Probably a lost cause

[RazoPuma]

I have tried everything. I've tried your links, read books, praticed, and I still am no better. I really need some body to break this anime art thing down. I'm sorry if this annoys anyone but I really do suck at drawing. For example, in 8th grade my art teacher gave us a building to draw. Okay simple enough a large square with other squares. WRONG. I completely failed the entire exercise. we spent a week on how to draw buildngs and yet it always turned out the same. You guys are really my last resort. I have tried to draw things well since i was 7 but I still pathetic. Its madding to see such great images in my head that you will never dream of. My imagination is far better than you guys will believe. I can assemble WORKING machines in my head, create landscapes that never change on a large scale, I can choose what I dream about things and when I'm almost a sleep i can literaly save the thought in my head and then continue in my dreams. And yet they stay there. They just sit there in my head, day after day, year after year. Sometimes its gotten to the point were I get so depressed I think how pointless it is to have a mind but not be able to share it. I'm good at writting but thats just limited words and people usually don't have the imagination I do so that makes all the difference. If they cant begin to imagine than they cant understand my thoughts. You may not believe this but once I almost went insane keeping in all the ideas in check. I truely need your peoples help with this. If you can't help me i don't know what i can do.  

[Whispers of the Forsaken]

My best advice is life drawing. Practicing at anime to get better at anime gets you nowhere. I was just like you around age twelve. I did tons of anime pieces a day and wondered why I still didn't get better. In my high school art I class, my teacher told us to draw from life. The pieces were all still really crappy, but after the semester when I went back to stylized drawings, they looked so much better than before I did the life drawings and realism.

Also, another thing, if you aren't using them, start getting in the habit of using construct lines.

Also, don't expect to be able to replicate what's in your head just from your head right away. There's no shame in using references. Everyone does it. Get tons of references of what you are drawing, not just one. Do not copy, just use them as guides to look at. Thought references are nice, drawing from life is a better option so if you can get a live model to reference.

It takes a while to improve, be patient and keep practicing. You'll get there.  

[RazoPuma]

Life drawings? You mean like people in real life? I can't do that, the best form of art I have is drawing a few plants a fish and some really basic cartoons. But i'll try. Thanks. neutral  

[Whispers of the Forsaken]

If you are still in school, try drawing your classmates before, after, or during class (if it's not too distracting). If you work and you have a chance for a few breaks then you could try drawing the customers (depending on your job of course).

If those aren't an option you can try this gesture drawing tool. Warning, it has n***s but you can learn to draw the figure by sketching the pieces and working on gestures. I can also reccomend this fairly cheap book that is amazing for helping you start to get a better grasp o anatomy.  

[Errol McGillivray]

You do realize that being able to draw well takes years of steady study and practice?

You're living in a dream world if you think you'll go from just starting to amazing by reading tutorials.

Focus on learning to draw for the sake of itself. Just do it. Observe life. Really pay attention to what you're looking at. When you draw from life, draw WHAT YOU SEE, not what you think it there. I'm a cartoonist, so I know that it can be a little jarring to go from only drawing what you think and then having to draw what's really there.

Just keep doing it. Take classes. Having other students and an instructor helps a lot.

You're doing to have to be patient with yourself and be REALISTIC. This s**t don't happen overnight, kid.

That said..

Basic skills don't start with complex ideas. They start with simple ideas, so you start with your most basic forms.

Get some 3d shapes and draw them. You don't have to buy plaster shapes like I did. I had to for class, but before I could get them, I just went to a craft store and got the white foam shapes that people stick the fake flowers in. You need a cube, a sphere, and a cylinder. (You don't need a cone and I don't think they carry cones that have the right proportions anyway.)

Set them up, put a light on then and draw them. Put the drawing away (leaving the set up where it is) and go relax. Come back after a while and look at the set up. Really pay attention to what's going on. How do the different sides of the shapes look as they turn away from the light. How do the shadows look. Where are they hard, black shadows and where are they soft shadows that help show the forms of the objects.
Look the the ground plane that they're sitting on. What do you notice about it compared to the objects?
Write all your observations down.

Then, look at your drawing. Now that you understand more about what's going on, you can see what you did wrong in the first drawing. Write down what you did wrong and why you think you got them wrong.

If you do this every day for one week, at the end of the week you will see improvement and you'll find that you understand a lot more about how to draw 3d objects in a 3d world.

When you draw people, animals, objects, use these basic shapes to build them. For example, arms and legs are cylinders. You could use a sphere for the head. (I tend to for my cartoons.)

Without understanding 3d forms, you'll find life drawing very frustrating and risk feeling defeated by drawing. It's not hard if you start from the very basic and work into more detail from there.

Get yourself a sketchbook JUST for life drawings. No cartoons or characters or anything that you aren't looking at goes in there. No doodling from your head at all. Each day, do 2 hours of drawing things around your house and outside your house. By the last page, you'll see the difference.  

[LillianSaire]

I took a basic drawing class from a gen ed, the main thing is that you force yourself to do it. Don't just work on it for 30 min and say it was a practice. Finish it, call it complete, and work at least those 2 hours on that one piece. The more you have to sit and stare at it, the more you'll see for the shadows and highlights. Consider texture. Try putting a light on the set-up and turning out other lights to make it hard to not see the shadows. Draw it, then draw it again from another sitting spot.