Doolio's doodles

[Doolio]

Nice job with your gestures. I was trying to work on exaggerating poses as well recently. Proko was saying in one of his videos to practice exaggerating until you break the pose so that you know how far you can push it. So I dont be afraid to make some bad looking drawings. Maybe focus on exaggerating proportions and doing some ridiculously extreme foreshortening. If it looks wrong then you'll get a better idea of how far to pull back toward the realistic.

I think my problem is basically the lack of freedom, as I had a "fine art from reference" past:) And now when I need to go wild, I go stiff:) But yeah, I'll go in that direction gradually.

I learned the main process I use figure drawing from Ron Lemen, and he was adamant that Hampton's way of drawing legs is misinformed. I'm not totally agreeing with that, but I do think it's worth thinking about this and questioning Hampton's (and everyone's) teachings, stacking them up against real life and your favorite art to see if their lessons hold up.

Interesting, I didn't know that about Ron Lemen. Could you link to his process maybe?

I don't want to turn this into an argument, but I'd like to talk a little more about why I think the S curve for the shins doesn't actually give the drawings better flow. We're in agreement that the gesture is meant to act as a layout for the motion and action of the pose instead of being exact placement for construction or anatomy. That's why I say the reverse shin curve isn't right for gesture, because it represents the form of the gastrocnemius muscle instead of showing the motion or action of the leg.

The way I see it, it does "kinda" represent the muscle, but I see it more of a some kind of general flow of the leg and in that sense, it seems plausible to me. It does use the muscle to some extent to define itself but I don't see it as necessarily a bad thing if it doesn't actually follow the muscle "for muscle's sake" but gives the general idea of a "leg" per se, whatever the "leg" is.

I would define flow in drawing as a pleasing path for the eye to flow, in the figure created by the direction and action of the body parts. Therefore lines in gesture drawings should be as long and simple as possible so that the flow is not interrupted. What the reverse shin curve does is add an unneeded shape to the leg, which I think slows down the path of the eye and works against you.

That is an interesting point, the thing about the flow. But for me, the S for the leg seems natural and even if I wasn't breaking the curve, I would then again represent the leg as the continuous S curve. I was actually drawing legs as S's before I saw Hampton's book, because it felt natural. I even do it for the arms sometimes.

Now, I am not saying you are wrong. Nor am I "defending Hampton" because I am going through his book at the moment, that would be silly:) I find this exchange beneficial and I hope you do too. I mean, all that probably goes without saying, but this is the internet and the written word and all that stuff, so I want to put it out of the way.
That said, the thing is I am "doing Hampton" for about a month and I think I'll chew through it during the next two months, looking at my tempo. And then I'll pick up another source and see what it has to offer. And all that sources (including this talk with you) will shape my approach eventually. Also, this is the first time I'm actually pushing it with practice. And, while I do have some experience with drawing and painting, I haven't had much time to "beta test" Hampton or Lemen or Vilppu or whoever etc. So, even if Hampton's approach is wrong and even if I don't abandon it for the time being, that's still just a drop of water in the big sea of hours I should out into this:) What I am trying to say, I can't really have a solid opinion on either Hampton's or Lemen's methods, because I have yet to do a lot of gesture drawing and anatomy to actually begin to compare or analyze that stuff without boiling it down to guesswork or feeling.
That said, I can't really say what's the right approach, though I can have an opinion about it.
Also, at this stage, "questioning Hampton" could simply make me lose compas and start to scribble with regards to everything and nothing at the same time - you know what I mean. What I am trying to say is that I haven't done gestures enough to start to arbitrarily accept or reject approaches, without getting confused, even if I am not an absolute beginner. It may have been better if I picked Lemen instead of Hampton if his approach is better, but then again, I don't think this book would actually set me back. And with time and practice, I think I would be able to weed out good approaches from the bad ones. At this point I don't really know, but generally, the "s legs" seem fine to me for the reasons I've mentioned.

I think this is close to solving your stiffness problem, issue is if you're exaggerating anything you notice nothing will stand out. The key to making an extreme statement is exaggerating the right thing and downplaying what's not important. Say you're drawing a guy who's supposed to be a big tough guy and have an enormous torso. if you give him big arms and legs as well, his chest won't feel as big comparatively. You've got to figure out what makes the thing you're drawing unique and play that up and downplay everything else!
It's not just about getting a lot of practice, you've also gotta think about the decisions you're making and figure out what's best to do for the particular pose you're doing. Somethign I was always hearing when I took karate as a kid, practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect! Hope that makes sense, good luck :D

Thanks:)
Yup, if you practice things wrong, it does you no good and it often sets you back. I've trained karate (luckily under guidance) and the guitar (self taught) and of course, I got zillion things wrong with the guitar and hit the plateau for which I had to reset all progress and start again to break through it, because it wasn't about skill, it was about correct way of doing things.
About the stiffness, maybe what I said came out wrong. I didn't mean that, I can draw an Obelix-like character without much problems. It's more about the gesture and the interventions and proportions that break anatomy. Now you are saying "yeah, that's Obelix", but it's not what I mean, I might have difficulty in expressing this lol. For example, you can draw a girl that's thin as a twig without her being anorexic and you can put her in an anatomically impossible pose. And that drawing can look appealing. For example, you draw some Sadamoto-ish girl that has that "anime inward leg syndrom" and has both the chest and the butt faced (almost) towards the viewer. And the viewer would say "hey, that's a cool looking girl lol" and the whole thing could have insane amounts of appeal. When it comes to that, I kinda freeze - well, I do really attribute it only to experience. For example, I try to draw a girl with thin legs and I get a girl with bulging knees that looks anorexic because my brain was like "well, if this human is this big, it has knees this big" and my stylization ended halfway.
I don't know if you now understand better what I'm talking about lol (I think I wouldn't:D) and why it's not about the exaggerate pecks-downplay legs thing, but about the whole approach. I mean even I don't see the exact difference when I write it down, but in my head I kinda know what I'm trying to say:) I would say it's more about what HHaze said in his post and what I've said in my answer to his post... Maybe it's because I am after the "looks credible but if it would walk into the room in actual life, everybody would scream in horror" kinda look. Which is about a lot of small(er) interventions in often the same direction, rather then doing the Obelix thing. And for that I think I should learn to go overboard, so I could come back by downplaying everything and have the ability to stretch myself as far as I wish at that moment.