IronSkeleton's sketches

[IronSkeleton09]

Tried hands again. Hard to post as often as before because of high school but I am still drawing in my free time on real paper.

[Daft Sketch]

Hey, the lines on those last two studies are looking good. :)

Lots of great advice in this thread! I think it can be quite overwhelming starting out drawing and wanting to progress quickly. Zorrentos mentioned it's a marathon - it really is - it takes a long time to get to a professional level, years, and even then you might not be satisfied with your work because you initially set the bar super high. Anyway what I'm trying to tell you is, I guess, be careful with putting too much pressure on yourself. It can be crippling, so let your artistic curiosity guide you, let inspiration guide you, especially now when you're so young. (you mentioned in your last post being busy with high school right? I assume your not a teacher there)
Your artistic journey should be a place of fun and excitement. So the goal you've set is great, just remember to take it slow and experiment, be the scientist in your own artistic lab, see what you find and don't let the outside world put pressure on the progress of your excavations.

In terms of actual drawing advice I would definitely suggest life drawing. If you can get to life drawing classes that would be great, if you can't have that, try sitting down in a public space and draw people (your high school?). On the side - study anatomy from books, and when you do, don't study primarily to get the drawing to look good, study how the actual muscles sit and what they do. This is a general thing by the way, try to understand what it is you're seeing, how it's constructed and how it sits in 3D space, try not to focus too much about what your drawing will look like at this point. That might sound counter intuitive but it's super important that you understand what you're drawing, style will come later.

Drawabox.com is great for fundamentals, if you haven't seen that. That's where "ghosting" comes from (I think?) it means pretending to draw a line from point A to point B by acting out the stroke one or two times above the paper before actually drawing the line. It helps you with line confidence and is great for drawing boxes for example.

Lots to say about this, and there are multiple ways to go about it, but primarily have fun and experiment with what you enjoy drawing.

[IronSkeleton09]

I'm starting to understand the journey I'm taking right now and can't wait to become better. Thank you for the lengthy message, it really summarises all I have learned from this site and what I should focus on. Drawabox is probably what I'll focus on for now. Until then, I tried figure drawing again so I hope I got a little better.

[IronSkeleton09]

IronSkeleton09 pid='132949' dateline='1633631872']I'm starting to understand the journey I'm taking right now and can't wait to become better. Thank you for the lengthy message, it really summarises all I have learned from this site and what I should focus on. Drawabox is probably what I'll focus on for now. Until then, I tried figure drawing again so I hope I got a little better.

Hello again! It has been quite some time, stress from high school and getting to college was a duzy, unfortunately I didn't get to go to my art school option, but it's alright. I kept drawing nonetheless, and I'd ask for as much feedback like the last few times. The last advices I got from this site, still help me to this day concentrate on what I should improve and how to do so. Thank you so much for your help in the past! 

As for the drawings, a few of them are force gestures and a few are portraits.

[Leo Ki]

Here are a few suggestions: In your portraits, try to make lighter pencil strokes then progressively pass again over some of the lines to give them more strength and get a sense of what features are more important. Alternatively, you can start shading the surfaces to give them volume.

In your force drawings I think that you tend to trap yourself into details. But once you are done with the quick gestures it can be interesting to refine slowly.

[IronSkeleton09]

Here are a few suggestions: In your portraits, try to make lighter pencil strokes then progressively pass again over some of the lines to give them more strength and get a sense of what features are more important. Alternatively, you can start shading the surfaces to give them volume.

In your force drawings I think that you tend to trap yourself into details. But once you are done with the quick gestures it can be interesting to refine slowly.

Thank you! I appreciate it!

[Kilillan]

Looks good!

Personally I would suggest avoiding doing too many portraits at your level. I also did many portraits when I started out, but along the way I realized that doing faces over and over and over again was just frustrating, and I wasn't really progressing as an artist.

[darktiste]

Looks good!

