Been learning a lot of interesting things from Steve Houston and Vilppu. Gesture is basically something that we want to preserve as much as we can in a drawing, like the more anatomy you add to a smooth curved line, it detracts from the ultimate beauty that is a curved line. Obviously, if you add some intelligent other curved lines it makes the line even more beautiful, so i wanted to try an experiment today with these sketches. I tried to sketch and confine the lines to gestural lines, not thinking much for anatomy, but just form and movement.
I wanna do these a lot more because it's certainly easier to approach and always presents a problem solving effort. One thing Houston said that really rang true with me is that when we look in our anatomy books, everything is a stiff figure with all the muscles in place with his arms out at his sides. we learn to draw that painful three quarter view, and perfect profile, but when we draw the figure bending towards the camera, that throws a lot of students off. Gesture really can solve that issue, because it makes the mind think in terms of lines in space and their purpose in overlapping as opposed to the very mechanistic way of thinking of structure all the time.
He also notes that most anatomy books spend like 3 pages on gesture, then 300 more pages on rendering and structure, which is a big problem.
Gesture, then use small amounts of structure to find more gesture, then use structure as needed to convey form properly, but try to maintain gesture as much as possible. That's the gist of what Vilppu and Houston seem to advocate;
Vilppu is brillaint, I need to study him again soon and I fully agree on the gesture thing, honestly i'd say gesture is more important then getting the full anatomy correct.
I've been watching a lot of Knkl and an interesting thing he mentioned is that he doesn't use cylinders or straight forms like that when drawing the basic forms instead trying to use more gestural but still solid ones, he also treats the figure like clay when starting out just looking for interesting forms, i've been trying to take this approach myself since my go to way of drawing for years has been gesture plus cylinders and boxes.
Here's the vid if you're interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWRF9GpRCNI
I'm so happy you are getting into gesture now! The figures you are doing are looking very nice too. They have flow and rhythm but at the same time you did not go overboard with it. Maybe I should give this Vilppu a try. Whoop, just remembered that I already did but then I kind of forgot about him. I'll try again then.
What I learned when it comes to studying the figure was to go from Loose Gesture -> Figure Drawing -> Individual Anatomy. Honestly, I don't think you lose too much from doing it out of order, but if you mess up the gesture, then the figure and the anatomy will be fucked up too so I guess that is why you have to learn that way.
Welp, I gotta go and make my own post now. Happy drawing bro!
arm cramps are real yo... Right when drawing is starting to get really fun too!
Voodoo: I think the order is very important, but im tired, Shout out to Steve Houston as well!
Artloader: thanks bro! Always good hearin from ya!
Mandatory Neir drawing, I'm happy that even my initial gestures can come out much more dynamic than before, especially if i just tilt the main masses around/camera angle. I think her head is a little flat, but i enjoy most of what else is going on lol. I like doing these illustration style sketches, because design kinda bores me, I really enjoy interpreting other peoples characters though. makes practising fundamentals more enjoyable at least, and easier.
Lotta stuff starting to make sense... I'll try to have more drawings tomorrow!
Kinda gave my arm a break today, and it feels a lot better. Still managed to sketch a few hours near the end of the day. I love shortstack/shortwide girls haha
Great to read about the Vilppu stuff up there, indeed the correct mindset to have when it comes to breathing life into those characters. Tried out Vilppus "bean" drawing practice? Really helped me loosen up when drawing figures, can never get to much of that exercise no matter how adept you get at gesture.
Should try out Nier too, heard the bu-..Games' great!
Adzbruh: Thanks man, I'll look into that bean thing, sounds interesting, love what Vilppu has to say on anything really. A good drinking game when watching his stuff is take a drink everyime he says "Coming threw"
Danny Galieote
Is a talented bro dude loved doing things sketches.
Everyone sign up for New Masters Academy, oh wait don't it's too good a secret to get out ;)
well, im trying to think ahead here. Say, i get this figure drawing and drafstman problem i have sorted out, what then? It's like where would i stand, what would i do next? I want to make money, but i don't really know what to do or who to work for. I mean, I do know the companies i could work for, but there's this looming feeling of "not good enough" in the back of my head. I know I won't always be too bad to work for them, but i just don't know what is realistic anymore.
My skillset feels like its more focused than ever before, but like, less ambitious or creative than ever before, if that makes sense. Like i've taken a redpill of good studying habits, and I feel kinda lost.
Maybe just think like Will Terry said,
"If you're not gettin job offers you're probably not as good as you think you are."
