How to Become an Exceptional Artist

Have you ever seen an artist with incredible artwork, and wanted to draw just like them? Be famous on all the art websites, and have sores of screaming fans that will rabidly attack anyone who so much as whispers a word against you? Well, you’re in luck, because this is a guide to becoming an incredible artist, with half time and work! This guide will tell you how to start off, as well as provide tips on foreground characters, backgrounds, and most importantly, coloring!
Now, every good artist needs an awesome style. Undoubtedly the best style ever invented by man in anime! You get to draw “ub3r-kawaii” people with huge gigantic eyes, and don’t have to pay any attention to anatomy whatsoever! What could be better then that? Don’t go into realism; that’s so middle-ages, and is only for people who want to cut off their ears and eat their paintings. Plus, realism is SO un-kawaii! Here are some general guidelines for perfect anime art:
1. Anime eyes must take up at least half of the total area of the face, and must have gigantic scientifically impossible light shines on them. Bonus points if they’re an unnatural color like purple, pink, orange, red, or even better, a mix of all of them! More bonus points if they change color depending on you’re subject’s mood, such as turning red when angry or orange with purple spots when sad.
2. Everyone in anime must be thin and pretty (this applies to men especially). No one likes fat, ugly characters with hair all over!
3. Anime hair has to be gigantic, so it can make a statement! Another key rule of anime is that the character has to have an awesome hairstyle, including zig-zags, spikes, points, loopy ponytails, or anything else your creative artistic mind can think of! The traditional “emo” haircut works as well. In general, anime hair must be composed of at least two colors; bonus points if they’re on opposite sides of the color wheel.
4. Almost all characters have animal features. These include cat ears, whiskers, cat nose and paws, tails, wings (demonic and feathered, or even better, one of each!), scales, and a myriad of different horns. Combinations are even better!
5. All anime accessories must be at least three times normal size, and there has to be plenty! After all, your kawaii anime person must be the epitome of fashion!
6. All above rules relating to size must be doubled if you are drawing a chibi, the exception being the body, which must be a quarter normal size.
Now you’re well on your way to kick-butt art! Still can’t get the hang of it? Feel free to trace and re-color someone else’s art. It’s only an internet picture, after all!
Now that you have achieved maximum style remarkablelity, it is now time to compose a “srs bsns” picture. Where else to start then with the foreground, with one of your characters? Here are some tips on drawing your character in a scene.
1. First off, we have those tricky poses. Animal front views and human side views are difficult, so you can cross those off your pose list. Many people say that “exciting” poses and “perspective” makes the picture look better, but they’re so much harder to draw! A classing standing pose works just as well, and is loads easier! Don’t worry about it being “boring,” standing never goes out of style!
2. Another tricky thing to contend with is anatomy. Remember, as an artist, you have no obligation whatsoever to make your anatomy realistic, no matter what you’re drawing! Feel free to make ears and eyes insanely huge, legs twice as long as normal, you don’t even have to bother with tricky features such as noses, eyebrows, lips, and fingernails. It’s YOUR unique style, not anyone else’s, so if anyone tells you to work on your anatomy, feel free to yell at them all you want! You can also say that you have “artistic license,” and it’s your picture so you can do whatever you like with it. If you’re still held up on anatomy and drawing, say, an animal like a wolf, an easy way out is heaping your animal with deliciously fluffy fur. It looks totally fab, and you don’t have to contend with difficult anatomy! Another solution is covering up awkward parts like legs and paws with a huge tail, so you don’t have to bother with them.
3. Hands are such a big issue, that they get their own separate category! Many people find it very hard to draw hands, but don’t bother practicing drawing them. Not when you can focus on sparkly eyes! Instead, cover them up with long sleeves, hide them behind your character or a conveniently placed tree, or just don’t draw them at all. Some people are born without hands, right?
Now that you’re done with your character, they need a background, right? Well, only if you want to be an over-achiever. The fact is, backgrounds aren’t necessary at all. Everyone should be concentrating on the foreground, anyway! But if you really want a background, a nice gradient or a few swirly rainbow lines will usually do the trick. Or, you could even try a background based on a scene, if you’re super adventurous – but if you’re going to go all-out like that, be sure to crowd your forest/mountain/volcano/spaceship/McDonald’s restaurant with as many insignificant details as possible. People will be looking at it for hours just to find the main part of the picture!
Now that you’ve got all your lineart filled, it’s time for everyone’s favorite part – COLORING! Now, refrain from getting to eager just yet, artist-in-the-making. First, go grab a color wheel. See how pretty it is? That’s because it’s made out of bright, shiny, rainbows! To make the most of your coloring it is advisable to use the brightest, loudest colors possible. If your drawing is on paper, using highlighters is a good way to achieve this. Using the most colors in the closest proximity is also a good way to improve your picture. Look at your color wheel a second time, do you see how some colors are opposite each other? That means they look prettiest in zig-zag-polka-dot-tartan patterns together across your picture. Use as many splashes of color in as many different places as possible, and you, too, will have a deliciously rainbowy drawing! Don’t worry about people saying it looks like some on threw up rainbows on your art; they don’t know what they’re talking about, no one throws up rainbows. Well, now that you’re done laying out your base colors, it’s time for the not-very-fun aspect of coloring, shading. Aka, making your wonderful rainbows less bright! Some artists say that you should set up a “light source” and find out what surfaces the light hits, but that just takes too long. Instead, just stick them in wherever you feel like, or wherever it affects your wonderful rainbows least. No one pays attention to shadows, seriously. But after you finish, it’s time for the ultimate best part of ANY picture – the highlights! Computer art users, grab your dodge brush, set it to “100 percent exposure” and go crazy! A study by FUA shows that how popular a picture is is directly proportional to the amount of highlights on it. So use as much as you like! Put them even where they’re scientifically impossible in real life. This is art, not science! After you’re all highlighted-out, it’s time for the sparkles! Add them in abundance about the picture, everyone loves the sparkley, shiny bits!
Now, after all that work, you’re finally done! Sit back and stare at your raibowey sparkly shiny anime character and their fluffly wolves eating McDonalds! But wait, you’re not done yet, are you? Of course not! If you post it up now, everyone who’s jealous of your intense art will flock to steal it and repost it! The answer to this new quandary? Stamp huge copyright symbols and watermarks all over it. Also mention that if anyone even THINKS of using any of the colors, hairstyles, eye shapes, designs, accessories, character names, or backgrounds in your picture you will systematically trash them and their reputation, whine and complain, transmutate into a drama llama, and hunt them down and impale them with pencils. That usually stops them. Well, now you’re finally an awesome artist. That was easy, wasn’t it? Happy drawing!