all the stuff and later I started to like it. The fact is, if you only learn one thing (cartooning) then at some point you may find you've matured but your skills haven't. The one thing I took away from years of torture from Grandpa-the-art-tyrant is that if you are going to break rules, you better know them inside out. In other words, its worth it to take some life drawing, learn to draw buildings, trees, etc. I'm glad I did now.
Oh, hey I think this is my first post here, really I've just been lurking which is what I do best...

[Sebastian Agresti]

My grandfather was a really serious commercial artist and a fine-art oil painter. When he retired he became a high school art teacher. It is from him that the bulk of my training originated. I did not like life drawing. Or still life compositions, or shadow studies or any of the billion things he taught me. I wanted to draw comics. But I did learn all the stuff and later I started to like it. The fact is, if you only learn one thing (cartooning) then at some point you may find you've matured but your skills haven't. The one thing I took away from years of torture from Grandpa-the-art-tyrant is that if you are going to break rules, you better know them inside out. In other words, its worth it to take some life drawing, learn to draw buildings, trees, etc. I'm glad I did now.
Oh, hey I think this is my first post here, really I've just been lurking which is what I do best...

Thank you for the reply, Im gonna try to do more life drawing from now on hehe. your grandfather sounds like my dad, only my dad is a filmmaker hehe.

[goRaina]

Even the most cartoony-cartoonists should know anatomy. Knowing how to draw the real thing can be really useful, even when drawing squat or blobby characters. Because you still need to know how they move, and how their bodies fit together--this will only make your comics better!

[Sebastian Agresti]

Even the most cartoony-cartoonists should know anatomy. Knowing how to draw the real thing can be really useful, even when drawing squat or blobby characters. Because you still need to know how they move, and how their bodies fit together--this will only make your comics better!

Your right! ;D .. btw I really love your artwork : ) just been checking it out

[Michel Gagne]

Ok so, I am 17 years old And i would like to be a cartoonist, ive been asking around for tips, and everyone tells me to draw from real life. The thing is, I find it really boring to draw from life, drawing nude models and objects. But I quess to be a good cartoonist you need to know alot about anatomy and stuff.

Yeah, I never like life drawing either. I find it boring as hell and haven't done it since finishing college back in 1986. Thank god. If drawing from life was what art was about, I'd change career!

That's the part teachers usually ask me to censor when I lecture at colleges.

[thirdeyeh]

I just want to keep getting better. I love drawing out of my imagination, but I love the discipline of studying things. It's kind of finding that balance with cartooning really. Which is what cartooning really boils down to in many ways. It's a blance between style and storytelling. I personally think there's no substitution for studying subjects from life and applying it to my other crafts. Either way just keep drawing and drawing, and drawing some more, and some more after that. I think that's the key of keys. It's being serious about it.

[Michel Gagne]

Having voiced my dislike for life drawing, I'd like to add that studying from life and having a good sense of observation is key to an artist. What I don't like is sitting down in front of a posed subject and copying on paper as accurately as possible. I like to think of myself as an interpreter. I'm always observing and taking mental notes, but all these observations get filtered and shuffled in my brain - to later take a new incarnation on paper or computer screen or whatever media.

[Kazu]

I think life drawing can help, but I personally don't know squat about anatomy. However, I feel drawing gestures are far more important when it comes to expressing an idea. The anatomy is stuff you can brush up on once you get comfortable with drawing, but it's definitely not a pre-requisite. If this was the case, I never would have kept drawing, since I hated drawing from life when I was in high school and often refused to do it (telling my teacher that I'd rather take a photo). In fact, I decided not to go to art school because I liked cartooning enough to not need someone to tell me when and how to do it. After getting a job at the college newspaper (at a four-year university, studying film), I found myself drawing more than ever, and it was only then that I began to take an interest in learning to draw figures better.

Anyway, Michel and I are punks. I would seriously advise against listening to either of us. We're a little crazy.

[Ganter]

I had to take figure drawing classes, but I'm more of a "just try it and see if it does anything for me" type of student. I think like Michel, I just enjoyed trying to interpret what I saw in front of me, whether it was accurate or not. I still like doing that, but it never really teaches me how to DRAW. Just how to observe in a way that's in tune with how I see things. In fact, my anatomy is worse than Kazu's so I dunno how much it taught me to technically draw by drawing from life!

[Sebastian Agresti]

Thanks for all the replies, its good to see more people find it boring hehe.

[smaragddrache]

I took one drawing class in the program I am in (and almost done with ) and it was helpful to learn how light falls on things and how to convey what my eye was seeing to my hand. I don't draw things with photo-realism (I agree with Kazu that if you want realism, take a photo). However, even if you are drawing from imagination, there is still a scene in your head that you are "looking" at, and have to interpret from eye to hand. In short, I don't think thorough study from life is necessary unless you are really into it, but a little bit of it gives you a concrete comparison from what you see to what you draw. A little familiarity will probably avoid frustration in the future.

[Rad Sechrist]

I'll tell you what I've found for myself. I only like life drawing when I have a specific procedure that I can follow. I don't like sitting there and just "trying" to make something appear on the page when I don't know what I'm doing. That's just frustrating for me. Personally I don't see a difference between drawing cartoons and life drawing. Cartoons are just more simplified. If you learn to approach life drawing the same way you aproach cartoons, it is fun, and relaxing because you don't have to make stuff up out of your head. The problem is finding a good teacher. I really like glen vilpu's stuff.