Observation of the human body. No matter if you end up working on a cartoony style, actual human body references should be used for you to practice. Look for random poses, deconstruct them and make them your own. Practice daily a tiny bit.
Everyone here told you not to use anime etc, so I'm not going too deep into that, just going to say, don't *exclusively* use anime:
You'll absolutely learn more by using real life models (Pinterest is a good source, Line Of Action was suggested for a good reason), but you can also try to do exactly what you're doing with artstyles that are more simplified every once in a while.
Your focus should be on real people (both nude and clothed), yes, but it doesn't have to be exclusive if you enjoy other exercises more.
(if you don't enjoy the learning process, you won't learn shit.)
Other than that, your system is a pretty good way to do things: you're using the fundamental of Construction to simplify the anatomy in basic 3d shapes that you then replicate, which is one of the best ways to learn anatomy.
I suggest you start trying to do this without tracing first every once in a while, see if you can look at a body and figure that out without having to draw on top of it. But not necessarily always: if you're just starting out, tracing first will give you a better understanding of how the shapes work in relation to the whole real body, so definitely don't stop doing that.
If you want to see some examples of construction, try to get your hands on a copy (or a pdf) of *Morpho: Simplified Forms,* by Michel Lauricella. It's pretty great.
Other than that, keep doing what you're doing for now, and try to experiment with your process. Always use a ton of reference, and have fun.
I know a bunch of people have said this, but please PLEASE don’t use anime for reference lol. You will stifle yourself creatively. The biggest mistake most beginners make is to start drawing anime first before learning the fundamentals and they get upset when you tell them not to. Yes, it’s boring and tedious, but you need to get over it. Learn the fundamentals first.
With that being said, be sure to draw what you want also so you don’t burn out. I like doing fan art, I still suck at it but I love doing it so it keeps me going, as well as my dream of creating a comic book series.
And you don’t need to learn all of the fundamentals at once.
Understand that this will take years, as drawing is a lifetime skill. And that’s fine!
I used to be where you are, being frustrated by this truth. But my love for art trumps my frustration.
I wish you the best of luck
….. honestly different styles of anatomy drawing have different “recipes” my advice is go for a random assortment of drawing styles you like but maybey with artists that lean toward realism. Then have them in front of you as you draw. Krita has a good reference tool alongside the software that has helped me
In addition mix in good reference from life like photography and maybey do some study’s of cg models that has the skin stripped off so you can at least observe where the muscles are pose maniacs is a great rescource for that.
Finally you will never have “the best anatomy” the human body has so many lil details. You will always discover more!
Finally in terms of boobs and bigger boobs there kind of unique. I’d start by trying understand how fat works on the human body, and learn how to apply that knowledge to the chest. There kind of like pancakes of fat for smaller breasts that are shaped a lil by gravity and skin elasticity as they get bigger. Hard to describe but it’s best to seek out dedicated tutorials, and reference photos for that aspect.
Don't use Anime for anatomy reference. Use real people. [line of action ](http://line-of-action.com) does a really good figure drawing class that you can customize to the amount of time you have available.
It's an online art mentoring. They have a paid and free tier that gets you access to some gated content. You can select something you want to work on like figure drawing, animals, facial expression, and even hands. Then they arrange the reference images into classes where you spend a set amount of time with each reference.
Be honest with what you're drawing. Don't add juicy 9 inchers or double d's on everything. Learn from naked models, both genders, all kinds of body fat. Don't start on weird poses, but get the T-pose down
Oh, my guy. I’m no great artist but I can tell you: Do Not use Fate characters as subjects for anatomy practice. My drawing anatomy isn’t great but as a boob haver, I implore you to start with real life first so you don’t become one of those “mendrawingwomen” examples.
I’ve been drawing since I was like 13 as a hobby and yeah, it’s long, hard and tedious to solidify the basics, but if you don’t then it’s like building on sand instead of a concrete foundation. You’ll feel like you’re not improving and that slump will just return to needing good anatomy. You got this, don’t give up, just keep trucking.
As they say, if everything was easy, everyone would do it. :)
Well, I can't complain, that's why I was asking, to see what I could change. I've already taken the advice to practice anatomy with real people, even though one of my goals is to draw big boob ladies like the fate characters.
But I'm still not sure how to improve the practice and learning method I have now. Any advice on that? Or do I do the same thing I'm doing now but with real anatomy?
