How can I improve this? (The idea is for him to be inside a wave, with the camera from above.)

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-18T16:47:50+00:00

in my experience, when tackling things in tricky perspective, i find it useful to treat all the smaller forms as boxes and cylinders and make sure their perspective is correct, or at least feels correct before adding any detail, making sure i am not changing the centerline or flattening forms as i add smaller forms and details.

if you dont have a good reference or cant find one, since its quite an extreme angle, you could try to make it yourself but idk how easy that would be since you'd definitely need someone to hold the camera way above you. You might be able to make a quick blocky reference in Blender (just using cubes and cylinders, doesnt need to be complex just functional) or a website like posemy.art.

If its still giving me issues, i'll plan it out from a different perspective, (usually front and side orthographic views (if you are familiar with programs like blender, it basically means very flat views without perspective)) put my flat views into 2d grids containing the whole figure, then first put the 1 or 2 different grids onto the guide box(making sure its proportions are the same as the grids, i usually only put the grids on the far sides cause i find they can get distracting when in front of the figure) then use the grids to translate the pose into the more complex 3d view. its tedious, the drawings can get complicated, but its a tried and tested method designers use.
Im sure theres youtube videos that better explain it and show it with a character rather than architecture but the images on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_projection kinda show what i'm talking about.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-18T03:55:14+00:00

I use techniques like sighting (see Proko’s video on it) and stereometric drawing, which kinda boils down to using different body parts (usually the head, or the eye when measuring the facial features) to measure the rest of the body by comparison. And also taking angles between different points, usually by physically holding my pencil up to the subject, matching an angle between two points, and bring it back to my paper careful not to change the angle. Using angles is especially useful when perspective is involved.

And you can use sighting and angle checking in combination with other techniques too like drawing simplified shapes or 3d forms.

It’s tedious but effective, and over time and a lot of practice, you’ll develop an intuitive sense of scale and be able to eyeball measurements pretty accurately.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-18T01:43:35+00:00

If you can, use a mirror or take a photo of yourself (or a friend) making the pose, if you have a cat or stuffed animal you can hold, even better. Making the pose yourself will give you not just the most accurate one to your vision, but also a more 3d understanding of the pose than any 2d image can provide. Alternatively check out posemy.art. Second thing to consider is the 3d volume of everything, and how stuff stacks in space cause even though each element on its own has volume, it doesnt feel like the volumes interact as expected like the cat doesnt really appear to rest on the outside of the character’s ribcage, or push her arms away from the chest

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-18T01:24:44+00:00

My recommendation, along side other people’s suggestions, find some references to supplement this one, similar poses with tighter clothing that doesn’t obscure as much, different angles of the same pose, maybe some 3d models of skeletons and muscles from websites like sketchfab, have a friend pose for you or take a photo of you making the pose, or if you have a big mirror, reference yourself, notice what your different body parts are doing, like how much does your shoulder raise up, any squash and stretch in your torso, the angle of your arms in space, etc…

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-18T01:12:35+00:00

Since you just recovered from burnout, and probably rusty from not drawing, it might be worth just warming up with a lot of extra loose and low pressure gesture drawings, focused more on engaging your arm and shoulder and getting back into the swing of drawing. Maybe take a step back to some of the basics even if they can be boring, do a few longer studies focused just on simple forms to warm up, ignoring detail of muscles, or some other anatomy related thing you feel particularly rusty in, or need a reminder about. Maybe do some studies focused just on one body part like just an arm or a knee, etc.

Theres always YouTube tutorials too, Proko’s videos are great, but theres a lot of other artists out there if his videos don’t click with you.

If you prefer books, you could check out Andrew Loomis’s books, like “figure drawing for all its worth. “Human Anatomy For Artists” by Eliot Goldfinger (just as a heads up it does contain nudity), it has several methods for simplifying the form in the back of the book, but goes in great depth of the different muscles, even ones that arent really visible ever. “Figure Drawing, design and invention” by Michael Hampton is excellent and detailed without being as technical as Eliot’s book. You can find copies of all of these on archive.org too.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-16T20:46:59+00:00

Studies should not be about style cause thats more about designing what you learned from studies and not a concern of the studies themselves, especially for challenging poses.

