Nice thread, I'm in a similar situation as you of trying to get into art, except I developed analysis paralysis because I couldn't find an answer to this.
>Now what do I think of all this? It's a bit conspiratorial, but I can't deny any of it.
Same. I noticed beginner anime illustrations drawn by East Asians online have a different, more authentic feel to them compared to western ones.

Picrel. I found this answer googling the filename of it during the pandemic and thought it was worth a screenshot.

Post edited on 3rd May 2024, 5:15pm

So I've been casually following his advice for about a week now, most of which is behind a very reasonable paywall of $5. It's made me a lot more appreciative of the precision involved with creating this kind of art. If you just look at it, taking it for granted, you would think things like shoulders or cheeks are just simple curves. When you actually try replicating it though, you realize how much nuance is involved and how many factors are at play. If you try replicating it with just simple curves, it'll look completely awful. So few lines, and yet the whole world can come from them.

Post edited on 11th May 2024, 7:47pm

>>3553
>Saito Naoki is a good source of information.
>Hide-channel is a good source of information on gesture.

Both of these guys have tutorials on using boxes and other simplified shapes to create a manequinn as a guide. Null and void.

If it would be about overthinking and perfectionism about getting everything all perfectly 3D, then yes, I would agree (and for all I know, maybe that's what he is trying to get at too) but disregarding all 3D structure practice as some Gaijin Big Art conspiracy is sadder than even ironic weebs.

>>3557
>Both of these guys have tutorials on using boxes and other simplified shapes to create a manequinn as a guide

Where? Show me. If you're talking about these kinds of videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdCZDL9NPwY&list=PLTY4AtphBe8PSqfXT4qfxwdbLgSK0XZ9v&index=1

They're supposed to teach you about gesture, which includes direction and angles. Howard(the maker of the video in the OP), has advised to follow along with them. I can't speak for Howard, but he has made a distinction between shapes(2D ones) and gesture, although each of them inform each other. My interpretation of this is that it's a completely different way of thinking from the 3D construction pushed by westerners.

You seem really confident about this though. Can you post your art?

Post edited on 13th May 2024, 1:27pm

>>3557
>If it would be about overthinking and perfectionism about getting everything all perfectly 3D
Also, perfectionism is something to strive for, but not in making everything "perfectly 3D". Instead, perfection should be pursued in line art quality. An emphasis on the precision in individual lines, is one of the biggest differences between Japanese and western art. How you draw lines are crucial to a style, and what you see in 2D line art is deliberate, not accidental.

From Hide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xwM1DKNP7M

>>3557
>but disregarding all 3D structure practice as some Gaijin Big Art conspiracy is sadder than even ironic weebs.
I agree but no one is doing that here. Rather, there are differences between art styles and learning methods that everyone can see. I can sometimes tell whether anime fanart was drawn by a Chinese, Korean, or Japanese person by looking at it. Also, western art schools discouraging students into anime and being misguided on this topic is real.

>>3558 >>3559
Yes, those kinds of videos are what I've been thinking about. More specifically these two:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZysLEUCmw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtto_vAPgE0

>You seem really confident about this though.
No, quite the opposite, I don't need someone fucking up my paralysis about how to start out even more than it already is.

>>3561
I asked him directly, so here's his answer:

>In this https://youtu.be/R75nTacKwXE?t=147 & https://youtu.be/vtto_vAPgE0?t=492 Hide and Saito construct a sort of mannequin out of 3D shapes(boxes and cylinders). How is this different from the 3D construction you've criticized in western art?

response:
>It can be a little confusing if you haven't had explicit experience with the western meta of teaching for a bit. The short answer is they don't use the 3 dimensionality as a literal binding restriction on themselves when drawing i.e. they make sure the design is right and good and the style is properly there etc. which might sound like a no brainer if you're not used to what westerners have been doing for the last several decades.

>Basically, they'd actively force themselves to draw in such a way where literal 3 dimensionality (they'd tell people it should be ALWAYS but the skilled people would break their own rules to make their product better) has to be literally displayed at all times as if the character was traced from a photo.

