drawing – The Art of David Stankowicz

How To Draw Books

So a few weeks ago I had my nieces and nephew over and they decided they wanted to do some drawing time with me. I of course loved this idea and was all for it. I gathered up a bunch of supplies for them to use and was ready for some fun. While I was rounding up those supplies, I started looking through some of my old things I had packed away and came across a collection of art books I haven’t used in ages. They were a bunch of “How-to-Draw” books featuring various cartoon and video game characters. As a wave of nostalgia washed over me, I thought these would be great for the kids to use and brought them out.

Turns out I was right because they loved them! Each of them spend an hour or two flipping through the pages and trying their best to follow along with the instructions for the characters they chose. I joined them as well sketching my own characters and helping them whenever they needed it. It really brought me back to the days when I was their age doing the exact same thing with those very same books. A pretty surreal full-circle moment for me.

After that day, I kept thinking back to the years when I would use those How-to-Draw books. I’m probably showing my age here because I think these are now like a relic of a time passed. I remember going to my school’s book fair each year and being excited because I knew there would be some of these books there for sale. If I recall correctly, I believe that’s where all of mine came from. These days you can just go online and find how to draw video and walkthroughs with ease. That actually makes these books pretty obsolete now, but I digress.

All of this lead me to wonder just how good and effective these books actually were for developing artists. I believe I’m at a level now where I understand the fundamentals enough to make a sound assessment of their value. The books I had specifically were ones for Sonic the Hedgehog, Nintendo Heroes and Villians, The Legend of Zelda, Pokemon, Digimon, Mickey & Minnie, Donald & Daisy, and Toy Story.

What I’ll start off saying is the obvious here; All these books are definitely made for beginners at a very early stage of learning to draw. I don’t want to say they are made for kids (though many could argue the subject matter certainly is catered to kids) because anyone can start learning to draw at any age if they are determined. But looking through these books with a more refined artist mind I can see some differences and personal gripes with them. The Sonic, Nintendo, and Digimon ones were all made by the same two publishers of Troll and Scholastic. I read through the steps and looked at the images for most of the characters in these books and I was not a fan. I was personally not a fan of the way they were instructing how to construct the figures and work toward refining the details. The steps were pretty vague and the images demonstrating each one were very cumbersome and stiff looking. I can’t fault them too much for this because when these were made, there wasn’t a lot of references for the specific characters so they worked with what was available. However, I can see that these books specifically are geared for a more casual artist learning to draw for just fun or a hobby. Their breakdown of the character anatomy shows me that, so I wouldn’t recommend these for anyone who is older and serious about improving their skills.

The Disney ones, on the other hand, were definitely of a different and higher quality. These were published by Walter Foster Publishing. I preferred the breakdowns and instructions in these books much more, and that might be my bias talking because I learned how to draw studying a Disney animation style growing up. But putting that bias aside, I can tell these were made with the intention of helping artists who are more serious in truly understanding the fundamentals. The steps are more specific and the image for each one clearly demonstrates what you should be doing and why you are doing it. They do a much better job of breaking down the characters into simple shapes and showing how to add elements and details to bring the character to life. Now this is much easier in this case because the Disney characters like Mickey and Donald have been around for many decades which means the style in which they are drawn has been well studied and duplicated. It helps that these animated cartoon characters are more simplified, but these books give more detailed instructions for building out the forms than the previous books I mentioned. Another thing I really liked about these books is they had sections where they discussed techniques for drawing other parts of the characters specifically like hands and various facial expressions. This tells me these books were designed for a more serious beginner artist who has aspirations to take their skills higher one day. I would highly recommend these books for any kid or adult who wants to learn to draw characters with understanding, conviction, and aspirations to take their skills further.

It should go without saying that these are for people who want to draw stylized cartoon characters like me. I know that there are many other how-to-draw books for just about any subject out there. If realism is more your thing then that’s fine. I’m just talking about my personal experience with these specific books on the subject of drawing cartoon and video game characters. While I do prefer one style of book over the other, both can be helpful in whatever way you are looking to hone your own drawing skills. It all depends on your motivation to grow.

Whether you are casual or looking to go pro, never stop drawing.
Keep moving forward!

Subscriber Exclusive Art

Please consider subscribing to gain access to this exclusive illustration and more in the future!

January 23, 2026February 20, 2026 by DStankowicz Categories: OpinionTags: books, Disney, drawing, how to draw, learning, Nintendo, Opinion, practice, Sega

Knowing When to Take a Break

Sometimes its ok to walk away for a bit.
Just make sure to come back at some point.

Being an artist isn’t as easy as many people make it out to be. While on the surface it looks like all we do is just make pretty pictures for a living, there is more to it than that. As strange as this may sound to a bunch of you out there, it actually takes a lot of work and a ton of time. Even though it’s super fun and incredibly rewarding, the weight of all of it can be too much to handle at a point. When you pick up a pencil or stylus and it feels like a burden and a struggle, then you need to make a change. It’s a little thing us artists like to call…a break.

*gasp*
Taking a break from the thing I love and am passionate about? What blasphemy!