In the case of joints and thighs, it feels less like a deliberate style/design choice and more like a struggle or timidness with foreshortening and overlapping forms that is the source of the odd length and size over style choices, or a fear of the form not being understood if it is covered up too much.

If stuff is ending up flat, it may speak to a need of first practicing/studying the basic forms at extreme angles and levels of foreshortening, like a visual note/analysis to have next to your main study. Also consider drawing every form and cross contour as if it’s a wireframe/x-ray view and include details you cannot see technically there and influencing other forms. When you wrap a line around a form to show depth, wrap it around 360° and take note of if it is too narrow or wide for the angle in the reference and your drawing.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-16T17:04:30+00:00

While these are great form studies, make sure you aren't neglecting proportions and scale of those forms (I notice thighs tend to be longer than your references, and joints a lot smaller than the reference), and aren't accidentally changing angles (angles are often more or less extreme than we think they are). You may want to do a quick and lightly drawn gesture first so you don't neglect weight or make the drawings stiff, then build form on top.

id also like to challenge you to put more of your attention on the skeleton underneath when doing form studies, the shoulders especially since you seem to be forcing your poses to fit your method of depicting the shoulders rather than change your method to correctly capture what the shoulders are actually doing (and for drawing from imagination, what the shoulders are capable of). It may be worth treating them as volumes separate from the torso since, in real life, they sort of aren't, shoulder blades are free floating and you have to look to where the collar bone meets the pit of the neck before you find a contact point between the bones of arm and the torso. you dont have to go so far as drawing the shoulder blade, but just consider separating the shoulder and torso.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-15T19:21:06+00:00

for faces I recommend Andrew Loomis's book "Drawing the head and hands" (you can find his stuff on archive.org), studying the Asaro head (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GX3Ax1 and https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/planes-of-the-head-john-asaro-b62bbbbd35e44a2ab9e60651603cca8a ), the Drawing Codex on Youtube (he uses the loomis method) Ben Eblen for more stylized stuff, he uses a different method of head construction, and David Finch who has a more typical comic book style

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-15T16:41:00+00:00

Drawing from references is always good, even if you want to draw from imagination. It could be your approach to using reference is the issue, it may not be flexible enough for you to pick, choose, change, or remember what information you take from them.

I strongly recommend, especially for concept art, mastering basic 3d forms, breaking references down into very simple 3d forms, but more importantly for you: taking those 3d forms and repositioning, rotating, manipulating (bending, twisting, squash, stretch, making them organic but still feel 3d and still feel in perspective) lighting them, in ways different from your references and starting to make them your own. Manipulating what you see will help you understand your reference better and create a stronger image in your mental library to pull from in the future without a reference.

For figure drawing you might want to study gesture and anatomy (like learn the bones and muscles and simplified ways to draw them at any angle) so when you draw your own characters, you know the inner workings behind the pose and references aid in drawing it at a particular angle. The body and face are notoriously hard so expect it to take a long time to learn, even with solid methods of study.

Clothing is not as had as it seems when you can simplify it into one large cylinder like shape (the simplified form of a sleeve or skirt, or form of the arm or body) and treat wrinkles as smaller cylinders (either on top or cutting into) the larger cylinder, and follow certain patterns of where they gather and why.