>There's a whole history to the way they think and a million self-destructive things like this that they'd teach. You're really lucky if you haven't been exposed to it because it can cause a lot of people to build up bad habits, sometimes to the point of being unrecoverable unless they really dedicated themselves to getting rid of it.

>By default these ideas had a really hard time sticking in japan because they're just not that exposed to thinking this way and they're surrounded by so many artists doing things optimally. Sometimes they'll grab Hampton's book or something and interpret the construction concept without all the baggage on it, and like perspective, it can be an excellent thing to understand really well, since it's essentially a design framework unto itself.

>When doing characters it has to be applied in a way that is subservient to the actual drawing being good (again no-brainer, but this is the common sense that was attacked for years). There's other self-destructive elements unique to non-Japanese art on the tooning side as well, such as their philosophy about gesture, proportion, and linework. They have a philosophy of "exaggeration" and will limit how advanced their shapes can be.

>Which couples with their approach of keeping linework excessively simple (or non-existent in some cases. They just paint over it or hide the lines altogether), as opposed to Japanese art which is designed around "articulation" and developed all these crazy shape design systems that are very complex in the way work (such as how they change depending on angle or lock into surrounding shapes) and utilize all these line work techniques that are rare or non-existent outside Japan (starting to change in recent year because of the influence of Japanese art)

>>3562
Not the anon you replied to, but if I understand correctly then in a nutshell western method of doing art tries too hard to be "photographic" in its realism, going for a bottom-up approach where they start with the 3D structure and then later (often never) worry about the form, gesture, and composition; whereas Japanese style is top-down, starting with those things (as seen in their linework) and is willing to break strict 3D perspective if it leads to a better overall composition?

>>3563
That sounds right.

>>3562
That anon here. Sounds like he is describing exactly what I called 'overthinking and perfectionism', which admittedly I fell into without the help of any western art school's guidance.

I didn't go to any sort of official school or course, so I can't tell how true his claims are. My learning experience has been scattered between watching various YouTube videos (eastern and western), reading art books (eastern and western), pixiv drawing tutorials, using face rotation sheets, trying to copy official settei, referencing anime screenshots, breaking down real life imagery as gesture drawing or perspective practice, so on and so forth. It feels like I'm trying to learn a hundred different things and, sure enough I can follow along a video or make a perspective grid on photo for a base, or copy how a character's eye style looks from this angle or that to get a feel for it, but I can't put them all together into one comprehensive whole illustration by myself, and it's been extremely frustrating. I don't really know what to do to be honest.

That vid struck a nerve with me and I kinda went off the rails, though. I apologize for that.

Post edited on 13th May 2024, 11:54pm

>>3565
Alright, a follow-up to this one: I went back and dug into some different e-books I have to compare and contrast (although I can't read the Japanese ones). Can definetly see the difference in the approaches when putting them side by side like this. I'm going to be keeping this in mind from now on, thanks for the clarification.

Post edited on 14th May 2024, 12:27am

An attempt at copying
https://img3.gelbooru.com/images/25/2c/252ca4aba55be0fdc30cd66a473e2cca.png

>>3568
Very cute!

The essay from Richard Williams mentioned in >>/ot/34786 seems perhaps relevant. Especially the section just after the one presented in that image:

>Lately things have improved somewhat. So-called classical drawing seems to be coming back, but with a hyper-realistic photographic approach because skilled artists are thin on the ground. Shading isn't drawing, and it isn't realism.

>Good drawing is not copying the surface. It has to do with understanding and expression. We don't want to learn to draw just to end up being imprisoned in showing off our knowledge of joints and muscles. We want to get the kind of reality that a camera can’t get. We want to accentuate and suppress aspects of the model's character to make it more vivid. And we want to develop the co-ordination to be able to get our brains down into the end of our pencil.