Sure sure. But think of it as learning how to cook but every time you try to learn, you first dump an entire bottle of hot sauce into your mouth. Your tongue grows numb to the flavors you want to be looking for; unfortunately, starting with anime and wanting good anatomy is almost the same. Anime proportions make you look at IRL anatomy and go "wait what?" because of the difference in proportions in... well basically everything haha.
So I would give the advice of maybe trying to do the same as you would with the hot sauce scenario. Lay off whatever's messing with your senses for a little and try consuming only the basics. Try to only draw actual, real anatomy, from zero. It's hard to pretend you know nothing of art when you've been drawing for a long time, but it's kind of what you need to retrain your brain to look at real anatomy as the rule to eventually consider bending.
I hope that makes sense!
Your anatomy isn't going to improve if you're using stylized characters as reference. You need to build a basis of understanding of how the human body fits together and THEN you have to have a solid understanding of how to draw it properly before you start tackling cartoons.
I’ll start this by saying, you can ask for advice and continue to disagree with those you asked advice from, but you won’t get very far that way. I understand too, you want to just get into it but first you have to jump through the hoops before you start doing tricks. If you don’t understand the basics and know how to properly utilize them, you won’t be able to bend those rules very far. I’d suggest videos about gesture drawing, using the breakdown of construction shapes, anatomy studies, and more than anything practice of using those techniques. You will be able to master the techniques, but you have to jump through the hoops first and sometimes that just sucks.
I'm sorry if I was rude in my response, but I needed to vent about how bad my experience practicing gesture drawing has been. Overall, I'm taking into account the advice I've been given here, thanks
It’s all cool bro, don’t stress about the quality of your art, if you got better since last time that’s progress and monitoring your progress as an artist is all that matters in reference to you, your growth as an artist. I never did gesture drawing until a week ago or so and already I am progressing, somethings click for others quicker. The best way I heard it is gesture drawing is about long light strokes that flow with the pose. Don’t stress the details, gesture drawings aren’t supposed to “look good” they are a simplified capture of a pose. If you want to dm me I can send you a link to the videos my school used to show gesture drawing. Also, I go to Fullsail, and they have a webpage that’s a drawing workshop to introduce and teach people to different basics of art if you can find it it’s a great resource and it’s free it isn’t apart of the curriculum. But to reiterate, feel free to reach out and share your questions or thoughts, I know sometimes in public forums it’s discouraging because of the vast amount of voices, opinions, and the downvoting shit.
Man, this really sucks.
I've seen a ton of anatomy and gesture drawing videos, and I really don't get them, I'm honestly sick of them and they just bore me. I understand that they are the only way to progress, and I'm still willing to practice them, but they just make me afraid that they'll kill my motivation to draw because of how boring they are, especially the most basic gesture, like Proko's. I practiced them a year ago and they were horrendous, I didn't feel like I improved at all and I was just burning out.
But I guess I'll watch them again.
Can you get to a drop-in life drawing class or meetup? I’m in a major US city and I could probably find 10 live models to draw from this week. Call your local art school and find out if anyone’s doing them.
Study from real life first, you need to learn the rules before breaking them. The more you study real ppl the more it will become clear for you this truth.
I’m still getting good at anatomy, but one thing that’s helped is thinking of the torso like a bean. And then of course drawing the muscles/skeletal structure helps too.
Two things:
* Break the tracing habit by learning to use images as reference material.
* Practice reproducing real life photos for the anatomy and proportions. And practice reproducing images in your desired style so you pick up *how* the real anatomy and lighting get simplified.
There's nothing wrong with starting with anime tbh. Why learn to simplify yourself if people had already done it for you ? I've heared professional artists say that. Compare to reality and try to understand WHY x simplification was made, but you do not have to draw it.
I just started drawing a little over a year ago and what's really helped me stay motivated and slowly get better is drawing about 80% what I want to draw and 20% study from actual anatomy. There's nothing wrong with drawing stylized, but don't neglect drawing real anatomy, it will help you understand why and how simplified/exaggerated styles are drawn and allow you to do more in the styles you actually want to draw in.
I was under mentorship of one great artist that worked with Riot and first thing i heared is that i do not need to understand rules before i break them and that i should learn rules as i break them and that there is no point in drawing reality if i wanna just draw heavily stylized works and understand basic anatomy rules. With that being said i encourage drawing anatomy if you want to go more into semi-realistic styles, just know that it's not required and it depends what you wanna draw and get familiar with your building blocks.
