Apr '21

[Term 1] Nude Figure Drawing
Whew, art is a lot of work! It feels good to work hard though. :smile: I have a lot of free time since it's my senior year and I'm at home all the time, so all I do is draw lol. I'm slowly working my way through the exercises...

Page 3 Reflection

  • After you draw the skeleton first pass, take the time to CORRECT it! The proportions get a lot better when you do...
  • Seems like I'm fairly accurate at drawing the position of the ribs/pelvis. The biggest problems are the head position and hips/legs.
  • Don't be afraid to overlap cylinders; it's probably even better when you do because it gives depth to the image.

I'm used to seeing myself draw unbalanced figures, so I was surprised that the proportion drawings turned out...well, balanced. Granted there's a whole grid system to keep you in check but I'm still pleasantly surprised lol. It just goes to show how measuring and proportion is also important for those who want to draw from imagination.

Apr '21

[Term 1] Nude Figure Drawing

Not sure how I feel about my gesture drawings right now. They don't capture the figure as nicely as I want to (like Marc's I suppose). Well, this is my first set of gesture drawing homework so I expect I'll improve if I keep at it.

Page 5/6 Reflection

  • I like the confidence and rhythm my lines have, it's more of making the lines accurate to the pose now. Gesture drawing is about choosing which lines communicate the figure the best. I think I'm relying on skeletal structure too much so I'm losing a lot of the silhouette that makes a figure readable.
  • My 1-min gestures are noticeably scratchier than my 30-second drawings. Be more deliberate with my lines?

Used these two pages as a drawing warmup today--going to attempt the figure measuring assignment after I post this! :smile:

Apr '21

[Term 1] Nude Figure Drawing
Starting the perspective lecture today! Here are some figure studies I've been doing over the last couple of days. I'm not satisfied with the proportion studies yet but I think I should start on perspective anyways to have more exercises to mix and match between.

04/26/21 Reflection

  • I'm not interested in grid techniques and more fine-art approaches to measuring because I don't see myself using these techniques at all in the future. However, to reach the same level of accuracy, I have to be a lot more careful in placing the landmarks I learned in the proportions lecture (specifically the navel, shoulders, and hips).
  • The general shapes in your proportion studies are almost always off; if something looks wrong in your drawing, it's will almost always be a general issue, not a detail.
  • If you get nothing else correct, at least get the tilt of the limbs accurately.

Finally, I'm also attaching a portrait sketch/piece I've been working on the side. After trying to study art a number of times over the years, I've learned that it's EXTREMELY important to always be drawing for fun. Never forget why you started studying art in the first place! :smile: :smile:

Thank you so much for reading! :smiley:
Michaela

Apr '21

You are right! Never forget why you love drawing :smile:

Apr '21

Reply to

milkcee12

good stuff!

its been a while since seen this course. what exactly is the grid techniques your referring to? like for anatomy?

Apr '21

I'm talking about the measuring techniques that Marc mentions. Essentially, you create a grid/mark up the reference and your own paper and then it's basically connect the dots until you have an accurate replica of the drawing (like the picture below).

Personally, I don't see myself using this technique at all because I'm more interested in drawing from imagination and therefore analyzing a reference as if it's in 3D space is more important to me (although proportions are still important). Hope this helped!

Apr '21

To be fair, the grid method is only part of Term 1 :smile: It will switch to construction very soon :wink:

Apr '21

Reply to

milkcee12

Pretty solid stuff so far, Michaela! Congrats!

I love how confident your lines are the exercises you share, and the way you are approaching the posts here, breaking down the exercises, sharing your notes and what is (not) working for you is also an amazing approach (which reminds me to go back doing something like this for my own posts, too).

And indeed, the "head tilt / pencil position / grid" it's indeed something that stays behind rather quickly. I still do find it interesting to have learned it because it still provides some knowledge around identifying negative/empty spaces, looking for shapes, relationship between the landmarks, etc. But I agree 100% that using those with the construction methods afterwards are way better :smile:

Thanks for sharing your posts here and keep up the awesome work!

Apr '21

[Term 1] Nude Figure Drawing, Perspective 1

I officially finished watching through all of the Term 1 lectures!! I wasn't able to do as much studying these last couple of days because of homework, but it's nice to see some improvements in my proportions (the ones that aren't foreshortened, at any rate lol).