>Many cartoonists and animators say that the very reason they do cartoons is to get away from realism and the realistic world into the free realms of the imagination. They'll correctly point out that most cartoon animals don't look like animals - they're designs, mental constructs. Mickey ain't no mouse, Sylvester ain't no cat. They look more like circus clowns than animals. Frank Thomas always says: ‘If you saw Lady and the Tramp walking down the road, there's no way that you are going to buy that they're real dogs.’
>
>But to make these designs work, the movements have to be believable — which leads back to realism and real actions, which leads back to studying the human or animal figure to understand its structure and movement. What we want to achieve isn't realism, it’s believability.

A clip from a new paywalled video. In it, he shows a few examples which exhibit the difference between "Americanime"/Koreatoons and real "anime style" drawing.
https://files.catbox.moe/cr0lje.webm

Pic is my attempt at copying below. I messed up the face and posture, but I think I'm getting a better handle on hair. Going digital would prob help with accuracy.
https://img3.gelbooru.com/images/5f/ec/5fec6edbc65a8be3f0fed5cfbb878ee5.jpg

Post edited on 20th May 2024, 2:00am

Trying this settei copying thing too, mine is on the left. I arbitrarily choose to do the eye of a character from Air (whose name I don't know because I haven't actually read or watched it yet, gomen Tohno.) Eyelashes are fucked up and the light reflections are a bit out of proportion. I may have cheated a bit since while I didn't outright trace it, there were several time where I'd draw a part and then use the select tool to lay it over the original to see if I got it close enough.

One thing I've noticed about eyes in anime art while drawing this is that the top-inner corner of the eye almost always splits into (at least) two lines, with a thicker line on the bottom and a thinner line on the top. The thick bottom line represents the eyelashes, with the way it curves downward looking more in line with how that part of the eyelash would be seen from above, despite the rest of the eye being shown from straight-on. This must be one of those examples of anime art playing fast and loose with real-life perspective. As for the thinner top line, what it's supposed to represent seems to vary between artists. In this picture it looks like it's supposed to be the bottom of the eyelid (with the top of the eyelid being the disconnected line above it), but in other drawings it looks like just another part of the eyelash. Or maybe it's that way here too.

This is kind of an incoherent post. I'm bad at typing my thoughts down but these are some things I've been thinking about relating to this.

>>3572
Nice. I don't think there's such a thing as cheating in learning.

This is good advice but all the "heckin thingarino" and "muh thing" speak and feels guy stuff is irritating. Reiwa otaku are just annoying.

>>3574
I was going to comment something similar when I skimmed the videos but didn't want to derail a good thread. But since it's now brought up anyway, I have to say that the _style_ (not necessarily content) of video is really annoying, some weird mix of the worst parts of modern 4chan lingo combined with the grandeur of some "crusade" to revive western otaku culture.

His drawing skills and critiques in that regard seem sensible (I am the furthest thing from an artist so cannot judge), albeit a bit padded out. The stuff about literary elements felt a bit forced to me – an entire 15 minutes spent on a single 3-panel spread from Gochiusa where he talks about rising action and resolution, when this is nothing unique to japanese media. There _are_ many unique aspects found in JP media – focus on extremely close (non-romantic) emotional connections, a general background of mono no aware, etc., that is usually absent in western media because it's seen as too childish or directly contradicts western values – so it is weird that he focused on something completely mundane.

>>3574
>>3575
I see these things as harmless eccentricities. Most people aren't good at being a "personality", or good at being an essayist. I think people take polish for granted in youtube videos, whereas 10 years ago these sorts of things wouldn't raise any eyebrows. Being a good "youtuber" is a skill in and of itself.

>>3576
But the complaint is precisely that the person tries too hard to emulate a modern youtuber - clickbait titles/images, padding out videos to 10+min, trying to explicitly appeal to a certain demographic that seems heavily invested in social politics (you can see a common trend among commenters of his videos), etc.

Which is sort of why I find it ironic that he decries the fall of the western otaku when everything he is doing seems to be following in those exact same footsteps: if you're falling to the same tactics as those same western content creators then I feel you forfeit any moral high ground to claim that you're helping bring about some new era of western otaku.

