Looking to improve my drawing

[CrazyFoxMachine]

That's a real good story Jimbo makes me want to haul out one of my favourites although it's less sage it does concern a drawing lesson -

I would doodle all of the time during every class (and where has THAT got me... actually nowhere) and I was being particularly obvious about it one German lesson which was being taken by a  substitute teacher who looked a bit like a 70s Gandalf. He was stealthier than I thought and caught me in the act of drawing a rather flat head in profile which he deftly corrected with his own pencil. "Try and look at the way things actually are rather than what you imagine them to be". I never saw him again - but HE WAS THE BEST TEACHER I EVER HAD.

[Fungus]

one of the main challenges of figure drawing is drawing what you see, not what you think you can see. The brain tends to 'autocorrect' because anatomy looks fucking weird when foreshortening comes into play.

...and that's the thing that impresses me above all about comic art. These guys are drawing stuff that doesn't exist   

Take a bit of care and drawing from life is doable. But Bolland's Death... O'Neill's Nemesis... and all the rest....
that's what hurts my brain: drawing from imagination. True skill.

[GrudgeJohnDeed]

The ONLY good book I've ever read about drawing from life (and I've read a lot) is Betty Edwards' Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. 

I think ill pick that up, thanks. theres a workbook to go with it too, could become a little project for me.

@DarkJimbo yeah colour is so much more than meets the eye isnt it. I havent really learnt any proper colour theory. Though there is this idea of colouring that within pixel art is called hue-shifting, which is an easy method of getting eye-catching colours without being an expert.

It just means that as a gradient of colours for a material, say skin, goes from dark to light, you change the hue. you can do it with the lightsource in mind, inject some yellow into the highlights if the sun is out, and then put some cooler colours into the shadowed areas like blue. or you could do something more outlandish. really basic stuff but when i started using hueshifting i noticed a huge improvement in my colouring. Can anyone recommend some colour theory learning materials?

@CFM haha, thats a great story!! I must say, its a sorry state of affairs that  i dont think ive met many people who felt encouraged by their teachers at school!!!

[The Legendary Shark]

I improved my poor drawing skills by jacking it in altogether and becoming a poor writer instead.

However, since reading some of the excellent tips on this thread, I might just get my pencils out again...

[Hawkmumbler]

What i'm finding useful is having a notepad and propelling pencil ready at all times. I'm spending alot of time at work at the moment, working the late shift when there's less people in Starbucks. So I make sure to draw quickly with as few glimpses at the subject as possible in the space a 60 seconds. Not gonna say i've seen an improvement since I started it (a few weeks ago), but i've produced some sketches of customers drinking that I quite like. I typicaly bin the truely awful ones though.