I have, on a few occasions, agreed to give some people basic art lessons. These never go over well, since most people find the basics boring. It's unfortunate, because the basics are the most important part. I have since given up, and refuse to teach anyone, even if they genuinely want to try. "Practice," I tell them. "Find some anatomy and botany books, look around online, and practice."
Everyone draws differently. Bob uses lots of layers, and his personal style is kind of squared and comic-bookish. Caryn works wonders with color and loves putting in fine details, but her drawings tend to be a little long and slightly gothic with a heavy anime-overtone. My art leans towards a comfortable median between comic book detail and design and anime-like simplicity. For a good portion of my drawing career I was pretty erratic in my style, trying to find the middleground that was most comfortable to me.

This is Layer 1.
At first, everything is very vague and primarily just shapes mashed together into a figure. Usually people can't really tell what I'm drawing at first. This is the second step, where I've begun to figure out how the muscle and fat on the frame has settled into position.
For this part, I usually keep my brush at about 50% opacity.

This is step 3, where I start to finalize the frame and outline, adding in details to flesh out everything and make it more recognizable. This is a good place for me to make a save, in case something goes horribly awry later on in the process. I can get rid of what I have ruined and start again from this part.
Perspective comes into play here, as with the turned hind leg and slight turn of the head.
By the way, this is Kobold, if you haven't noticed.
Current working time: about fifteen minutes

The cleaning step is the second-longest out of all of them, bringing my current working time up to forty-five minutes.
Next comes the hardest and longest step: coloring. This really is a process in itself, requiring a base color, highlights, and shadows. Three layers to a single step, with tweaking and lots of editing in between.

Now, using the smudge, blur, dodge, and burn tools, I can add a fur effect and get the shading juuuuuuuust right. Unfortunately for you, if you were really paying attention, I'm not going to go over this step in detail. It's a lot of little strokes with (fingers crossed) precision. The undo button is used a lot.
But, bringing my project time to a round hour and a half, here is the finished product, and the picture I drew it from:

"The right person in the wrong place can make all the difference."
~Gman
2 comments:
That was neat! Thank you. (He's a good dogger - yes he is!)
That's a cool bit there. I wondered how that worked.
And surprise! It looks like Kobold.
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