His art skills seem very good, so I'm not sure why he has to stoop to such levels.

Post edited on 29th May 2024, 11:49pm

>>3575 >>3574 >>3576
I've found small, decent youtube channels dedicated to anime that suffer from the same problem. They certainly care about the medium and the content is informative but their style, as you pointed out, prevents me from recommending them. Most of them are young but I don't believe it has much to do with age; Ego problems are common among otaku, and the type to start a youtube channel to gain recognition is more likely to suffer from them. Eccentric or not, it is off putting.

>>3577
>he decries the fall of the western otaku
My impression is that he feels there was never western otaku(groups of amateurs creating otaku media). There were inklings of that, but never anything substantial, so there was no "fall". He makes videos about art and writing(most of which are paywalled), and is working on a game, to try and kindle a western otaku movement.

I think it's pretty unfair to equate Howard with guys like Gigguk, with their "anime is trash and so am I" mantra, because his sense of humor aligns with 4chan's too closely.

Post edited on 29th May 2024, 11:57pm

>>3578
I wish more people went back to blogging. There's only one otaku blog I've found [if you know any others, please let me know] that's still active (Infinite Mirai blog) and it's really a delight to read the perspectives there in terms of thematic analysis and emotional nuances I may have missed.

But being a blogger over a youtuber isn't as glamorous (or profitable).

>>3579
(Hopefully this is all not too off topic, OP if you feel the thread is being derailed we could continue on /tat/.)

> there was never western otaku(groups of amateurs creating otaku media)
I suppose if you define otaku narrowly in this sense of content creator then it might be true. But this seems a really restrictive definition, by those standards even most "Japanese otaku" wouldn't be true otaku unless they were arists/writers.

>to try and kindle a western otaku movement.
Isn't this just a matter of critical mass though? My perspective is that western otaku have always existed in small numbers, it's just that as anime has become increasingly popular overall they become an increasingly smaller proportion.

The majority of people today who might consider themselves "anime fans" probably don't even care about the underlying aspects and just watch anime to pass the time, so I don't think it's realstic to believe they would ever become inspired to create similar doujin groups. And conversely for the western otaku that do exist, the barriers to creating things seem mostly a lack of skill and not enough people to sustain things (there's plenty of programmers, but not enough artists).

Perhaps this new game if successful might inspire a new wave of similar indie content, I don't know. But overall the larger barrier seems to be that people in the west just don't care deeply about things (seen in e.g. the success of things like DDLC), nor do they _want_ to care about such things.

Copy attempt of
https://img3.gelbooru.com/images/82/14/82144166bdc3476848462478ad595403.png

There's all sort of inaccuracies I only notice after uploading it and comparing to the original side-by-side. Also, because I'm looking down at the paper while drawing, that perspective distorts my perception some. More reason to get a tablet.

>>3581
(addendum: does he mention anything about Katawa Shoujo? That seems like some precedent here in terms of otaku-media created in the west).

>>3583
Yes, he's talked about it on stream a few times and sees it as a one-off that unfortunately didn't snowball into anything.

Post edited on 30th May 2024, 12:39am

>>3584
Doesn't that lend credence to my hypothesis though that the blocker to such content being created in the west is mainly one of getting people with the right skillset together? It happened in 2007-2010 because at that time most people on forums/imageboards likely still deep otaku interests, so there was a high enough concentration of people with the right skillset to get things done.

If places today on the internet for people to get together and genuinely _discuss_ otaku content are sparse, I don't see how you could expect to have a concentration of people to create it.

>>3585
I don't expect anything, but I don't see the point in being defeatist either. I've become encouraged to give art another chance, which is enough for me. If you want a more direct response, you should ask him yourself.

Post edited on 30th May 2024, 7:45am

>>3580
I really like the sakugabooru blog https://blog.sakugabooru.com/

From https://img3.gelbooru.com/images/c5/3b/c53b3829a0ba2c9370c63dfbf6765999.png

>>3589
Your skill is good.

