3 secrets on how to make your drawings more realistic

What can you do to make your drawing ‘spring to life’ under the gaze of the viewer? How to show the situation so that the viewer could feel for the main character, could feel his emotions? Here are a few secrets that will help you to convey the situation more realistically.

Secret 1. Use special effects.

What are special effects? Special effects are special techniques that contribute to amplifying an impact of the picture on the viewer, making the climax even more climactic.  With the help of special effects you can make your pictures more vivid and realistic.

For showing motion, speed, power and exposure use lines conveying motion. For example, the lines next to the flying ball repeat its form, a series of horizontal lines behind it show its speed and strokes in front indicate that the ball is still flying. Without these lines, the ball would look as if dangling in the air.  To convey slow motion, you can show its trajectory with a line. Flowing wavy lines convey smooth motion, they can be used to show the falling leaves, a flying butterfly.  Do not forget about the lines conveying motion, otherwise your picture will look as if steady, static, not live. If you use such lines, then the viewer will have a feeling that he has found the heroes of your picture as if by surprise, in the midst of the action, the climax.

Secret 2. Effects of weather and lighting can also make your cartoon world more realistic and expressive. So, how to show wind, rain, scorching sun?

Wind, for example, is portrayed with vortex-like lines. Your character’s clothes wave in the wind. Trees are tilted back, and the man leans forward into the wind gusts. There are many clouds in the sky, they emphasize that the weather is changeable. Think about appropriate clothing for your character. It may be a long flowing cape and a long scarf waving in the wind. Leaves on the trees, grass and anything that can sway in the wind, should be directed to the side of its gusts.

In order to depict burning heat, draw a big sky without a cloud, a big ball of the sun and curved lines that convey the intense heat around. On the horizon, there should be nothing that could give shade.  Do not forget to draw a bead of sweat to your character.

Rain is depicted as lines with drops at the end. Puddles on the pavement and bouncing drops of water also convey a feeling of the rain. Rain can be represented both as straight lines and slanting lines, if you want to draw a slanting rain.

Secret 3. Use facial expressions and postures to make your character look more alive.

First you need to learn how to portray the basic facial expressions – happy, sad, tired, and then you can master more complex ones, such as falling in love, humble, gloating. Exercise in front of the mirror to express different emotions, and then try to pass them on paper. Then your heroes won’t be impersonal or unemotional. You will be able to capture their feelings about the situation at the moment.

Whilst drawing the character’s posture, remember the direction of the line of motion. This is the direction in which the whole body is tilted. This line helps to make the character’s pose more lively, light and expressive. More information about this can be found in the article “How to draw cartoon characters.”

Of course, it’s not easy to immediately learn the technique of special effects. But often, thorough drawing of image details is not required. Too many details may even distract from the main things. Summarize, highlight the important things, and special effects will help you to put the necessary emphasis.