Busy Dad Draws

[Tango_Mango]

Older hobbiest here. Picked up and dropped drawing/painting here and there for years, but finally decided to commit long-term.

I'm mostly drawing only 1-1.5 hrs a day with the majority of that being some kind of study. I draw for fun when I get a chance here and there.

Right now I'm focused on learning some figure drawing basics. I'll try to post weekly, as time permits. C&C always welcome.

[darktiste]

I suggest moving away from tracing.

You could to try more observational drawing and drawing from imagination.

In my opinion you get alot more return on investment that way.

I would say get to know the principle don't just go blindly drawing for the sake of drawing but you can absolutely do that to... but since you are committing to something long term i think it a nice thing to be able to see some progress.

Here some general guideline to adapt as you progress.I would say Take 10 min and look at what you have done so far and where you want to move toward. Then after that take 10min to prepare what you will do for each session during that time collect reference open the file you need before starting don't work without reference.


20min
reading and/or watch theorical content

10min warm up/gesture drawing
30min study applying the theorical principle above

20min drawing for fun or if you feel motivated keep applying the principle

Personally my advise would be to cut the 20min of theorical content since it not applying the principle but that 20min still as to exist in that day obviously it better to have the theory fresh in memory so it best to keep the theorical content time pair with the practical aspect.

Why i am including the extra time is because organization just solidify habit in my opinion.

Starting to work in a chaotic state will certainly drive the stress factor up and by having thing organize you can have a better flow state.

You can learn more about how to optimize your flow state here.
https://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-5494.html

[Tango_Mango]

Thanks for the suggestions. The tracing is just a first step to help in understanding. I plan on drawing it from reference when I come back to the simplified skeleton.

[ruthwood]

I think you're doing a pretty nice job blocking out the shapes of the body so far 

Any goals in mind for what you wanna reach artistically? Of course it's fine to not have a clear idea yet, just curious. Keep it up!

[Tango_Mango]

Been busy with work and holiday stuff, but I managed to crank out 7 more days of drawing practice in the last two weeks. Will try to keep more consistent.

I continued with Figure Drawing studies with Proportions, Observational Figures, and Gestures. I'm impressed how bad I am at gestures. Need to look into it more.

For now I'm rotating subjects and starting with some perspective studies for the next couple of weeks. I plan to come back and practice figures more.

Proportions:



Observational Drawing:





Gestures (30 seconds):



Gestures (1 minute):

[Tango_Mango]

I think you're doing a pretty nice job blocking out the shapes of the body so far 

Any goals in mind for what you wanna reach artistically? Of course it's fine to not have a clear idea yet, just curious. Keep it up!

Thanks for stopping by!

Right now I'm more focused on being able to draw/paint cool characters and put them in a scene. So more illustration style.

That being said, I'd also like to learn portraiture and traditional painting. We'll see how it all develops. There's soooo much out there to learn.

[darktiste]

I suggest you do negative space study first if you want to want block in the subject you need to be able to occupy the space within the frame negative space help place very small detail but you need to be able to capture the big shape first so you can refine the shape otherwise you start to complex and your already being trap by the subject matter.You need to spend a bit more time in the abstract(construction phase) at first otherwise the small detail of the subject matter will make it impossible to accurately capture the subject.

I suggest you invert the reference and you draw the subject upside down this way you no longer have a problem with being distracted by the subject matter.

I would not be to bug down with what you are drawing right now you still need to get a good understand of how to frame a subject matter.

That part of the basis of observational drawing.

[cgmythology]

Gestures and block ins look very solid, keep practicing. There's a ton of material available on figure drawing, and in my opinion it's best to try out a whole bunch of different approaches and apply it to your own liking or style. Keep it up!

[VitorCardoso]

A good way to keep relatively accurate proportions in the torso is by thinking of it as two equal parts. The first part (green) represents the ribcage, forming the waistline. Dividing the rest in half again gives us the entire waist area (blue) and the pelvis (yellow). This makes it easier to achieve good proportions without having to count heads.
Another thing is contour lines—they make it possible to indicate direction in three-dimensional space without much effort.

[Artloader]

Good stuff Tango_Mango - I reckon all the stuff you are doing here will help your anatomy art improve nicely. Have you seen Proko's anatomy course on his YouTube channel? Really high quality teaching on anatomy for free!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDgyQjNFVQk