Artloader - Sketchbook

[varbas]

I like your stuff but I would recomend something that worked for me pretty well. Try to draw some anatomy thing like bones or muscles from book , close it and draw it from imagination. It doesnt even need to be perfect or whatever but I think you would remember morefrom it. You can do it with faces or figures or whatever you want. But who knows it worked for me but it doesnt need to work for everybody :D

[Artloader]

@Varbas:  Thanks for dropping by mate!  Absolutely - that sounds like a smart thing to do - will give it a go - thanks!

I had limited time tonight so skipped the gesture warm-up and went straight to an imagination piece since I had ear-marked this week for imagination work.

I made sure tonight that the gesture "ruled them all"!  Everything had to flow from the gesture.  I think this pose might actually look a bit more fluid and natural!  

I struggled a bit with the face from this angle though - will do  few head studies from profile to level this up a bit.

Threw in some values for fun but my rendering is shocking at the moment - that's next month's focus.

Time for bed now - I'm a bit too close to burnout for comfort!

[Artloader]

Tried JyonnyNovice's gesture exercise of 30s, 60s, 2min and 10min.  For the 30 sec gestures I just went with some gesture lines and didn't bother with rib cages or hips but when I got to the 2 minute gestures I started trying to put in the rib cages and hips again and ran out of time!

I think the 30 second gestures are better for training me to capture gesture lines alone.  The 2 minute gestures are good for capturing both gesture and a few more anatomical details.

30 second gestures: 



60 second gestures: 



2 minute gestures: 



10 minute gesture (I stopped early when I got to the bits hidden by shadows): 



I also did some back anatomy study tonight:

[OtherMuzz]

Nice amount of work :).

I'm gonna make myself hoarse around here. But slow down, spend time on each study. At this level you should be attempting the same reference a few times until you get it right. Actually hold your self accountable to the reference you are using, like drag your drawing over the top and check.
Post 80 is lightyears ahead of the rest, and that's because you went slow and thought about it, you NEED to be doing it for all the referenced work.
I've been doing this a long time and i still don't nail my studies first go, if i did i wouldn't be needing to do the studies.

Also you are drawing faces as symbols. Don't draw the eyes and mouth and just focus on the contours and planes of what you see. I'd recommend copying some loomis head and hands line drawings to wrap your head around the best ways to represent a face with line, as it isn't at all intuitive.

Keep it up.

[Artloader]

@OtherMuz:  Great critiques!  Really appreciate you taking the time dude!  I will take my time over the next few studies and see how I get on.  I must admit I have been getting the feeling lately that I've been rushing through my studies and not remembering the lessons effectively.

For tonight I watched a few videos on gesture drawing and then gave the 30 second gestures another go.  

My understanding is that these exercises should enhance my ability to see the gesture lines in a pose and that I should be able to capture the basic action lines that flow through the figures.  At the moment they are just kicking my butt - hard!

I'm concentrating on gesture because I believe it will make my figure drawings look more natural.

[CTrow]

Hey Artloader! Thanks for the comment on my sketchbook, I thought I should return the favour. I thought I could crit your latest gesture drawings in the hopes it could help you out on your journey. 

first things first, it looks like you are rushing these gesture drawings. its not a race, don't worry about having to finish a full figure in 30 seconds or 2 minutes, figure drawing is about drawing smart and efficiently. Not fast. Saying that some of your latest gestures are good, I like the bottom middle, I get what is going on there. Saying that the top middle gesture, the one where the figure has its legs wide apart looks really stiff. I think its because you have used a straight line for the torso. It would have been better to use a slight C curve or S curve. But keep on drawing dude, I have defiantly seen improvement throughout your SB.

[Artloader]

@CTrow:  Pleasure mate.  Thanks for stopping by my humble abode here and dropping me the pointers :).  I am receiving a recurring theme here from various folk much better than I - slow down!  I had already decided to give this slowing down a go tonight to see if helps my learning.

So I took my time over tonight's anatomy study, trying to think about the 3D forms and starting to study values.  I then did an anatomy tracing where I tried to place the various muscles (I had to refer to my Rogers Peck book).