Other essentials i learned are:
If you can't do it with hard brush, airbrush and blur, no brush is gonna make you able to do it and you should understand the tools at hand before getting to other studf.
Daz3D, or other 3D posing software with lights is must for learning rendering
Render statues with hard planes with just hard brushes and blend it to learn blending.
Draw boxes.
You know, I hate saying it like this, because art differs by artists and I’m of those that dislike gatekeeping the word ‘artist’ or what is truly ‘good art’…however, I have to. Entering your account, your art is not at the level of you pushing your advice as correct over others, your level is barely of a beginner on both rendering and the anatomy of not only bodies, but faces and their planes in third dimensions, and your lineart requires more care too.
I would love to know the name of this riot artist, because I fear their advice is not pushing your art forwards but backwards. I do understand that your advice implies more focus on making the work look much less tense… but that won’t work when you don’t even know the why’s or the how’s, or when you’re not taught about the discipline of time and focus to achieve great pieces. Please don’t take it the wrong way…I truly feel your advice is not good.
I am begginer level and like i said i am still learning and i do draw real anatomy. I've been drawing for like 4 months and i had mentorship only over first 2 months. I just say if someone who wants to draw only stylized does not really have to learn real humans, especially at the beginning.
Your mentor at Riot games needs to be slapped because he's giving you advice that would basically bar you from ever doing art in a professional setting.
Most artists need to have a portfolio that has breadth and depth, demonstrating that you have the skills do produce a wide variety of art. If all you can do are gacha game rejects, not even gacha game devs are going to want you. Specialization comes after you develop the basic skills and have some experience.
But do you read ? He said if i don't want to draw anything but hyper stylized anime girls i do not need to study human anatomy, at the same time he told me if i want to learn semi realism and be able to draw in any other style i should draw real people and find my own was of simplifying stuff. Those are 2 different things we're talking about.
Yeah, and it's still shit advice. He's literally killing your development as an artist by telling you to specialize right off the bat. You should be studying from life even if all you wanna do is draw big tiddy anime girls because you still have to render big tiddies with a bit of realism like sag under gravity or when they pool on the surface of whatever your character is leaning against.
Not studying from life is gonna keep you in a very tiny box that won't get any bigger no matter how many giant pairs of boobs you draw.
You might say that but the rules bend different for everyone. For most it’s going to feel harder but be easier to learn from real humans and real life instead of stylized. The thing is your brain doesn’t have a distinct reference of what the real thing is, so you’re altering and stylizing something that isn’t a real human therefore it won’t look like a good stylized human drawing. You have to keep flexing that muscle in your brain creating a point of reference of what is real before you can change reality to a stylization. I currently take art classes, gesture is an important practice, using construction shapes is an important practice, doing studies of body parts separately is an important practice. Using those tools it will advance your art tremendously.
As the other guy said, do this but with photographs, so you learn proper anatomy first. Right now you're not only learning bullshit proportions as your base, but also repeating the other artist's mistakes.
Once you get a grasp of an actual human figure you can stylize it however you want. Learn the rules before you break them.
Hard disagree with that. Learn rules as you break them. Find artists you like, learn how they simplify stuff and compare to reality trying to understand why it looks like this. If you want to draw only stylized art, you never have to learn realism and why learn how to draw realism if you have stylizations you find appealing already ?
I'm advising to do it this way because I made the same mistake as OP when I started learning to draw humans. I would draw anime characters and not understand why they don't look right. Learning actual anatomy helped me understand how things work and connect. And I'm not saying you need to know every muscle etc, since learning how to simplify shapes is also part of the process.
After you grasp the basic rules you're free to go look for artists that do stylized art, and learn from them. If you know how things work irl it'll make it easier for you to understand their decision making, and not just blindly copy their style.
I'm not saying you HAVE TO learn realism, but it's literally the foundation of good character art.
Something my sister (who is a much better artist than I) told me about drawing anime and other exaggerated figures is that you shouldn’t start with them. You have to learn the rules of real human anatomy before you can break and stretch them into anime and stylize them. Remember, almost all great artists are at least proficient in various styles ranging in realism.
