In your quest to become more confident through improving your drawing skills, it may be a good idea to consult videos so that you can actually see how drawings are made. Luckily, in the age of Youtube, there are many drawing tutorials available - for free!

In this entry, I’ll focus on drawing eyes, since eyes are among the most popular things for people to draw - and also, if you draw great eyes, people will sit up and take notice!

Here are three how-to-draw videos that should help you in your quest to draw beautiful eyes.

In this video, Mark Crilley, author of the Miki Falls manga, demonstrates how to draw manga-style eyes 4 different ways. Of these, I think his own style (the very last set of eyes), is the best - still, all the drawings should give you pointers that you can adapt to your own style, so I think this is a very useful video to watch.

Drawing in a more realistic style than Mark Crilley, “sycra” demonstrates how starting with rough lines and shapes, you can come up with some very compelling looking eyes.

Stephanie Valentin does an even more realistic eye in her how-to-draw video, complete with narration text. Bonus points for Django Reinhardt music! (By the way, she’s also an accomplished musician - check out her other videos if you’re interested in the electric violin.)

Image by Tigrikorn, used under a Creative Commons License.

One of my beliefs is that learning a new skill is a great way to boost your confidence. Not only does it increase your self-esteem by showing you that you’re capable of drawing something great, it also allows you to make more friends in the artist community.

I know this from experience, since I used to draw manga-style art. This allowed me to join communities, both offline and online, that had plenty of people who drew in a style similar to mine. I was able to make new friends, and also, this was how I met my girlfriend - we first connected over manga and art.

Now, if you’re a complete beginner, there’re a couple of things that you should keep in mind:

• Practice is key: If you want to get good at drawing, you absolutely have to practice drawing. Do it for a few hours every week. Find artists you admire, and try to emulate them.

   

• Get the fundamentals correct at the start: Although getting technical details such as perspective and anatomical proportion isn’t the sexiest part of drawing, if you get it right from the start,you don’t have to correct mistakes in your drawing style later on.

   

• Learn from a variety of artists and sources: To develop your own style, don’t just emulate one artist! Take the good things from many different artists, learn from many different sources, and you’ll find your art developing more quickly.

   

• Join an art community: Joining an art community will connect you to different artists. This will expose you to different styles and ideas, as well as give you motivation to keep drawing.

   

Now, drawing tutorials is a huge topic by itself, which I plan to address in a future post. However, here are some online art galleries where you can upload and display your art for free, and also check out what other artists are drawing.

• Deviantart: One of the most famous online art galleries. Great for getting exposure for your art.

   

• Elfwood Fantasy and Science-Fiction Art Galleries: This was the first art site I ever joined, and while it’s not as lively as Deviantart is, it’s still a great way to meet people who are interested in fantasy art. Be aware, however, that they have very strict rules for what’s acceptable in their galleries (must be fantasy/sci-fi), and that all incoming artwork in checked by human moderators.

   

Future posts will go into drawing for confidence in more detail. In the meantime, have fun drawing, and have a Merry Christmas!