That's all leftovers from my time at animation school, so I didn't go to a store to get it. The animation desk was bought from an animator who put it up for sale on craigslist for really cheap ( he just wanted to get it out of his house ). The paper was from school... You can buy peg bars for pretty cheap I think, and tape them to a lightbox. New animation desks are very expensive.
Absolutely one of my favorite channels on youtube. Not only do you offer information in your videos that re-affirms my own knowledge of drawing, but you always manage to have something that fills in a missing gap and gives me one of those "AHA! So that's how you do that!" moments. Keep up the fantastic videos!
God damn sharpening pencils like that makes life so much easier. I kept getting down to the wood before. Also turning the pencil while drawing helps a lot.
Awesome video Sycra, thank you for sharing these tips! :-) The basics may look less glamorous but for the beginner, this basic stuff is really important to learn. And I just found out I didn't know how to properly use a kneaded eraser or sharpen my pencils. But, what really makes this video awesome is the relaxed approach you show at the end... just sitting without any fancy equipment and drawing. It's really good for the beginner to learn to relax and just make drawing a part of their day. Seeing how relaxed you are helps- at least for me. ;-)
Not much, but you can't get the really long exposed lead with them, and having that lead can be really useful for shading. You can buy lead holders though, that use a rotary sharpener and still can have good lead exposure for shading broadly. Just depends on how you wanna use your pencil. If hand sharpeners work for you, that's cool.
I don't get the holding the pencil part qnq it was like you were in the middle of explaining it and from the sudden you were already talking about something else...yny could you or anyone explain it better...? qq
Extremely helpful thank you so much for this video. I had never even realized I shouldn't be moving both my wrist and fingers at the same time, now that I stopped doing that I'm drawing smoother and more accurate lines. WHY HAD NOBODY TOLD ME THAT BEFORE?!
I have a question in terms of shading smoothly. If I ever use the softer pencils 2B, 3B etc. I get these small circles or patches that don't contain lead, the shading isn't smooth at all. I was wondering what I can do to make it smoother, should I blend it? When I do it tends to look very sloppy and discouraging
With practice you can use your shoulder for drawing in a smaller area, but most often I just use elbow. At first it's very hard because your elbow and shoulder aren't used to doing precise small movements the way your fingers are, but I trained myself to be able to make fairly precise movements with just elbow and shoulder. It takes some time, to be sure, but you can do it... At least on 8.5"x11" it's possible... Maybe your bamboo is too small though... But try your best!
Yeah, it's fine to use fingers where you need to, or wrist. But for larger movements, elbows and shoulders really make a difference. Also, the more trained your elbow and shoulder get, the less you need to use your wrist or fingers, even for smaller details. But for sure, I'm not saying to NEVER use your wrist or fingers.
Great video. I'll definitely will try to use my elbow more when I draw. I very, very rarely ever used my elbow to draw, but it looks like you can get good lines in with it. I'd like to chime in a future sketch walk through video, im sure you'll have some wonderful pieces you'd like to show us. Also, I can't draw anywhere unless it's my desk. It's not comfortable to draw on my lap or anywhere else for that matter. Is that okay???
I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and guess that you're Canadian? I come from a border city, so I don't have much of an accent but my sister's from deeper in, and she says "hand" and "against" the same way as you. :)
+zainalu lol, same thing i thought at the beginning, but hey there is lots of forgien races who live in america, easterns and middle easterns and africans, and east europeans and russians, turk, ..etc , .. as he does his jop well nothing else matters.
about sharpening, I make a prism with loads of edges and spin the pencil when I need a sharp edge. love your videos! in 3 hours I've learnt more than 2 years I am in the academy of arts. take care and all the best
Sycra, thank you so much! Learned a lot that I'd thought was unimportant or that I already "thought" I knew! You are one humble guy, and I really appreciate your sharing your talent and time! God bless!
Just a suggestion your camera person needs a tripod... >.< wiggly camera makes me kinda sea sick. I'm really glad you mentioned the right and wrong way you hold a pencil. A while ago I had mentioned on another video that they needed to loosen their grip on their pencil and they'll get more fluid lines and have a better range of motion. I was told I was wrong, apparently I don't know what I'm talking about. *sigh* it became Mob Mentality.
Do *not* use the eraser as a stress ball. First day of my course I was really stressed and kneading it like crazy, ended up with black fingernails and sticky hands.
hahaha i thought Sycra was white. So when i was watching the how to draw hands vid, he did an, i guess indian/pakistani impression, where i thought, thats kinda offending, like, to do such a random impression in a drawing vid. haha it all makes sense now
I still sharpen my art pencil with a sharp blade, For me the lead can be managed easier and tilt the pencil to a long slant with out the wood interfering....I use a sharpener now and then but the blade is the best for me.
