Question: Tutorials? (Patreon)

"Hello Ecchistar. Thanks for all the awesome art, I've been an on-and-off fan of yours for a few years now. Sorry to be a bother, but I really like the way you draw bodies and I also admire your coloring style. I was curious If you have any tutorials or general advice regarding anatomy as well as some advice on digital painting. Sorry for the block of text, I hope you have a wonderful day."
-From a patron

Thanks man, I appreciate the compliments. You got any specific questions, feel free to ask away.

I may have mentioned it in my big "Dreams and Directions" post a couple months back (I did, Dream #4), but I've been putting together material for video tutorials and notes for How to Draw instructional posts. However, what I end up with is very fractured, incomplete, and never really worth posting. At least, that's how I see it. Tutorials and videos, they all seem to need a massive time commitment and it really gets in the way of making the hot wet pics… which I'm already slow at.

What I really need to do is get into a work flow where I release little snippets of material on whatever topic I'm tackling. …blah blah blah.

Right at the beginning of 2023, I went through my library of drawing and anatomy books, with all their techniques and systems. I gave a bunch of them a thorough evaluation from my current vantage point as an artist who has been drawing for a living for 20 years. I wanted to definitively understand what techniques were working and which were weren't. 

Books, books and...

...more books. (And so many many more. Digital too.) 

I started systematically going though the tomes, doing studies, and taking notes. This went on for a couple months before the whole process burnt me out. 

The usual insanity of my sketchbook as I went through "How to Draw" guides trying to evaluate their instructions, systems, and results. I believe these were notes on More How to Draw Manga Volume 2.  Terrible instruction in those books, btw. I'll spare you the next 12 pages with observations on anything from Jack Hamm's hyper-technical exacting measurements to Loomis's guides.   

So many pages in my sketchbook look like this. Body parts everywhere with weird cuties and little notes. Is this useful for anyone? Not sure.

Watched a MikeyMegaMega tutorial. He's a good artist and an excellent instructor. Came back with some thoughts on the system he presented and compared it to my usual methods. 

Ecchi's unofficial guide to asses, asses and more asses. 

Anatomy?

Kintaro Oe's observations on life and women.  Maybe drawn by Toshihiro Kawamoto.

Since I've got nothing particularly condensed or useful to hand you at the moment, let me share some other resources. Here are a couple recommendations for artists on YouTube with a solid foundation in Loomis-based system drawing techniques. None are me, but all are definitely worth watching and studying.

Hide Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@hidechannel2

Chommang - https://www.youtube.com/@Chommang

Mikeymegamega - https://www.youtube.com/@mikeymegamega

Also: Download and read over the Loomis books on drawing the figure. Here's a place to get them since they're all like 90 years old:

https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Loomis%2C+Andrew%22 

While I'm at it, I'd also recommend Glenn Vilppu. (God, is he still alive? Wow.) He's a master in the truest sense. He did a series of instructional DVDs like 20 years ago detailing every worthwhile technique for drawing the figure. I don't think this is available anymore, but he has some other stuff in various places online. His Drawing Manual book is okay, but watching him draw and hearing him teach is priceless.  

Personally, I feel like I'm perpetually learning, forgetting, and having to start again. My recent forced three year break didn't help, but honestly I feel this way after every picture I make. That lack of retention and urge to learn anew, along with the time commitment is why I'm so hesitant to teach. I don't want to be the distracted blind man leading others on a path to nowhere, or off a cliff. Heh.

If anyone else on here is reading this, I'd be curious to know if you have any questions or demands from me. Anything you wanna see or know? On the flipside, if you have recommendations for other anatomy or figure drawing gurus, feel free to chime in with names in the comment zone.

For my part, I'll see about posting more drawing observation notes and videos in the future.

Take care,

--Ecchi