Back to Basics

Generally my moto when trying to learn something is "Jump in Head First" (not literally of course or i'm sure I would never have survived my short stint at rock climbing). With that in mind I thought lets see what I can do.
I had been playing a lot of Path of Exile before my son was born and had the idea of drawing my witch surrounded by her summoned undead minions.  The image in my head was awesome, all moody with the witch oozing power. What I actually drew was this.

You see it turns out I don't know how to shade, I'm not great with proportion and I have trouble drawing smooth lines.
I need to go back to basics and I figure the first thing I need to sort out are my lines.
Now I work full time, I have a young baby at home and money is always tight so art lessons are out of the question I looked for the next best thing .... YouTube videos. And you know what there are a fair few of them out there.  I have included links to the ones I found the most useful.

It turns out I'm even holding my pencil wrong. My general position when holding a pencil had been that my fingers are close to the point and I rest my arm on the desk. Because of this the only movement I am allowing my hand is from the wrist and fingers.

By lifting your arm off the table my hand gains a greater degree of movement allowing for longer smoother lines. 

 I think this is something I need to get used to because it feels quite uncomfortable and my arm doesn't always behave it's self (the odd twitch here and there is nothing compared to the stiffness in my arm). The only way to get passed this is the 3 Ps practice, practice and practice. So this week is being spent drawing basic shapes.

Youtube Links

How to stop drawing crappy pencil lines 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmtYzdQjmps&feature=youtube_gdata_player

How to draw smooth lines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaKrk03T1T4&sns=em

To Lost Skills and Regaining Them

When I was a kid I loved to draw and with all things that you love as a kid you do it as often as you could, learning and practicing skills without ever realising it. When I was in the junior school my parents were amazed by my drawing of our cat. Although my parents were easily amazed and slightly bias.
In my teenaged years I drew a lot of comic heroes and manga. The manga primarily being large breasted women.

 

Then nothing. college, uni and work, not to mention clubbing, drinking and girls all but preoccupied my time with my drawing being relegates to the margins of college note.
Fast forward around 15 years..ish when my parents enlist my help in getting their suitcases out of their loft. While wading through the year upon years of horded junk my eyes  fall upon a folder I haven't seen in years. A kind of giddy excitement falls over me as I climmbed over my old rocking horse being careful not to fall between the exposed structural beams and reach for the dusty old leaver arch file.
Inside the dusty old leaver arch folder I was greeted by a multitude of sketches, doodles, drawings and paintings all created by my younger self. I have to admit I was a little surprised at how good they were.
As I leafed through the pages and bits of scap paper I had drawn on it hit me that I can't reproduce these the skills I used to create them have been lost to time. I suddenly thought what if I had carried on getting better what could I have produced today.
Alas we will never know but a spark had been reignited within me, I am hoing to learn to draw. I'm going to start from scratch and im going to document my journey on here. Sharing what I find with you and showing my progress, if any, to hopefully inspire maybe one or two of you to join me.
So its time to do a bit of research and get cracking.