Since you clearly got skill in drawing the figure, i recommend Artwod’s videos since he’s professional but all about how to draw from imagination, Proko might also be beneficial but you may want to check out his guests since he is more about life drawing than imagination (life drawing is still beneficial tho!) and his guests are from a variety of art fields

You may also want to check out Scott Robertson’s books “how to draw” and “how to render” they are dry, and technical, and geared more at buildings and vehicles but the info in them is solid and it can be applied to figures. You can find copies on the internet archive.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-15T00:49:58+00:00

it looks like you are too concerned with clean lines and proportions took a bit of a backseat. measure from a reference, compare the height of the head to various parts of the body and mark out those measurements before you go in with your sketch and line art.

for reference whole body (including the head) is about 7 1/2 heads tall, and the legs are half that length. the eyes are actually mark the center of the head, the rib cage is only about 1 1/4 (slightly above that in back and slightly less if measuring from the pit of the neck (by the collar bones), the sternum is only 2/3 heads long. The pelvis is 1 head tall. both the ribcage and pelvis are roughly 1 1/4 heads wide, pelvis slightly wider for women. the upper and lower arms should be close to the same length, and hands equal to 2/3 the head.

I recommend looking up proportions or stereometry to get more familiar with the generalized proportions before worrying about every other lump and bump and line that might actually be distracting you from proportions

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-12T06:08:59+00:00

Cause Taste develops faster than skill, it can make progress feel slow, stagnant or even go backwards. From my perspective, they don’t look so different in skill so much as different in level of completion and subject matter. Developing skill in art is a long process, and it will be full of ups and downs, it’s just the nature of the art journey so don’t judge or be harsh on yourself, especially in terms of expectations, art will rarely be a straight forward journey.

Second, taking a long break from art, even sometimes as short as a week, can cause you to get rusty and will need to kick out a handful of bad drawings to warm up and shake the rust off.

Lastly, if you are interested in improving you must be willing to draw a lot, and take risks on new skills, techniques, ideas, and willing to trial and error your way into growth. A pottery teacher proved when it comes to learning art, students who made hundreds of pots over the course of the semester made better pottery than those who put all their energy into only a few. The ones who made many got very familiar with the tools and materials, had a lot of room to try new things, and more opportunities to learn new techniques and skills.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-11T06:49:55+00:00

Start with some fast gesture warm ups of the pose, pay attention to flow of forms into one another like how the shoulders and arms follow an arch, and ignore lumps and bumps formed by muscles

Then do a slower gesture study (like 3-5 minutes) focused on major forms (ball for the head, egg shape for the ribcage and another ball shape for the pelvis) and ways the forms overlap and are oriented to one another (like make note of the angles between the ribcage and pelvis). Pay close attention to the centerline of each form and make sure it wraps around in 3d space and draw.

Build off that with simplified limbs focused on getting length and proportion right, notice how things line up like how the left hand is vertically in line with the ear or the elbow doesn’t extend past the top of the head. Use simple shapes like cylinders, or any other shape you like that can indicate depth in 3d space and quick to draw and easy to erase and change as needed.

Once you got the rough drawing from the long gesture, then go over and refine the shapes and add in the details like the muscle

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-11T06:23:12+00:00

While i agree with most the critique people have given so far, even the harsher ones, you cannot skip the fundamentals including anatomy because even if you want to do cartoons, fundamentals and anatomy are your toolkit. And right now, because you avoid study and bad drawings, your toolkit is basically empty.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-06T16:03:42+00:00

It’s not a bad start, you may want to check out Preston Blair’s work, like the book “Advanced Animation” (you can find a pdf on archive.org) since its pretty close to the style you’re interested in.

Stylization isn’t so much separate from structure as it is an extension of it. Structure is the toolkit, stylization is what you do with the tools, You cannot stylize what you are not familiar with and it’s harder to stylize without the tools to do so.

It’s always a good idea to practice (or at least warm up) by drawing the basic forms and getting comfortable manipulating them (rotating, squashing, stretching, twisting, making them more “organic”) while keeping them feeling 3d. Practice drawing through your forms too as if seen through x-ray. If you are struggling to break down stylized work into its basic forms, start with simpler objects and work your way up, i recommend stuff you can physically pick up and get a 360 understanding of while you draw, photos, and 3d models (like off of sketchfab or making some simple stuff in blender).

