/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>4116013
mmm. Well there is almost no point in doing studies if you don't actually get around to integrating it into your work, that's practically leaving your work half done. I mean I do it too at times, but still.

It sounds like you need to develop a method of drawing from imagination. Start making up and testing proportions you can use so you can build a person from scratch. Often times I recall doing a reference copy, then copying the copy, then attempting closer to doing it on my own as being helpful - it's something I naturally did to try to learn how to do it myself. It isn't going to be perfect at first, but this is your process m8, it takes a lot of ingenuity to develop it.

>Anime girls come off all stiff, odd, wanky, disjointed and not cute or sexy
Art is very difficult, so don't feel bad. There is a lot, a lot, a lot of things to discover in order to make things look right, and that takes much time spent working through things that give you trouble, contemplating, observing, and testing - you've got to be clever. I'm honestly blown away that so many people are able to do this. It really does take a bit of competence, which is fine, even if you don't see yourself as particularly competent at art, you learn to become competent through the struggle. It becomes more fun as you start making better stuff, and you'll naturally come to draw more, certainly so if you develop ways of drawing that require less effort. I can tell you it often takes a great deal of my competence and a degree of preparation to make something high quality, I can't just do anything I want unless I happen to know how to do it, and I use reference to keep the quality up if I don't know how to do something, or as a reminder of how quality things look like. Almost every work i'm looking at someone else's to keep my standards up; In other words, I actually have to try to make things look good for them to come out so. It might sound so obvious saying it, but it is easy to forget.