50 Clever Tutorials and Techniques on Traditional Drawing

• By Aquil Akhter
• September 8th, 2009
• Art, Cartoons, Drawing
• 133 Comments

Traditional drawing is certainly way harder than digital and it is true that people are able to progress much faster digitally, but one should learn the traditional type of drawing and painting before starting digital drawing, since it often lays out the foundation for screen design.

This article contains a mixture of traditional drawing tutorials, drawing techniques and some methods for transforming and preparing your creations for screen design. Some are intermediate level and some are advanced tutorials that include general theory, useful tips, comic inspired art, sketch a pencil drawing, coloring processing, character sketching, shapes, proportional, perspective and much more. We hope that drawing tutorials and techniques in this post will be a great help to you.

Traditional Drawing Tutorials

Marilyn Portrait Tutorial
A truly fantastic drawing tutorial to learn how to draw a portrait of Marilyn Monroe with pencil. Each step of the portrait is perfectly well explained and commented. This tutorial is very detailed, and requires a lot of patience.

Portrait tutorial
This is a step by step tutorial on how to draw a realistic portrait. The artist assumes that you have a basic understanding of drawing and shading before attempting to draw a serious portrait. For this lesson he is drawing on 11″x14″ Fabriano Hotpressed Watercolor Paper. He is using Derwent Graphic Pencils ranging from 2H to 7B. For more information on any of the drawing tools that he mention in this tutorial, visit the drawing materials page.

How to draw lips
In this tutorial artist will explain how to draw the structure of the human lips.

How to Draw a Car
For this tutorial the artist will show the different steps he takes in drawing a realistic looking car. He chose to draw an american classic, the Corvette. This tutorial will apply to any car though because for the most part, they are all the same. The key to drawing a car that will pop off the page is having a good balance of lights, midtones, and darks along with clean, sharp edges. He is using Derwent Graphic Pencils and Fabriano Artistico Bright White Watercolor Paper, he is also using mechanical pencils for small details.

How to Draw Optimus Prime From Transformers
In this tutorial you will be learning how to draw one of the most popular of the Autobots, Optimus Prime. This drawing tutorial will show you in detail how to sketch, draw, and shade in this character that is popular around the world

Pet Portrait
A very good tutorial about how to draw pet portraits with colored pencils. Basic process and tips. Medium : Prismacolor Colored Pencils.

How to Draw a Ninja
This tutorial will show you how to draw a ninja step by step. This tutorial has easy to follow directions and steps making it that much more possible for anybody to tackle

Portrait tutorial
Artist is going to show several step photos along the way on this one. Artist chose this photo because of it’s RICH content, and it’s HIGH amount of TONAL VALUES, CONTRAST as well as it being a high resolution file, Finding just the right photo is half the battle to a good drawing. NEVER EVER work with a low quality photo.

Hair drawing tutorial
Drawing hair is definitely one of the trickiest part of almost every portrait. However, you will definitely like it if you acquire technique and skill in it. Therefore Artist introduce some easy and effective ways to draw wavy or straight hair or hair blowing in the wind. No matter how much chaotic the hair is, you’ll be able to draw it.
This tutorial explains two techniques of drawing hair on four portraits.

Eye-drawing tutorial by Sarah
A great and very detailed tutorial, to learn how to draw an eye in 30 steps

How to Draw a Realistic Eye
Artist made this tutorial to show the different steps that he take in drawing a realistic eye.

How to Draw a mouth and teeth
Artist made this tutorial to show the different steps that he take in drawing a realistic mouth, lips, and teeth.

TRADITIONAL SKETCH RENDERING
At most design schools they teach you how to use a single wooden pencil to create an entire rendering, sometimes referred to as a “Prisma-rendering” due to the type of pencil usually used (Prismacolor wood pencils). These are fast and very pretty looking techniques, and they are fairly easy to master. This will be more of a walkthrough then a tutorial in the sense that artist won’t describe every pen stroke, more the basic steps and thoughts behind. Ok, let’s go!

Drawing Hands and Feet
Some useful explainations and tips about how to draw hands and feet.

Drawing a Rose
An excellent tutorial offered by Rachel, to learn how to draw a pink rose.

A Pseudo-Sugar Skull: From Start to Finish.
Create a highly detailed sugar skull illustration by following this expert tutorial, with details on the process from sketch to final digital design.

Hair Amanda Tapping
A step by step drawing showing amazing hair on a portrait of actress Amanda Tapping. The result is impressive realism. A must see!

From Sketch to Vector Illustration
Create inspiring digital creations from hand drawn sketch using these helpful tips.

Manga Making Tutorial
In this tutorial artist will show you the process of creating a complete Manga comic strip using traditional tools.

How to draw a fashion figure
In this video tutorial you will learn how to use existing reference photo to trace a fashion inspired sketch.

