Drawing help?

I don't know where to start. Every time I try drawing I either suffer from a lack of inspiration, or I just can't represent my subject successfully. Everything I do seems to be wrong, and I can't seem to find any resources online that I like.

Hello there! First I have to ask have you done any art courses or art school? You mentioned online resources, what kind of resources are you looking for? I know couple of sites, but don't know if you need them. Libraries are great source too, there is also drawing technique books. Finally, what medium are you using when drawing?

Sorry about the lot of questions

It's ok, that's not a lot.

I'm a junior in high school right now. I took Art II drawing last year, and I really didn't like it. And since I don't have room on my schedule this year, I didn't take any art classes.

I use paper and pencil when drawing. I use tablets sometimes, too.

I am mainly looking for resources that would get me started, and help get the ball rolling. I want to draw people, but the human body is just so complicated.

And I'm also looking for a style. The "style" that I want resembles manga, but it's not. I don't want to draw manga, since it's too simplified and exaggerated. Realism might work, but right now I just want to capture the features on my subjects that make them beautiful, and not focus on making it look "real".

I want to learn how to draw the head and face properly, and the rest of the body, too. I have a lot of trouble with proportion (though I have a mannequin) and most tutorials on "anatomy" don't help. (They're just pictures of the human body with the skin removed in different poses. eh.)

I think I am a visual-kinesthetic learner. I have to picture the "process" in my head and put it together before I'm able to get it.

If you draw slow, take photos and draw off them. If you don't have a camera, use a magazine (although magazine models tend to suck for drawing actual people as they are usually too bloody skinny to begin with and then they're also airbrushed). Otherwise chilling out in a park with a sketchbook scribbling people walking past is good practise

There's a book called Anatomy for the Artist by Sarah Simblett that I have and have found extremely helpful (more so than art classes, but that could be because the art teacher and I didn't really get along), highly recommend if you can afford it.

I don't know if you've already found http://hippie.nu/~unicorn/tut/xhtml/ in your travels but it's a nice quick and fairly comprehensive guide to using construction lines and stuff.

Kinesthetic is moving and body memory stuff, your current description sounds more visual/spatial/logical to me. Though you could be like me and need to throw yourself around the room or pose a fight scene with someone before being able to draw it

ryivhnn posted some good advices. Also drawing with the lighttable helps. Would you like to post your way of processing the picture? I mean the different states from sketching to the almost finished pic.

Umm.. If I draw a standing human, I usually start my process with three really light, short lines. One to represent the top of the head, one the bottom of the legs and one the middle of the body. This helps me to get the proportion right and also makes sure that I don't end up with no space to draw legs. I make sure that the lines are not too close to the borders of the paper so that I can move them a bit if needed. After this I start to block the human in to the lines. It's difficult to me explain.. ^^'' But what really helped me to understand how to get near to right proportions was the critique I got from teachers and friends. I kinda get blind to my own mistakes.

I'll add a note in here if I stumble to some resources you described.

Well, I need somewhere to start.

Is there any guides on the net that are specially for drawing facial portraits?
I'm looking for a guide that has many different "methods" for drawing the face and head, and most preferably using different ways to "measure" the proportions.

Right now I have trouble with getting the right facial shape, I usually start with an off-oval, which does not look good at all in angled shots, and I can't seem to come up with a "method" for drawing the face, that is, besides griding which I don't like to do.

Try coming up with a few different methods yourself and see what works. I used to start from the eyes and work out the head from there, these days I draw the head first so I know where to put the face! Post stuff here and ask for help, am sure there will be people kicking around that will be able to help out and you may from there be able to develop some kind of method to t he madness

I have one book which is really good for facial portraits. It's "The artist's complete guide to Facial Expression" by Gary Faigin.

So you people can see where I'm at, here's a portrait I did today:

I'm having a lot of issues drawing "real" looking hair. I just have no clue how, especially her's, since they are all "stringy" and I can't think of any better way other than drawing lines with my pencil, which didn't turn out so good...

Also I have issues with the nose and lips, since I never understood most tutorials about them. One instructed me to draw a lot of circles, another suggested drawing "bird" lines, ugh... I just eyeballed them, so they aren't proportionally correct.

Then I have a large problem with symmetry. I was careful drawing the right eye (her right, left while looking at her), and I think I got it pretty good, though it's not that good at all. But when it comes to eyes (and faces, noses, and mouths) when I finish drawing one side, I always struggle with the other side. It either looks awkward or mismatched or whatever. So the left eye came out terrible.

And I didn't really know how to draw eyebrows, I just made random strokes...

And I have a big problem with blending too. How do they do that? :/ I used a tortillon this time instead of my fingers, too...

Here's the model/photographer:
http://zemotion.deviantart.com/art/The-moment-after-43427550
She allows the use of her photographs as a reference, btw ^^

The hair and eyebrows are fine, I do hair by lots and lots of strokes Keep building strokes gradually if you need it thicker/longer, erm I guess try angling your pencil to get slightly different thicknesses.

I actually find the left eye (her left, so the one on the right) better looking in context of the picture, if I put my hand up and block out the rest of the picture, the right eye is very, very well done. I have the same issue getting them lookng the same as well, that one is just a matter of looking and practice I think. And if you're one for construction lines that will help, I never could quite get the hang of working with guides

Noses you'll probably fine look funny in real life anyway and then even stranger when you're trying to draw them coz you're staring at it for so long. A hundred million years ago when I tried something bordering on realism I found it easier to indicate the nose using shadow rather than lines as lines then defined it way too strongly and made it look funny, even after I traced a photo (which I did just to prove to myself that noses are stupid looking appendages, not just that I suck.

The lips look all right to me too, although maybe the corners could be slightly thinner.

Can't help with blending at all, I'm a digital artist who sketches exclusivey with a pacer or a ballpoint pen if caught short

Keep drawing!

There are several good books on drawing the human body, including a number of excellent anatomy books for artists out there that I would highly recommend. One particular series is by Byrn Hogarth. I found his books to be invaluable. Another is The Atlas of Human Anatomy for Artists. You also mentioned Manga, but not wanting to draw exactly in the "Manga style". For starters, "Manga" isn't a style. It simply means "comic book" in Japan. The japanese manga artists have a wide range of styles form the extremely simplified "chibi" and SD styles, to ultra realistic. It's not all big eyes and small mouths. I do find the How to Draw Manga books by Hikaru Hyashi to be an exceptional resource for doing any kind of cartoon or comic book work.