Common Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes, even pros. The key is not to beat yourself up about your mistakes, but to recognize them and learn from them.

Cindy's Tips

• Beginning artists naturally start off with drawing only subjects they enjoy, and often stick with that for far too long. I know you want to perfect that 3/4 facial angle before moving on, but don't be stuck there forever!
• Sometimes you look at a drawing and know that there's something wrong with it, but you just aren't sure what it is. In these situations--and even in general--it's a good idea to hold the drawing up to a mirror or flip it over on a light table (or within the tablet, if you're drawing digitally.) Seeing the drawing reversed often reveals the problems you had trouble spotting before. 
• Learning how to draw in the anime/manga style is just like learning any other art or style -- you need to understand the basics first. The general body construction of an anime girl is no different from any other girl…they just tend to be exaggerated. No matter how huge their eyes (or certain other body parts) may be, they’re still based on human anatomy. 
• The anime/manga style is simply another approach to drawing human figures, but in order to really understand the differences, you need to know what it takes to draw “normal” humans and their environment.
• Believe it or not, talented anime animators don't refer to anime that often in order to improve their skills. They know that what they see on the screen is simply the result of knowledge and experience gained from other sources. Those who stick to anime and manga as their only sources of reference often end up with a very mediocre, generic style.
• I realize that drawing faces is the most interesting part of the anime style, but many beginners make the mistake of trying to perfect the faces first before drawing the rest of the body. That’s why many beginners’ characters have large heads relative to the small bodies crammed into the remaining space on the page. It’s important to sketch out the entire body first, then work on the details after that.
• Also, many beginners tend to draw only the head, and almost always at the same angle. Some draw entire bodies, but at the same angle and in the same pose over and over. Or, they draw the same types of characters repeatedly--the same age, same clothes, same body types. To really improve your art skills, you should learn how to draw different characters of varying ages, body types, races, and clothing from different angles and poses. Do sketches of people in real life, and apply the skills you develop to your anime-style artwork.
• Learning how to draw characters in the correct perspective is also important. Your characters cannot live on empty white backgrounds forever. You need to give them an environment they can live in, and that means figure drawing alone is not enough to make you a good artist. Practice drawing scenery and still objects. They may not be as interesting as drawing humans, but bear in mind that having great backgrounds is also part of what makes the anime style special.
• It’s important to note that most of the basics of drawing are not particular to a certain style of drawing—perspective is perspective, whether you’re drawing a pile of books on a desk or Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Unit 01 towering over Tokyo-3. Any decent book on drawing can teach you almost everything you’ll need to know about perspective, and the same goes for a lot of the other basics of drawing.