I need some help everypony!

[Thatfunkybass]

Hey everypony!

After drawing all kinds of ponies for quite a while I decided to get a design tablet and get my drawings on the net.

However, the results have been horrendous. Words cannot describe how bad these pictures turned out, but if there was a word to describe it would probably go something like: AAAAAAAAARGGHGHGHGNOOOOOITBURNSTHEGOGGLESTHEYDONOTHINGKILLITWITHFIREASDIASNDOASDNAOSDNASDHAOSDSAOAAAAAA...

But I digress. Since my ponies look pretty much alright on paper but like the work of a tripping 2 year old when done on my computer, I think it might be related to the tools and programs I'm using. I am horrible with technology and haven't figured out how to draw with vectors and maybe I'm just not using my drawing program (Art weaver) correctly. (though I have tried a few other programs and the results have mostly been equaly bad). I have also been through many tutorials but the problem is never really my drawing skills (though they are everything but good), but more that the lines look plain wrong and it never ends up as a coherent pony.

Can anypony help me out with some advice, instructions, tools or anything? There is so much good and funny fan art and ponies are not that hard to do, I really want to be able to draw/arrange my own mlp stuff on my computer but until now every attempt has been a horrible failure.

Thanks in advance everypony!

PS: (If it helps I can upload something drawn on paper and drawn on tablet if it helps to maybe find my problem)

TLDR: I sort of know how to draw but everything done on tablet looks horrible, help!

[Angie Cakes]

uploads would help

if your problem is the program, I can't help I don't know anything about art weaver (never even heard of it). if you have photoshop, corel painter, anime studio or manga studio, I can help out a lot with those.

if your problem is that you can't draw nice lines, then just do what I did. don't use your mouse for ANYTHING. when I first started with a tablet, I used it as a mouse for the next month. even when you're on the internet or going through files on your computer, use your tablet. another thing is to find pictures of basic shapes (or draw them with shape tools), and practice tracing them until you get the hang of it. tablets are pretty tricky to get used to, it took me about two months to feel 100% comfortable with one.

[Angie Cakes]

oh, and also make sure you have your settings right. keep the hand touch sensor thing off, unless you plan on finger painting. also make sure that if there's any short-cut buttons on your tablet or pen, keep those off so that you don't hit any buttons by accident (unless you like having them do stuff. I keep mine off)

[Thatfunkybass]

Heya!

Thanks for the quick response

I did a quick drawing using both the tablet and the mouse and I think you're probably right about the getting used to the tablet! I can't get the curves as smooth and the proportions anywhere near right on the tablet... I'll try using it more to get a feel for it

But other then that, nothing looks smooth when I draw it with the brush, everything just looks clunky and pixeld and nasty and... well nothing like your avatar for example xD (I assume you've done it yourself, really cute ).

Well anyhow here's the picture, any help is wanted and more then appreciated

Edit: Just looking at the picture again makes me think I should probably just stick to music and stuff I'm good at x(

[Angie Cakes]

my avatar was done on a vector program without a tablet, so it's not the best comparison XD thanks though.

I find that there are three main ways to get nice line art without the use of vector tools. you can zoom in close and draw slowly, zoom out far so you have a shorter distance to draw or make your origional drawing really big, then shrink it after you do the line art. for smaller details, sometimes I'll start a drawing out really tiny with a 3 pixle brush, then make the drawing and the brush bigger and re-trace it until it gets to the size I like. it takes a lot of work to do that, so I don't recomend it for a bigger drawing XD

[CrossStitch]

I'm not much of a tablet user...

But I've heard that Paintbrush Sai is an amazing program to use. I notice that a lot of the "Ask Pony" Tumblr's use it as well. I've used it a little bit to do smaller things, like tracing lines and such, and I must say it is quite a handy program to have. You may want to look into it.

[Angie Cakes]

I've heard that too ^

I haven't used it yet, because I don't want to waste more room on my computer. it already has a bunch of other creative programs on it

[Ginger Mint]

hi hi

Make sure to take advantage of layers. One method I sometimes use is I sketch something on one layer, then reduce its opacity, make a new later and sketch over it. Continue that process until it looks the way you want it to and then add color.

If you're looking for tutorials, there's a bunch of them over at http://www.ctrlpaint.com/

[Thatfunkybass]

Thanks again for more responses

I checked out paintbrush sai but somehow can't get it to work

But I also looked over some stuff that was done with vectors and thought it looked really cool! I already downloaded a program (Ink scape) which is apparently pretty good for working with vectors and looked over a few tutorials, but I still couldn't figure out how drawing with vectors actually works x(

If anyone could quickly explain to me how the basics work or link me to a good tutorial which explains things in detail that would be simply "fabulous"

Until then, I'll be practicing my tablet and on-paper skills and read every tutorial I can get my hooves on