The Fastest Way to Learn Anime Style Art

Summary

Dans cette vidéo, l'artiste Ori partage sa méthode de dessin rapide qui l'a aidé à passer d'un débutant sans idée à un niveau suffisant pour travailler avec des sociétés comme Hololive. Il explique le cycle Draw-Reflect-Learn pour améliorer ses compétences artistiques, en se concentrant sur la pratique directe, l'analyse de ses propres œuvres et l'apprentissage ciblé en fonction des retours. Ori encourage les artistes à ne pas abandonner et à considérer l'apprentissage du dessin comme un jeu infini où l'on gagne en continuant à progresser.

Takeaways

• 🎨 L'auteur a commencé à apprendre l'art tardivement, mais avec détermination et utilisation de la bonne méthode, il a réussi à s'améliorer rapidement.
• 📈 Il a utilisé une méthode de cycle d'apprentissage 'Dessiner-Réfléchir-Apprendre' pour améliorer ses compétences artistiques.
• 🖌️ Il est important de dessiner directement ce que l'on veut apprendre, par exemple, dessiner dans le style d'anime pour s'améliorer dans ce style.
• 🤔 La réflexion implique de recevoir des retours, que ce soit par les médias sociaux ou par l'auto-analyse pour identifier les zones d'amélioration.
• 🔍 L'auteur souligne l'importance de se concentrer sur un seul aspect à améliorer à la fois pour progresser plus rapidement.
• 🚀 Identifier et de travailler sur le 'bottleneck' ou la compétence la plus faible qui limite l'amélioration globale est essentiel.
• 📚 L'apprentissage structuré et les études par analyse de références sont deux approches efficaces d'apprentissage autodidacte.
• 🔗 La pratique active et la répétition sont cruciales pour acquérir une compétence, similaire à l'entraînement sportif.
• 🔄 Le processus de 'copier-comparaître-modifier' (CCC) est une méthode efficace pour apprendre par étude de référence.
• 💡 L'auteur recommande de ne pas abandonner même si l'on n'est pas bon au début, car l'amélioration vient avec la persévérance et la pratique continue.
• 🌟 L'apprentissage de l'art est accessible à tous avec les ressources en ligne de qualité, sans nécessiter de mentor ou d'école d'art.

Q & A

Quel est le secret de l'auteur pour améliorer rapidement ses compétences en dessin?

Le secret de l'auteur est de suivre le cycle 'Dessiner-Réfléchir-Apprendre', qui est une méthode efficace pour améliorer ses compétences en dessin, quel que soit le niveau de compétence ou l'objectif d'apprentissage.

Pourquoi est-il important de dessiner directement ce que l'on veut apprendre?

C'est important de dessiner directement ce que l'on veut apprendre car les compétences sont très spécifiques au domaine et à la situation. L'auteur a découvert que les compétences acquises dans un contexte ne se transposent pas toujours dans un autre, ce qui signifie qu'il faut pratiquer l'acte même pour s'améliorer.

Quels sont les deux moyens principaux de se faire des retours lorsqu'on apprend seul?

Les deux moyens principaux de se faire des retours lorsqu'on apprend seul sont les indicateurs de médias sociaux comme les likes, les commentaires et les partages, et l'auto-analyse où l'on note les points d'amélioration possibles.

Quel est le rôle de la prioritisation dans le processus d'amélioration des compétences en dessin?

La prioritisation est essentielle car elle permet de se concentrer sur un seul aspect à améliorer, ce qui accélère le processus d'apprentissage. Il est recommandé de se concentrer sur le goulot d'étranglement des compétences, c'est-à-dire la partie la plus faible qui limite l'ensemble de la production.

Pourquoi l'auteur recommande-t-il de se concentrer sur les goulots d'étranglement pour s'améliorer?

En se concentrant sur les goulots d'étranglement, l'auteur affirme que non seulement on obtient plus de résultats pour le temps passé en pratique, mais on se prémuni aussi contre les plateaux de performance. Cela permet de s'améliorer de manière efficace et de se préparer à long terme.

Quels sont les deux principaux types d'apprentissage autodidacte mentionnés dans le script?

