Darktiste Sketchbook

[darktiste]

For the comment about developping a process i don't fully agree with the idea that one should ''always'' draw the same way.For someone like me it is necessary to atleast develop a construction method but i think it should be said that one should explore construction method also i think what you meant is try to settle for one construction technique as to master it.Correct me if i am wrong.

What Vitor and I both mean and have said is this :  the process you practice should ideally be started and followed whether you have 30 seconds or 3 hours. Think about it. The less time you have over all, you will spend the majority of that time on the main rhythms and weight distribution of the pose, and maybe beginning to indicate a few important forms (head, ribcage/torso, basic indication of limbs). These are the fundamentals of capturing the pose. This should always be done and practiced, and so the starting of any figure drawing is essentially the same no matter how much time you will spend on it. 

The more time you have obviously, the more you can refine and depict details of the anatomy and costuming on top of the framework. Pretty self explanatory. If you use a lazy method such as the overly simplified stick man drawings for beginning your drawings , really you are simply choosing to do so to feel like you "completed" something in that time, when actually they don't help you to draw a longer drawing directly from/on top of. We wouldn't have to tell you this, if you actually learned from people who teach. This is why I keep suggesting you pay for some formal instruction that forces you to work on an integrated process to begin with, as it will be much more efficient for you to finally actually understand these very very basic beginner level ideas.

With stick figures you are really not allowing yourself to be efficient and are practicing bad habits when it comes to starting any pose. Gestural drawings aren't something to be separated out as a process, they are literally just shorter figure drawings, using whatever abstraction process or method you are wanting to practice.

 Victor gave some nice examples of a gestural framework that can be worked on top of given more time. Look at the difference between his framework and yours for the shorter drawings. Whose do you think would be easier to develop a longer more accurate drawing off with less redrawing? 

The point isn't to only find and use one single method forever. You can try different figure abstraction processes throughout all lengths of a figure drawing and eventually you will find what you prefer to use. 
I personally find Reilly figure rhythms very useful mostly for the very beginning but then follow a very different, form and shadow mapping amalgamated process that is a mix of my own preferences built up over lots of experience and practice with different methods. Abstraction methods are simply models to use as one begins to learn and feel which ones are more personally useful. 

But in general, Stickman = bad.  No decent figure drawing technique I've ever seen has recommended using stickfigures. Usually it's done by people who don't really understand the figure drawing process, are intimidated by short time limits, or aren't concerned with how to draw figures well at all.

Thank for the clarification and merry chrismas to you.