Stop it. Stop it right now. Drawing anime before you have a strong grasp on anatomy, proportion, shading, and the human figure in general will seriously stunt your artistic growth. Please, learn from my mistake and stop it now.
Don’t get me wrong, I love anime. I love it dearly. I cosplay as my favorite characters, watch it regularly and go to anime conventions. But I don’t draw it anymore, because it completely destroyed my ability to look at a model and see the actual proportions present there. Instead, I would draw everything with anime proportions. I really shouldn’t have to point out why this is a problem.
If you like anime, that’s fine! Great! I like it too! But I stopped drawing it, and so should you! Especially if it’s the only thing you draw. Stop. Go take a figure drawing class, and really pay attention. Draw from life. Learn anatomy and proportion. Learn to shade things so they actually look real, rather than cel-shaded. Learn to draw what you see, not what you think you see. When you can do this, then, if you want to, go back to drawing anime. Your art will have drastically improved, trust me. You’ll be drawing anime out of choice, rather than out of necessity.
So stop it. Stop drawing anime. Do it for your own good.
It’s really so true. I teach Art and I can tell which students draw anime and cartoons in general daily and which don’t. I work with them to get them into a specialized high school program for Art and I have to spend extra one-on-one time reprogramming their brains to see what they actually see, not what they think they see. It’s that bleepin’ anime that keeps getting in the way.