An attempt at an original. This marks a month of drawing, although I could have been more diligent. Should have done more original stuff, but I was pretty nervous about it.

>>3591
Need wider waist. Nevermind face, drawing faces is like voluntarily hell.

In highschool, I tried learning to draw by copying photos of netsuke, and that's all I did. I re-did one of those for fun and to compare myself from back then.
old:
https://uboachan.net/o/res/4623.html#4756

>>3556
I did this one again. The head to body ratio is messed up, but otherwise it's an improvement.

Still at it. This is a somewhat different type of practice, where I try to draw everything(except hair) with straight lines. The point is to focus on direction and angles rather than precise details. This one still took me a long time cause the subject matter is complicated.

Another redo.
old:
https://uboachan.net/o/res/4623.html#4778

quickie copy

Post edited on 17th Jun 2024, 9:04pm

another, not that quick

from keijo's settei

I got a drawing tablet, an intuous pro medium. Didn't get the large because my desk wouldn't fit it. Despite being "used" and sold for less than half off new, it's pretty much in mint condition. Directly from Wacom.

Anyway, there is a learning curve. It's hard to connect lines together without it looking "sketchy", and even holding the pen is taking getting used to. My hand kinda hurts actually from tensing up.

Someone gave me the tip of readjusting the mapping, to make the full tablet size correspond to the on-screen canvas. Hopefully that'll help.

>>3600
ms paint doodle

Tried drawing with my elbow/shoulder instead of wrist. Digital sure is tough to get used to.

Another digital copy.

>>3604
ooh, bonus points for drawing kisara. i love her!

>>3605
Never watched Engage Kiss. It looks interesting.

>>3606
Fair warning: if you can't tolerate love triangles, do not watch.

These notes are a goldmine:
https://files.catbox.moe/r4lxyx.zip

Taken from:
https://kemono.su/fanbox/user/57217664

>>3608
I enjoyed reading those even though I don't know anything about drawing.

>>3609
Well, you know something now.

Rusty copy.

trying hard

>>3614
Nice pose.

>>3614
Looks like a very soft and cuddly body...

>>3553
I've somehow found that video myself a while ago already so it's curious to see it being shared. I've wanted to "get into" art for a while, but I failed or got demotivated in the few attempts I made. Currently I'm feeling a bit inspired so I want to ask some questions.
1. Should I use Clip Studio Paint, or is it fine to use Krita or another program (I prefer to not use closed source software)? Are there any specific brushes I should use, etc?
2. I have what some would call "a small Osu pad". Is it fine enough for now or should I buy a bigger tablet ASAP?
3. If the lines I draw come out squiggly (especially horizontal), should I use a brush smoother (and how much?), or should I practice on being able to draw neat lines (and how?)?
4. This may all sound weird or dumb, but is using a desk non-negotiable? In my current situation I don't really have a desk and I have to use my computer on the floor. Should I not bother with drawing at all before I am able to use a desk? (The drawing squiggly lines thing mentioned in 3 was not caused by this, as I used a desk back then)

>>3620
> If the lines I draw come out squiggly
not an artist but this seems like a bad digitizer or bad software? Can you draw straight lines on paper?

>>3620
Motivation is the hardest part, as you can tell from me going months without posting anything.

1. Krita is fine. This guys uses it
https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/60562229
This is a pay-walled video, but it should give you a good idea if you want access to the others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHLCEr_dcts

2. Larger is better. Your technique and health will benefit from it. Howard uses a Cintiq Pro, but HUION stuff is good enough. I personally think a screen-less model is better since you wont be looking downward all the time, which is better for your neck.

3. I would say not to use compensation and just practice a lot. You can ask Howard directly on his discord or while he streams.