Personally I would suggest avoiding doing too many portraits at your level. I also did many portraits when I started out, but along the way I realized that doing faces over and over and over again was just frustrating, and I wasn't really progressing as an artist.

Before hand this a reply to him but it also apply to any artist so please ready anyways.

It because not about drawing what you see it about the form underneath and developping an ability to visualize a form turning.Mindlessly drawing face is at best being good at measuring distance and porportion it doesn't teach you how to draw from imagination.(I can see you are doing alot more work that require perspective so you know you are in the right direction)

The problem is shifting the way we think from symbolic to 3d dimentional the problem is were brain trick us into think we understand 3d but we don't.It explain in a book called the new drawing on the right side of the brain by Edwards something like that.

[IronSkeleton09]

Hello again! I have come bearing new drawings and a better mental space! I am sorry for staying quiet for so long and not posting anything but I had finally gotten to drawing again and concentrating properly this time!
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To explain some of the things you'll see, I continued to work on figure drawing, but I also concentrated on boxes, drawing the skulls so I can improve in drawing faces and such and trying to memorize the proportions of a figure. To be exact I learned it from Andre Loomis figure Drawing, very useful book!

Any and all opinions are welcome, and don't forget, have a great day everyone!

[Lillen]

Hello Iron Skeleton, it's nice to meet you. These are looking great. I hope you are taking your time learning about how the human body works from your art books. Reading your thread, it does sound like you were feeling the pressure of being behind your peers? If it's any consolation, it may be possible to transfer to your choice school later. In fact, it can be somewhat of an advantage to give yourself time to mature before applying to an expensive art school. Also, some artists are not in a traditional school and learn from books, courses, videos, atelier, other artists, etc. Active practice like you are doing will take you far. It's also good to try and apply what you're learning to your own personal drawings.

[IronSkeleton09]

Thank you so much Lillen! And yes, I do take my time understanding more about what I draw than what I observe, very much thanks to this very thread actually!

I did feel that a lot with my drawings, especially hearing a lot about artists who are way younger than me, for context now I am 20 and I started this thread when I was around 18 or even 17. The pressure was agonizing, but eventually I realized that each of us has their own journey. We don't need to 'hurry up' and learn as many things as possible.

Unfortunately school wise I don't have either the money or even the college options for a proper art school in my country, and I am considering it when I am older to attend a school, maybe.

As you said however, I might stick to learning on my own, and pretty sure you guys were one of the reasons I have progressed with my art. And for that I sincerely thank you! I will keep posting art here and there, don't want to crowd the thread too much and stuff.

[Komodo]

Hey IronSkeleton09 :) Don't worry about posting or even drawing often. You're 20, focus on yourself and on the fact that drawing should be fun rather than stressful.

You're doing a great job with your studies, keep going. I had the same tendency to draw with a lot of superimposed lines a few years back, when sketching. Be aware of that and try to take your time. Look at the reference, maybe do a mark at the beginning of the line, another where it should end, maybe do the line once or twice without putting the pencil on the paper and then draw your line. It's okay if it's not right on the first try, but I think it's important to have one or two clear lines, rather than a bunch of approximate ones.

And it'll be easier if you want to clean your drawing later too ;) You won't have to guess. This will improve a lot the render + it will train your eye and decision making.

Have a great day too :) !

[IronSkeleton09]

Thank you for the reply and advice Komodo! I am trying now to make more purposeful lines, rather than kind of just going over and over again while drawing, it doesn't work every time, but when it does it feels much better and I can read my mistakes/rights way better! 

As for what I am about to post today, as I said before I am trying to study the anatomy of the skull so I can draw better faces, expressions etc. I have been using multiple ways to draw, a bit of loomis, or even asaro, but I have to study asaro a little more to do that method properly. However, I tried studying a bit of how the cheek bones should be drawn from AngelGanev, here is his youtube channel for anyone curious or interested https://www.youtube.com/@AngelGanev.

