i started drawing this in my free time today and thought i'd use it to show a bit of my personal drawing process

[ disclaimer: i am not a professional; i'm self-taught and i don't really know what i'm doing half the time. but i have been drawing for years, and i've found that this sketching process has really helped me improve! ]

step 1 - just a very rough scribble to get an idea of what i want to draw

step 2 - idk if there's a technical term for this; i call it my 'working sketch' because that just sounds right to me?? i draw loosely over my rough sketch, figuring out what i want the final thing to look like. this is the part where i look up references (...except when i'm lazy and i don't use references, which is way too often) and do a lot of tweaking as i go

step 3 - the lineart! this part mostly involves tracing over my final sketch from step 2, but i'll also add more details and do some more tweaking here.

then after that, i usually take a break, then tweak the lineart even more, then start colouring!

back when i was just starting to get into digital art, i used to draw without sketching at all - i'd just jump in and try to make a nice lineart right away. that was not a great idea. my drawings were okay, but sketching has helped me a lot -- again, i'm not an expert, but my advice to young artists is don't underestimate the power of sketching!