Les deux principaux types d'apprentissage autodidacte mentionnés sont l'apprentissage structuré qui utilise des vidéos, des tutoriels, des cours ou des livres, et l'apprentissage par étude qui consiste à analyser et à copier des références pour reconnaître les motifs et améliorer les compétences.

Comment l'auteur explique-t-il la méthode des études 'Copier-Comparer-Changer' (CCC)?

La méthode CCC consiste à d'abord copier une référence, ensuite à la comparer avec l'original pour identifier les différences et enfin à la modifier pour qu'elle ressemble au mieux à l'original sans tracer dessus. Cette méthode aide à apprendre les motifs et à améliorer la compréhension du sujet ou du style souhaité.

Quelle est la différence entre un cycle court et un cycle long dans le processus 'Dessiner-Réfléchir-Apprendre'?

Un cycle court est généralement utilisé pour apprendre à dessiner quelque chose de spécifique lors de la création d'une illustration, tandis qu'un cycle long est utilisé pour améliorer une compétence majeure comme le dessin des cheveux, qui nécessite plusieurs semaines d'étude et de pratique.

Pourquoi est-il important de tester régulièrement les compétences apprises?

Il est important de tester régulièrement les compétences apprises pour s'assurer que l'apprentissage a été efficace et pour identifier les domaines où il faut continuer à apprendre et à améliorer.

Quelle est la citation clé que l'auteur partage pour encourager les personnes qui apprennent à dessiner?

La citation clé partagée par l'auteur est 'Si tu abandonnes quand tu fais n'importe quoi, tu restes n'importe quoi pour toujours', qui est utilisée pour encourager les personnes à ne pas abandonner et à continuer à s'améliorer.

Outlines

00:00

🎨 Débuter l'art et trouver sa voie

Le narrateur partage son expérience de passage d'un débutant sans connaissances en art à un niveau suffisant pour travailler avec des entreprises comme Hololive. Il explique qu'il a commencé tardivement dans l'art, s'intéressant principalement aux jeux vidéo et à l'anime. Après avoir obtenu un diplôme qu'il n'appréciait pas et réalisé qu'il ne se sentait pas à sa place dans la vie, il a décidé de se concentrer sur l'art. Il a alors regardé beaucoup de vidéos YouTube, acheté des livres et des cours, mais sans grand succès initialement. Il a ensuite cherché à comprendre comment améliorer ses compétences artistiques et a trouvé un système infaillible qui fonctionne toujours, le cycle Dessin-Réflexion-Apprentissage.

05:02

🔍 Comprendre le cycle de l'amélioration

Le narrateur explique en détail le cycle Dessin-Réflexion-Apprentissage, soulignant qu'il est universel et s'applique à tout niveau de compétence. Il insiste sur l'importance de dessiner le sujet spécifique qu'on veut maîtriser, en utilisant l'exemple de son propre apprentissage de l'art anime. Il mentionne également l'article 'Do the Real Thing' de Scott Young pour soutenir l'idée que les compétences sont très spécifiques et doivent être mises en pratique dans leur contexte d'utilisation. Il encourage à ne pas se substituer avec des alternatives factices. Il termine en expliquant l'étape de réflexion, qui implique d'obtenir des retours, soit par les médias sociaux, soit par l'auto-analyse.

10:03

🤔 Analyser et prioriser les améliorations

Le narrateur aborde la manière de recevoir des retours sur son travail, en utilisant les exemples de médias sociaux et d'auto-analyse. Il recommande de prendre des notes pour se souvenir des améliorations à apporter. Il explique également le phénomène de 'Gestaltzerfall', qui se produit lorsqu'on ne peut plus voir un ensemble en tant que tel après l'avoir regardé pendant trop longtemps. Il suggère de prendre du recul pour voir les choses de manière globale. Il insiste sur l'importance de prioriser une seule chose à améliorer à la fois pour augmenter rapidement ses compétences, et de se concentrer sur le point faible de son travail, appelé 'bottleneck'.