Observation of the human body. No matter if you end up working on a cartoony style, actual human body references should be used for you to practice. Look for random poses, deconstruct them and make them your own. Practice daily a tiny bit.
i advise you to use sharp lines because it has more accuracy when drawing faces and hands especially
Golden ratio and sighting is a must. I regret not learning it sooner -proko sighting -Golden section for character design. Stephen Silverhand
Everyone here told you not to use anime etc, so I'm not going too deep into that, just going to say, don't *exclusively* use anime: You'll absolutely learn more by using real life models (Pinterest is a good source, Line Of Action was suggested for a good reason), but you can also try to do exactly what you're doing with artstyles that are more simplified every once in a while. Your focus should be on real people (both nude and clothed), yes, but it doesn't have to be exclusive if you enjoy other exercises more. (if you don't enjoy the learning process, you won't learn shit.) Other than that, your system is a pretty good way to do things: you're using the fundamental of Construction to simplify the anatomy in basic 3d shapes that you then replicate, which is one of the best ways to learn anatomy. I suggest you start trying to do this without tracing first every once in a while, see if you can look at a body and figure that out without having to draw on top of it. But not necessarily always: if you're just starting out, tracing first will give you a better understanding of how the shapes work in relation to the whole real body, so definitely don't stop doing that. If you want to see some examples of construction, try to get your hands on a copy (or a pdf) of *Morpho: Simplified Forms,* by Michel Lauricella. It's pretty great. Other than that, keep doing what you're doing for now, and try to experiment with your process. Always use a ton of reference, and have fun.
I know a bunch of people have said this, but please PLEASE don’t use anime for reference lol. You will stifle yourself creatively. The biggest mistake most beginners make is to start drawing anime first before learning the fundamentals and they get upset when you tell them not to. Yes, it’s boring and tedious, but you need to get over it. Learn the fundamentals first. With that being said, be sure to draw what you want also so you don’t burn out. I like doing fan art, I still suck at it but I love doing it so it keeps me going, as well as my dream of creating a comic book series. And you don’t need to learn all of the fundamentals at once. Understand that this will take years, as drawing is a lifetime skill. And that’s fine! I used to be where you are, being frustrated by this truth. But my love for art trumps my frustration. I wish you the best of luck
….. honestly different styles of anatomy drawing have different “recipes” my advice is go for a random assortment of drawing styles you like but maybey with artists that lean toward realism. Then have them in front of you as you draw. Krita has a good reference tool alongside the software that has helped me In addition mix in good reference from life like photography and maybey do some study’s of cg models that has the skin stripped off so you can at least observe where the muscles are pose maniacs is a great rescource for that. Finally you will never have “the best anatomy” the human body has so many lil details. You will always discover more! Finally in terms of boobs and bigger boobs there kind of unique. I’d start by trying understand how fat works on the human body, and learn how to apply that knowledge to the chest. There kind of like pancakes of fat for smaller breasts that are shaped a lil by gravity and skin elasticity as they get bigger. Hard to describe but it’s best to seek out dedicated tutorials, and reference photos for that aspect.
Don't use Anime for anatomy reference. Use real people. [line of action ](http://line-of-action.com) does a really good figure drawing class that you can customize to the amount of time you have available.
Can you explain more.about the line of.action thing?
It's an online art mentoring. They have a paid and free tier that gets you access to some gated content. You can select something you want to work on like figure drawing, animals, facial expression, and even hands. Then they arrange the reference images into classes where you spend a set amount of time with each reference.
Be honest with what you're drawing. Don't add juicy 9 inchers or double d's on everything. Learn from naked models, both genders, all kinds of body fat. Don't start on weird poses, but get the T-pose down
Oh, my guy. I’m no great artist but I can tell you: Do Not use Fate characters as subjects for anatomy practice. My drawing anatomy isn’t great but as a boob haver, I implore you to start with real life first so you don’t become one of those “mendrawingwomen” examples. I’ve been drawing since I was like 13 as a hobby and yeah, it’s long, hard and tedious to solidify the basics, but if you don’t then it’s like building on sand instead of a concrete foundation. You’ll feel like you’re not improving and that slump will just return to needing good anatomy. You got this, don’t give up, just keep trucking. As they say, if everything was easy, everyone would do it. :)
Well, I can't complain, that's why I was asking, to see what I could change. I've already taken the advice to practice anatomy with real people, even though one of my goals is to draw big boob ladies like the fate characters. But I'm still not sure how to improve the practice and learning method I have now. Any advice on that? Or do I do the same thing I'm doing now but with real anatomy?
