Have any of you tried to draw something from real life, then compare it to how you draw something without looking at anything?

It makes a big difference in the way your drawings look.

While looking at something in real life, you tend to draw more realistically and accurately.


While drawing something from your head tends to look more comic bookish / less realistic or even distorted, deformed or overly ripped, even the shadows are different.


For example, Take a look at these drawings I made.

This one is from my head.


This one is from a photo I was looking at.


You can tell the difference.

The one I drew with no reference looks more fake and the one I did use reference for, looks more realistic.


But what happens when you really focus on what you see in your mind?
Like when you dream, or day dream. You see things in your mind as if you were looking at it with your eyes. Not as clearly, but pretty close.


So what I was thinking is this....

If you focus really hard on an image in your mind, you can pretty much substitute that for a live model.

In you mind, try to imagine something, like a person or just a bottle.
Try to move it around in your head, zoom in on it, change the color, change the lighting, make it move around.

It might be easier if you just make up a combo or attack for some fighter and play it out in your head like a movie.

If you are having a hard time, try to just close your eyes and just day dream.


Here is what happens when I did it, just before writing this post.
I did these real quick, just messing around.




the image on the left with the big hair was just drawn out without really focusing on what I had in my mind. I just drew it and the result was this...

It came out faster

He looks too swollen = comicbookish.

The lines are more messy because I didn’t have a clear focus, I ended up sketching more instead of just drawing one correct line or drawing a shadow.

He looks deformed

Overall very fake looking.

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The character on the right...

On that one I focused hard on what I had in my mind. I would close my eyes, zoom in, rotate him, move his arms.... Like if I was looking at a real person with my eyes.

The result was this...

It came out slower

The lines came out cleaner

He looks more anatomically correct though not perfect. His arms are too short for example.

The muscles on his body look smoother and divide more realistically because I drew the shadows that I saw on his body in my mind.

Overall, he looks better and more realistic.
..........................................................................................................................


See if you can do this and anything changes in your drawings. Post the results if you want.


This is just something that I find works for me. It probably won't work for some people, but I though I'd post it and see what happens.

The image you see in your mind doesn't have to be real either, it could be like a comic book drawing or anything you can imagine.

Something that might help this to work better is if you draw from real life like normal, then when you try and do it from your mind, it will be easier because you will already have that mind set to be looking carefully at something.


Another thing when you draw is to look at both the shape and the empty or (Negative space) around it.

Like if you are going to draw an arm with the hand on a person's waist. look at the shape of the arm, but also look at the negative space between the arm and the torso. This will make the drawing more accurate.


That's it, try it out if you want and see if anything changes.