(Sorry if this is in the wrong place...wasnt sure if it went here or in the art forum, but decided to put it in here since it is more discussion than gallery...)

So, I recently acquired myself a drawing tablet. -waves pompoms- (My sister got a new, bigger one, and gave me her old one)

a few thigns:
-I lvoe to draw
-I am a horrible artist.
-90% of what i draw is terrifying to me and everyone who witnesses it.
-The remaining 10% is so bad it is equally horrifying as the creepy majority.

(Seriously though, some of the things i draw come out the creepiest thing ever...a perfectly innocent sketch of a child turned into a zombie because the pose was somehow off by a large degree...but i digress...)

(it's worse after i add faces. Because, somehow, my faceless creations are far less creepy than the ones with eyes...not kidding...)

ANYWAY....

My bad art skills aside, i have been working on learning how to use this new-to-me drawing tablet. I have to say, it is sooo much better than using my mouse.

However, a huge problem I am running into is that everything i draw looks traced. And not good traced, either. It looks like a 4th grader tracing over something a 5th grader traced.

I've tried multiple ways. I;ve tried sketching it out from scratch as well as scanning a traditional drawing and going over i digitally. From scratch, I;ve tried sketching it out in a rough shape first then lining it as well as just doing the lineart without a rough design of the drawing. No matter what i do, it looks like i traced it. (Exhibit A: My unfinished art contest entry. Which can be seen later when i actually...you know...finish it @-@)

so I'm comign to ask advice from all you lovely artists roaming around the site. How do you draw digitally? How do you make digital art look good? (and not like a 4th grade trace job?)

I know practice makes perfect, but i have been getting so frustrated that i haven't been able to practice.

I will try tog et some examples up, but for the most part I've been deleting everything i draw digitally because it is just too horrible to look at again...I will see if i have anything though.

Well, I fail at digital art completely with a mouse ( trust me, I have a ghost adopt somewhere I did...tis horrible! )
But with a tablet art can be great fun!
But what you should try doing is doing it traditionaly first
That way you get used to how your hand moves when drawing and then it's just a easy transfer over to digital :3

But if you don't want to draw living things you should try backgrounds >_> They help get the idea of shading and colouring for me...

Yeah, up until now i've been doing traditional. I have sketchpads and sketchpads of traditional art XD Its just when i try to do digital, it looks like i traced it, no matter what i do...

And i tend to draw more living things XD People and animals. I'm not very good at backgrounds or color shading, although im not half bad at shading with a pencil. (not gallery style of course, but better than when i color xD)

What exactly do you mean by it looks traced? Is it the quality of the lines? I'm not really understanding.
Usually there's some kind of setting involving art programs where you can have the width adjusted by the pressure on the stylus, which may help. Also, consider using vector tools, as you may get cleaner results. Other than that, I'd have to see what you're specifically referring to, I think.

I'm not the best at drawing, but I do draw digitally, (have had a tablet for 3 years) so giving my thoughts based on my experience. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make this post so long waah. ;;

About recently acquiring a tablet:
It takes some time to get used to a tablet; don't feel discouraged. c:
Everyone's different, so idk if my comments will be useful, but oh well.

Things I learned:
- try to make lines not choppy and more long and smooth
- download and experiment with a lot of brushes. (Took me too long to realize this OTL)

eg. These were my first 2 drawings with a tablet 1, 2
eg. And this was several months later: 1, 2

- - -
For digital art, things to take advantage of:
- layers
- the undo button <3
ie. fixing mistakes and erasing is a lot easier xD

- - -
For line art:
I think line art is pretty difficult; I've never gotten the hang of it tbh.
Though I can explain what I do,

(1) Draw a rough sketch: eg: 1, 2
Generally I don't draw clothes on when I draw a rough sketch. Also, it's good to use references for poses. I don't a lot of the time because I'm lazy. v_v References can only help. My drawings look sooooo much better when I use references. :V

(2) Draw a more detailed sketch: eg. 1, 2, 2.1
I usually make my rough sketch very very low opacity, and draw the more detailed sketch on a different layer.
I generally draw the body, and then add clothes here.

(3) Draw line art: eg. 1, 2
Again, I make the opacity of the detailed sketch very low. I zoom in a lot when drawing lines. Also, I used a different brush for this.

^ I drew these both yesterday so I'm not finished with the second one yet. Wanted to use a recent example xD

- - -
Drawing without line art:
I actually tend to skip the line art step a lot and do colored sketches. Sketching is the most fun to me and I think these can look better than line art work a lot of the time. :) Also, I know a lot of people skip lines altogether and make things look painted. X)

eg. Some in the same time frame as the one's I drew in my first year or so of having a tablet: 1, 2

Though more recently I've been using less opaque brushes for sketching. As such, the absence of line art is more apparent.
eg. Recent drawing: 1

- - -
About deleting digital drawings:
The nice thing about digital art is that it doesn't take up much space. I have almost all of my digital artwork saved. Even the most horrible one's. After I finish something, I take a screen shot and put it in a folder. Looking back at my art from the past 3yrs (about how long I've had a tablet), some of the 'bad' drawings, I now find better than some of the one's that I found good. It's not necessary to save all your art, but it definitely doesn't hurt to, and can be exciting to see how much you have improved. :3
- - -

@Maident:

This is the only thing i have in terms of an example. its my unfinished art contest entry xD IT's especially prominent in the aeri and the puff @-@ and the hair...although the hair is much better than the first 50 or so times i tried it....If you need another example, i could probably (attempt to) sketch one out for you real quick, since it has seemed to appear on all my drawings digitally whether i like it or not xD

the aeri's wings are especially especially bad.

also, please excuse my weird attmept at eyes and the spatula hands XD

@Taptothebeat:

That was all really helpful =3 That's pretty much my sequence when drawing traditionally, although it seems like it would be much improved with layers xD I've tried a few times with a rough outline of the design with the tablet, but i think i might try it with a lower opacity. (I've been doing it in a different color, but then sometimes the black lineart still gets lost inside it v.v) I may ahve to try messing around with brushes. I've mostly been using the deafult "pen" brush XD

Something to consider is that it may be beneficial to force yourself to not undo/erase. Train yourself to make the kind of lines you want to be making, it make take a thousand drawings, but it will help. When you make a mistake, just continue drawing the line - for example, sketch a thousand ellipses and then slowly trace around each one until you can draw a fair ellipse. It does seem your width is rather static, and if possible I'd search your art program of choice as most have some kind of setting where pressure of stylus can correlate with the actual pressure you exert on the stylus. I highly recommend starting with something simple, and yes, do actual tracing of shapes and so on to practice how the lines and curves meet and the general shapes. Do take advantage of opacity, layers, and most of all, try to be patient with yourself. If you can sketch a dozen ellipses on top of each other, and then with a dark slow line, sketch a fair ellipse on top of those sketches, you'll get the idea of what I'm saying. (Sorry if it's not clear though, and for the wall of text n.n)

Looking at your example,
I would use a larger sized brush and I would mess around with the pressure sensitivity of your tablet.
This is all the same sized brush, except with different pressure applied: x.

Also, do you have an example of your sketch, then your line art of that sketch?

Yeah, ti sounds like you both are giving em similar advice. -notes down to mess with pressure sensitivity and brush sizes-

as for an example of the sketch, i originally sketched it otu traditionally, then scanned it and went over it digitally xD

Regardless, here is that scan: X
Since it was done traditionally, i dont really have any in progress pics of it =/

:) Hope the advice helps. You can do it!
By the way, it may also be worth to try starting a drawing digitally instead of traditionally, just to see get used to the space you have to work with, and training the relation between your eyes and hand.