Drawing: Then and Now

Over the years, my drawing style has changed and improved. I've learned how to draw clothing on after sketching the figure instead of drawing on the legs after drawing a skirt. I've shirked drawing hands by creatively hiding them and avoided feet by having the paper cut them off. I've drawn eyes just like some of my favorite mangas. I've drawn so many drawings that I never finished that I couldn't find ones that I had finished. Now, I'm changing my style and forcing myself to draw hands and feet as well as to make my drawings more realistic. What initiated this change? Mainly the fact that I was tired of my drawings having gigantic anime eyes and wanted to have a more realistic art style. How am I making this change? Well, I'm practicing. I'm taking the time to practice drawing hands in different positions without drawing the rest of the body. I'm adding nails to my hands and drawing more realistic placements of facial features. And I'm picking up drawing books that aren't in the anime/manga style.

While I still enjoy the simplicity of the anime/manga style, I've started to yearn for a more realistic style. Fpr the longest time, I've compared my figure to that of anime characters. They have such long, thin legs and mine are so thick in comparison. Their eyes are so big and elaborate, I wish my eyes could look like that. I've gotten tired of trying to fit my body image onto an anime character with seemingly "perfect" proportions and instead decided to change my art style to fit into more realistic standards. Girls with larger hips and proportionate busts (OK, maybe a bit big) have become more common in my drawings, and it's making me feel better as an artist and a person.

While I still enjoy the look of anime/manga artwork, I just don't feel it's what I want to be my go-to style for drawing anymore. In the long run, I feel that having a more realistic drawing style will bring me more happiness than an unrealistic anime/manga style.

And, yes, here are some of my drawings. (I apologize for the low quality image resolution on some of them. My camera isn't the greatest.)

When I was still fairly new to drawing.

One of my first drawings on a drawing tablet.

One of my more recent drawings. A redrawing of the above character.