I'm glad to hear that!...it's a shame that I didn't think about making hamburguers with the bodies, I feel ashamed because I've been wasting food all this time. I think it's a bad idea to make sculptures with the bones, because someone could get DNA samples from them, and you could get caught. But whatever rocks your boat man! I'm just happy because sharpening your pencils will be a lot easier with sharper knives.
An advice, in case your knife gets kind of dull, instead of buying a new blade, what I do to resharpen mine is stab someone multiple times with it. If you can, try to stab them in an area with bones, but not really hard ones like the sternum or something. 60 or 70 stabs should do to get your knife as good as new. Plus you manage to exercise your shoulders, wrist and fingers at the same time, so it's a plus. BTW, try to stab someone at random, that way the police wouldn't be able to get you...
I use a japanese eraser called "MONO", I already used steadtler, it is really good. But MONO is awesome. If you can find it somewhere, go ahead and buy it. I am more into plastic eraser, but a tip is: do not touch this type of eraser, it absorbs the body oil/fat and starts to smudge what you erase (that is the reason some erasers have a plastic or paper around it). (MONO also have a mechanical eraser with little round eraser, that is awesome for details)
Hey I just want to say theses things are all suggestions if your an artist and draw with a mechanical pencil or hold your hand different than everyone else then so be it. That's what makes your style of art better. You don't always have to follow what others say to do. Do the best you can do because there's no such thing as the right way. It's art!! It's what you see and feel. Sorry just wanted to point that out.
=.= I learned nothing except what B and H mean on the pencil... I was hoping to see something new.... Truthfully you should just us a mechanical pencil for thin lines a regular pencil to shade with. It takes less time out of ur day... there are also little blocks of led that are about 2in X 1/2in out there that you can use for shading as well.
I really like what your channel. Im just newbie in drawing and dig painting. It will be nice to see similar video, when you are working with tablet. It is pretty diferent than working with paper and pencil though... Thanks for great job. As I said Im just new in drawing but I really love it already and your videos help me a lot with technique and motivation!
hey! that was a great video on traditional methods!!.. coz that is wat we still prefer esp for the ones who are not aware of the new techniques /methods!!.. was a gr8 video!.. would luv to have some tips n knowledge on the diff types of drawing paper/sheets and the textures created on them n how they can be useful!!... thanks! ..
Funny fact, before this video i wanted to draw so bad, i picked up a kitchen knife to sharpen my pencil, and i now i came here and was surprised to know that a knife is better xD now i know why my art teacher sharpened my pencil with one out of no where lol!!
I don't know how you can use the "shoulder stroke" without at least a giant 18 x 24 drawing pad. It's probably difficult with 8.5 x 11 paper, let alone a relatively small tablet like a Wacom Bamboo(the tablet I own and the only one I could afford)
I think you can just use mechanical pencil for thin lines, and monolith pencil for shading. I am not saying that what your doing is bad, but i am just saying Doing that would waste a lot of time, and what you do is 2 in 1 one:p
Ohh okay, yea I didnt mean anything rude by that haha. Thanks, I was a bit unsure at first but as I needed to shade larger areas it almost became a nuisance after a period of time. Big fan of your work btw thanks
Hey Sycra,I wanted to ask you something about what you mentioned on the movement of the hand while drawing,does the same thing apply when you gonna ink?i mean sometimes I gotta use my fingers to get some details right
AHH IM SO JEALOUS!! HE GAS AN ANIMATION DESK-SETUP with the light table and the animation paper and animation ruler.. he's got it all YET he still doesn't do animations... WHY NOT DO ANIMATIONS, SYCRA?!! That'd be so cool..
i have only used a kneaded eraser once when i was doing a charcoal drawing. charcoal is not my preferred material as i am clumsy (i am a good drawer though) and so i end up having a mess eberywhere xD
i'm just asking why it's still bad at 720p because it's weird. i didn't say "this shit looks terrible, i even set my video to 720 with my high speed internet and this shit still looks terrible". sheesh
nah would be good to draw lines with but not quite shading. mechanical pencils is like my favorite tool though. :P But my teacher hates me when i use really hard pencils like mechanical pencils D:
This is good stuff but can u also tell us how to get better on a tablet I have a bamboo fun small one I have to hold my pen like I write is there any excercise to get better lines on a tablet too
Have you ever tried using a technical pencil? I liked using them with leads of varying hardnesses and a handheld sharpener. They also make it very easy to get a lot of lead exposed.
You show us how to sharpen your 2B with a knife but after the rest of your pencils look as if they were sharpened with a pencil sharpener. I understand why I should use a knife now but do you generally just a pencil sharpener?
