/title

practice helped alot (thanks guys!) saving up to get a tablet, and am currently workin on a drawing of a fallout 2 enclave soldier

(below is original image, entire piece will be done by hand)

i am new to, well art in general, and really want to start drawing (and animating) my own work, but i am pretty awful at anything i try, no matter how hard i try my shading sucks, characters look like 3rd grade doodles, lines are sloppy, and to top it all off, when i tried the cs4 trial my movies were the most stiff awful things in the history of anything.

but now to the point

i need huge amounts of pointers and help, i also need to find my style because everything ive tried so far is garbage (when i draw it that is) and a list of needed materials/equipment i need would help greatly, finally, being artistically retarded, please explain any technical terms that i would really need to know, i know this is asking alot, but i really need the help.

thanks

hi, you don't know me

this was originally a post on the bbs, but it felt right to put it here.

i'm new to animation and am currently creating new characters, and trying to figure out how said characters should look like, if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know, also i want to try putting an animation team togethor, more on that later.

we have numerous characters, but they can be split up into two categories:

1. the badly drawn original failed comic book attempt- a bunch of terribly drawn and badly thought up group of original characters, finding their way into our imaginations some years back, the original comic consisted of Dash (a green oval with orange wings, a toothy grin, and bad habits, i.e. in one comic the jumps off a cliff, takes lsd, and thinks a tree wants to eat his soul.) and Tweed (a shapeshifting box with three rounded teeth, and an attena which was originally a single hair with a bow, he is dash's moral counterpart, and is constantly having to "save his ass". there are other characters, but they aren't neccesarily important at this time due to the fact that we seldom use them.

2. the series that we thought up after seing the lord of the rings for the first time as kids- again we thought up some basic characters and civilizations, which consisted of a viking/barbarian race, a nomadic desert race, and a pseudo-european race, not unlike the roman empire (you know, except without all the pedophiles.) the europeans are driven out by the mad (and unkown to them immortal" wizard who had planned to overthrow the king and kill the heirs, the wizard raises an army of undead and exiles the remainder of the population, which then settles in the mountains between the nomads and vikings, with whom they ally and try to stop the wizards plot. (yes there is a race portaying the "orc" or "goblin", but we havent really done anything with them yet.)

if anyone has any advice, please let me know
any help is GREATLY appreciated :)