15:05

📚 Trouver des ressources pour apprendre

Le narrateur présente deux approches pour l'apprentissage autodidacte : l'apprentissage structuré avec des tutoriels, des cours ou des livres, et l'apprentissage par étude en copiant et analysant des références. Il détaille sa méthode préférée, la méthode CCC (copier, comparer, changer), qui permet de reconnaître les motifs et d'améliorer les compétences. Il mentionne également que l'apprentissage est un processus cyclique qui consiste à dessiner, à obtenir des retours et à appliquer les changements en fonction de ces retours. Il remercie XP-Pen pour leur parrainage et parle de l'avantage d'utiliser un tableau avec une grande sensibilité.

20:08

🌟 Se donner les moyens de progresser

Le narrateur explique que pour se donner des retours d'expert, il faut répondre à trois conditions : faire des études en comparant avec des originaux, avoir des explications pas à pas pour comprendre où l'on fait erreur et comment corriger, et avoir les compétences préalables nécessaires. Il donne des exemples de cycles plus courts pour apprendre à dessiner des plis de vêtements et des cycles plus longs pour améliorer son dessin de cheveux. Il souligne que l'art est un jeu infini où l'on gagne en continuant à dessiner et à s'améliorer. Il termine par une citation inspirante qui encourage à ne pas abandonner et à continuer à progresser.

Keywords

💡apprentissage rapide

L'apprentissage rapide fait référence à une méthode ou un processus qui permet d'acquérir de nouvelles compétences ou connaissances en un temps plus court que la moyenne. Dans la vidéo, cela est lié au parcours de l'artiste qui a commencé tardivement et qui a trouvé une approche efficace pour améliorer rapidement ses compétences en dessin. L'auteur parle de son expérience personnelle et de la découverte d'une 'méthode sure' pour s'améliorer, illustrant cela par son propre exemple de croissance en tant qu'artiste.

💡cycle Draw-Reflect-Learn

Le cycle Draw-Reflect-Learn est présenté comme la formule secrète pour améliorer rapidement ses compétences en dessin. Il s'agit d'une méthode qui implique trois étapes clés : dessiner (pratiquer), réfléchir (obtenir des retours) et apprendre (améliorer en fonction des retours). Cette méthode est centrée sur la pratique et l'auto-amélioration continue, et elle est utilisée par l'artiste pour structurer son propre apprentissage et le partager avec les autres.

💡feedback

Le feedback est mentionné comme un élément crucial pour l'amélioration continue. Il peut provenir de différentes sources, comme les médias sociaux ou l'auto-analyse. Dans la vidéo, l'auteur explique comment il utilise les 'likes', les commentaires et les partages sur les réseaux sociaux pour obtenir des indications sur ses performances et comment il se réfléchit sur ses propres œuvres pour identifier les zones d'amélioration.

💡bouteille d'étranglement

La 'bouteille d'étranglement' est une métaphore utilisée pour décrire l'élément le plus faible d'un système qui limite son rendement global. Dans le contexte de l'apprentissage de l'art, cela peut se référer à la compétence ou à la technique la plus faible qui empêche l'artiste d'atteindre un niveau plus élevé. L'auteur l'utilise pour expliquer pourquoi il est important de se concentrer sur l'amélioration des compétences faibles plutôt que de continuer à pratiquer ce que l'on est déjà bon.

💡étude

L'étude est présentée comme une approche d'apprentissage où l'on analyse et copie un référent pour comprendre et apprendre les motifs ou les techniques. L'auteur utilise cette méthode avec le CCC (copiez, comparez, modifiez) pour améliorer ses compétences en dessin. Il explique comment cela aide à reconnaître les motifs et à apprendre de manière plus profonde en s'appuyant sur des exemples concrets.

💡prérequis

Les prérequis sont mentionnés comme des compétences de base ou des connaissances nécessaires pour apprendre quelque chose de plus avancé. Dans la vidéo, l'auteur explique que souvent, si un livre ou un cours semble confus, c'est peut-être parce qu'il manque ces compétences de base. Il donne son propre exemple d'avoir acheté un livre sur la création de mondes幻想 mais de ne pas avoir été capable de l'utiliser tant qu'il n'avait pas acquis les compétences nécessaires.

💡auto-amélioration

L'auto-amélioration est un thème récurrent dans la vidéo, soulignant l'importance de se concentrer sur les aspects de son art que l'auteur veut améliorer. Il est question de l'importance de se fixer des objectifs d'amélioration spécifiques et de suivre un processus itératif pour y parvenir, ce qui est en harmonie avec le cycle Draw-Reflect-Learn.

