New Artist, need help and critique

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*photochina Jun 29, 2012 Student Digital Artist

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Hello, I never seriously drew before. The last time I had an art class was in middle school and I'm 24 right now. I wanna get into drawing because it seems like an awesome hobby.

I drew the picture above following instructions on a manga art website. A few things I noticed but had a hard time correcting was the following:
1) Mini hands
2) The body as a whole seems a bit... off; maybe the head is too big?
3) Hair is way too messy
4) Wrinkles on clothing need work.

Could you please give me some general advice on how to correct these along with other stuff I probably didn't catch?

Greatly appreciate it!

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*photochina Jun 30, 2012 Student Digital Artist

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Redrew it as you guys advised... is it better now? I just wanna take one last volley of advice and draw something else...

I ultimately want to get into digital sketching... is there any particular hand-drawn style that's going to help me get used to digital sketching?

*Spudfuzz Jun 30, 2012 Hobbyist Digital Artist

I think the best advice I could really give right now is be really weary of the "how-to-draw-manga" books and tutorials unless the author is also the illustrator and they're an industry professional. If you really want to learn from manga, learn from comics drawn by pros. Make sure to never stick to only what you're good at and branch out intro covering as many subjects as you can. My biggest mistake was only drawing females for some 10 years and my males were left years behind in skill. Start off simple and just focus on the shapes that are the building blocks to an image. I don't know if the tutorial made you do it in your drawing - but to avoid wonkyness try drawing the body using a construction method of shapes. Having a vertical line running from head to pelvis should help prevent any wonkyness in the future.

=merrak Jun 29, 2012 Hobbyist

You sound exactly like me when I started, except I was 25.

Like *shininginthedarkness said, I'd just keep drawing. Find a few critique groups to join and submit artwork to. #Beginners-Power is a group I can think of off the top of my head, but there are others as well.

As for your specific points, try this
1) Life or photos are good references. My hand, with fingers stretched out, is about 2/3 the length of my forearm. Yours is probably similar.
2) The head should be about 1/7 the height of the whole body. Yours looks a little too big.
3) Try reading this:

4) Practice drawing folds on simpler objects (like a folded napkin).

~shininginthedarkness Jun 29, 2012

Yeah, the body as a whole is pretty wonky. My advice? Practice this a bunch more times, but draw the WHOLE body. Don't leave off the feet. You need to get the feel for the whole thing.
I wouldn't work from other people's drawings as a reference, I'd work from photos and/or real life (if possible). If you need photos, there's a zillion here in the deviantArt stock galleries. Don't fuss way too much about the details at first, the overall picture is more important.

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