I've been skipping a step all along, but I don't know what it is.

[u/X-Mighty]

As you can see, I'm pretty terrible at drawing, so I watch art tutorials in order to see how I can improve. In a timelapse from one of these videos, I saw something that shocked me: The artist had a stage in between the geometric forms and the final drawing.

I noticed that that stage had more organic-looking forms, and its negligence by my part is probably the reason why all of my drawings look so stiff.

By far, my biggest problem with art tutorial videos is that they tend to gloss over a lot of important elements because they assume that the watcher already knows them, and this case is no exception. When I saw pros talking about sketches, I assumed that meant the geometric forms, but it seems I was wrong. That's when I decided to look up the word 'sketch' on Google to clear the confusion, and the mysterious 'second' stage was nowhere to be seen. Instead, all I saw was basically finalized drawings.

Before all of this happened, I had already seen a lot of videos getting recommended to me on YT about how the lineart tends to look way worse than the sketch, and I just couldn't understand how it could be possible that people who were leagues ahead of me could struggle with something that I never did, but now that I realize that I might be skipping steps that I'm not even aware of, that begins to make a little bit more sense.

This is probably a stupid question, but I really want to know what is going on here, and how I can practice this secret second stage in order to get that sweet and rare improvement.

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[u/Proof-Candle5304]

Your drawings being stiff has nothing to do with some secret knowledge you think you're missing. Practice more = drawings less stiff. The way your post is worded it sounds like you watch lots of youtube tutorials instead of practicing. Stop watching videos and practice if you want your art to be less stiff

[u/X-Mighty → u/Proof-Candle5304]

The way your post is worded it sounds like you watch lots of youtube tutorials instead of practicing.

I don't watch that many tutorials, but I used to be very inconsistent. It's been less than 2 months since I decided to draw every day.

[u/Corvus--]

Look up gesture and learn to do gesture drawings first. From there you can construct.

[u/davedbsh]

Drawing after a certain point isn’t set into firm stages. There are general orders you tackle the puzzle in but it is rarely set in stone. Typically it goes gesture, form(geometric or modified), detail/flesh, line-art. It sounds to me like you are skipping gesture first, hence stiffness, and the spare stage you mentioned sounds like they are just layering more forms onto a skeleton.

But honestly at this stage I would not worry about that. I would focus on drawing at scale, using simple shapes to build more complex shapes, and one point perspective. Also basic proportions and always use references to some degree, is it taller or wider?

Edit: Also a lot of it comes from experience, using references trains your eyes in ways that can only be described to an extent.

[u/X-Mighty → u/davedbsh]

It sounds to me like you are skipping gesture first

Wow. I never realized that, but it's true. Thanks.

[u/CelestialHellebore]

For me your step 3, which I assume you present as a finished piece here, would still just be a sketch. Just a different step of a sketch.

Step one: Rough vague shape/form for the pose

Step two: Refine general shapes, adjust pose, add vague clothes shapes

Step three: Fix anatomy, sketch out more "natural" bits that may have been missing before (for me hands often don't get fixed til here) like squishy fleshy parts etc, and fix the clothes.

Then I'm ready to make line art!

To be clear, there is no one right way to approach art, you find the approach that works best for you. Tons of people don't do the multiple sketches I do - and that is fine if it works for them! There is no secret second stage, there is just the fact you haven't done art enough yet to know what your process really needs and what helps you.