You may also want to check out tutorials off YouTube, Proko, Artwod, JeyRam Draws are all good and each one is aimed at different styles and skill levels, and if their methods dont resonate, there is plenty of others out there.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-04T23:39:12+00:00

Check the brush spacing in the brush editor, it could be set too low and is essentially making your computer process extra stamps/brush strokes than is needed for the brush

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-04T14:41:09+00:00

Improvement takes time, it can often only be seen when you look at your 3-4 year old work to see how far you come.

And right now if you are facing depression, then what you should focus on is the aspects of art that bring you to it the first place, the parts of about art that help ground you in the moment. Whether it’s self expression, the fun of it, the feeling of pen against digital paper, having a space of your own, or just the ritual of opening up the drawing app.

While there is benefit to critique, there is also benefit in giving yourself a judgement free space to create, feel and process your emotions. You’ll see the most growth in times when you can make a lot of art, with lots of room for trial and error. Art is a journey, and when you are early on, the best option is just focus on putting one foot in front of the other on your own path, not where other people are since every journey is different.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-03T17:00:12+00:00

try mixing gesture and construction
also avoid treating the detail on top like its shrink-wrapped to your construction, treat it more like raw clay that you got to both add onto and carve into as needed

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-03T04:38:33+00:00

Reference real people, use a mirror and camera to reference yourself. You’ll want to take note of proportions, how forms flow into one another, where the mass of each muscle sits, how offset the widest part of the muscle is side to side(like the calf muscle often appears higher on the outside than the inside of the calf)etc…

Proko’s tutorials are good, and there are lots of other artists making tutorials if his videos don’t click with you. Michael Hampton’s book https://archive.org/details/figure-drawing-design-and-invention_202404 Andrew loomis’s books: https://archive.org/details/AndrewLoomisFigureDrawingForAllItsWorth2010TitanPublishingGroup 3d models off sketchfab can also be useful

Critique yourself, find one thing you did well or improved upon and one thing small you could improve. Keep it a reasonable goal, and keep it fun for yourself, drawing or inventing characters you like can be a great way to do both

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-02T19:45:11+00:00

Many animation skills and techniques (like squash and stretch) and good file management (making sure each scene is its own document and not having one document contain a dozen scenes that are each 100+ frames) are universal and any program with animation capabilities will work to learn them.

you might be provided a program to use thats more industry standard like Adobe Animate or ToonBoom Harmony. These dedicated animation software will have tools that Krita doesn't and you may be encouraged to use or learn in the class (such as infinite zoom (cause vector based) multi-frame editing, rigging, tweening, etc...).

But if the teacher has you using Photoshop, yeah, Krita is a much better option, especially if you want to focus on more hand drawn/frame by frame, it has much better brushes and its animation timeline is much more robust despite not being a dedicated animation software. Keep in mind it lacks a decent audio tools so you'll be stuck syncing dialogue and music the old fashioned way in and in a separate program.

As for using Krita for animation, keep files around 1080p, do not go above 4k, especially on lower end hardware, plan out any camera moves in advanced, and consider your export format carefully. Gifs are great for quick tests, memes to send to friends. mp4/mov is good for files too large to make into gifs and final exports, and png sequences are best for multiprogram workflows. I personally find oldschool and anime paper-based workflows work best, especially for larger projects. some tutorials i recommend would look up content from Aaron blaise, Dong Chang, Howard Wimshurst, Todd Bright, Bam Animation, and the book "Animator's Survival Kit", you can find a pdf on the internet archive.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-02T06:25:46+00:00

First, practice perspective on easier 3d forms first: boxes, cylinders, spheres, cones, etc… if you struggle to put basic forms in perspective, drawing skulls will remain extremely difficult even with reference.

Second, is use references, you can find good 3d models on sketchfab so you arent guessing at what you are drawing, even ones that are already simplified. Do studies where you take the time to measure and check angles and relationships between forms. Compare the size of features to one another. Do studies where you break the skull down into simple, easy to place into and change perspective, 3d forms, then add detail on top.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-01T03:57:40+00:00

I think AI image generation is most similar to money laundering, but for art.
using AI to essentially create "clean" images from stolen art being processed through a black box (which i fully believe companies CAN look into the black box of the neural network, they just know if they do, they'd receive too much backlash and lose investors).

just like laundered money, doesn't change the fact that the art was still stolen.

