How to Draw: From Imagination (Patreon)

If you are (or aspire to be) an animator, character designer, storyboard artist, comic book artist, illustrator, concept artist, etc. one of the most important skills you must have is the ability to draw from your imagination.

It’s wonderful being able to look at a human figure and make a fairly decent drawing of it. But we don’t often draw realistic human character in our industries. We draw fictional characters that move like human beings.

We won’t always have reference for what our characters are doing. But through intentional practise with gesture drawing and anatomy studies we can create anything we want!

This really is where your gesture practice comes in...

• You want to work loosely, quickly and simply at the beginning - just like gesture drawing...
• Focus on the big forms first - play around with them until they feel strong - dont noodle the same drawing for too long. Work big to small - just like we do in gestures....
• Draw the pose a few times - push things around to enhance the story - just like we do in gestures… see where this is going?
• Once the basic forms of your gesture are working, then start to develop higher levels of detail.

In the video, I take a little character design of me and some random character prompts from the internet, to show you how I draw from my imagination and how gesture drawing has prepared me for exactly this challenge.

• Do you have any of your own tips for drawing from your imagination?
• What was you favourite one in the video?
• Are you working on any of your own projects where you need to draw from your imagination?

Let us know in the comments below!

- GG

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Prompt list for your own characters!