I believe there is one which is obvious the "feel" of a picture whether it's body, mind, or something not thought apparent in a drawing. Feeling generally I mean anything you do or draw/make is feeling. Down to expressions of every tiny little concept in a picture is vital. I'm talking not just about plain expressions you see common smile/faint whatever you see clearly. I'm leaning more towards the understanding of what you can do and the knowledge of that. If you have a girl being sad but yet you have a flicker of light beam in her face that gives her a slight smile is what I'm talking about.. yet it is brief but then she is warm. This is the first step I believe to getting there!

The next one, is a bit more missed by most. I think it's weight of everything the picture, body, atmosphere.. whatever it is most tend to overlook it and just draw randomly. If you can really understand weight you can take advantage of a whole new approach to heighten your skill.

Just for example you got a Warrior Barbarian, who wears heavy armor and wield a giant steel axe. You may say oh big deal.. just draw him strong with his legs hard in the ground. This is not what I'm talking about. I mean can you understand weight really, and put it in your drawing better? The Warrior is tall and has a different assortment of armor over his body. One shoulder he has a bigger metal armguard that gives him a slightly big broad arm but yet he doesn't use this arm fully. Yet on the other is is a smaller armplate, but then he holds this massive axe over his shoulder. You should see the difference in strength in each hand/weight/feel and slight a look. His axe wielding hand should be lean and his hand should be very solid iron like almost broken into the mold of the axe handle. But, yet who cares nothing much you might say.. so I just draw him a bit hunched or something. Yet the axe is very heavy and leans over his shoulders, do you just draw his legs in a common stance/basic fighter pose? No, you put them with feel/weight you have them set arched pained high and back. The difference in pose is almost limitless depending on your choosing. With this done you get balance and weight/feel.. not something easy to reach!

Just another example, if you have a female warrior that is nude. Because she just got of the cold water from taking a bath.. yet she is weightless but holds her own body strength she should be shivering and probably yet looking serious in her eyes.. then nimble high on her toes.. I could go on and on.

Another example is to understand them all together.. and I won't touch that really.

Yet if you're able to get to that point you'll still have to demonstrate it in your backgrounds
which is even more in depth drawing. A picture, figure, or object will only be worthy if you have a
background equal to it.

Weight, distribution, balance and gravity are all things that should be considered when drawing. I'm sure once you get to a decent level with your art, you are able to start drawing with these things in mind on an almost subconscious level.
- This is one of the things that separates amateurs from the pros and to make the transition from wannabe to competent is to practice these aspects until they become second nature.

As far as injecting feeling and emotion into your work goes, I agree this is very important and something even I have skipped over on many occasions in the quest to gain technical perfection over my work rather than putting emphasis on feeling or character personality.

I guess my ideal of weight I said is more easily found in Fantasy type of art, Traditional, or Western if you believe it's that. But, really you'll see it any high skill form. Tho there is still weight in Anime just in a different form. I sort of really meant this for more in depth drawers that really enjoy to draw stuff more challenging. Anime has it's own weight in it you can pretty much feel the general idea of it..

Fortunately, the human mind is gifted with the ability to remember virtually countless subroutines if they are practiced and intergrated into the subconscious enough times... man, it'd be hell for us artists if we had to recall every little bit of experience and knowledge for every single part of a drawing. Of course, the same mental ability is true with any human endeavor, but it truly shines in the arts...

For us visual artists, it's like we develop a second sight for a lack of a better term, and it improves with each additional drawing. As a visual artist grows, they start to gain a sense of what looks right and what looks wrong, and there are many cases where they cannot explain why. That's basically what instinct is, a cumulation of multiple supportive details and experiences that cannot be solidly displaced as fact, yet flows to form the possibility of a greater whole. Many artists utilize instinctive drawing flow in their process without ever realizing exactly why... as it is an integrated skill as opposed to academic knowledge. Well, sturdy knowledge and refined studies of the art is important as well, such as perspective studies and color theory, but you'll almost always find that the best artists are those who work more instinctively with heart than with head...

Of course, the whole should more than the sum of it's parts... While beauty might be in the details, there is a point when the details of a piece work against an artist instead of for them due to oversaturation versus efficient yield. It's not something exactly easy to explain with words though... which I suppose is part of the reason for the existance of visual art in the first place.

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