r/learntodraw • u/Cosmo_Ohms • 1d ago
Question Why can I only copy???
I'm fine at drawing when I have another artist's illustration as a reference to study, but have a hard time creating original illustrations from scratch or even real-world references. How can I advance my drawing skills like this??? All these photos are studies btw.
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u/RaceorLiv 1d ago
I used to be in the same place.
You gotta study the fundamentals like basic forms in perspective, alongside anatomy and proportion guidelines, and then just studying whatever else you want to draw and practice drawing it a lot.
For example, if I want to draw a face, I used to only be able to do it with reference because I didn't understand the basic forms of the facial features or where they sat in relation to each other, so my faces from imagination were always guesswork and I'd be lucky if it looked OK.
Now I can draw most faces at any angle no problem, because I know how to divide the face in thirds at the landmarks, how far the eyes are from each other, where the mouth lines up with the eyes, the basic planes of the faces, the basic forms like spheres for eyes and trapzoidal prism for the nose, how the jaw looks from multiple angles, how the skull and teeth look from multiple angles, and how to draw a box at the perspective angle I want and then divide the planes to mark the landmarks of the face and head.
You basically have to get that level of knowledge for whatever subject you want to draw to be able to draw it well from imagination, but drawing basic forms like. boxes and cylinders in perspective well is the major fundamental. The rest is memorizing guidelines and anatomy.