💡expérimentation

L'expérimentation est mentionnée comme une méthode d'apprentissage avancée où l'on teste de nouvelles techniques ou idées pour voir ce qui fonctionne et ce qui ne fonctionne pas. L'auteur suggère que cela peut être une approche efficace pour les artistes expérimentés qui ont déjà acquis un certain niveau de compétence, mais il recommande aux débutants de s'appuyer sur l'apprentissage des autres.

💡plateau

Un plateau dans le contexte de l'apprentissage fait référence à une période où il semble qu'il n'y a pas de progrès notable, malgré la pratique continue. L'auteur explique que cela est souvent dû à l'ignorance des bouteilles d'étranglement et suggère que se concentrer sur ces zones faibles peut aider à sortir du plateau.

💡ressources

Les ressources sont des matériaux ou des outils utilisés pour apprendre, comme des livres, des tutoriels, des cours ou des vidéos. L'auteur mentionne l'utilisation de diverses ressources pour apprendre et améliorer ses compétences en dessin, soulignant l'importance de choisir des ressources adaptées à son niveau d'expérience et aux compétences qu'il souhaite développer.

Highlights

The presenter shares their journey from a beginner to a professional artist.

They started drawing late in life after realizing dissatisfaction with their career path.

Initially, they consumed many art resources but didn't see the desired improvement.

The presenter became obsessed with finding the fastest way to improve drawing skills.

They discovered the Draw-Reflect-Learn cycle as the most effective learning method.

The importance of drawing exactly what you want to get good at is emphasized.

The presenter explains the specificity of skills and the importance of direct practice.

They discuss the use of social media metrics as a form of feedback.

Self-analysis as a method of reflection is introduced.

The concept of Gestaltzerfall and its impact on art practice is explained.

The presenter advises prioritizing one area of improvement at a time.

They discuss the concept of bottlenecks in skill development.

The presenter shares their personal experience with neglecting figure drawing.

They explain the role of a mentor and how to get high-quality feedback without one.

The presenter outlines two approaches to self-learning: structured learning and studies.

They introduce the CCC method for studies: copy, compare, change.

The presenter discusses the importance of having prerequisite skills for effective learning.

They provide examples of short and long Draw-Reflect-Learn cycles.

The presenter concludes with the mindset that drawing is an infinite game where persistence leads to improvement.

Transcripts

Hey friends! In this video, I'll be sharing with you the fast learning method I used to go from

clueless beginner to drawing at a level where I could finally build a following and do work

for companies such as Hololive, where I recently drew an illustration for Watame.

And just to give a bit of background, I started art late. I mean, I doodled here and there during

high school, but honestly, I spent most of that time just playing video games. It was only after

graduating from uni with a degree that I didn't really want and realizing I completely

hated my life that I decided to go all in on drawing because other than playing games and watching anime

it was pretty much the only thing I was interested in.

And just like everyone else starting out, I had zero skills and zero followers

but I was willing to learn and do whatever it took to get good.

So I did whatever a beginner with an internet connection would do and binge watched a whole bunch of YouTube videos.

Bought a ton of art books and courses and whatever was recommended and I was off to the drawing races.

And didn't get very far.

Like, I was spending a lot of time but I wasn't getting the results I wanted.

Looking at other people's amazing art on Twitter and pixiv confused the heck out of me because I had no idea what to do to get that good.

Like, how did they do that? What was I doing wrong?

So I became obsessed with finding out the right answer.

How does one actually get good at art?

And what is the fastest way to do so according to science and the artists that have made it into the industry?

So I dove right into all the books, videos and research I could find on the topic

and then applied whatever I learned right into my drawing practice, kept what worked and threw out what didn't.

It definitely took a long time but I managed to figure out a foolproof system for improving that I still use to this day.

And that's what I'll be sharing with you in this video and I hope you can use it to level up efficiently and make beautiful art.

By the way, if you're new here, I'm Ori and let's get right into it.

So after a lot of research and trial and error,

I found that the fastest and most effective way to improve is to go through the Draw-Reflect-Learn cycle.

That's it. The secret formula is that simple.

This method will always work no matter what your skill level is, or what you're trying to learn,

because it's based on the fundamental way we humans learn any skill.

