I suck at drawing, but I love doing it!

Nine Boomer

I can't draw a straight line if my life depended on it. When I draw fingers, they end up looking like claws attached to a round circle. When I draw arms, they somehow bulge and ripple(not because of muscle), as if distorted through some genetic mutation. Eyes become a huge white circle with a mess of black in the center. People are bow-legged, with feet facing in opposite directions. I present to you my latest creation - a person rendered into a genetic freak by my sucky drawing skills.

Bronzdragon

Ah, I see you're problem.

This picture is in dire need of... Zombies. Yes, zombies. They would make this picture much better!

Besides, this isn't too bad. did you know you can pay bills with pictures like these?

Omnutia

You have the right attitude to drawing and that will take you a long way. If you'd like, I'll upload some of my old, old stuff as, I too, sucked, back in the day. We all start with the anatomically impossible character facing forwards with both feet sticking in odd directions.
If you want to get a quick boost on your drawing skill, I'd recommend practicing by copying some simple drawings from people you like.

Bronzdragon

I should've said this earlier, but I improved my drawing by taking a (free) newspaper with me on the train and doodling in it. I did things like turning a car into a bat mobile. The important thing is to keep drawing.

GreatTeacherMacRoss

Your problem lays in several areas:

1. Shape vs. Form. Shapes are two dimensional and tend to misrepresent forms, which are three dimensional. A person is built (in drawing terms) out of cylinders, spheres, and organic forms. A good way to practice is to draw still-life objects, a vase with flowers for example, and try to capture every single detail, no matter how insignificant. Additionally, putting the details in the correct place in relation to everything else in the drawing will help teach you how to actually see and think about what you are looking at.
The human body is challenging, so you need the basics of form down if you want to master it.

2. Proportion. This basically means that everything needs to be the right size and the right shape and in the right place compared with everything else in the drawing. For example, if someone was drawing a figure in a pose that had one hand close to the "camera" and one hand back, they would appear to be different sizes. Mastering proportion (and perspective) is very, very tricky and takes a lot of practice. Any of the artists in these forms, myself included, need to practice frequently to keep their skills up.

3. What you see vs. what you know . I teach this to older kids a lot. If someone asks you to draw something, a pumpkin for instance, almost everyone will draw something similar without thinking about it too hard. But does it really look like a pumpkin, or is it an icon of a pumpkin? Same thing with faces. Ask a first grader to draw a face on a sheet of paper, and you'll get something that is usually two circles inside a larger circle, a mark for a nose, maybe some circles for ears, and a line for a mouth. Sure, we recognize that they are representing a face, but it's not actually what any face looks like. Realizing this difference when you are working takes metacognitive thinking and takes practice to develop. You have to say "Does this actually look like the image in my head (or the thing I'm looking at). If not, why not and how can I fix it?"

Hope that helps.

Nine Boomer

I think the biggest challenge facing me and my drawing skills is the fact that I can barely visualize. When I imagine a pumpkin, I have a small flash of what it actually looks like. But I can't hold that image in my brain, and often it lacks any detail. On top of that, it's like tunnel vision, where my peripheral vision is grey and distorted. I guess it's a skill that I have to build up, but I am a very auditory and kinesthetic person. Drawing isn't my hobby, I don't wish to have a job based on it, it's just a little something I do when I'm bored in class. Also, since I do it during class, don't expect me to use tools like illustrator or photoshop. I just draw little things in onenote.

Also, as requested, a zombified genetic freak!

MrRoboto

That's why you use reference, specially when you start drawing.

Cremlian

If you enjoy drawing, draw, who fucking cares if your good at it or not, as long as it's a hobby you can suck as much as you want.

You should see the crappy comics I created in Middle school (I still have them), but it gave me enjoyment. They are not even close to being good, but they didn't have to be. They were fun and for myself. If you enjoy drawing and you don't mind sucking don't worry about it. Do what makes you feel good. If you want to improve listen to Mr. Macross's advice.

Then again I did help co-create a semi-successiful comic years later so you never know!

Funfetus

I guess it's a skill that I have to build up, but I am a very auditory and kinesthetic person. Drawing isn't my hobby, I don't wish to have a job based on it, it's just a little something I do when I'm bored in class.

That's the key, and also an important point. If you want to draw well, it's absolutely a skill that you have to build up. It's something that you have to dedicate literally thousands of hours to. But if you don't particularly care about drawing well, then you really only need to bother learning as much as you need to have the kind of fun you want.

As for philosophy of drawing, here are some things that I've only recently really come to understand, after drawing pretty seriously for most of my life.
1. Perspective is probably the most important thing. Not just the railroad tracks disappearing in the distance, I mean everything about how you see an object from any particular point of view. A lot of beginning artists try to avoid perspective, and they're doing themselves a huge disservice. It's not just for drawing buildings and cars -- it's for drawing everything.
2. You need to really understand simple 3-dimensional simple forms, and how to translate them into 2-dimensional shapes on paper. Sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, yes -- but also sphere that turns into a cylinder on one end, cylinder that blends into a cube, cube with a cylinder chunk cut out of it, and everything else you can imagine.
3. To draw actual things, you need to have a real knowledge of their forms, and mentally break them down into the simpler forms that they're composed of. This is why you study human anatomy, etc. Once you know all the parts, and can conceptualize them as simpler shapes all put together into a whole, you can draw a human body in any pose, from any angle. Well, actually, for any pose, you gotta do a lot of studying about how people move, too, but you get the iea.

For an example of all of this, take your pumpkin example. If I want to draw a pumpkin, I don't try to hold an image of a pumpkin in my brain and copy it down onto paper, line for line and shape for shape. I break it down into its simpler forms -- it's essentially a sphere, flattened a bit and kinda poked in at the poles, with flattened cylinders running from pole to pole, and a tapering, curving cylinder coming out of the top. Everything else you could want to draw is that same process, taken to a greater or lesser level of detail.