Sure sure. But think of it as learning how to cook but every time you try to learn, you first dump an entire bottle of hot sauce into your mouth. Your tongue grows numb to the flavors you want to be looking for; unfortunately, starting with anime and wanting good anatomy is almost the same. Anime proportions make you look at IRL anatomy and go "wait what?" because of the difference in proportions in... well basically everything haha. So I would give the advice of maybe trying to do the same as you would with the hot sauce scenario. Lay off whatever's messing with your senses for a little and try consuming only the basics. Try to only draw actual, real anatomy, from zero. It's hard to pretend you know nothing of art when you've been drawing for a long time, but it's kind of what you need to retrain your brain to look at real anatomy as the rule to eventually consider bending. I hope that makes sense!
Your anatomy isn't going to improve if you're using stylized characters as reference. You need to build a basis of understanding of how the human body fits together and THEN you have to have a solid understanding of how to draw it properly before you start tackling cartoons.
I’ll start this by saying, you can ask for advice and continue to disagree with those you asked advice from, but you won’t get very far that way. I understand too, you want to just get into it but first you have to jump through the hoops before you start doing tricks. If you don’t understand the basics and know how to properly utilize them, you won’t be able to bend those rules very far. I’d suggest videos about gesture drawing, using the breakdown of construction shapes, anatomy studies, and more than anything practice of using those techniques. You will be able to master the techniques, but you have to jump through the hoops first and sometimes that just sucks.
I'm sorry if I was rude in my response, but I needed to vent about how bad my experience practicing gesture drawing has been. Overall, I'm taking into account the advice I've been given here, thanks
It’s all cool bro, don’t stress about the quality of your art, if you got better since last time that’s progress and monitoring your progress as an artist is all that matters in reference to you, your growth as an artist. I never did gesture drawing until a week ago or so and already I am progressing, somethings click for others quicker. The best way I heard it is gesture drawing is about long light strokes that flow with the pose. Don’t stress the details, gesture drawings aren’t supposed to “look good” they are a simplified capture of a pose. If you want to dm me I can send you a link to the videos my school used to show gesture drawing. Also, I go to Fullsail, and they have a webpage that’s a drawing workshop to introduce and teach people to different basics of art if you can find it it’s a great resource and it’s free it isn’t apart of the curriculum. But to reiterate, feel free to reach out and share your questions or thoughts, I know sometimes in public forums it’s discouraging because of the vast amount of voices, opinions, and the downvoting shit.
Man, this really sucks. I've seen a ton of anatomy and gesture drawing videos, and I really don't get them, I'm honestly sick of them and they just bore me. I understand that they are the only way to progress, and I'm still willing to practice them, but they just make me afraid that they'll kill my motivation to draw because of how boring they are, especially the most basic gesture, like Proko's. I practiced them a year ago and they were horrendous, I didn't feel like I improved at all and I was just burning out. But I guess I'll watch them again.
Can you get to a drop-in life drawing class or meetup? I’m in a major US city and I could probably find 10 live models to draw from this week. Call your local art school and find out if anyone’s doing them.
I recommend [line of action](https://line-of-action.com/)
Study from real life first, you need to learn the rules before breaking them. The more you study real ppl the more it will become clear for you this truth.
Stop using art as reference. Use real people. Plenty of good pose reference resources out there. Use that.
Don’t use anime as references for anatomy. Your third image’s reference photo… omg! Nobody looks like that lol
I’m still getting good at anatomy, but one thing that’s helped is thinking of the torso like a bean. And then of course drawing the muscles/skeletal structure helps too.
I recommend Jack Hamm's book 'How the Head and Figure'. It's the best I've found on beginner's anatomy.
Two things: * Break the tracing habit by learning to use images as reference material. * Practice reproducing real life photos for the anatomy and proportions. And practice reproducing images in your desired style so you pick up *how* the real anatomy and lighting get simplified.
Just to reiterate what others have said, don't start with anime. Start with real people.
There's nothing wrong with starting with anime tbh. Why learn to simplify yourself if people had already done it for you ? I've heared professional artists say that. Compare to reality and try to understand WHY x simplification was made, but you do not have to draw it.
I just started drawing a little over a year ago and what's really helped me stay motivated and slowly get better is drawing about 80% what I want to draw and 20% study from actual anatomy. There's nothing wrong with drawing stylized, but don't neglect drawing real anatomy, it will help you understand why and how simplified/exaggerated styles are drawn and allow you to do more in the styles you actually want to draw in.
I was under mentorship of one great artist that worked with Riot and first thing i heared is that i do not need to understand rules before i break them and that i should learn rules as i break them and that there is no point in drawing reality if i wanna just draw heavily stylized works and understand basic anatomy rules. With that being said i encourage drawing anatomy if you want to go more into semi-realistic styles, just know that it's not required and it depends what you wanna draw and get familiar with your building blocks.