But there is some nuance you have to understand to make the most of it,

so let's dive into the details of each part.

The first step is to draw, which means draw the thing you want to get good at.

That means if you want to get good at anime style art, then you have to draw anime style art.

This sounds really obvious, but when I first started, I took a lot of classes on fundamentals,

which were usually centered on drawing backgrounds and I thought it would also make me good at drawing other things like characters too.

It didn't because I had no idea how to transfer what I was learning into actually drawing anime characters.

And it was only when I realized, oh, if I want to get good at anime illustrations, I just have to draw anime illustrations and not go in a roundabout way

by doing these fancy classes and whatnot, which may be slightly related, but not really, that I finally started to improve at it.

I had the exact same problem with trying to improve my anime figures by doing croquis sketches.

I did a ton of them and I honestly didn't feel like I was improving much.

This was because the croquis sketches I did was still too different than the stylized characters I was drawing.

It was only when I started taking the time of taking the real life figure and then directly stylizing them into anime

as part of the practice that I started to make massive improvement.

This extra process of stylization made it directly applicable to the anime characters that I actually drew,

whereas just leaving it as the real life figure wasn't enough for my brain to make that connection.

So after doing research, I found that the reality is that skills are very specific.

Specific to the domain, which is the area of expertise you're in,

and to the situation that you're using that skill.

There's this really good article on the topic titled

Do the Real Thing by the author Scott Young, which I'll quote from.

There's an enormous literature about the narrowness of acquired skills.

Learn to do X and then switch to doing Y,

and you often take a huge performance hit even if X and Y are superficially similar.

With practice, for instance, you can get better at discriminating vertical lines,

but switch the test to horizontal lines and the benefit of training goes away.

There'll be a link to the article down below, and I recommend giving a read if you struggle with this kind of thing.

So make sure that you're actually drawing what you're trying to get good at,

and don't substitute it with a fake alternative, even though it's very, very tempting because it's often easier.

And when you're practicing, try to make it as close to the real thing as possible,

such as taking that extra step of stylizing the studies you do from real life.

The next step is to reflect, which means get feedback on whatever you just drew.

There are two main ways to do this when you're learning by yourself.

The first is social media metrics.

These are likes, comments, and reposts,

since retweeting is no longer a thing because the Twitter bird went extinct.

Or if you're using threads, re-threading?

Or maybe it's knitting.

I don't know what it is.

If there are any thread experts, do let me know in the comments down below.

But if a piece did much better or worse than usual,

it can be an indicator that you're doing something right or wrong.

But the problem is, it won't tell you exactly what.

So make sure to take it with a grain of salt and always combine it with the next form of feedback.

Which is number two, self-analysis.

Where you simply note down where you think you can improve.

I recommend actually taking down the notes, since if it's just a mental note, you're likely to have forgotten it by the next day.

And this is probably our primary source of feedback as an artist.

For a piece that you spent a long time working on, do make sure to wait a day or two so you can look at it with fresh eyes.

There's actually this phenomenon called

Gestaltzerfall

Gestaltzerfall

Gestaltzerfall

Gestal-

I don't speak German.

But anyway, it's the phenomenon that

where you spent so long looking at the thing

that you can't actually see the thing as a whole anymore

and you're just looking at the parts.

So like, you might experience this when you're looking at a word too long

and then you start to look at the word, at letters, and then the letters as these weird shapes

and you're like, woah, what is all of this?

And that actually happens in art as well, where you've been staring at this piece for so long that you can no longer see the piece as a whole,

and you're just looking at the individual parts, like this stroke here or this arm here, but you're not having a sense of the whole thing.

So the way to fix that is that you need to take some time off so you can look at it with fresh eyes.

It can also be useful to revisit old pieces again because you'll be able to pick up on improvement points that you didn't catch the first time around.

And also, your future self might have finally leveled up enough to know how to fix the problem.

It also helps with motivation to see how far you've come when you first started versus now.

Oftentimes, you're looking back at a piece you drew a year before and you're like,

hmm, that's pretty cool, I have improved a bit.

Okay, once you have your feedback, you'll probably find that there's a lot of things that need working on.

And that's okay. My list of things to improve is also infinitely long.

