Drawing Your Own Neoart

Disclaimer: This guide is meant to make drawing easier and hopefully make your drawings look better. It does not guarantee that you will automatically become better.

What do you want to draw?

This is kind of obvious, right? Decide what you want to draw. But not only that. Take time to look at it, to understand it. Unless you want to draw exactly what TNT has already drawn, think of your own unique idea!

It doesn't start out great

When the orange Grundo was being drawn, the artist didn't simply get an idea, start drawing and draw it all at once. They took time to draw the antennae sticking out of the Grundos' heads. They took time to draw the head, then the eyes, nose, and mouth.

Break it up

Anyone who has drawn a great picture before is saying 'duh' right now, I would assume. But not everyone knows this. Just like starting with the antennae, you have to start with lines! The pictures may just be circles, rectangles, and ovals, but what makes up those shapes? Lines.

Recently, at the time of the writing of this article, I was drawing a Maraquan noil for a friend. It was something I had never drawn before, so it was pretty difficult, until I took my own advice. I had a duh moment and tried to draw the noil at once. When I came to my senses, I drew a circle. The head. Now, everyone who has seen one knows that a Maraquan noil does not have a perfectly circlular head. I knew that too. It wasn't until later later that I began making the rough edges.

Save the details until last

With this, I could refer back to the noil again. Just like everyone knows that they don't have circular heads, everyone knows they have details that make them 3D. This includes more lines, the overall coloring, and the shading, which brings me to my next point.

Shade!

I can't stress this enough. A drawing without shading looks flat. Shading makes a bad drawing look good, a good drawing look great, a great drawing look fantastic, and... well, you get the idea. You need to shade; it's not hard or very time consuming. The time it does take up will be worth it. If you are going to be lazy and not shade just because you have something better to do, no one will have any sympathy for you. All you do is take a slightly darker color than the one you used and begin placing it where the shadows are. That doesn't mean if you're drawing a grey pet you need to use black. Just use a darker grey.

Don't use black

Someone out there will probably say 'but I'm drawing a shadow pet'. They're not black, if you haven't realized this. Think about it. What color is darker than black? Nothing. Therefore, the shading argument would be pretty much worthless. Use a very, very dark grey and use black to shade it.

Highlight

This is something not everyone does. It's not one hundred percent necessary, but it does look nice. Highlighting is the exact opposite of shading. With this, you pick a color lighter than the color you used and place it where the light source would be hitting it. Unlike with shading, you can use white. Obviously, it won't allow you to highlight your picture, but if you're worried about that, use an off-white for the body.

Do you want an example of shading and highlighting? I think Gargarox is a very good example, especially the drawing of him on the default Grundo petpage.

Be unique

I covered this a bit above, but I'll cover it more in depth now. You don't want to draw exactly what has been drawn, do you? Of course not. If you want proof, go to the beauty contest. There's usually at least one person who drew exactly what TNT has already drawn. Look at that picture beside one in which someone was unique. Which would you vote for?

Practice makes perfect

Haven't you heard that all your life? Okay, so no one's perfect. There might be a line missing here and there, they might have used too dark a color for shading (which you don't want), or maybe something else. But it's very much true that practice makes a better drawing. If this is your first time drawing, don't expect it to automatically be a masterpiece. It will take a few tries, but don't get discouraged.

Don't be afraid to exaggerate

You might be asking, 'how do you exaggerate while drawing?'. It's simple. Please don't run away, but I'll use another of my examples. While drawing the noil I was asked to draw a Maraquan Grundo too. I personally love Maraquan pets' tails, so I wanted the tail to be bigger. It wasn't the first time I'd done it, but I still wasn't sure whether or not it would turn out good. It, in my opinion, turned out wonderful. So don't be afraid to make something that you really like bigger. It might just turn out fantastic.

Draw things that aren't there

This kind of fits in with 'be unique'. However, not everyone thinks of this when they think of unique. Some simply think of putting the pet in a different pose. For example, you could have a Koi holding a bubble. You could put a petpet or petpetpet you don't really have, but want.

Just like adding things, you can, in some cases, subtract things. However, do this in moderation. You don't want to take away the beauty of the pet. But, with my Grundo, I didn't like the hands, no matter how I drew them. Therefore, I simply left them off. When drawing other pets with arms, I tend to subtract the fingers. This makes the hands instead, triagular stumps.

So, use this guide and you'll hopefully get a wonderful drawing of your own. I know for a fact it helps, since I've used my own advice countless times. Good luck with your drawings, and with beautifying and uniquifying Neopia!