Mar '22

Posting what I've done so far of the nude figure drawing section to request help on the skeletons portion. My understanding is that the skeletons are supposed to have cylinders drawn over the limbs, as opposed to just sticks, so I did that (though I could use some pointers in getting the cylinders to work out quite right); is this correct? Also I'm using rectangles for the head/chest/pelvis skeleton, but this leads to awkwardness at angles, especially with the head and associated eyeline; is there anything particular I should be doing here? Once I'm drawing skeletons that aren't superimposed on references, am I to draw basic cubes/oblong spheres as opposed to simple squares/ovals? I thought the video said something to this effect but it didn't say much about that part of the assignment.

Mar '22

Hi wmcnugg! good practice! The main point of this exercise is to get used to seeing cylinders in space, drawing ellipses and looking for the contour of the cylinder. These may seem trivial now but constantly come back again and again through the program.

These look pretty good I would encourage you to draw your ellipses all the way through each one to get a good understanding of the exact angle of the ellipse. Take your time and I encourage you to decrease your brush size, it will expose more of the issues with the curve, a thicker size is more forgiving.

In regards to the boxes these look good, Don't worry to much about the boxes for now, they are meant to show you the planes that the body is facing, later on you will use this knowledge and perspective knowledge to make a mannequin that defines these better. But for now focus on the cylinders and the ellipses, it is the foundation for so much to come. Here is an example of my most recent cylinder practice that is not perfect but may provide some guidance. If you have any questions let me know.

Mar '22

I'll try using finer lines for the cylinders next attempt, meanwhile here's my second attempt done yesterday (so it still has overly thick cylinder lines), and also my second try at the proportions exercise. For the former I tried rounded head/torso/pelvis, especially for the head because of the aforementioned awkwardness of boxes at angles (someone else told me I was being terribly imprecise with the heads here).


Ultimate pretty minor but I have trouble getting the knees right for proportions, more broadly I'd say there's more off with the legs than the upper body here but that could still use some work

I also did 5 skeletons from imagination last night, awkward poses to be sure but I'd like to think I made a good first go at foreshortened forearms with the last two.

8 days later

Mar '22

Think this attempt went pretty well, I could tell the legs were the most off when I moved the layer over the reference but those were harder to landmark.

Mar '22

it looks fairly good overall but like someone once said to me be confident with your lines because you've got this.

Mar '22

I suppose a little sketchiness from adjusting the drawing is going to happen but I'll try to improve on that. Meanwhile here's another attempt.

12 days later

Mar '22

There are a few things that you might try with the gestures. Firstly know that I am also a beginner but these are things that helped me. The first thing I did was go through marc's old videos and look for student examples that I liked for gesture drawing. I screen captured them and saved them to desktop. I studied them, tried to understand what lines they made and which they didn't. I would pause after each 30 second pose I did and think to myself, what was successful and what wasn't. Then I would file that away for the next time. Slowly, very slowly they started to improve. You might also try mixing up your timer. I found as a complete beginner to get much out of 30 second drawings except for the energy of the pose which is helpful but I mostly do 2 minute poses now. But try mixing it up and see if that is more helpful. I absolutely hated gestures at first, so much because I was so bad at them. I am a completely new artist and I can make things look decent if I take an insane amount of time on them, so gesture was the complete opposite for me. I couldn't just make them better with more time. Mine looked soooo bad. Know that you are not alone. study someone to try to understand their choices and keep at it!

Apr '22

Looked over the Photoshop 2 video and it seems very different from Clip Studio Paint, has anyone using CSP had issues with that section?

Apr '22

Reply to

wmcnugg

Hi there!! Peanut here..!

What I find helpful for my gestures is that I do it in three levels

Movement of the body (dynamism) > Proportions > Volume

Whether I finish with only the movement of the body + some small proportions or just dynamism only in the allotted time, I move on. The lesson here is to be expert in basics and be confident in your observation skills, especially in the proportion. Adding volumes (for me) is just icing in the cake, it is needed but not too important in gesture drawing.

Also, as a beginner you should allot more time, like 60 secs for dynamism + proportion and 2 min when adding volume. Speed is just the result of accumulating enough experience with anatomy and observation skills. Also, as I have said, developing your observation here is important so you can also limit your study for a few pose (5 images per day maybe..?)

Hope this helps :wink:

Apr '22

I definitely feel more confident after my 1-minute gestures than my 30 second ones, I'll probably try some 2-minute ones (I figured 30 seconds for quick ones and 1 minute for a little more accuracy just because of the instructions).

9 days later

Apr '22

Second round of face volumes.

17 days later

Apr '22

Head on left I did from reference, head on right I did the day after using the head on left as a reference but trying a different angle. Naturally it didn't go so well.

How did you guys do at drawing heads? Not doing super great at this.

Apr '22

Yes, it didn't.. Mine looks horibble too before so just keep practicing, we willl get there eventually.. as koleen said, trust the process :smile:

Apr '22

Reply to

wmcnugg

Heads are tough for sure. By far been the hardest thing for me so far. Here is my normal process for heads. I made this guide to help me and I still use it. I'm just about to the point now where I feel like I don't need it anymore. At the bottom I put a sheet for myself to show me what the ellipses should look like for common angles.

Blank Head Sheet.png5000x2500 224 KB

Here is how I use it

If this doesn't make sense just let me know!