A few people have asked for this, and far be it from me to deny my audience :D
First question: what course would I recommend for people who haven’t drawn in a really long time?
Answer: Technically speaking, everything you could possibly want to learn is available for free somewhere on YouTube. I, however, lack the capacity to FIND all that material and not be overwhelmed by it, so I used courses that somebody else had put together.
And yes, that does say courses, plural, because I can’t do anything the easy way. I’ve been doing an Udemy course for basic drawing that I bought -clears throat- (whispers) eight years ago (/whispers), and this Can I Learn To Draw In 100 Hours course, the latter of which is what inspired me.
The absolute cheapest thing to do is use the list in the 100 Hours video comments there and just go down the videos, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re REALLY good at self-guidance. I, a person other people say is notoriously good at discipline, am not that good at it.
The second cheapest thing to do is sign up for the Nerdforge Patreon for a month at the cheapest level, which will give you access to the google powerpoint thing that the artist of the pair put together for the not-artist of the pair. You can download the powerpoint and go from there. There is one course book, which I bought in ebook for under $10, I think. Definitely under $15.
I got the Udemy course on sale at some point and did not pay the full, eye-bleeding price that it often is. I paid about twenty bucks for it, I think. Possibly less, since I recently bought 4 other courses for like $60 total, but the thing to do there is obviously keep an eye on Udemy for sales, bc eeek.
The Udemy course has better end-course stuff about anatomy; otherwise, I don’t think one is significantly better than the other, just slightly different, and honestly if people do the 100 Hours one, if you get that far I’ll probably be able to point out better anatomy stuff for you when you get to it. :)
Second question: What are you using for materials?
Cheapest answer: a regular ol’ school pencil (or whatever your preferred mechanical pencil or whatever is), a pencil sharpener, an eraser, and a stack of printer paper
What I actually use: DELICIOUS DELICIOUS ART SUPPLIES o.o
Sketchbooks: I filled a 50 page A4 (9×12″) wire-bound sketchbook similar to this one with this project, mostly drawing on both sides of the page. 180gsm/121lb acid-free paper, which I think feels pretty nice. Near the end of the project I also got a much larger A3 (11×17″) wire-bound sketchbook, 40 pages, similar to this one, same paper weight (but not acid-free, so not as high quality) which I anticipate doing a lot of the anatomy coursework in because I can do several sketches on a page, at that size. This was not a necessary purchase. I just wanted it. :)
Pencils: I have a Derwent 12-pencil tin with a range of pencils from 4H (very hard, very light) to 6B (pretty soft, gets quite dark). It’s inexpensive, entirely suitable, and an object of much personal disdain that it fully doesn’t deserve, because it’s not their fault they’re not the pencils I’ve had a 40 year love affair with.
What I LOVE and have done since junior high are these woodless graphite pencils. I treated myself to a set of them about halfway through the project, but to be fair, the 4H end range of the Derwents are actually really useful to have for pre-sketching stuff as you get more accomplished, and I became glad I have pencils that hard.
Erasers: I have this “Mr Pen” art eraser set, which has regular erasers, gum erasers (which are amazing bc they don’t leave marks on the page) and squoodgy kneaded erasers which you can shape to your needs. I also have several other gum erasers, because they do shred as you erase with them and sometimes they disappear just when you need them most. I covet one of these Tombow micro-erasers, which several of the instructors used in the courses and which looks REALLY HELPFUL. :)
Blending stumps: I love these in general. Not everybody does. But I ordered a set similar to this one, which has more stumps than most people are going to ever need. :)
Pencil sharpeners: I now have at least three pencil sharpeners, none of which I like terribly much, but the best of the three are a bog-standard school pencil sharpener kind of thing (manual) and this kind, which in the past I’ve loved and IDK if I just got kind of a crappy one this time or if the quality has diminished, but it doesn’t get the pencils as impossibly sharp as I wish it would.
Ink pens: I have a set that I’ve had for years, but if I was buying something new right now I’d get something like this Micro Fineliner 12 pen set, which has a greater range than my 5-pen Derwent set. This is not necessary for the courses – there are only a couple of tutorials which even suggest you might think about using ink. I just like drawing in ink. :)
Third question: How did you actually manage to DO this?
Answer: Overlooking the fact that I fully didn’t expect to finish it, I concluded that if I could find 5 hours a night to dick around on social media, I could probably find half an hour a night to draw. So I set myself a goal of drawing for 30 minutes 4-5 nights a week, and a goal of finishing the 100 hours project (which yer man did in about 6 weeks) in 6 months.
Most nights I ended up drawing at least 40-45 minutes; often I drew for 90 minutes, and some nights I drew for two or three hours (which was very tiring, honestly). Most weeks, I managed 5-6 nights a week, though there were at least two times where I basically didn’t get any drawing at all done for most of a week because there was other stuff going on. But I did go back to it!
I ended up finishing the whole 100 hours project in a little over three months, which exceeded my personal expectations on every level. I had a really good time, and I genuinely think that anybody who goes into doing something like this will see visible improvement over the project. More specifically, I think someone with less general drawing experience than I’ve got will see greater improvement from the start of the program to the end of it, because it really was intended as a refresh/re-learn thing for me and many people wouldn’t be starting with rusty skills to polish up.
Lastly: I’d like anybody who’s thinking about maybe trying this (or indeed any) project to give themselves grace on how much they get done. Please remember I bought that Udemy course eight years ago at a time when I legitimately believed I had the emotional and physical resources to do it, but that this summer was the first time I’ve ever actually had the mental energy to apply myself to it.
Actually For Real Lastly: if you happen to do something like this, or any, project, tag me so I can see your progress! ::hopeful face::
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