And all we have to do is treat these as a list of bugs to fix in your drawing.exe program.

It will take time but once you fix them, your program will be amazing.

And fix might not even be the right word here since all we're doing is really just leveling it up enough so it's no longer a problem in our art.

Now the most important part of all of this is to prioritize.

Highlight just one thing you'd like to improve at because you're gonna improve much faster when you focus on that one thing than trying to work on 10 things at the same time.

You can choose to focus on whatever interests you the most, but if you really want to supercharge your learning,

I would recommend identifying what the bottleneck in your skill is right now and focusing on that.

The bottleneck is the weakest part of a system which limits the overall output.

In our case, the output is a great looking illustration and whatever our weakest skill is right now usually becomes the bottleneck.

An extreme example of this would be if you have a person that's really good at composition, lighting, color, perspective,

but they've never learned how to draw the figure so they're like only able to draw stick people.

Then that's gonna be the obvious bottleneck holding them back from creating whatever masterpiece they want to make.

If they wanted to draw character art, of course.

To give my own example, I always enjoyed the lighting and coloring part of drawing more,

so I spent most of my time focusing on those areas.

But as a result of that, I neglected my figure drawing for ages.

So over time, that just compounded and it eventually became this massive bottleneck

for me and my underdeveloped skill of drawing the figure was basically holding everything

else back.

So in that situation, it would have been super inefficient to just keep adding skill points

into light and color when figure drawing was the constraint.

And the moment I tackled that bottleneck, the quality of my art was able to increase

massively in a short period of time.

Because the main constraint was finally lifted.

By the way, plateauing is usually caused by ignoring these bottlenecks.

We humans seem to have a natural tendency to just keep wanting to practice what we're already good at.

Because it makes us feel good.

We feel confident, people tell us we're good, so we just want to keep doing more of it.

But that leaves us very vulnerable down the road to being constrained by one or two weaknesses that we've completely ignored.

So by focusing on your bottlenecks, you'll not only get the most results for the time you spend practicing,

but you're also gonna future-proof yourself from these plateaus.

This video focuses more on self-learning, so I'm going to keep this part short.

But the other way to get feedback is to simply hire a teacher or mentor to look at your work.

Technically, it's the highest quality feedback you can get since an expert can tell you both what you're doing wrong and how to fix it.

The main problem is that it can be expensive and hard to get in English for anime art.

But there is good news. There's actually a way to receive this level of feedback through doing studies if you meet the three conditions which I'll talk about later in the video.

Also, I want to make it clear that expert feedback is more of a nice to have than a necessity to get good.

All you're doing is really just trading money to speed up the learning time, but that doesn't mean you can't just spend the time to learn the skill.

Many artists never had a mentor and these days there's so many high quality books and courses you can learn from.

Heck, even the quality of free tutorials on YouTube is so freaking high these days.

I personally put a ton of effort into making these videos because I want to make sure you guys find it as helpful as possible.

And I really enjoy it when I see a comment or tweet saying they tried this stuff in the tutorial and improved.

By the way, if you are finding the video helpful, I hope you can let me know by dropping a quick like.

But anyway, the point is, it's never been easier to learn art regardless of whether or not you can hire a mentor or go to an art school or not.

As long as you're willing to learn and put in the time, you'll improve.

And the third step is to learn, which means find a resource and do the practice that will

help you get better at the thing that you highlighted from the previous step.

When it comes to self-learning, there are two main approaches to this.

The first is structured learning.

So these are videos, tutorials, courses, or books to help guide you.

The most important thing is that you do whatever practice exercise they tell you to do.

Because it's usually by getting the reps in that you actually learn the skill and not

just by passively watching or reading the material.

You can think of drawing as similar to a sport like basketball,

where you can't get good by watching other people play,

but you can improve by actually getting on the court and practicing your dribbling and shooting.

The second approach to learning is to do studies.

This is basically learning by analyzing and copying a reference,

whether that's an illustration drawn by an artist you admire,

a scene from an anime, or an example from a book.

A lot of skill building is about pattern recognition.

And by doing studies, we can learn what the patterns are in the subject, or style of what we want to draw.

I like to do studies through the CCC method, which is copy, compare, change.