I know, it sounds crazy and absurd doesn’t it? But all joking aside, it really a necessity that many artist can easily neglect. Even if they are well aware that a break is needed, it can be difficult to distance yourself from you work. I fall into that group all the time. Which is why I bring this topic up here. This blog I started was supposed to be a weekly thing that I kept up with for the foreseeable future. However, after about a month of it I began to struggle with what to write about and it starting feeling like a hassle to force something out. Now a huge part of that could be that I’ve never been a writer at heart and always preferred to showcase emotion and feeling through visuals. I’m an artist, it’s what we do. Anyway, I reflected for a moment on what I wanted to accomplish here with this. I reminded myself that the purpose of this was to be a way for me to express my thoughts on various art/artist related topics and not worry about being struck by the almighty hammer of the internet overlords.

*cough cough* Facebook and Twitter *cough cough*

Once I remembered that, I realized that I was literally burning myself out. I exhausted all my ideas I had in mind, and I was trying to force out new ones out of thin air just to hold to a schedule I made for myself. While it’s great to set a goal and adhere to a scheduled path to reach it, sometimes it just doesn’t work out the way you wanted. I can’t speak for all artists, but that’s certainly the case for me when it comes to my work. I can’t force it. I need to brainstorm an idea and way to make it a reality before I can start it. I can’t just tell myself, ‘I will paint an elaborate portrait every weekend’. That’s just not how it works for me and it never has. It feels like a very rigid and corporate approach to this line of work. If it starts feeling like that for me, then all the fun and enjoyment is sucked out. I need there to be a bit of openness and spontaneity to my artwork so that it feels organic and not manufactured. When I try to manufacture something and it feels forced, the result always looks like shit. Then when that happens the demoralizing feeling creeps up and I begin the downward spiral of demotivation.

That’s just not how it works for me and it never has

So why take a break? I’m willing to bet there are many artists that don’t take a ton of breaks. That might be fine for them, but I can almost guarantee that those artists are already well established in the industry. Once again, I can’t speak for all the artists in the world, but I feel like I can say with at least a bit of confidence that taking a break from your work isn’t as hard when you know you have the audience and the income to get you through that gap in productivity. Breaks are hard for me to sit through since I’m still at the lower stages of my career. Whether a break is just a few hours or even a couple days, for me it always feels like an eternity. That’s because I’m not at the level I want to be and every moment I’m not working to progress forward feels like wasting time. I also know that sitting down and forcing work out when it just isn’t working is more of a waste of time and counterproductive.

When you feel like you’re burning the candle at both ends and you’re running out of wax, the best option is to step back and take some time to rebuild the figurative candle and maybe even reinforce it. Burn out is real for any profession. I felt some major burn out with this blog and some of my work. So I took some time to gather myself back up and resume with some fresh and exciting ideas. So take a break before your candle burns out completely.

Keep Moving Forward

June 22, 2021June 28, 2021 by DStankowicz Categories: UncategorizedTags: art, burn out, drawing, dstankowiczart, motivation, self help, sketching, taking breaks

Don’t Look for Your Style

An artist needs to have their own style, but I think it’s crucial they don’t try to find it.

Every artist has a style that is uniquely their own. Just look and any famous creator’s work. You can tell who created it simply by the style of the work. A Glen Keane drawing is easily distinguishable from a J. Scott Campbell drawing. Each one is amazing, but with different styles that are attached to that artist. You can tell what is a Stanley “Artgerm” Lau illustration simply by the style he uses. What is so great is that no two artist have the same style. Or at least, they shouldn’t. I’ll get in to that in a bit. One thing I’ve learned though is that if you are struggling to find your own style, it is best not to focus heavily on figuring it out. Instead, you need to let your style find you.

How do let your style find you? Well, you do it by simply creating. That seems too simple, But allow me to explain further. If you are an artist or trying to become one, chances are you have some that you admire. Take a handful of those artists and analyze the parts of their work that you’d like to emulate. Maybe one draws great hands and another shows facial expressions well. Combine all these aspects and meld them into what you make. The fun is that you can experiment at this stage. Play around with different things and find something that works well for you. Truth be told, It’s how I developed my style. I took inspiration from artists that I admire and molded all those different ideas and techniques into something that I felt was unique to me. That may not work for everyone but it definitely helped me starting out. I experimented with many different approaches and even had a anime feel for a time (yikes!) I figured out what I liked and ditched the aspects that just felt off to me.

Let your style find you.

Don’t take this concept too far however. It can be very tempting to just copy verbatim a very appealing style of an already established artist. Its important to be your own artist and not just a carbon copy of another. There is already a Tom Bancroft. Don’t be another version of him. Play around and have fun with the process. You’ll know when you find that one style that fits you because it will just click. Not everyone is going to like your style either, which is a tough pill to swallow. I constantly struggle with that to this day. Every artist wants the entire world to like what they do, but that isn’t realistic. You can’t please all the people all of the time. So don’t stress on that or else it will eat you alive. Just create what you enjoy and those likeminded people with hopefully come one day.

So the moral here is to not beat yourself up while developing your style. Try to let it come naturally. Consume many different types of content, gather inspiration, and utilize that in your drawings. I’m not saying it’s an easy process, but it is a rewarding one. Just keep at it and don’t give up. Let your style find you.