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Here is a redline (more like blueline) of your drawings anatomy. I write most of it in there but basicly what you need to do to improve is to look at real people and how their parts and bits relate to eachother.
how big is the mouth compared to the rest of the face? where on the face should you put things?
here are some good videos for learning and explaining proportions : )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiKcI49l5uc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4nTEgET9DA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luJh1ASyzB8
http://ctrlpaint.com/videos/principles-o...proportion
And also Andrew Loomis has a book thats up as a pdf online called "how to draw heads and hands"
here
http://illustrationage.files.wordpress.c...-hands.pdf
hope it helps : )
good luck
I don't want to come on too strong with the critiquing since all of this might be new to you, I absolutely do not want you to stop drawing or get discouraged by what I say here, I want you too improve! and thats why I tell you these things.
I remember getting critiqued for the first time and I got really upset because iw asn't used to it, but I learned from it and got better : ) and I understand now how important that is. And I hope I don't make you upset by redlining your drawing. That really isn't my goal at all.
I concur with pandaladie's answer, especially the "read Loomis" part, and I'll had this youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV/vide...&flow=grid
Also, do life drawings and street sketching, while learning anatomy. (I think Gnomon workshop has a very good dvd series on human anatomy).
Your biggest problem right now is that your human bodies looks like blobs. Start thinking about structure and rythm. It's normal to do these mistakes when learning to draw the human figure.
Draw draw draw!
How about you draw 30 (on paper, digital, it doesn't matter), and choose the top 5 drawings you feel best about and only post those. Make sure you pay attention to the videos that were posted. Don't spend less than 5 minutes for each drawing. REALLY work hard on each one.
Have you done any life drawings or studies from photos? You could buy a fashion magazine and try to draw the people there.
Yeah what will improve your understanding of the figure is a lot of time spent studying and drawing the human figure. No way around it. Life drawing classes are hands down the best way of improving your figures, I highly recommend you start going to those. You would probably benefit from tutored sessions more, but if you are comfortable with it, just go to the open ones with no tutor and do your best. Also from now on everything you draw should be from observation, life, photos, movie screenshots, whatever. You need to start building your observation skills more before your imaginative work will improve.
One tip besides the videos is that I noticed you use hundreds of little lines to draw your strokes. You should be practicing to get the action of the figure in longer smooth lines. It becomes more dynamic and captures the rhythm of the figure better. Also it's the overall action, balance and pose of the figure that matters in the initial gesture stages, whereas you are clearly thinking in terms of drawing outlines with tentative strokes. This is probably a fear thing ; Fear of getting it wrong.
Free yourself from the fear by making bold (bold in intent, not necessarily strength of the line) marks. It's better to try the same bold stroke a dozen times erasing each time until you get it right, than making a hundred different tentative strokes on something that has not captured the essence of what you want.
What would probably also help is basic sketching exercises, like, drawing a hundred freehand circles, a hundred triangles, a hundred freehand squares,parallel wavey lines, crosshatching. Practice drawing basic 3d objects and their shadows, cubes, cylinders, balls, pyramids. All of these exercises may not be that interesting but they will improve your hand eye coordination and increase your ability to get the line in your mind that you want to draw, down on paper. It's a bit like training before the fight...except that it's all a battle really !!! :)
Keep going, keep trying and most of all have patience. There's no quick easy way to knowledge and skill.
(03-10-2014, 06:34 AM)monkeybread Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah what will improve your understanding of the figure is a lot of time spent studying and drawing the human figure. No way around it. One tip besides the videos is that I noticed you use hundreds of little lines to draw your strokes. You should be practicing to get the action of the figure in longer smooth lines. It becomes more dynamic and captures the rhythm of the figure better. Also it's the overall action, balance and pose of the figure that matters in the initial gesture stages, whereas you are clearly thinking in terms of drawing outlines with tentative strokes. This is probably a fear thing ; Fear of getting it wrong.
Free yourself from the fear by making bold (bold in intent, not necessarily strength of the line) marks. It's better to try the same bold stroke a dozen times erasing each time until you get it right, than making a hundred different tentative strokes on something that is wrong.
the reason i do this to see if u can get the curves right an when i finished i use long lines
Yeah i totally can see that. I'm saying that it's better to try and get the curve or rhythm of the action down first in your initial stroke, rather than build it up using lots of tentative ones. The important thing is the overall flow, you won't get that with small strokes like that. Well I shouldn't say "won't" but it goes against the way the majority of people approach and teach this stuff.
Have you watched the videos above yet?
Try these ones instead...related to gesture drawing
[video=youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3QzApLXI4I[/video]
I think it's a bit better because you are thinking about the gesture a bit more. I also think the process of improving is a long one dictated by practice. You can't expect to improve overnight, and as this is a critique thread I think maybe instead of asking for more feedback here, you should start up a sketchbook thread if you haven't already and get into the habit of practicing and putting up your daily work there.
The routine practice will help you better than us commenting on each iteration here.
Good luck!
