03-28-2023, 01:03 AM
(03-27-2023, 10:05 AM)Leo Ki Wrote: Sketches of hands: I could say that some look a bit made of rubber, but as you said it helps more to investigate why they do.
What do you mean? Is it the shape or the (lack of) rendering?
(03-27-2023, 10:05 AM)Leo Ki Wrote: Comics are even more of a special case because the panels have to be readable fast, and many foreshortenings gain in being hugely simplified and transformed based on structure rather than actual aspect. Furthermore, a comic being thousands of images, the reader has plenty of time to adjust to the author's particular simplification tricks, and I think it works fine in the long run.
Yeah. Readers are very forgiving, and I'd argue in favour of just picking a different gesture with a clear silhouette in these cases because you don't want them getting hung on a harder to read gesture, decoding meaningless details, in this type of medium.
(03-27-2023, 10:05 AM)Leo Ki Wrote: Tracing. You probably know that old masters traced using a special optic device through which they saw both the model and their canvas. I do some tracing once in a while when I want to untangle complex things, especially, yes, foreshortenings. However, each time, I fail to learn from the exercise because it doesn't let me comprehend the volumes and structure.
I understand the purpose of tracing, it's just some stupid ingrained aversion trying to get in the way.
I can't say how helpful it is yet, but it's surely a "safer" targeted way to try out different ways to represent structure, besides getting your eyes used to seeing weird poses in your style so you don't unconsciously shy away from the involved angles later on. Kinda like easing yourself into a cold body of water, slowly but surely.
I followed darktiste's suggestion of turning around my tracing study subject. It's similar to the multiple angles approach I tried earlier and it's certainly cool to look at, though to be honest if feels a bit wasteful. I think I like more targeted studies better.
I used the opportunity to investigate if using white highlights instead of more lines to represent curvature-through-light like I do for some fabrics improves readability, and yes, absolutely. Got to think of a way of doing that on paper now.
I'm getting slightly better at foreshortening hands now by the way. Planning how the wrist connects to the palms and identifying the finger leading the hand's action helps immensely with foreshortening them. I borrowed that approach to the feet above, making up a bit of leg the original 3D scan is missing.