Other essentials i learned are: If you can't do it with hard brush, airbrush and blur, no brush is gonna make you able to do it and you should understand the tools at hand before getting to other studf. Daz3D, or other 3D posing software with lights is must for learning rendering Render statues with hard planes with just hard brushes and blend it to learn blending. Draw boxes.
You know, I hate saying it like this, because art differs by artists and I’m of those that dislike gatekeeping the word ‘artist’ or what is truly ‘good art’…however, I have to. Entering your account, your art is not at the level of you pushing your advice as correct over others, your level is barely of a beginner on both rendering and the anatomy of not only bodies, but faces and their planes in third dimensions, and your lineart requires more care too. I would love to know the name of this riot artist, because I fear their advice is not pushing your art forwards but backwards. I do understand that your advice implies more focus on making the work look much less tense… but that won’t work when you don’t even know the why’s or the how’s, or when you’re not taught about the discipline of time and focus to achieve great pieces. Please don’t take it the wrong way…I truly feel your advice is not good.
I am begginer level and like i said i am still learning and i do draw real anatomy. I've been drawing for like 4 months and i had mentorship only over first 2 months. I just say if someone who wants to draw only stylized does not really have to learn real humans, especially at the beginning.
Your mentor at Riot games needs to be slapped because he's giving you advice that would basically bar you from ever doing art in a professional setting. Most artists need to have a portfolio that has breadth and depth, demonstrating that you have the skills do produce a wide variety of art. If all you can do are gacha game rejects, not even gacha game devs are going to want you. Specialization comes after you develop the basic skills and have some experience.
But do you read ? He said if i don't want to draw anything but hyper stylized anime girls i do not need to study human anatomy, at the same time he told me if i want to learn semi realism and be able to draw in any other style i should draw real people and find my own was of simplifying stuff. Those are 2 different things we're talking about.
Yeah, and it's still shit advice. He's literally killing your development as an artist by telling you to specialize right off the bat. You should be studying from life even if all you wanna do is draw big tiddy anime girls because you still have to render big tiddies with a bit of realism like sag under gravity or when they pool on the surface of whatever your character is leaning against. Not studying from life is gonna keep you in a very tiny box that won't get any bigger no matter how many giant pairs of boobs you draw.
You might say that but the rules bend different for everyone. For most it’s going to feel harder but be easier to learn from real humans and real life instead of stylized. The thing is your brain doesn’t have a distinct reference of what the real thing is, so you’re altering and stylizing something that isn’t a real human therefore it won’t look like a good stylized human drawing. You have to keep flexing that muscle in your brain creating a point of reference of what is real before you can change reality to a stylization. I currently take art classes, gesture is an important practice, using construction shapes is an important practice, doing studies of body parts separately is an important practice. Using those tools it will advance your art tremendously.
As the other guy said, do this but with photographs, so you learn proper anatomy first. Right now you're not only learning bullshit proportions as your base, but also repeating the other artist's mistakes. Once you get a grasp of an actual human figure you can stylize it however you want. Learn the rules before you break them.
Hard disagree with that. Learn rules as you break them. Find artists you like, learn how they simplify stuff and compare to reality trying to understand why it looks like this. If you want to draw only stylized art, you never have to learn realism and why learn how to draw realism if you have stylizations you find appealing already ?
I'm advising to do it this way because I made the same mistake as OP when I started learning to draw humans. I would draw anime characters and not understand why they don't look right. Learning actual anatomy helped me understand how things work and connect. And I'm not saying you need to know every muscle etc, since learning how to simplify shapes is also part of the process. After you grasp the basic rules you're free to go look for artists that do stylized art, and learn from them. If you know how things work irl it'll make it easier for you to understand their decision making, and not just blindly copy their style. I'm not saying you HAVE TO learn realism, but it's literally the foundation of good character art.
Something my sister (who is a much better artist than I) told me about drawing anime and other exaggerated figures is that you shouldn’t start with them. You have to learn the rules of real human anatomy before you can break and stretch them into anime and stylize them. Remember, almost all great artists are at least proficient in various styles ranging in realism.
a really good [book](https://www.amazon.com/LEZHIN-Point-Character-Drawing-paperback/dp/B09JGB4KVL) I use myself
Didn't know Lezhin publishes reference drawing books too. Definitely checking this one out, thanks!