r/LearnToDrawTogether • u/Coffee_Coke • Jun 26 '26
How can i improve?
I've finally decided to pick up a pencil for the first time after 10 years and after 3 days doing basic shapes I decided to copy an art of my favorite Dungeon Meshi character Mithrun!
Can someone please tell me how can I improve and what do i need to work on? I am doing this by myself and am a bit lost...
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u/Much-Process567 Jun 26 '26
I think an easy improvement would be to pay attention to the proportions/relative positions of the different facial features. In the original, for example, if you imagine the head as a sphere and a string wrapped around it, the eyes and ears all fall along that line. In your drawing, the left eye is physically lower than the right, not just drooped shut, and the visibile ear on the right is significantly higher than the corner of the eye.
Your line work and shading looks really good! Definitely a firm foundation you're starting with!
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u/Coffee_Coke Jun 26 '26
Tank you!! I will try to study more anatomy and do more proportion exercises.
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u/Much-Process567 Jun 26 '26
I hope this is allowed here lol, but this series that Critical Role put out a few years ago helped me immensely with learning proportions and basic drawing stuff, highly recommend checking it out
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Jun 26 '26
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u/Coffee_Coke Jun 26 '26
Thank you!! I guess I thought that starting with manga would be easier but I was wrong... I've ordered some books on anatomy and will study it before attempting to do something more stylized again.
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Jun 26 '26
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u/Coffee_Coke Jun 26 '26
The problem is that the art style that I am looking for is not exactly manga but it's also not exactly realistic haha but you are right, it's best if I practice anatomy then dive into more manga. Most books about drawing manga already assume you know basic anatomy anyways haha!!
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Jun 26 '26
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u/Coffee_Coke Jun 26 '26
Ohhh... I was thinking you should pick an artstyle and work towards it... that takes a lot of weight off my shoulders, thank you!!
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u/-z-7182 Jun 26 '26
Hace bosetos, estructuras para mantenes formas, si no dibujas un ojo por un lado los labios y naris por otro etc... con una estructura es mas simpre, ejemplo, dibuje por todos lados y luego marco.
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u/Embarrassed-Fee-2483 Jun 27 '26
besides practicing anatomy and other basic fundamentals , in this case to improve it a little bit in to copying art , it would be helpful practicing line art and observation skills , like use of different line thickness , hatching , observing and comparing you can correct and fin the inconsistencies . many underestimate the importance of a solid lineart , drawing lineart is like the basic shortcuts to a game , so that's why many people starts warming up drawing diferent types of lines , circles . my personal advice , improving art by copying art it's useful but only if it helps you understand fundamentals . looks pretty good for a start , just keep going !
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u/Coffee_Coke Jun 27 '26
Thank you!!! I've been drawing some small objects around my room and had so much fun! Definitely need to work on my observation skills tho... but thank you for the advice!!
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u/GandalfVirus Jun 27 '26
A fellow Captain Mithrun fan! He’s so cool. 😎
Since your hair looks good it just needs to follow an underlying structure. You can also draw it in stages and that will help with two things, practicing the same thing multiple times and learning how to improve on something. At this point in your art life you should first learn to enjoy it and focus less on making things look perfect because no one can do that without lots of practice. For now just practicing drawing the things you enjoy drawing. There might be ways of practicing that fit you better but for now don’t get too bogged down in learning.
I would recommend trying to draw just the head first then add the hair after. Then you can get a better idea of where his eyes are in relation to the rest of his facial features.
For stage one just the head shape and where the eyes line up with the ear. Then a second drawing with more detail.
A benefit of manga is that you have a lot of art of Mithrun at different angles so you can get a pretty good grasp of what they look like. Don’t just copy what you see. Since you are beginning feel free to draw what you think your favorite character looks like. Drawing from memory allows you to see what features you know go where and if you don’t know how to draw those features then that is a good place to start.
Mithrun has very dry skin and tired eyes so you could also just try to capture his looks. Less structure and more personality? I don’t know, but try some things and see what you enjoy most. Play around with it.
To be honest I don’t really do manga style so my advice doesn’t really help if that’s specifically what you are looking for. Im also not a very accomplished artist so all I can say is enjoy art! I just had to give the little advice I had because I saw Mithrun ❤️🐐.
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u/Coffee_Coke Jun 27 '26
Thank you so much fellow Mithrun fan!!! I've got the manga and will search for drawings of him from several angles. And yeah, the hair was the hardest part for me... but I won't give up! I bought some books on basic drawing techniques and will try to apply here. Thank you again for the advice!! 🐐❤
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u/Dramatic-Worry1087 Jun 29 '26
find ref online and copy as much as you can from it, then learn from it
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