The Dragon Tutorial
In this great dragon inspired tutorial artist will teach you some techniques and useful tips, you can also use this techniques in you other fantasy realted drawings.

Leather Wings
In this tutorial you can get ideas and techniques for drawing realistic wings stracture, Artist focuses at drawing wings.

Pencil Sketching by Max MaxBert Bertuzzi
very comprehensive theoritical tutorial, this article will increase knowledge and power of your drawing skill

Drawing Hair in Pencil
Some very useful tips for you on how to create extremely inspiring and realistic drawing hair in pencil work

Drawing Hands
Follow these simple and easy tips to avoid the difficulty of recreation of hands in pencil drawing and to learn some great tips and techniques of drawing hands.

Clothing Tutorial
An excellent roundup with plenty of tips and clothing tutorials. So, dress your characters in the best way by practicing these tips.

Comic Story Step by Step
If you are looking for a comic story guideline, here is a perfect step by step guide for you that will guide you starting with sketching and moving on through the inking and digital processes.

How to draw Marlon Brando step by step
It is now time to show you “how to draw Marlon Brando step by step” All the steps and instructions are laid out in the simplest format possible to help make this tutorial a breeze.

Face drawing: the heroic male
In this tutorial we’ll draw a character face of a hero-like character. In the process we’ll review an optimal placement of the facial features and the best ways to emphasize the features of the face that will make our character look manly and heroic.

Evil skull drawing
Looking for a terrifying evil skull drawing tutorial? Just follow the steps and you should be able to walk away with a scary skull to use in your scary projects (whatever they might be).
Let’s start with the evil skull drawing tutorial!

How to draw a female anime Dark Angel
The video demonstrates how to quickly create an efficient concept design from concept idea into visual. How to put rough idea onto the paper sketch and create fantasy or sci-fi character concept art online lesson for comics cartoon illustration, manga, and anime.

Lone Wolf Pencil Drawing
Here is a new miniature speed pencil drawing. Artist wanted to make this one different from my other ones. He combined two drawings in one to make a single image. The sunset and the single wolf. It gives the final image a different look and feeling.

How I making manga part 2
A step by step comprehensive and detailed tutorial about making manga.

Graphite Portrait
This tutorial explains all steps to create a portrait of Zinedine Zidane in graphite pencil. Time to complete: 10 hours.

Dance of Spring Tutorial
A step by step detailed tutorial that will help you with your Colored pencil.

Traditional Drawing Tips & Techniques

How to Draw what you See: Techniques and Tips to Improve your Drawing Skills
This article contains step-by-step images of the process Artist uses to create realistic looking drawings, as well as tips he have picked up over the years which anyone can use to improve their drawing skills.

Shading and Blending
This brilliant tutorial is all about shading and blendng, so let start and get lot of tips and amazing techniques.

Tips for drawing hands
In this tutorial Artist will include many tips about drawing hands he has picked up which are useful for getting better at drawing hands, including foreshortening, nails, and finger shapes.

Circulism Technique
Circulism is a very interesting technique to create skin texture with pencil. With this great tutorial, learn how to acheive a realistic skin texture with circulism.

3 Dimensional Drawing Techniques
To learn the basics of shape, perspective and shading in order to create depth in your work.

9 Steps to Creating Better Compositions
Great compositions don’t just happen by accident. They take planning, patience, and a knowledge of all the visual elements at your disposal. The great thing is, no matter how much or how little talent you have, you’ll always be able to improve your art by sketching out a good composition before you begin.

Drawing clothes techniques
A less general point that the portrait seems to pose few problems is the representation of clothing. In this tutorial, clothing can be summarized in two points: the folds and textures.

Editing Drawings
Editing Drawings by Cataclysm-X offers valuable tips for bringing out the best in your traditional drawings after they have lost their depth and luster due to scanning.I am sure this technique will help many traditional artists in the presentation of their work.

Sketching Tips and techniques
Learn interesting tips and techniques of sketching art and learn how you can focus on creating a great looking character with the help of these tips.

Detailed Hair
This article contains high quality tutorials that will guide you how to create highly realistic and inspiring hair on your subjects.

Hair Perspective & Lighting Tutorial
A very helpful and step by step comprehensive and detailed tutorial about Hair Perspective & Lighting

Portraiture lesson
To study draw a portrait using the ‘inside-out’ method.

Proportions
Proportions in any drawing assignment hold great value; therefore we have come up with these five most helpful techniques that will help you getting grips with proportions in your drawings.

How to Draw Caricatures: The 5 Shapes
This is a great collection of tips and techniques you can use to draw caricatures and learn the basic theory and 5 shapes of caricature design.

How to Draw Caricatures: Head Shapes
Head shape is the most important part of a caricature and in this tutorial you will learn great techniques about it.