boo

[maggie]

thank you for the nice words:)

here are a few studies I did again between work.. I want to draw sooo badly when I know I can't -.-

[Brian Hermelijn]

That last sketch turned quite nice. Probably just me, but almost feels like her neck is long maybe, maybe not. Not too sure, keep up the good work.

[maggie]

it seemed long on the reference too, but now I saw it again and I've definitely exaggerated it a lot D: thank's for pointing that out!

[Othrandir]

Hey! You have a lovely sketchbook there! I don't think I can really crit on much. You have some anatomy issues (don't we all? :D), but you're clearly working on them, so that's great. All I can say is keep up the hard work :)

[maggie]

thank you! and yeah I am working on those^^ sadly, there are no live drawing classes near me, so I will only have to learn from photos.. which is probably not very good but yeah. no choice :)

[maggie]

[Adam Lina]

Hey the figures are looking very nice. I always struggle with making my necks too long as well. It looks like your trying to tackle that in your last post. Just always remember to think about the mastoid muscles going from the back of the ears to the pit of the neck. Another thing that helps me is using Robert Beverly Hale's cranial units to get a more accurate measurement of the heads relationship to the rest of the body. You have a cute style of drawing heads but it makes me wonder if you might be falling back on it as a crutch too much. I would like to see you do more accurate studies of heads. I love the style you have but I think you can enhance it even more. Try doing some studies of the planes and proportions of the head.

[maggie]

Hey Adam :) thank you sooo much for the feedback and advices, very useful!
I am usually very confused in my studies about what to do etc. so I decided to focus on one thing only for now- figures. And therefore my heads are like that, it's not intended to look cool or anything, it's actually creepy. I just intentionally didn't want to spend time on them at that moment but also didn't want to leave them blank.. kinda silly decision, really.
I plan on drawing some head studies maybe next week and focus on that for a while. I don't know if that's a good plan tho.

Actually may I ask you something? or whoever wants to give an opinion..
I've been reading that book Force: dynamic figure drawing for animators and it helps me a lot with understanding the gesture of the body and well, the force. However, it doesn't cover much anatomy. So I do the quick drawings but I also do longer studies as you saw, and there I'm kinda just 'guessing' the muscles underneath.
Do you think it would be better to finish that book and start one focused on anatomy, or do you think I should read/study both things simultaneously?

As I said I'm always in great confusion about what to study exactly.. I'd really appreciate if you could give me any advice! :)

[Fedodika]

its good to study gesture and anatomy simultaneously... try to get hogarthe's dynamic anatomy or hamptons figure drawing design and invention and try to learn one muscle every day/week depening on how much you can handle. You don't want to be guessing or you're stuff will look all broken and nonsensical like rob liefeld, even though he was successful, his comics leave a bad taste in the mouth of those who studied him.

I say study both :)

[Adam Lina]

As far as doing gesture and anatomy, I think it depends on you. Some people need to focus on one thing at a time for a period of time before tackling differing concepts. I think too much bouncing around will prevent you from digging deeper into a subject and not let it soak in. Anatomy is really important to learn but more so is proportions and structure. Especially if your aim to to draw figures from imagination.

Im leaning away from recommending Hogarth lately. His books have good information. Dont get me wrong. I think his style has too many curved lines and almost no straights. Good designers balance curves against straights. Bridgman and Frazetta are great examples of balancing straights against curves. Michael Hampton's book has some nice introductory anatomy break downs though. His approach would blend well with Force if you wanted to study more anatomy along side gesture.

For a more complete comprehensive book on anatomy I would go with Elliot Goldfinger's Human Anatomy for Artist's. Sarah Simblet's Anatomy for the Artist is less in depth but has gorgeous drawings on muscles. I really like what Proko is doing as well with his anatomy series. Starting with an accurate mannequin of the skeleton first is vital for learning muscles insertion and origins. If you dont know the insertion and origins properly your muscles wont have the right flex or stretch to them.

[ZombieChinchilla]

Hey, I really like your stuff! Your figures are coming along nicely, and your portraits seem inspired by Loish. Keep going!

[maggie]

Thank you so much for the tips guys!
Adam, I will check those books and pick the one that I think would help me best. I've also heard good things about Michael Hampton's anatomy book so I might consider it as well.
In any case, thank you very much! :)

ZombieChinchilla, loish is indeed a huge inspiration for me. for good or for bad.. although I really want to escape that loish-trap everyone (including me) falls in as soon as they start painting female characters. thanks:)

here are some stuff form friday. I'm going on a trip to Paris on Wednesday so I won't be posting much until the beginning of October when I'll be back hopefully! ^^

[PurpleScissors]

Great gestures they have a flow. :)

[meat]

Love your drawings! Feels like there's life and energy to them :) I think another Dagger... Sam? Also have similar style, look them up, you could be friends :D Don't know if you already know these artists, but you might also like nibbled pencil :
http://www.nibbledpencil.com/image.php?i...HIVES3.jpg
http://www.nibbledpencil.com/image.php?i...Words3.jpg

and cory loftis : http://coryloftis.tumblr.com/

As for anatomy... Keep doing what you're doing, and also do a bit of anatomy study on the side. After you finish that first book, go into anatomy. Anatomy is very important indeed. Even drawings so gestural and representative like Claire Wendling's show an underlying understanding of what anatomical structure is under that form, so she doesn't misses the important corners and bulges etc. Your figure drawings reminds me a lot of what Lyraina does a lot. Have you seen her stuff?

[maggie]

Hello again :) I'm back from France, it was pretty awesome and soo inspiring!

Thanks for the kind words guys.
meat, thank you for those links! I don't think I've heard of Lyraina but I'll check her out :)


Since I came back about a week ago, I haven't done any figure studies. Only some fully rendered stuff (back to my bad habits I guess) but I was really missing something finished and straight out of my mind!
So here are a few things.


study



imagination


inspired by Ginty form saving Mr. Banks

[maggie]

some more recent works. I also do figure studies and watch Proko videos but I was too lazy to save jpegs of those :/

[dodeqaa]

Lovely style Maggie!

That Lannister is looking so wholesome, I half expect him to bust out a guitar and sing XD

[maggie]

Hahahah :D thanks

[maggie]

my recent level down on gestures

[lurch]

love your work. I think sometimes your necks are a little bit long maybe? it's a tough call because I can see that mostly it's part of your style, and I think it works, but on some of them, it looks a bit too long.

Just a thought.

Gestures look good to me - wish mine were that nice!