So you first draw a copy of the reference, or just the part of it that you want to learn from.

Because sometimes copying the whole reference just takes way too much time,

whereas if all you want to study is the hair, then just copy the hair part.

Now, I don't recommend tracing because the whole point is to use your brain while drawing the copy,

so you can actually learn.

You also need to keep asking yourself,

why does the thing you're drawing look that way? Such as, why did the artist make the decision to use this color for the shadows?

And thinking about it. The next step is to compare your copy with the original by pasting the original directly on top of it,

and then noting down the differences and analyzing them. You actually want to paste the original on top of yours.

I used to do studies just analyzing it side by side, but I found that when I compared by pasting the original right on top,

I could immediately see everything that was wrong with my copy and learn much faster that way and with more accuracy too.

Because if you're just doing side by side, you're often missing all the little details and little nuances that's really hard to get by just looking at it.

Finally, the last step is to change. So fix your copy as best you can to be like the original.

Again, it's going to be very tempting to just fix it by tracing on top of the original that you pasted on your copy.

But don't do that because again, you're not activating the brain that way.

So once you finish comparing, do hide that original that you pasted on top

and try to fix your copy without tracing it.

By the way, some of you may have noticed that this is really just another draw reflect learn cycle

because effective learning really boils down to the same three core steps of

doing the thing, getting feedback, and then making changes based on the feedback.

This is the bonus third approach, but once you have a lot of experience,

experimentation and finding your own way to do things is another way to learn.

But I don't recommend this for beginners because it's more efficient to just learn from others at the start.

I'd like to take a moment to quickly thank XP-Pen for kindly sponsoring this video.

They're just about to release their new Deco Pro 2, which is the world's first pen tablet with 16K levels of sensitivity.

I got permission to compare it with my 2K and 8K pressure tablets,

and I'm genuinely curious to see how much of a difference it actually makes, so let's try it out.

From previous testing, I usually find that the more sensitive the pen is, the thinner the thinner stroke can go,

as well as the more gradual you can ramp up the stroke width.

And I think it actually does a good job of capturing really light pressure.

So you can make these really thin strokes, more so than the 8K pressure pens.

So here's a test sketch that I did with the tablet just using a G-pen.

It was very comfortable to draw with.

I don't normally sketch with a G-pen because it's very flat,

but I felt because the tablet could capture such thin strokes that I could create a nice sketch effect using it.

The tablet also comes with this nice little shortcut device that I found very responsive and easy to use.

And I think that makes it a great value package, especially for beginners looking to get their first tablet and shortcut device.

So if that interests you, make sure to check it out in the link below.

Now, once you've done the practice or studies, it's time to see if the learning was actually successful.

So you can do this by just going back to the start of the cycle, which is to draw a new piece,

and then reflect whether you improved or not. If you did, great! It was a success!

You can focus on the next bottleneck holding you back now.

But the most likely thing that will happen to all of us is that

we did improve a bit, but it's not enough to break through that weakness just yet.

It's like we gained 50 EXP points, but we actually needed 250 to get to the next level for that ability.

So in that case, we can just keep focusing the learning part on the same thing,

and keep farming those EXP points by repeating the cycle until we do level up in that skill

and can focus on the next thing.

So a teacher or mentor does three things for us.

One, they tell us what we're doing wrong.

Two, how to fix it.

And three, give that feedback based on our current skill level.

Which means that if we can set up how we learn to meet those three conditions,

we can actually receive expert feedback without an expert.

Let's see how we can meet each condition.

The first condition we can meet by doing a study,

since comparing our copy with the original tells us what we're doing wrong.

The second condition we can meet if we have step-by-step explanations

of how the final result is achieved, since if we make a mistake,

it will allow us to trace back to which step we got wrong and how to fix it.

Finally, the third one we can meet by making sure we have the prerequisite skills necessary

to learn what we're trying to learn.

For example, in maths, before you can learn the more complex skill of algebra,

you first need to learn the simple skills like addition and subtraction.

Art is the same.

Learning to draw the whole anime body requires us to be able to draw each individual part

separately first, and also how to stylize them from real life.

We also need the fundamental skill of being able to draw basic shapes like a box correctly in perspective.

