Yu-Gi-Oh! art

Thank you for drawing him so gorgeously holy moly-

Hi there !! This is a late response, I apologize!

I’m so happy to hear that! Thank you, I appreciate it. ♥

Do you often have to look at a reference to draw what you want to draw?

Are you able to draw directly from your mind's eye?

Or maybe memory of how the movements go or something?

I've kinda only been trying to copy something I see in front of me. Like, a photo or a screenshot from anime.

I'm a bit scared to try to draw something without having something to look at to compare it to, but I don't know how normal that is.

I feel like drawing just from your mind's eye would be hard

Have you done it before or do it a lot? Or drawn stuff with no reference?

Is drawing from your mind's eye something that gets easier over time?

Thank you in advance if you choose to answer!

Hey there!

I’m actually very happy to receive this ask and will gladly answer!

I’m proud of you for taking the path to art again. It can be challenging, I’d know of.

Let me start with this. There’s nothing wrong with looking at a reference when drawing something. Actually, it’s quite helpful not only to show you how a certain thing should look like/be posed but also you get to learn from it. Let’s say anatomy. There’s no way you can draw a body without references at all unless you’ve already got experience beforehand. But to gain experience you’d likely look up references of let’s say arms, legs, torso, etc, and study every angle and curve to get it right.

Let me share my experience with references.

I have drawn from my imagination and memory and I’ve also used references. And I’ve always done some fun little things that help me with the positions I’m going for. For example, I find hands to be the most difficult to draw. Kagami, you’re amazing at it. And here’s this, a good portion of the hands in my art that you see are drawn by using a reference of my own hands. I take photos in the mirror as I pose my hands, making them look as dramatic as possible if I need to. And then I kind of play with my art, see if it matches what I’m going for. Other times, if I am not feeling like going full Seto Kaiba with my hands in the mirror I look up hand and arm poses to get inspiration from. Photos of real people help too.

And, of course, I always have at least one official art of the character to look at as I draw. At times I forget to draw certain details if I go by memory.

Today for example I had trouble with distance proportions. So, I do happen to get frustrated when things don’t look right to me. You are your own worst critic. I have Body-kun, a grey figurine that I can pose. It’s specially made to help with poses. I believe it could aid with full-body poses. Just to help you visualize them and that way you don’t have to rely just on your imagination and references. And also because you may not find references that exactly fit what you’re imagining.

Drawing from your mind’s eye does get easier over time as you keep practicing. You will naturally know what looks right and what doesn’t. But don’t worry if you struggle with it. Every artist ever has gone through that path. You don’t have to draw everything perfectly from scratch. Take it as a fun challenge. Let’s see how this will turn out as. It might not be exactly how you envisioned it but that’s okay. You made the effort. As you keep practicing you will notice your improvement. And give yourself praise for how far you’ve come.

I hope this helps you! If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

Haha, thank you!

Ahaha! This made me chuckle fr! Thank you so much!