4. I don't really know how to answer this. You can practice without a desk, but at some point I'd recommend getting one.

>>3620
1.1. Whatever you please.
1.2. Nothing specific, but familiarising yourself with brush manipulation and finding what works best for you is good.
2. Better to spend time with what you have than to spend money ASAP.
3. Both. I personally view that smoothing is mostly to compensate for the hand-eye disconnect of drawing digitally, aswell as things like surface texture difference of a tablet and real life materials like paper and et cetera.
4. Shouldn't matter much.

>>3622
>discord
Anon...

>>3624
Yeah, I know. I've learned to live with it. Even Tohno uses discord.

>>3625
Yeah and it's a constant source of frustration, misery, and disappointment in the human race. I've bounced around countless "servers" looking for signs of life in that hell scape, only to be met with floods of stupid emoji and looped animations of ugly cats. It's jam packed with brain rotten children who struggle to with even basic communication. The typical conversation there is people spamming greetings and having no idea what to say when the other person says hello in return. It's a platform where users are literally scared by sentences longer than three words. I've had better conversations with chat bots than the average brain rotten discord user
I keep beating my head against that wall because I've done my share of channel hopping on IRC and outside of our own channel I've found it's pretty much all dead.
The only remotely decent discord servers are going to be private ones that are hard to get into. I'll admit I did find one I really liked full of refugees from old yuri and aikatsu threads on 4chan, I found myself extremely greatful to be able to talk to like minded older otaku who didn't just have entry level tastes and could actually communicate like real humans, but even that got annoying with it's constant Filipino propaganda and selfies with cars or cosplayers, then I noticed people were blocking me so I stopped participating and went to find other servers only to be reminded just how terrible they all are. I tried making my own and aiming it towards older more legitimate otaku, thinking surely there must be some lost souls out there searching for a place to call home and not knowing where else to look, but that mostly just attracted idiots too.

>>3626
Probably should be branched to /so/ or something, but I don't think any like-minded otaku would join discord servers, since they probably tried it once and saw the same thing you did. Plus discord is just not a good platform, very unfriendly to anyone privacy minded since they require phone number to register, and have their bloated website.

>>3622
>>3623
Thanks.
Now, what are the best websites for getting settei (for free)? And generally what percentage of anime can you find settei of online?
There's a bit of a paradox of choice, so are there any particular anime that you would recommend to do first? I think Howard said in the video that you should copy stuff from the last several years, so that should be kept in mind.

>>3628
Here are some good pages. No idea about percentage available.
https://setteidreams.net/settei/vividred-operation/
https://setteidreams.net/settei/harukana-receive/
http://setteidreams.net/settei/keijo/index.php
https://setteidreams.net/artbooks/saenai-animation-works/

Particular anime doesn't much because a lot of things are universal across art styles. Starting from less-clothed people is a good idea though because the way clothing flows is informed by what's underneath. Aside from settei, picking a "target artist" whose style you want to replicate is also recommended. I don't think minutia is important at first though. What is important is getting a feel for gesture and how the body is constructed.

>>3629
Thank you. Now, about the method... are you really supposed to do the same thing from the very beginning, which is looking at a target picture and trying to imitate it as closely as possible by eye? Or would it be better to start with direct tracing and after some time move onto imitation by eye? Or maybe some sort of hybrid where you try to imitate sections by eye, and directly compare them with the target picture and fix major fuckups before moving to the next section?

>>3630
Don't just trace. There's no point where you'll be "good enough" to start copying by eye. Howard has suggested tracing AFTER you copy by eye, if you're really off the mark. I think doing it all in one go is better than sectioning things arbitrarily. The drawing exists as a whole, not in neat divisions. As you draw something, keep the other parts in mind. That's how you keep things proportional and with the correct gesture.

I realized that for my purposes I need to learn some SD, and if anything that would have more priority than general art. Has Howard ever talked about SD in his Patreon videos or whatever? Is it easier than general art? Can it be learned before general art or is that unadvised?

>>3632
If by SD, you mean chibi, I can't recall him mentioning it specifically. What I think though, is that any otaku art style is going to share the same principles. If drawing chibi characters is what motivates you, just go for it.