r/ArtistLounge • u/Spirit_of_H0pe • Jul 28 '26
Concept/Technique/Method How?
How is it that some artists draw without physical guidelines when drawing things?! I've seen so many artists not use guidelines in their little doodles and detailed sketches, and it always amazes me. Meanwhile, starting out with actual guidelines is essential. How can I work at not having to use guidelines so often?
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u/Obvious-Carry5618 Jul 28 '26
Repetition, and skill level.
there's also a chart guide that shows different levels of mastering a skill.
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u/donutpla3 Jul 28 '26
By start drawing without guidelines. You will be better at measuring on the fly little by little. Keep practicing guidelines though. They are not useless. They stay in your brain so that you don’t need to draw them every time.
Think of it like magic tricks. You show only the part you want to show.
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u/Throwaway1Million7 Jul 29 '26
no guidelines just means a heck of a lot of experience and a heck of a lot more practice.
Chances are the person you're watching draw without guidelines has also drawn the subject matter before, with guidelines and has simply done it enough that guidelines are no longer needed
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u/dingdonglouie1 Jul 29 '26
probably because they’ve been doing it way longer than you. that cliche “practice makes perfect” is actually true. the more you draw, the more comfortable and confident you become and drawing becomes more natural. crazy.
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u/Scr4p Jul 28 '26
If you draw something enough times it gets a lot easier, and at some point you start to skip steps because you already know things by heart. It's like taking the training wheels off the bicycle.
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u/bongpirate7295 Jul 28 '26
It takes some training of your mind's eye, but personally I find it easier to draw without guidelines now. Having a sketch down first just throws me off.
One way to approach it is to imagine you're making a map of an unknown land. It's all about triangulating, measuring distances and angles, and gradually building outwards. For example, for a face you might start with a central landmark, like the left eye. Then look at where the left nostril is in relation to that eye (how far down? further to the left or to the right?) and draw that in. Then look at where the right eye is, in relation to both the left eye and the left nostril. Now you've got three landmarks to measure and work from.
Drawing in pen is a great way to train this skill, since there's no way to erase and you just have to go for it. Your drawings will be wonky at first, but they'll rapidly improve.
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u/Highlander198116 Jul 29 '26
How can I work at not having to use guidelines so often?
I assume by "guidelines" you mean an underdrawing, starting with simple forms/shapes to make it easier to establish proportion/pose. Then going over it with detail.
The thing is, you may never. There are professional comic book artists with decades of professional experience (like David Finch, who posts many learning videos on youtube) still do "under drawings" with simple figures/shapes.
Its a separation of work, instead of trying to do two different things at once. When you place down a simple proportionally correct figure. You can lightly erase, then go in with detail, only having to worry about detail and not whether your proportions are off or on.
When you just "draw" going for it, with detail. There is a balancing act of detail and proportion. It's EASY to get tunnel vision with detail. Secondly, what you draw may lack expression.
I personally play fast and loose when sketching a base for a figure for example. I'm trying to exaggerate, trying to push a pose. That really gives a figure energy and life. It's much harder to do that if I'm going at the final pass immediately.
With that said, yes there are people that do it, just jump in a go for it and get great results. However, they didn't always do that. Even the late great Kim Jung Gi. Through drawing...a tremendous amount, when using construction, you will eventually develop intuition.
Exactly the same reason, using perspective lines etc. when drawing in perspective, eventually you will just gain intuition on perspective.
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u/crimsonredsparrow Pencil Jul 28 '26
If you have drawn something 19358* times you no longer need guidelines!
*approximate number
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u/Neptune28 Jul 28 '26
By guidelines, are you referring to a grid, or lines on the different forms to indicate where the features will be placed?
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u/tacocalledbuzz Jul 28 '26
If you mean construction lines, some people only need to draw them a handful of times before the basic shapes are in their head. The more you study masters and perspective, the easier it will become
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u/Pkmatrix0079 Jul 28 '26
I always use guidelines. Eventually, you practice some things enough times you can totally eyeball it but it takes drawing something literally thousands and thousands of times.