So oftentimes, whenever we think a book, course, or tutorial is confusing,

there's a high likelihood that the material itself is valuable,

but we're currently missing the prerequisite skills to learn from it.

To give an example from my own learning journey,

around the time I was starting out, I bought this book on how to draw beautiful fantasy world and characters

by the illustrator Fuzichoco, who I really looked up to.

And the contents of the book just flew way over my head, even though I tried my very best to follow it step by step.

So I put it aside and actually didn't touch it again until earlier this year, which is almost four years later.

And when I did, I was like, oh my god, this stuff is so good and I can immediately apply all of it.

Why didn't I get this before?

In reality, the contents of the books had always been amazing.

It's just that the second time I picked it up, I finally had all the prerequisite skills necessary to understand and really make use of that information.

So basically, you need to ask yourself this question.

Do I have the necessary skills to learn this or do I need to go back and learn a more basic skill first?

So putting all of this together, this means we can get high quality feedback

if we do studies of something with worked through examples that matches our current skill level.

The hardest condition to meet is of course the worked through examples part, but you can find them from tutorials, books, videos, and courses.

And the question really becomes whether the explanation is made for the skill level that you're at right now.

Because oftentimes, people who make these tutorials, including myself, will either forget the existence of the basic skills,

because it's just become automatic through repetition, or we've deliberately chosen to assume that the viewer has them for the sake of coherence.

Because imagine having to explain what every single word means in a sentence, one by one, every time you speak.

What you're explaining will become way too long and derail from the main topic too much.

So the "Learn" part of the cycle can be shorter or longer, depending on what you're trying to learn.

Here's some examples of the Draw-reflect-learn cycles I've done in the past.

A shorter cycle, learning to draw wrinkles.

This is a mini cycle I usually do whenever I encounter something I don't understand how to draw while I'm in the middle of making an illustration.

So, "Draw". I'm in the middle of drawing an illustration.

"Reflect". I realize that I can't draw the wrinkles of a specific piece of clothing well because I don't understand it.

And then "Learn." I go find a couple of photo references and do studies of them. Then I go back and apply what I learned to the illustration I'm drawing.

This also acts as a test to see whether the learning was successful and if it wasn't, I go back to learning it, either by doing more studies or finding a different resource to learn from.

This next one is an example of a longer cycle I did to overhaul my hair drawing.

Draw: I drew an illustration.

Reflect: I realized I really needed to level up my hair drawing skills.

It was a massive bottleneck holding me back.

Learn: I found a good resource on the topic, in this case the book How to Draw Hair by Paryi.

And I spent the next few weeks doing studies of all the different hairstyle examples in the book.

Since this is a longer "Learn" cycle,

I made sure to weave in drawing in my own original sketches from time to time

in order to test whether I'm actually learning something.

It's kinda like doing mini Draw-Reflect-Learn cycles, but just on hair.

So Learn: study different hairstyles, draw my own original sketches, reflect,

did the sketch turn out well?

Was I able to apply what I learned?

And if the answer to that is no, I go back and analyze what needs changing,

or whether I just need to keep learning more of this until I get the hang of it.

This is a bonus tip, but it's the most important.

You'll often hear me talk about drawing like it's a game, from grinding for exp points

to leveling up the drawing.

But drawing really is just an infinite game where you win as long as you keep playing

the game.

Like I don't think you win when you get a million followers and work for the next miHoYo

game.

You win by continuing to draw and trying to get a little better at it each time.

So really the only way to lose is if you quit and as long as you keep on going, you're

actually winning the game.

I'll leave you with this really good quote that our beloved Hololive Grim Reaper said during an interview.

If you quit when you suck, you'll suck forever.

When I first heard it, it hit me like a ton of bricks and I was like,

damn, I have never heard of something so infuriatingly true.

And it actually stuck with me and I used to remember it whenever the motivation tank started to run low.

So don't quit when you suck because that's the worst time to quit

and just keep on going and improving one cycle at a time.

Anyway, this was a longer video than usual so thank you so much if you're still watching.

And if you want to learn more about anime art, click the video on the left for the five best hair drawing tips that I learned,

and the video on the right if you want to learn my process for taking these illustrations from sketch to color.

Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, and you can also find me on Twitter which is where I post all of my art.

This was Ori, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye!