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[winduko]

Yeah, that's honestly my weakness. Never really did understand it. xD

Thank you for telling me what I should fix.

[Cockleshell]

might draw something full body... need suggestions

[winduko]

This is the best art I've ever done in my life.



I'm so happy. 

Also, the things that I mentioned about Yuno in the first picture still applies.

[Cockleshell]

Wow!!!!! That's awesome! you've really got your anatomy down pat on the bust, now try making individual studies of hands and feet and they will slowly (and painfully) get better!!

[winduko]

I spent a good amount of time on that.

And now I just realized that I have a shitton of references for situations like this. xD

[Bella]

Looks much better.

As for anatomy — observation and practice are your friends. A lot of artists would suggest going straight into real-life human studies to learn drawing anatomy, but tbh I feel it's alright to just stick with anime/manga-style studies at this point, since anime/manga does a decent job of creating easier-to-understand analogs for real-life human anatomy (which has much more detail and is harder for somebody starting out to grasp).

I will warn you that hands and feet tend to be more difficult to create in vector vs. "hand-drawing" — either with pencil or in Photoshop, SAI, etc. — simply because vector leaves no ambiguity of line/form. Put simply, it's easier to gloss over trickier bits when drawing by hand by making your lines ambiguous and sketchy. When our eyes see an ambiguous line, our brains tend to pick out the "path" that looks the best; this is why artists often complain that they like the form of their sketches better than lineart. Since there's no way to produce a "sketchy" look with vector art, the line you put down is the line you're going to see, and any "defects" are going to be readily apparent.

Honestly, I recommend getting a hold of stock images of hands/feet and using them as guides when drawing. dA has a good selection of stock anatomy images and almost all of them are free to use in noncommercial art. Of course, when "converting" from real-life to anime/manga style, you'll have to leave out detail and stylize a bit to make it "fit", but it's much easier and a better way to learn than simply drawing what feels right and hoping for the best.

[Balrith]

You're making progress. 

The thing about anime/manga style is that it covers a huge range from more realistic like the art in Vagabond or Berserk, to extremely stylized like PSG. This is true for a lot of styles though.

Vagabond

Spoiler: ShowHide

PSG

Spoiler: ShowHide

Not saying Bella is wrong or anything, I mostly learned that way so I can't really judge, but just to clarify, a lot of artists suggest that you learn anatomy from life partially because of the presence of this range from realistic to stylized. The general worry is that when you study from other people's art you learn their symbols for how human bodies work and look from different angles, rather than the underlying anatomy. In addition, the natural posing of the body is best learned by doing lots and lots of figure sketches of real humans that focus on flow rather than detail. Stuff like PSG may look simple and easy to reproduce, but there is a lot of nuance that goes into simplifying. Drawings are stylized representations of reality and trying to learn to draw by only looking at these representations can just make you a watered down version of the original artist. It can also make it difficult to switch between different styles or find your own style since you learned the fundamentals from from someone else's stylistically distorted proportions. Basically, it's a good idea to know how something works before simplifying it.

Also, I'm not sure purely vector drawing would be good for learning. Like Bella said, vector lines are very defined, and I've found that a rough sketch first helps me pick the right lines I want in the end. That said, clean lineart is very clear and not sketchy at all. Show someone a sketch with lots of lines drawn over and over, and in a way they're as responsible for drawing the picture as you are since they are picking the lines that look the best in their head. This is where polishing or going over your sketch with a vector comes in. Doing this helps you pick the right lines and forms in your head and then actually place them.


Some more resources:
http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-draw-learn

Refs that are more focused on anime. I have my doubts about a few of these but w/e.
Some are NSFW
http://imgur.com/a/2G7kk#0

[winduko]

The references I have are of a real person, though I did steal some hand and foot references.

As for the sketch thing, I don't have regular access to a scanner (which I probably shouldn't even be using to scan in OS-tan pictures, but I used Inkscape at school, so that doesn't really bother me a lot), and I doubt my phone would make a good scanner.

I also kinda worse at that, but I think the OS-tan sketches that I have aren't horrible, but I haven't gotten around to scanning them in.

[Cockleshell]

My OC from when i was like 9

[Chocofreak13]

i adore her.