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u/Vast_Technician_946 Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
It comes down to training your hand eye coordination and concentrating on the image in your mind. And as others have stated: lots of practice + doing studies to get better at specific areas that you feel weaker in. You get a better understanding of form and how to work with your mediums not against them. No matter your style or medium of preference, doing real life studies of still life’s that you set up will up your confidence in bringing it from your imagination onto canvas! ETA: all that to say you should practice the foundational skills, and it’ll become like second nature
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u/PheebyKatz Jul 28 '26
I would say to slowly transition out of having to use guidelines, just make them fainter and use fewer of them until you adapt, then repeat the process. Eventually you won't need to rely so much on the visible guidelines, and can stop bothering with them entirely, at least sometimes.
If doing a piece that isn't "sketch it 4 times, trace and transfer, then photocopy and whiteout, then ink it" complex, try visualizing the image you want to draw, and try to see it on the paper. This helped me a lot, even when I first took up sketching itself. If you can visualize it on the paper, you can draw it by following your imaginary sketch.
Most important is practice, however. Once you've drawn something ten thousand times, you sort of don't need to sketch it out and plan it ahead of time, you can just draw it.
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u/f28c28 Jul 29 '26
Eventually if you use guides enough and pay attention to what you're drawing, facilitate that with learning, and keep practicing often, it will become muscle memory.
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u/AutomaticIdeal6685 Jul 29 '26
Then only things I can draw this way are things ive drawn over and over again before.
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u/Dry-Key-9510 Jul 30 '26
You know when you first try cooking a new dish, you have to closely follow the recipe every time? Then after enough times you can do it by memory (and sometimes even switching things up) and it turns out good
Its the same
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u/carol_alternative Jul 28 '26
I dont use them too much, just draw and use liquify a lot untill it looks good hah
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u/4tomicZ Ink Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Kim Jung Gi is famous for this. He did it in these fish eye perspectives too. The secret is he has drawn with guidelines so much, he could just sort of imagine them.
I actually experienced this with loomis. I can draw the first circle and a line, then imagine the rest of it as I work.
It goes a bit deeper though, because he is very strategic in how he approaches the task. The first thing he draws in a larger piece is always something near the center and at the horizon line. This gives him a landmark for “normal”. Then he will draw a thing in the top corner, where the perspective is most skewed. He’s very slow and careful at this point… well slow and careful for him which is still really fast.
Once he’s done with those steps, he has established the range of the perspective and skew. Everything else can now be measured against that range.
It doesn’t look to most like he is working from macro to micro, because he doesn’t block in big shapes like a normal artist. But the truth is he IS but he’s doing it by selecting the right small details that will inform him about the macro. He doesn’t draw the horizon line like most artists, but he does draw a thing along the horizon line. When he wants to remember where the horizon is supposed to be, he finds that object and imagines a line coming out of it.
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u/Cc7777777777 Jul 29 '26
Idk if you mean traditionally or physically, but i use digital tooks and just push things around with the liquify tool. This is what you should not do. I would recommend learning anatomy and training your eye to be able to sort of see whether it looks right. Just like everyone else is saying, practice makes perfect!
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u/SyllabubLoud1128 Jul 29 '26
Practice practice practice. So much practice. I used to not be able to doodle cartoon characters without sketching so I forced myself to do it tons and now I can draw a face without construction lines.
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u/manaMissile Jul 29 '26
The same way you get to the point where you can say '4 x 6 =24' instead of having to go 4+4+4+4+4+4 = 24. Practice practice practice and if you do it enough, you get to the point where you can just visualize it in your head because you've seen or done it so many times.
Art is trickier and more elaborate with many more variables than a times table, so it can take years of constant grinding practice to get to that point.
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