Goob's Noob art thing

[John]

Mainly my study has been from books suggested by 4chans /ic/.  It's helped somewhat but unfortunately all of thier suggested advice is more "loomis" and such.  Hopefully here I can get some better detail as to how I can improve and practice properly.

Not sure why it's unfortunate to be pointed towards the direction of Loomis. His teachings are pretty solid. Love his Fun with a Pencil book because it does make it look like he's enjoying drawing in that book! It's not so much of a technical approach to figure drawing and it has less of a serious tone to it.

Just in case you didn't know where to get them : www.alexhays.com/loomis/

From what I've seen in Google Images, the Jack Hamm book you got looks nice as well. If you need more books on how to draw people, who's not Loomis, some people swear by :
 
1. Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life
2. Villpu. https://www.vilppustore.com/pages/store Last chance to get them since they will be shutting down by the end of the month.
3. Hogarth's Dynamic Figure Drawing

I'd recommend "Wizards How to Draw" or "How to Draw the Marvel Way" just because I started from there.

On to the crits.

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Props for drawing the heads at an angle. Probably more difficult than drawing it straight on. The thing about drawing at a certain angle is, perspective plays a role on how your faces are going to look. A nose drawn at an angle is different from a nose drawn straight on. Same goes with eyes and the other facial features.

To add to that, the facial proportions of your pieces need a bit of love.. Meaning each feature, eyes nose brows etc... needs to be placed at the right place.



As you can see here, there are some approximations of where the features are usually placed.

A bit of paint over to illustrate:


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On how to practice properly: 

There's no "proper" way. The right way will always be the one that works for you. I started out copying what I read on the Wizards How to Draw book I got. And Hogarth.

Some people here swear by www.drawabox.com and do the exercises religiously. This makes sense because everything, or at least almost, can be drawn in given an underlying structure of a box, cylinder or sphere.

I do hope other people pitch in their ideas on how to practice. Or maybe it's a good idea for you to forum surf for other member's study habits.. You might find one that suits you.

On that final note.. Good luck! Keep drawing! Be mindful and here's to getting better at it.