07-13-2014, 04:35 AM
I do gestures as part of my morning warm up, every day. On top of that I also do different things when I feel like studying them, focusing on sports, action, exaggeration or whatever I feel the need to bone up on. As a side note, I learnt to do gesture drawing from the Force book (by Mattesi).
Daily studies are usually just done from posemaniacs, pixelovely, and formerly quickposes (I avoid this site now due to the partial bodies, and generally poor reference quality present since it allowed submissions). I grab a biro and some copy paper, and just do two sides of 30 second poses. I mainly do them to loosen up and just switch my brain into drawing mode. Sometimes I do 10 second poses as well, to practise my speed and get into the pace I need to grab gestures from life. (People on the street and such.)
However, this is sort of something that I built up to. 2-3 years ago when I was starting to get serious, I typically did 90 or 60 second poses because I wasn't nearly as fast, and it became a daily thing. (The reason behind this is actually because I was dealing on and off with various health issues, and the poses became the 'at least I got SOMETHING done today' thing I did to stay motivated and in the game when I had an otherwise shitty, unproductive day.) So now I probably have hundreds, if not a couple of thousand, sheets of gestures in the ringbinders I sort my sketches into.
When I do actual studies, I often spend longer on poses (anything from a couple of mins to ten), and use various media, though I am still usually working on copy paper because I draw a lot, and it is cheap. So far my personal favourite tool is china markers, because they respond well to pressure and like charcoal, can go from pretty light to extremely dark. They don't smear, which is why I prefer them to charcoal for this. I like to study different stuff for this, like sports, animals, clothed figures, etc. Other tools I like are sharpie pens, the pentel brush pen, solid graphite pencils like Progressos (usually pretty soft - 6B), and fineliners.
Size varies depending on time. Quick ones, under a minute, are about 8-10 poses to an A4 sheet, but 5 minute ones are more like 3-5 to a sheet. If I am out drawing gestures from real life people in the street, etc. they're very quick and small - maybe about 5 - 10 to an A5 sheet. So about half the size.
I think that is pretty much how I do poses/gestures. Sorry for the long answer!
I have heard good things about XnView, though I have not used it. I use Ifranview, which also has a primitive slideshow function hidden in its options. Honestly it is just a program I have used for years as an imageviewer on slow running computers and stuck with - it is very functional but very basic.
Daily studies are usually just done from posemaniacs, pixelovely, and formerly quickposes (I avoid this site now due to the partial bodies, and generally poor reference quality present since it allowed submissions). I grab a biro and some copy paper, and just do two sides of 30 second poses. I mainly do them to loosen up and just switch my brain into drawing mode. Sometimes I do 10 second poses as well, to practise my speed and get into the pace I need to grab gestures from life. (People on the street and such.)
However, this is sort of something that I built up to. 2-3 years ago when I was starting to get serious, I typically did 90 or 60 second poses because I wasn't nearly as fast, and it became a daily thing. (The reason behind this is actually because I was dealing on and off with various health issues, and the poses became the 'at least I got SOMETHING done today' thing I did to stay motivated and in the game when I had an otherwise shitty, unproductive day.) So now I probably have hundreds, if not a couple of thousand, sheets of gestures in the ringbinders I sort my sketches into.
When I do actual studies, I often spend longer on poses (anything from a couple of mins to ten), and use various media, though I am still usually working on copy paper because I draw a lot, and it is cheap. So far my personal favourite tool is china markers, because they respond well to pressure and like charcoal, can go from pretty light to extremely dark. They don't smear, which is why I prefer them to charcoal for this. I like to study different stuff for this, like sports, animals, clothed figures, etc. Other tools I like are sharpie pens, the pentel brush pen, solid graphite pencils like Progressos (usually pretty soft - 6B), and fineliners.
Size varies depending on time. Quick ones, under a minute, are about 8-10 poses to an A4 sheet, but 5 minute ones are more like 3-5 to a sheet. If I am out drawing gestures from real life people in the street, etc. they're very quick and small - maybe about 5 - 10 to an A5 sheet. So about half the size.
I think that is pretty much how I do poses/gestures. Sorry for the long answer!
I have heard good things about XnView, though I have not used it. I use Ifranview, which also has a primitive slideshow function hidden in its options. Honestly it is just a program I have used for years as an imageviewer on slow running computers and stuck with - it is very functional but very basic.