4/30/21 Reflection

  • Get the line of action right!!!!!!
  • Improved a lot more in getting accurate tilts of each limb.
    • But now the limbs are a little too short!

I also got started on my 1-point perspective assignment! I love adding details to scenes but then I remember I have to finish them... :') But for now, I'm excited to get to cleaning this drawing up.

I learned a lot about keeping the scale consistent in the perspective lecture and had a lot of fun searching up medieval rooms and offices for reference. The concept is based off of an IP I've been thinking about for a while. Please look forward to the finished version, and thank you so much for reading!

Michaela

May '21

[Term 1] Perspective 1
Progress on my one-point perspective piece so far. I've been slacking on figure drawing and I honestly feel like I only know how to draw in perspective now because of it. :joy: Super happy with my progress so far and having more fun than I thought I would.

05/03/21 Reflection

  • Getting a perspective drawing to look organic yet accurate involves alternating back and forth between the line tool and the pen. Too much of the line tool will stiffen it, and using the pen for everything will take waaaay too long.
  • Staying zoomed out is helpful for managing detail concentration (a lesson I will forever relearn with every piece, haha).

Thank you so much for reading!

May '21

Reply to

milkcee12

Lovely work Michaela!!

The perspective of the room is great, and I've got nothing to add in that regard - you nailed it!

I've got two little nitpicks intended to take you further in your drawing, which I've taken from observing people's art. Drawing rooms in perspective like these is especially common in the videogame asset industry. Take a look at some FZD stuff for truly inspirational work! There are a few key things you can grab from those concepts in turn and bring your room drawing to another level.

1 - Architecture & design. Stuff like the trim around the base of a wall, the intricate window-sills, bracing, and their placement. The frame around a door. The type, size, and thickness of window-panes. The ornate carvings on the legs of a chair. These are the details that truly bring your piece to a new level, and introduce storytelling to the piece. I really love the desk you put in there, and just like that - you can do the same extra research for everything! Check out references for every single bit you put in there.

2 - Draftsmanship. It's a good thing that you've got a varying line thickness for the planks of the floor vs. their texture - you could make the wood texture lines even thinner or lighter and it would likely read even better as texture. This sort of stuff is often left for the rendering afterwards, as it is very time consuming to draw the texture of wood in a piece depicting an entire room. Not every line has to be there, either! You can, for example, omit the lines on plane changes facing us, or vary their thickness.

Something like this

Experiment with a lot of draftsmanship concepts (line weights, line hierarchy, omitted lines, cross-contours, etc., and combined with shape language, architecture and design, and perspective? you'll be unstoppable.

Hope to see some more from you, this is truly top notch work so far.

May '21

Wow, thank you so much for the detailed feedback and compliments! :smiley: I'll definitely keep all this in mind as I'm going forward.

P.S. I just tried lightening the floorboards and it made a really nice difference! Thank you so much again ^^ :smile:

May '21

It's been a week since I posted so I thought I might give an update. I had a lot of homework this week so I didn't really study much in terms of art. In my high school art class though, we're working on a packaging project (which I thought was the perfect opportunity to do fanart :stuck_out_tongue:). Here's a work-in-progress photo of what I've been working on all week!

This is one of the most detailed paintings I've ever done and I'm really pushing to reach a new level of finish I feel like I haven't achieved in a long time. We'll see how it turns out. :smile:

The next time I get to art studying, I think I'll start Term 2 and work on my Perspective 1 assignments at the same time. I'm not finding as much value in doing just the Nude Figure Drawing assignments anymore because I've done real-life figure drawing for the past three years. Excited to move on to anatomy!

Thanks for reading guys.

May '21

This looks great! I wish I had assignments like this in high school :open_mouth: I wasn't able to take classes for digital art due to schedule conflicts. Your school sounds awesome. Can't wait to see the finished product!

May '21

Thank you! The packaging project is usually supposed to be like box branding and more modern/sleek stuff, but I stretched the rules a bit haha. I figured that book covers are packaging too and squeezed in the chance to do some digital painting in class :stuck_out_tongue: