Looking for art concrit.

Hi there! I actually would say that you should go ahead and keep practicing to do freehanding with drawing in general, rather than stick to a base. I feel like you'll learn a lot better that way as a base can possibly become a crutch? Although it can be a learning experience, I think it'd be better for you to just straight up draw digitally freehand. (Unless you're currently only using a mouse? In which case I could understand) Even if you're not confident enough, I think you should just go for it.

Right now, I feel that I can't really critique this since it's modified from a base, so I'm not sure which parts you've done and which parts are from the base. I will say however, that the anatomy on this is a bit wonky. I wanna know what you're going for first though, since I know not everyone does full on realism, but there should be a degree of fundamentals I think for the art you're going?

I can link you to some anatomy resources if you'd like! I have so many bookmarked and saved lol

As for your questions, I think those are more based on your own preferences than really like - something I could critique on? You could anti-alias the lines if you're looking for something smooth, but you could also keep it pixellated if that's what you wish. You could do cell shading if you want, or just smooth shading if you wanted to. It's really up to you, since those kind of qualities people have made adopts with before. I'm not sure what you mean with effort though, but like - for now it seems like you're just going for regular/nude bases as I don't see a design yet. 

Currently I only have a touchpad, and when I did have a tablet I could never get the pen to work properly and I don't know if that was a problem with the tablet or a problem with how I was holding the pen. And yeah, right now I'm just trying to get the basic body to look right.

Well, for practicing drawing the body - you should just go with what's easiest for you. Usually I say just practice drawing with a pencil if you don't have like a drawing tablet, or a mobile tablet since you're just practicing and you need to learn the muscle memory with how one naturally draws.

I really wouldn't recommend using a touchpad for drawing digitally? (We're talking about a laptop touchpad right?) Like, I'd even recommend just using your mouse instead of that, because at least with a Mouse, you can just use Curve tools on certain programs. (Basically, you could scan or take a photo of a drawing, and then draw over it in a digital art program. That's how I started back when all I had was a mouse.) But to be honest, if it works for you then it works for you haha

Speaking of, what program do you use to draw?

As for your tablet, what kind is it, and how old is it? Usually the pen not working right means there's something wrong with the drivers. I kinda doubt how you hold the pen of the tablet is the problem, since usually you should just hold it how you hold a pencil. 

But yeah, right now, the bodies drawn here are very stiff. The proportions are quite off too, with the legs being much longer than the torso. I mean yes that can work, but usually you should be doing that intentionally. The head and face proportions aren't actually that bad I think. Another issue is that the body here is draw flat. There's not really any form so it looks very 2D. 

But my main tips for learning to draw the basic body are:

1. Looking at lots of references!! It doesn't have to be photo realistic or exact to the body, but you need to see how something looks to draw it properly. 

2. Do some gesture drawings - I especially recommend this because right now, the modified bases look stiff. Here's a video tutorial on how to do so. Speaking of this YouTuber, I recommend checking this playlist of his as well.

3. I'd read up on Andrew Loomis? I always recommend his books because to me, he has understandable language in those books, and his diagrams about human anatomy are very simple and clear. ALL his books are available on PDF for free right here! 

I hope that makes sense?

Right now I don't have a tablet, so I think my best option is pencil and scanner.

Yeah exactly! Whatever's best for you to be honest!

I definitely need to not use pre-made bases; trying to modify a base to look like what I'm trying to get it to look like isn't going to work. I need to either draw something myself or get a custom base, and to get a custom base I'd have to first draw approximately what I wanted it to look like so I might as well just do it myself.

Yeah I agree. You're more likely to get more experience when you try to make it yourself, although if you need to trace something to practice/figure something out (as long as you don't claim it as yours ofc) it's not completely off the table!