To be exact I watched Basic Anatomy of The Face which I feel it helped a lot, but I feel/see a lot of mistakes that I can't properly asses in my drawings.

Any advice is welcome!

[JosephCow]

If I could give some advice, I would just say focus on getting the big skull proportions consistent. So you know the hairline to brow, brow to bottom of nose, nose to chin are about equal thirds. And the jaw/ear canal sits at about half the width of the cranium. But sometimes these are right and sometimes not. Like in this skull in profile, the measurements are off because those thirds are too big, giving a vertical stretch to the skull. And then on the guy below, the thirds are looking good, but then the head is a bit too narrow. There's a lot more mass than you might imagine at the back of the head.

You'll make the most progress keeping it simple, and working with reference to make sure you're on track. You start to just get a sense for what looks plausible and what feels off. But if you're not really looking at reference, you don't develop that sense.

[IronSkeleton09]

Thank you so much!

To explain how I measured, I usually make a box surrounding the skull, then draw a line dividing the faces in halfs, usually cutting right where the top of the nose is. Once I do that, I divide each half in thirds, so the third above has the brow line, then the hair line and the bottom half has the bottom of the nose and where the jaw meets the rest of the skull.

But seeing how you measure your skull, it looks a lot easier than the way I was doing it. Gonna practice your method in the next sessions! Thank you so much again for the advice!

[JosephCow]

Yeah no problem!

Hmmm yeah idk if your way makes sense to me because the halfway of the whole head we usually say is the eyes, but you're putting the eye sockets above that half-way line. At least that's what I see on the flat front and side view drawing. So that might be where we are getting that lengthening of the head from on some of your drawings.

The trouble with my thirds method is that the hairline can vary and you don't necessarily know where to put the top of the head besides just a bit above the hairline. That part is not so set in stone because people have very different sized foreheads. but it should yield a face that is well proportioned, and the thirds can be measured more accurately on a portrait model or reference so it is quite useful.

[IronSkeleton09]

Basically, When I put the middle line, I also take the jaw in account, so like, drawing a line across the entire skull, then putting a line in the middle. Honestly it worked while drawing skulls for a bit without looking at references/looking at them, but they always felt off when I applied it on actual portraits it felt wrong.

But yeah, I think your method will be much easier to learn and use.

[IronSkeleton09]

Hello everyone! Back at it again with some more studies I did, again, not perfect, but I can feel myself getting slightly better.

Something I'm noticing about my own art is the lack of understanding of the form, that's why I made a lot of studies of boxes and other forms, trust me, my notebook is full of them lol. Other than that, the portraits and skulls still look a little off to me, but better than before.

Also drew a person and some expressions for the fun of it and put up a screen shot of the skull so people could see what I was referencing for the latest skull I did.

Either way, thank you for your time and have a wonderful day!

[cgmythology]

Studying form is definitely the way to go, and you're doing a ton of them! Good for you!! You're work should improve significantly if you keep at it, and your latest studies are quite solid overall. Keep it up!

[IronSkeleton09]

Hi again! Thank you cgmythology for your reply, it means a lot!

I'm back with some art/studies I've done. I've grown a bit more confident with my lines, at least I think so.

A few questions I'd like to ask is, how do you guys draw in boxes? If you use t hat method that is. I think it's very fascinating and useful for me, but I can't get it right all the time. For noses I found it easy to do that, for skulls is hit or miss, but anything more or even the jaw I fumble badly.

And another question, what are some tips and tricks that helped you learn anatomy? I want to study skeletons and such, then move to basic muscles structures so I can have better characters. I'm asking because from what I understood, it's good to just study what you like, and I mostly enjoy drawing people.

Either way, if you've reached all the way down to my ramblings, have a wonderful day and keep dreaming!

ALSO ALSO, would love to hear feedback on my drawings, I want to improve on them cause I feel like I'm missing something, but I feel so close to what I actually want to reach lol