I might get a small commission once a month, so I guess I'm not that good, so we'll just keep grindin till then. Maybe the work that finds me will be what i like, who knows.
I'd love to see that Neir finished up in a scene :D bunch of dead bunnies kneeling in front of her or army of broken unicorns, yes, much imagination. Love the angle tho- head feels a bit out of place but other than that it's a spot on. Good job^^
Quote:I mean, I do know the companies i could work for, but there's this looming feeling of "not good enough" in the back of my head. I know I won't always be too bad to work for them, but i just don't know what is realistic anymore.
If you're really wondering if you could work for them, put that feeling to the test. Reach the quality of work they're doing and give yourself an honest assessment if your work is at par with theirs. Maybe then you don't need to wonder as much and get some sort of resolve from that.
Quote:I might get a small commission once a month, so I guess I'm not that good, so we'll just keep grindin till then. Maybe the work that finds me will be what i like, who knows.
I think grinding is the least of your problems. I believe I've said before: you can work and there's no doubt about that. It's probably the lack of concrete vision where you're grinding towards to. You can always say you should draw from imagination, but there's no way of telling what's on paper is a one is to one representation of what's in your head.
Not saying you should never draw from imagination. But maybe, complement your current regimen with something where the exercise you're working towards to isn't as ambiguous. Like say, Bargue studies, Dorian Iten's accuracy training or value studies where the goal is to get as close as possible to the reference. Or do an accurate representation of some prominent artist's idea of the ideal anatomy (pick your poison, Loomis, Bridgman, you know the rest) to be done side by side with the regimen you currently have.
I know copying isn't your cup of tea, as you have mentioned in my SB. And it probably goes against your philosophy. But, it is, to some level, application. I can guarantee that you will be able to, at the very least, sharpen your observation and measuring skills that could pretty much go a long way, especially when dealing with proportions..
If you are reading this, I most likely just gave you a crappy crit! What I'm basically trying to say is, don't give up! ---- IG: @thatpuddinhead
Tuuuxic: Thanks so much! I may try to get around to that later <3
John: Man i really appreciate the advice. today I drew up a muskateer, and found some problem areas, but way less than I expected. I guess the reason I never made a portfolio for anything is built, well, on fear of rejection! But yea, uuh I like the suggestion about copying the idealic anatomy. I can't be bothered to do that iten dorian stuff, the meticulous measuring, i really prefer Vilppus kind of strategy of eyeballing and correcting in the gesture phase with loose lines. If I can get as far as I have without a meticulous proportion measuring strategy, I'm sure I can make the rest work with just more experience.
But that measuring thing seems to just come from experience. I took out my hogarthe book and copied a torso, and spent an hour just refining little lines and creases in connection points, it felt like a workout ot be honest. The proportions are wrong of course, but I'm aware keenly now, of how they are wrong. And I intuitively understand now, that in the original, there is more space between the pectorals and the collarbones. Also noticed a lot of interesting things about how the deltoids fit into the ribcage and connect with the pectorals. I will try to do an hour of these a day, because it seems like it can only help. (don't need a holy war with ya john, we've gotten in some spats before, though honestly i can't even remember what it was about.)
I also feel a lot more productive if i have something to do for specifically an hour a day, it's like, something scheduled in that you can look forward to. As an INTJ, i hate rigid structure, but i can deal with "Hour a day" is easier psychologically than "anatamy at 10-11" on teusdays, etc.
As for this muskateer guy, I learned a good deal about workflow, and how WILDLY different mine is now than it was even a few months ago. I start with a gesture, with like just trying to make flowing lines, then i refine the gesture into tubes/boxes on a new set of lines. Then I do ANOTHER set of lines, adding anatomy to the tubes, fixing all kinds of shit along the way. In the end, the pose was not the best I could have settled on, and I need to just sketch more and think more about how to get a presentable pose, really comes down to that.
The legs bother me, but i like the hands, and I think the face has a cool personality. I just googled some reference for the costume, but the anatomy is from imagination, probably shoulda saved the body only version, it was a much tighter drawing. I didn't really render it because I feel the base is flawed, but i added some flat colors. I'm sure you're all well aware i can lay on the rendering.
But yea, Paizo, was the company i had in mind, since that stuff seems achievable at least for now. Maybe I'm totally wrong about that, but I look at some people I know who worked for them and I don't feel that's out of my league (throws up hands) Might be TOTALLY delusional of course! Maybe itll be another 4 years of 8+ hr practice days before i can even get some lower tier freelance jobs, we'll see. Probably not the case, could be right around the corner, just gotta like focus and get to it.