[JyonnyNovice]

Hey man, your doing great! You really got a great gesture in your imagination figure post #82, it's really hard to do them from imagination so great job! About slowing down, I think it's a back and forth process - you need those longer, slower studies to really train yourself but then the quicker, more rhythmic and instinctive drawings are where the 'art' lies (but you can't get good 'art' without the knowledge, and you can't get the knowledge so intrinsic without the slower studies). So getting a good balance of quicker figures and long slow, thorough studies will really help - any life drawing in your area? They are great since (for me anyway) you tend to draw with more care since there is a whole load of other people there but the poses are timed so you develop quicker thinking. Plus drawing from life is so much harder and therefore (I think) more intensive training.

I made some notes on gesture drawing, I was going to post them here but it's a really tall image so I'll just post it in my sketchbook and you can have a look there.

[DQ_Nick]

It's always interesting to see the different paths people take to studying the same subject, in this case the human figure. You're definitely referencing some great resources with Proko, Stephen Rogers Peck, and the Pixelovely website.
Anyway, impressive consistency man, also, you keep mentioning feeling close to burnout. It's okay to step away from one subject and focus on something else for a while. You could spend some time on costumes, for example, or colors, and then come back to anatomy. Just a suggestion.

[Artloader]

@JyonnyNovice:  Thanks for the encouragement and the advice.  I think you are right about mixing things up - I am going to do some more slow and thoughtful studies as well as quicker exercises.

@DQ_Nick:  Thank you too for the encouragement.  By burnout I actually meant lack of sleep!  I'm loving the anatomy studies at the minute as I feel like I've improved a bit over the past month or so.  I guess the best cure for sleep deprivation is ... sleep!

Anyway I'm trying to weave in some fundamental type studies now.  Here's a Loomis type figure drawing in perspective.  I struggled with this but found a rudimentary process that seemed to work:

1. Draw the 2D outline in the perspective plane.
2. Draw transverse cross sections at strategic locations.
3. Draw at least one longitudinal cross section through the middle of the body.

These three steps seemed to help me put together a 3D figure in perspective.  

Although putting together the grid in Gimp took me just as long as drawing the figure!

[Artloader]

I felt like I should focus on some figure construction studies tonight since that should help me construct poses in perspective.

I went about this by watching some of Proko's videos on rib cages and Mannequins and then having a go myself.

[Abnormal]

Hey Artloader, I think I felt the change in my gestures was while studying perspective because at the beginning I drew without thinking about space. Proko has also helped me is great :). Keep going. ^^

[Artloader]

@Abnormal: Thanks for the encouragement mate :), yeah I'm finding Proko really effective.

Some more mannequin studies and a back muscles study.

[Plissken]

Loving the gestural studies, they're getting more expressive as I read through your sketchbook. Great work!

[Artloader]

@Plisskin:  Thanks for the encouragement :).

One study from photo reference and one sketch from imagination tonight (I'm starting to think about form and values as I want to move onto that in the next few weeks - any study resources would be appreciated - thanks :)).

[JyonnyNovice]

Hey man, looking good! For form stuff try Preston Blair's 'advanced animation' they're cartoon characters but really help since the forms are so easy to see. also Glenn vilppu's 'drawing manual' is great too for human stuff. Scott Robertsons 'how to render' is pretty definitive for values but it might be overkill for your purposes - I think proko has good videos on that stuff in a less technical approach.

[Artloader]

@JyonnyNovice:  Thanks for the encouragement and the resources dude.  I didn't realise who Preston Blair was until I looked him up - you're right about being able to see the underlying forms - and I keep on seeing Scott Robertson's name cropping up so it's about time I had a closer look.

For tonight, I did a photo study using gesture lines (green) and then a mannequin construction (purple):




And a pose from imagination using mannequin construction with an attempt at perspective:

[OtherMuzz]

Last two posts are gold. Seems to be really clicking for you :)!

Though you seem to have something about drawing muscled brooding men.

[Artloader]

@OtherMuz: Thanks for the encouragement :).  The muscular brooding men are because I'm trying to perfect a pose for a particular character I'm designing.  I intend to mix it up a bit more soon.

Focussed on the shoulder muscles tonight.  This kind of study I can Self Test myself even when I'm not anywhere near my drawing equipment.  I can visualize these in my head as I'm walking down the street say.  Got this idea from this link provided by Zest:

http://tguilfoyle.cmswiki.wikispaces.net...oesn't.pdf

Anyway here is the shoulder study:

[Artloader]

Been studying the deltoid muscle - and then did a sketch from imagination - I need to check it against a phew photos - not sure the shapes are quite right - the arms are pushed back so his trapezius should probably be more pronounced at mid back?

Also pressing on with the use of some basic perspective lines.