DoubleThinks Sketchbook

[DoubleThink]

Yo, thanks for the comment! Nice to see you're getting into gesture drawing, it;s a freakin blast. The Michael Hampton book you were recommended is good, i would also super highly 5-star screaming-at-the-top-of-my-lungs recommend you pick up both volumes of Walt Stanchfield's "Drawn to Life" books. the drawings and thought s and philosophies are all GOLDEN, it' s my favorite thing to read before starting warm ups.

In my opinion gesture drawing as all about drawing an appealing, clear pose of somebody doing something. The goal should be that everyone who's standing 40 feet away from the gesture drawing should be able to see it and say "aha! the gentleman in that sketch is bending over to pick up the flowers." I used to be a total pixelovely and lovecastle die-hard, but lately I have ditched them for silent movies (Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and the like) on netflix, as well as drawing from real life. The reason why is because these things show people actually doing things that people do in real life, and if the actors int he silent movies exaggerate the actions then it's all the better for me, I love exaggeration in my work! But the poses on those gesture drawings have no context and no obvious purpose. It's really hard to make a drawing showing what someone is doing if they're not really doing anything!

Not that the figures from those websites don't make for warm-ups. And of course a person posing is a gesture, but it' doesn't make for as good a storytelling exercise as I think drawing from life or films is.

woah, I started talking more there than I was expecting XD here's a couple of my favorite gesture artists and a helpful handout : http://mattjonezanimation.blogspot.com/
http://radhowto.blogspot.com/
http://cartoonsnap.blogspot.com/2008/09/...b-tip.html

So, enough musing, about your work specifically! I think it's looking okay and you're working hard. From the small bit of your work I'm seeing it doesn't seem like you understand light and form that well. To the Loomis books with you! and start drawing and painting from life as well. And when you're drawing studies, I think a great way to study shadows is to draw the shadow side of an object and fill it in with tone so it's separate from the light side. That way you know what's in shadow and what;s lit, and you know what direction the light is coming from, which is all completely essential stuff to know if you want to make a a good painting.

As for your most recent wip, there are a lot of ways that it could be improved, but I think the biggest easiest fix right now would be to make the background darker, the figure is very light so its easier to read her silhouette if she's light on dark.
http://i.imgur.com/VZSkXfA.jpg
couldn't resist doing a quick paintover, but there are a billion and 3 ways other than mine that could work as well or better.

Good luck!! And keep workin hard bro!!!

So Samszym

First off, thanks for taking your time to comment in depth on my stuff. It really sets this forum apart from a lot of other places on the internet.

You're right about the poses not being "real" but it pixelovely has that lovely function with the timer, which fits in with my crazy schedule :P
I'll probably get bored of it soon enough

I've actually looked at the Loomis books. I'm not really sure in how far copying his drawings are more beneficial than say doing photostudies. That thing about the shadows actually makes a lot of sense, and I saw something similar in a proko movie. I'll have to remember that :P

Thanks for the paint-over! There's indeed a lot of ways how she could be improved. I'm not very good at drawing the human body yet..

Thanks for the comment and I will keep working hard.

Here's some more ideas for the Summerpitch. I thought it might be fun to design a fantasy themed world. Not quite sure where I'll take it though.