@kodomo: looking much better! ^^
to give some bullet points though....

@Anatomy: as someone who has done sketching from books, sketching from the mind and sketching from real life models (Art School: Granting You the Opportunity to Draw Naked People), i can tell you right off the bat that in the end it's really going to boil down to what's easiest for you. i've heard others (some of my classmates, bella, a couple other people) say that they learned by drawing from life and had quite an easy time from it. i learned to draw from books and observation of others' art, and actually find drawing from life quite hard. (doesn't help that i find it PAINFULLY boring).
try out different methods, and in the event you're like me and life drawing just doesn't do it for you, then look up every tutorial you can on manga drawing and study ALL OF THEM. i'd advise you to look into buying books, but i doubt you'd be able to achieve the amount of book learning i did (for many reasons, not least of which that it's cost-prohibitive), especially when there are literally thousands (probably millions) of drawing tutorials on the web for you to take advantage of. DA is ripe with them, so give them ALL a look. the more you see, the broader your horizons, and the more rounded a style you can develop.
to get you started, here's one i made on a dare. it's not the best, but it's a jumping off point.

@Sketching: dearie, you're missing the point a bit on this one. we're not asking you to practice sketching for the express purpose of making a finished work to put on the web. having a scanner is irrelevant here. sketching is excellent practice to help you get a handle on the basics of anatomy and thus improve your artwork on the computer. once you realize where a shoulder, elbow, hip, ear, knee, chest is properly placed, you'll have a much easier time translating that into the computer.

@Inkscape: frankly, i was a bit confused as to why this was your first choice of art program, but i didn't question it as everyone has their preference. but i agree with bella that this may not be good for a budding artist as the program is a bit too harsh for a newbie who could use the benefit of blurred lines (finally, a good use for that term). did you pick it BECAUSE there's no sketching involved? (cause if so, don't avoid the problem.) is it because you want to do art on the computer but don't have access to a tablet? (that one makes more sense.) is it the ability to manipulate lines without really needing to draw them? inkscape is a nice program but in your case, i wouldn't limit yourself to just it. if you want to improve, you need to expand your circle. :\

@Stylization: the point balrith was making about using manga as a reference is an excellent one, but only if you're observing only one style. the point i made earlier in this post in that you need to look at ALL the tutorials you can find is so that you don't end up cloning another artist's style. in the beginning as an artist, it's best to stick to a more general style than to align yourself with one school of thought. when i was young, i observed Sailor Moon, Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, and many others whose styles were nothing like each other. this was after learning from books whose styles were nothing like those series, so doing that got me to stop sticking to one (other person's) style and to find a comfortable, blended mix that ended up being mine.

more conversation and i'll be able to make more points, but i hope these helped~

[Bella]

It feels worth noting that some people who are unable to draw by hand have done wonderfully in Inkscape. C-chan was more-or-less unable to hand-draw things due to hand tremors and an admitted lack of practice (though in hindsight, his sketches weren't that bad):



Yet he was able to accomplish feats like this in Inkscape:



Might be something of an anomaly, but I've known a number of people who found vector art easier than sketching/hand drawing, or whose work in vector was markedly better than their hand drawn stuff.

I'm the opposite, however. While I'm alright at vector, I find it hard to capture the spirit, liveliness and natural imperfection of hand-draw artwork.


Compare this...


...with this.

[Chocofreak13]

at the same time, though, C-chan had much more experience than Kodomo does and i feel that Kodomo would benefit from sketching, at least till she has a better grasp on how the body works/connects.

in C-chan's case, he (?) already knew.

[Nichi]

@Bella: What's that first pic of yours, with the girl in the teacup? I don't think I've ever seen it before

[LeaflameSD]

This is the best art I've ever done in my life.

Spoiler: ShowHide

I'm so happy. 

Also, the things that I mentioned about Yuno in the first picture still applies.

I'm just going to be honest (please, no hate).

The atonomical structure here is just plain . The body is too long and thin, not to mention the arms aren't properly "attatched" and you didn't even give one of them a hand. Also the feet look small. IMHO, you need to practice. Read Choco's posts.

[Cockleshell]

I've been looking at the way I draw things, and it definitely feels like my facial anatomy has a ZUN-like influence. That's what I get for growing up on Touhou.