Learning how to draw, sharing your work, outgrowing realism taking to impressionism, pop surrealism, is such a critical part of out growing up, that if bad advice knocks it out of you, you'll end up with a hole in your soul.
People will comment that I am making assumptions, and snipe everything in here, but be strong, do what I tell you, because even YOUR first impression may be wrong.
I give you, and all the kind people that read this, Hyper Realism, as your first step.
Because making a perfect portrait is the simplest thing you can do.
Before you draw, before you get your pencils, your easel, before it occurs to you to get a wall projector (a modern camera obscura):
download Krita!
And buy the cheapest pen ant tablet you can get (about $40). Don't use the mouse, because it does not have a pressure sensor.
That is what the pen is for, the tip is pressure sensitive, and allows you to lay down transparent layers of paint.
If all you have is a mouse at the moment, then that is OK for following these steps. But get the pen, a mouse is nothing like it. Warning: the mouse may trick you into thinking digital painting is not for you, buy a used pen.
Before I continue, I remind you all, that as you learn how to do this one simple trick, you must become teachers. This is the tradition of the programmer, you learn and you teach the little ones how to do it. They won't learn in school, schools, like bad advice, will trick the younger artist out of art.
(Critics, keep in mind that this is teaches about drawing, it helps the heart to art, this is sacred, just let it be. And remember how internet works, one person asks, but the response is for many. I know the person asked for drawing and not digital painting. This teaches pencil drawing too.)
Once you have krita (which is open source) installed create 15x15 inch 300 dpi canvas.
Go to https://www.reddit.com/r/redditgetsdrawn/ and pick a simple well lit face, make sure you can see the lip/eye details at 1:1 zoom, though a little bit of blur won't hurt you, as you have to paint many paintings to to learn how to draw.
Now, and this is the magical part, use the Reference Images Tool (pushpin icon) to load up the image from Reddit Gets Drawn, AND STRETCH IT OVER THE ENTIRE CANVAS. This will feel like tracing, people may call it tracing, but this is learning to draw for real. This is about discovering the details of the face.
Begin by setting the opacity of the reference image to 50% and rough out the details, the shape of the face, the location of the eyes, assign a shortcut to CTRL+` to "Show Reference Images" which will help you turn the reference image off and on. This is your CAMERA OBSCURA, here you get everything in place for your Hyper Realism.
Once you have your shapes figured out, preferably on separate layers, DROP THE REFERENCE IMAGE OPACITY TO 1%, you won't be able to see it, BUT THE COLOR PICKER WIL, Holding down the CTRL key flips your brush into color picker mode, so you pick the color and brush it on, PICK AND BRUSH IT ON, PICK AND BRUSH IT ON, PICK AND BRUSH IT ON.
As you explore this technique studying your reference image, trying different variations of the technique, YOUR BRAIN, will begin soaking up details about the face, that you never knew existed. The little puffyness near the eye, the light that is always by the cheeks, the light pink near the lips, the support shadow beneath the nose.
The more you paint, the more you will learn how to draw.
NOTES:
Reddit Gets drawn has this happy clause: "By submitting a photo, submitters are agreeing that artists can distribute and sell work based on the photos uploaded."
Be mindful of copyright look up Shepard Fairy's trouble with the Obama HOPE poster.
Search the internet for "How do I sell my digital art."
Teach others how to do this.
And finally, when I hope to teach this technique, I half-jokingly call this the Cat Pea Technique.
I arrived at it independently about three weeks ago, and I kind of captured the beginning of the light bulb going off, in a silly time lapse video of a very patient and lind lady from Reddit Gets Drawn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov9m1iTJgSk&list=PLOo-pqnffy...
I am not selling anything, the video has only 7 views, and no sound, use an ad blocker, etc.
I am really just giving you all the ability to learn Art VERY QUICKLY from Hyper Realistic Digital Painting, which is a very inspiring start.
I know it will work for many if not all of you, because once you finish your first work, you will never stop.
We are all artists, we just need that first taste.
Thanks for bringing this question to the front page autotune.
Take care everyone,
and remember to teach others.