I donât know if I ever âstartedâ drawing so much as âdidnât stop at the age when a lot of people seem toâ. Canât really pinpoint the point where I went from normal childhood drawings to taking cartooning seriously. Even when Iâm not posting things online consistently (cough, ahem) Iâm always at least doodling on pieces of scrap paper or something.Iâm entirely self-taught, for better or for worse.Again, itâs hard to say what my âfirst stepsâ were, but there are a few areas I would recommend new artists hone their skills on. Body proportions are definitely one of them - if youâre aiming for a more abstract/âcartoonyâ style you donât necessarily have to draw photorealistic muscles and whatnot, but getting a hang of the general size and flexibility of body parts in relation to each other is essential.Other areas worth getting the basics down on:Perspective - Iâm still not the greatest at this, but even if youâre like me and the word âhorizon lineâ sends you into a cold sweat, simply figuring out how to make things look convincingly behind each other, or very close up/far away, is essential.Expressions - There are a lot of artists out there who are amazing at the âtechnicalâ stuff like shading and anatomy but canât draw the difference between âscaredâ and âsurprisedâ to save their life.
Comics-specific stuff - Paneling, lettering, etc. If you plan on doing comics at all - whether two-panel fancomics or full-length stories or anything in between - go out of your way to study and practice these, because theyâre unfortunately the areas that non-specialized art classes and how-to books will give you the least help with. (Two big exceptions on the books front being Scott McCloudâs Understanding Comics and Making Comics.)
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