4 Insider Tips To Draw An Amazing Scene

You go to the art gallery: what do you see? Paintings, drawings and sculptures. But you must remember, these incredible artists had once the same skill as you. Follow these insider tips from a REAL Middle artist to draw some amazing pictures.

This drawing of a bustling alien city was made with a black Tombow pen. Credit: Middle Commons

Tip 1: Drawing 3D

Any great picture will have to have some sort of 3D, or looks like 3D, element in it. It's best to start off with simple shapes such as cubes, pyramids and spheres, instructions for drawing which are below.

Cube

We know that cubes all have 6 sides, but to make a square look 3D you will need to show only 3 sides. Firstly, if you want a straight-on cube, you can jus draw a square. But if you want it from another angle:

You can see the artist has drawn two lines. It's important that they're parallel otherwise it'll mess up the 3D-ness.

For the next step you basically just have to finish the square. But remember about parallel!

This is when things start to get a tad tricky. You have to draw three slanted lines coming from the top-left corner, the top-right corner, and the bottom-right corner. If you want to show the cube from a different direction, have the lines the flipped (and the bottom one on the bottom-left corner).

Next, connect the top two lines with a line the same as the top line of the square. Connect the side two lines with a line the same as the right (or left) side of the square. You can use this technique for any other 3D shape with straight sides.

Pyramids

If you want to draw Egypt, then you'll have to master this technique. (Tip: If you're showing three pyramids, draw the triangle first before you add the depth).

OK. Let's start by drawing a triangle (above):

Add another, slightly shallower triangle to the right side. Have the bottom line pointing slightly upwards like illustrated above:

Sphere

To conlcude our journey into the 3D world, of course we have to have a sphere! Although it's pretty simple since we can't actually render a sphere, so you just add a little shine mark to one side.

Tip 2: Drawing Faces

Every good scene has got to have some PEOPLE in it, and the face is one of the most distinguishable features of a human. This tip will teach you how to draw a DETAILED FACE, but if you're drawing a scene with small people, it's best to just stick with simple stuff.

Let's dive straight into it. Start by drawing a bit of an upside-down egg with it's top cut off, like above. Our artist has used a bit of an, erm... pronounced pen, so have your outline thinner.

Then, using a pencil that you can rub off, draw a plus sign (+) in the face shape. Add another line below it, as detailed above.

On the top line, draw some EYES. Start with a small line near the middle tracing line, and then draw a bit of a slope over to another, taller line. To actually detail the eye, draw a bit of a filled-in circle inside and another, bigger, NOT filled-in circle aronud it. Make sure they don't come out of the eye shape!

Now it's time for the EYEBROWS. Draw a little semi-circle over the eye, and then add a lot more smaller lines extruding from the top.

it's quite hard to describe what a NOSE looks like, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. Have the shape coming down from the top tracing line and ending at the bottom tracing line. Make sure to add some NOSTRILS!

Next, have a semi-circle for the MOUTH curving around the bottom of the nose, as illustrated above.

As our penultimate face-drawing step, add a FRINGE over the top of the mouth. It's really just a long, horizontal squiggle!

Finally, draw some HAIR. Basically, just add some loops on the top of the head and some mildly-curved lines down the side.

As an extra, draw an EAR. It's breally just a 3 shape with a T inside.

And that's basically a FACE! Rub out the tracing lines and add any details you might need.

To finish with, here are some CARTOON EXPRESSIONS to help you get the hang of drawing emotions. The first is (extremely) angry, the second is proud, and the last is sad or worried.

Tip 3: Drawing Cartoon Humans

If you really want to draw an exciting, bustling scene, those fancy tips above won't work. You just want some basic cartoon humans with not a lot of detail.

Start off with a circle for the HEAD.

Add a little semicirlce for a smiling MOUTH.

Next, draw a NOSE. They can be triangular, circular or anything else!

Add two verticle lines for EYES.

Draw some semicircles above the eyes for EYEBROWS (they can be important in showing expression).

Add a few loose semicircles for the HAIR.

Now, draw a rectangle for the BODY.

Add a few more thin, curved rectangles for the ARMS.

Now, draw some interconnected sausage shapes for the HANDS.

For still LEGS, add a rectangle the same size of the body and draw a line in the middle.

Add some bigger sausages at the bottom of the legs for FEET, and that's basically a cartoon human!

Don't forget, if you want to take cartooning to the extremes, make some of the body features bigger.

Tip 4: Colouring

If you want a really cool scene, you'll need some colours (although if you want to paint something monochrome, you just need black). There are three different types of clouring, the first of which is called exact...

That means to use actual colours.

The second is called duo, which means to only use two colours (e.g. orange and black).

The last is called filler, which means you use squiggles to indicate long areas of one colour.

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And there we are! Now you know how to draw in 3D, caricature faces, limn cartoons and add colours. well done!

Middle is pleased to announce that next week, Editor's Journal will be publishing a guide to creating comics.