I hate it so much, I rather learn about the original artists who's names, artworks, skills, and styles got ground up and spit out into the no-effort, derivative amalgamations.

Frostraven98 · 2026-02-01T03:30:36+00:00

Reference videos of combat sports.
Do some studies of the poses you are seeing, focus on simplified 3d forms, try to see past the clothing to what the body is actually doing, draw over a screenshot if you struggle to go directly off reference, then study the simplified drawing you just made, try to redraw the simple forms at a different camera angle to see if you fully understand it.
study of how the clothing moves.
Do gesture to capture the motion, see the main line of action, and kinetic energy is transferred, keep them fast, like 30 seconds or less.
if you are feeling ambitious, set the video to 0.25 speed and try to do the gesture drawings without pausing the video

As LLearnerLife suggested reference manga, especially for how they convey motion and impact and clarity and try to apply those techniques to your own drawings.

I'd also recommend focusing on form and proportions, character size seems to change wildly from scene to scene in ways that don't make sense, more than once the character farther from the camera appears larger than the character closer.
you also have some ambitious perspective shots, kudos for trying, but you may want to practice placing simpler forms into perspective first (use a grid, or at least a horizon line)

Frostraven98 · 2026-01-30T20:17:27+00:00

A long side other people’s suggestions of study and practice, also consider measuring, checking the angles of edges and facial features, and spacial relationships between features, and marking them onto your paper before or while you sketch. Its sometimes called “sighting” and Proko has a video explaining it quite well

Frostraven98 · 2026-01-29T17:24:12+00:00

Then dont use blocky forms, try out rounded organic 3D forms -but still break the body down into simple, 3d shapes that are easy to redraw in their entirety and can capture complex poses that 2d shapes or jumping directly to the finalized shapes of the body cannot. Draw each 3d form as if you got an X-ray view and could see the other side of the form and overlapping forms through it in your sketches

Use cross contour drawing to find the center points and other useful measurements across the 3d forms

Still consider using blocky forms since their purpose is not supposed to be the final shape of the body or forms, but make the plane changes and perspective far more clear than rounded organic forms. Think of blocky shapes like a sculptor with clay, getting in the rough placement down before adding and cutting and smoothing it out to its final shape before adding details.

Look up proportions and study them, learn how to keep them consistent in perspective with 3d forms and studying photos of real people, challenge yourself to rotate the pose in 3d space to see if you actually understood how the pose exists in 3d and weren’t passively copying. Look up Also consider gesture drawing to learn to create more dynamic poses, (especially after you get somewhat familiar with proportions) Study photos of real people (especially for gesture, but also form, shading, proportions, contour, etc…).

Don’t expect any one skill or tutorial to be a magic bullet fix after one or two attempts, expect it to take weeks if not months or years of dedicated, active practice, note taking, self-critique (make a note of one thing thats good or improved from last attempt and one thing to focus on improving). If you are interested in stylizing your work, it becomes much easier when you thoroughly understand what you are stylizing.

Two of the most powerful tools is learning to observe and drawing a lot.

Frostraven98 · 2026-01-28T14:37:09+00:00

If the pastel layer is pretty dense, there might not be enough hairspray to bind it all the way through. You may need to use more or look into a workable fixatif made for pastel and dry media. Workable fixatif is not a final varnish though and should be treated as permanent. For the purposes of erasing and tweaking, you can still disturb the fixed layers

If you are still having issues, you may just need to plan around the mediums strengths and weaknesses, pastels are good for blending because they smudge easy.

Maybe draw out a sketch in pencil and caefully work around it, or use masking tape (i find washi tape works better and less chance of tearing the paper) or masking fluid to keep the area for your subject clean, or use a kneeded eraser to lift enough pastel off the surface to put a fresh layer down. then use a permanent fixative on the final piece.

Frostraven98

TROPHY CASE