It just takes time, and dedicate. Just draw frequently from life and from photo references to start off with, to get a sense for how things really are (not how you picture them in your mind) - and then you can start putting things from mind to paper.

We all have to start at stickfigures. That's just the way it works, no-one becomes an artist overnight. Here, hang on a sec... *searches for oldest drawing she can find on her harddrive* ..if it makes you feel better/gives you an idea: [link]
That's from seven years ago. XD I think you can do better than that now, so.. four or five years? I know it seems like a long time for gratification, but nah.. once you get used to doing it all the time, it'll become a part of your life and you'll find satisfaction with it along the way. ^^

If you have any specific questions about a type of media, perspective, or techniques to practice feel free to ask!

--
When you're following an angel
Does it mean you have to throw your body off a building?

You do realize that I am going to be asking you a million stupid questions, starting right about now.

I know you can improve over time in really anything you want to set your mind to, but I feel sort of doubtful (omg self defeatist :< because isn't drawing one of those things where you really need to teach yourself stuff about it earlier on? Like, before finishing puberty, or else you just won't be able to make your mind understand how to do things. Maybe I'm confusing it with learning a foreign language.

Aw, cute old MSPaintie :>

But the drawing from life thing is great advice, although it seems like it should be obvious I'm often very dense. Also, in drawing books it says to sketch circles and ovals and such in place of actual body parts to get a feeling for size, so that helps... right?

And shading scares me.

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I wore a bomb. A nuclear bomb in a field of flowers.

No, you're definitely thinking languages or musical instruments. XD It definitely does not matter when you start drawing, so long as you incorporate it as a constant part of your day to day existence. And there are no stupid questions. :3

Yeah, the "circles and ovals" your drawing books refer to is called gesture drawing; that's how all artists start out a piece. The point of gesture drawing is to get the feel for the proportions, motion and volume of a figure/object/whatever before working into it with any real detail. It's basically a quick, controlled scribble if anything - when drawing life, the gesture drawing of a figure shouldn't take more than a minute at most. Hm.. I wish I could explain this to you in person, because it's a lot easier to show/demonstrate to someone what you're talking about as you're talking about it.

Okay, here. I went on the intarnets and Googled a random nude lady: [link]
And then drew an example gesture of her and wrote some messy instructions down for you: [link]

You don't need to have a gianormous bold line down the middle like that; but that line is a good way to start out. I just made it gianormous and bold so it could be seen amoungst the other scribbles. x3
But yeah, so.. a good thing to do is to purchase a little sketchbook, I got a nice pocket-sized (well, small enough to fit in the big cargo pockets of my camos, anyway XD) one at Borders awhile back that works well, and carry it around with you.. to work, when you're out with friends, wherever. In my case I always have it with me in school. And whenever you're bored, scribble some gestures - I do it to get ideas for poses to use in drawings later (I also doodle in general and write demented things down in mine, heh, but yeah) - you should do it to get used to the basic proportions of things. Once you've done that for awhile, I'll explain contour drawing to you - another basic technique used to get used to the other half of the process: the detail.

Shading and colour is my favourite part, it really brings things to life. It's just exciting for that reason, I guess. That's all about light sources and shading.. but we'll get to that later. Now, it's best to start with the basics. if you want though, you can pull a photo reference, or even just sit and look at yourself in the mirror, and try to redraw it randomly. I never knew any of this technique stuff until a few years ago, I always just used to sit around with my books of wildlife photography and draw wolves like whoa. XD So you can try it a bit too. But gesture, etc will give you an advantage in improving faster. *nods*

--
When you're following an angel
Does it mean you have to throw your body off a building?

Ah yes, gesture drawing. I knew it was called something other than "zomg sirkles and ovilz" but could not for the life of me think of it. Well, that's a really thoughtful response to my questions with a bunch of good tips. I did some [craptastic] gesture drawings at work, which I am going to post here so as to keep track of my progress. It's convenient that there were a bunch of sale-ads laying around at work featuring nearly full-length models. My sketches are still all wonky in regards to proportion and basically everything else (and manymany mistakes, because it's really hard at first to draw what's really there and not what you "see" as you said, heh), but I felt accomplished because they look a lot better than most other human drawings I've tried to do. However, I currently despise limbs of all varieties.

I'm going to get some mad practicing on and then I'll more than likely ask you a bunch of other questions on the things you alluded to teaching me later.

I will enjoy this ongoing tutorial in How to not Suck at Learning to Draw.

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I wore a bomb. A nuclear bomb in a field of flowers.

Perspective and scale and cloth folds have jack shit to do with art. I will tell you the secret... (looks shiftily left then right)... confidence. You must train yourself to believe that every line you lay down is intentional. When you believe it's impossible to make a mistake, others will be swept up in your aura of superego and have no choice but to agree. And you'll find that your art will actually get better when you're free from self-antagonism. Seriously, when I stopped caring what others thought of my creations, everything flowed in my pictures.

I'm starting to move more in that direction, in that I can see myself improving technically over the months/years so that I know -someday- I'll be able to have perspective et al down pat. So since I know that, I can be more confident in the here and now.

--
I wore a bomb. A nuclear bomb in a field of flowers.