hi @nasieeee! sorry for the ping! for everyone else, i was asked how i go about beginning my sketches and anatomy breakdown on my projects. i put this together under the cut and yapped about my process a little. i'm really unsure as to how or if it'll help at all, but i hope it does.
as to why i'm not sure if it'll help, my sketching process can vary from basically done, draw the rest of the owl, and basically completely finished on a first pass.
BY AND LARGE, i do a total of three passes to nail things down. a first one just to work out poses and general anatomy, a second cleaned up one, and then lineart. in my older posts where i made the gif processes, you can see all three of these stages before the colors get tossed on them! look for the ones with "read more" if you'd like more examples.
sometimes these have extra stages that are literal stick figures. sometimes i go straight from stick figures into a full cleanup and things are fine. here's a few from my newer drawings that show more of the process i am embarrassed about kou's face in some of them, i finally cracked the code from the new years bunny drawing on. and embarrassed in general. oh my god you can tell i came home from an 11 hour shift on these first drafts and began drawing. there have absolutely been times where things just do not work out and i'm forced to put it down and walk away until i get refreshed enough for my hands to start drawing the way i need them to again.
when I start, i always begin drawing the head first, and positioning the rest of the body after. i recommend being extremely messy and loose, you can always change things, and often my first sketches will end up with the lines mangled from me resizing and pushing things around until they're generally correct. then, i clean it up, also beginning with the head and hair.
on proportioning things and getting the style closer... well, i don't have too many tips with that.
just use lots and lots of references of anything and everything that gives you inspiration. if that's aida's art, collect as much of it as possible. i'm not joking, i have a dragon's hoard. keep chipping away at it, and don't be discouraged! studying is how you get better, and studying is a blast if you don't let yourself get caught up in "this looks weird" or "this didn't turn out quite right."
i've learned so much from doing this and forcing myself to push and draw above my weight class.
was that rambly? uh anyway good luck! to you and everyone! i love drawing! so much! and i get rambly about it whenever anyone asks! i hope you all love drawing too!
