Help with the drawing process

So I've tried to get into drawing in the past, but I've found it difficult to find a style that's fun and right for me personally. For example using the pen tool for vector art felt clunky and awkward to use to me, and I really didn't have much fun doing it, even if the final drawing looked alright.

So I want to ask you guys how you start your drawings? Do you use shapes to plan it out beforehand, or use some other method?

A brief step by step (you don't have to go into massive detail) of what you do when you put pen to paper, or tablet/mouse to the PC, would be much appreciated, as I'm trying to find a style that I like =]

Hi Shad. Thanks for posting in the learning section, yay!

I guess before we even cover that, what kind of art practice comes natural to you?  I would imagine it's 3d graphics since you always seem to do them, but perhaps there is a precursor sketch done before the actual 3d object, or do you just go straight into the 3d part and make the most of it?

The key, I feel, is to capitalize on an existing asset and go from there.

Well, different people really do different things, but I have picked up alot from my friends that draw pretty amazing things using graphic tablets to PC.

A good program that most people use is SAI, but of course drawing on PC is a slightly different ball game to just pen to paper. You need to get used to the tool and options available. I found that the pen tool in SAI produces much to pixely blocky lines, as such most people use the Air Brush too, it looks much more natural.

Of course using the Air Brush you can also adjust settings like the usual size but also the spread, noise and also the style from paper to canvas. Mess around with that to you find what suits you!

Another thing would be the stabiliser, you might want to mess around with that option too, increasing it delays your pen strokes but makes the line much more smooth.

I hope that helps somewhat!

Ah, well I'm wanting 2D of course =P but I find that sculpting in 3D is the most fun for me, which involves creating a basic shape of whatever you want, and then cutting into and morphing that shape gradually into the final model.

If I could have a process that's similar to that that would be awesome =]

And Mino, I might try messing around with the brush in photoshop, changing the size periodically as I go, and, while photoshop doesn't have stabilized by default, I found a plugin which does that ^_^ so ill give that a shot too thanks =]

Hmm, well, since you put it that way...

You might want to consider trying out Alchemy, which is essentially an art brainstorming tool to try and conceive of shapes and poses for 2D or 3D artwork.  

http://al.chemy.org

I haven't used it myself, but this is how a really good artist used it to create some absolutely gripping work...

https://vimeo.com/6143607

oooh wow, that's quite an interesting way of doing it that ive never seen before =]

God it looks hard to control though xD but hey, ill give it a go, I kinda like the idea of just going nuts and then 'seeing' an image in that cloud of black splodges. I saw quite a few myself while watching the guy making that artwork, including a monk swinging a sword downwards =]

So I used the two techniques together above to make something in photoshop to practise. And, honestly, I had a lot of fun with this too! The results were not too bad either, so this works really well ^_^

I basically drew over the top of circles that were in the kind of shape I wanted to make =] Anyways heres the results

MIMI!!!

I mean... BUNNY!!!!!!!!  

It's always great to use big chunky shapes to start just to get the general feel of the picture right and make sure most of the proportions are good. Afterwards you can start joining them up into a more fluid shape and alter any flaws you can see and so on until you've got a pretty good "sketch" going.
Usually after this you can do cleaning up and then keep draw the finer details on the same layer but personally I find it useful to use multiple layers to easily edit one part and not everything. That's a brief summary of how I start some drawings so yeah. Hef fung.