Here is a quick sketch I did, I'm trying to free-hand as fast as I can while trying to maintain equalization and proportions in the correct alignment. I erased a little bit on this one, but i'm trying to get to where I can free hand equal alignments as quick as possible. Any tips? Took me around 3-5 minutes.
Flip the image horizontally in a paint program, or whatever your computer opens image files with. This is a great technique to help you learn balance. regardless of your ability to create proportion, you need to learn flow, rhythm, and balance. Rushing artwork is never a good idea.
I agree with the point of flow, rhythm, and balance, though quick sketches are perfectly fine to do. What I'm seeing here are a few key things you'll want to work on to improve your technique: - Don't make fuzzy/hairy lines. This is a bad habit that's hard to break, and it's something a lot of us do when we're first learning to draw with proper technique, but what you need to remember is that confidence is key. Make one confident stroke, not a series of small baby strokes. - This leads to my next point: practice drawing lines - on a daily basis if you'd like to get better. Scott Robertson has some great tips about this. Remember, when drawing any line all you need to know how to do is draw it in one direction. Find the most comfortable way to draw a line, and rotate your paper as needed. Try drawing some parallel lines of roughly equal length, one below the other. Do a few of these, then try this one - Make two points, then try drawing a straight line connecting them. Try a short line, then get gradually bigger as you get better. Another good exercise - draw intersecting straight lines all intersecting in each others middle, creating sort of a large asterisk type shape. These straight line exercise will help you build confidence in your stroke and help you to learn how to draw a straight line correctly. - You can learn to draw curves the same way. Make several dots in a curve shape, then connect them all with a curved line. Try to get it as smooth as possible, but don't keep going over the same line over and over again - this will give you that "fuzzy" look we're trying to avoid. - Practice circles and ellipses as well. This is a pretty wide subject involving perspective and whatnot, so you may need to do a little research. - Draw "through", don't just draw your solid finished lines. Start with a basic construction - everything starts with primitive shapes, so take what you're trying to draw and start by lightly drawing the most primitive shapes it's made of - a few circles, maybe a cube here and there, then use progressively darker strokes to build off of that. You'd be surprised how much you won't need your eraser in the end. Hope this helps, good luck with your work!
You can make fuzzy lines work. The wonderful thing about artwork, is you dont HAVE to follow the "rules". If everyone did, we would have boring artwork, appearing homogenized and bland.
Of course - you can do whatever you want in art. I was simply giving some technique advice. There's proper technique in drawing just like there's grammar and structure in writing. You can write however you want - there are whole genre's of wild poetry, just look at stream-of-consciousness poetry. However, that doesn't mean you should discount grammar and writing techniques altogether. Art is totally open, but there are techniques you can use to better yourself if you're aiming more towards the design end of things.
That completely missed my point. My lineart utilizes the "fuzzy" style of drawing, and it's just as clean as any other result. That is not to say a steady line is useless, but the reason i mention this, is because some people have shaky hands and no matter WHAT they do, they're unable to draw a smooth contour without successive strokes.
