#1 Ephemera fan

If you want to learn for fun but also specifically to get something out of it you can show others:

I highly recommend watching "the joy of painting" by Bob Ross, its intended audience are complete beginners and people who just wanna try something new. If you have no idea where to start but do want to get some pretty paintings out of it, here would be great. It goes step by step and has a calm atmosphere so it's also great just to have in the background and listen to.

Alternatively you can watch those draw along video tutorials on YouTube to get a feel for it or just to watch to get an idea of what drawing is like.

If you want to learn for fun but DONT have the need to show others your creations:

I actually recommend just doodling in a note book whenever you have the time (in class, in the library, at home studying, et cetera.) to build some of the wrist movement you will use in drawing. It also is passive practice without much stress that it "has to be perfect" that some people end up worrying about.

I also actually recommend tracing (drawing over an existing picture you like) or using a base (a premade drawing to decorate basically) this is slightly controversial (or it used to be at least) in the art community but as long as you don't claim that it's your *original* artwork and that you did not in fact trace or use a base, then you should be fine.

You can find bases by googling "drawing base" and tracing is something you can do with anything.

(I would also like to add the reason why I recommend this. Using base and tracing helps you understand shapes and where something is on a body, it's very low level and is great for figuring stuff out for the first time)

After that I recommend watching animated shows (preferably ones that you like) and try to emulate the style they used and either try to draw the characters from the screen without tracing or make up your own! (It WILL look bad but trust me that's the beauty of it)

If you want to get more serious:

There are art books that try to teach you some of the basics and each art book has both their own style and difficulty but choosing the "right one" isn't as important as it seems. You will end up learning something new 99% of the time.

Before buying an art book (if you want to buy one that is) you should think about what style you want to learn, there is anime, semi realistic, realistic, manga, comic book, and a thousand others. Then there's beginner and intermediate levels which are the most common. After you have reached intermediate you are already considered a "good artist" by most standards but if you REALLY wanna bring it to the next level you will end up buying anatomy books for artists and medical students alike.

In the art anatomy books (I have a good one and it's free on archive.org I just need to find the name of it) they will go more into detail of *how* an artist can draw the shapes of the body by simplifying them and then detailing them later. Mine starts with proportions, then the skeleton, and then moves over to the muscles and skin, etc. And it includes tons of examples!

While medical anatomy books are mostly useful for studying how the artist of the book draws anatomy as accurately as possible, this is useful if you have problems getting art books like i did when i was trying to get better.

Last notes:

There are shit ton of videos on the internet to help you most steps of the way, but you do need to put in the work yourself if you ever get stuck and/or want to improve.

You will make stuff that you won't like and you will sometimes hate what you draw even if other people think it looks great. Sometimes you will look at a piece for so long it doesn't look the same anymore.

Whenever this happens you can do one of two things, take a break and do something else for a while, or try to draw something completely different for a bit.

What matters is that you don't give up immediately. And of course that you have fun :)

Oh and I almost forgot, MATERIALS!:

Yes they are expensive, no the expensive stuff is Not Always Better, yes you can find cheap alternatives when it's about paint and canvases (you can technically paint on a piece of wood if you feel like it, paint is pretty versatile)

I HIGHLY recommend just using pen/pencil and paper, thats literally how we all start.

There's this misconception about expensive stuff or specific brand being better that others and you "need to do it like the pros/the other artists"

You don't. Please don't. Some of the best artists I have seen have been complete beginners with pen and paper and I have even seen pros that exclusively use pencils because it works for them.

Start with pen and paper and get some basics in and then play around with other mediums when you feel like it (digital, paint, chalk, ink, pastels, oil pastels, charcoal, water colour, acrylic, etc. I have used most of these but lately have mainly used digital)

The main thing about art is that it's all about practice and theory just like any other skill, this is one of those things you are not in fact born with. The people who are young and draw like pros on the internet are either a) frauds or b) just really really interested in it and started at a very young age and just never stopped. A lot of these will not draw for most of their life and will most likely choose other careers and a lot of pros (comic book artists, animators, etc.) started later in life (age 20-50+)

The worst thing you can do is compare yourself to others, unless you are like me and get motivated by it, in that case go for it!

God this got so much longer than I thought oops.