More Figure Drawing

I was able to make it out to a scanner and I now have some more figure studies from my week to show you. I'm unsure if I should show some of the other exercises I've done but I'll consider it for the future.

 This first one is just studies from Bridgman's Life Drawing book and some sketching from reference to get things going.

This little batch were all from reference. I've come across some wonderful reference things lately and I've been trying to use them more. Each of these had their good and bad in the practicing and I think I'm improving in the understanding of light and how it works on the body.

















 

I find that I like sketching in erasable colored pencil. It for some reason it helps me get into the zone and work the problem more effectively. I wanted to work on angles and likenesses with the portraits. I think that will be a good and regular use of the day during the week I have allotted to that time.

In the end, these last couple of weeks have been good for helping me establish exactly what I need to do with my practice. the exercise sources I'm using feel good, the practice feels good and the allotted time feels right to keep me learning without burning myself out and I think I can improve this way.

If you're looking at these, please keep checking in and follow along here or on my deviant art or Facebook pages.

Bonus post: Lighting stuff

I know that I call this blog Go Figure and that is primarily because it's goal was to help me improve my understanding of anatomy and the human figure. However, it is also a digital sketchbook, akin to the one I keep at conceptart.org. As such I'll share some of the other things I work on to improve my skills.

I had a lot of fun with the one on top especially and learned a bit more about doing lighting in my images in the process. 

Unit 4: Portraiture-Lips and some portraits

This isn't quite the way I'd wanted to return to the blog but lips are an important part of the face and some study of them is necessary. Especially since I didn't do that good of a job :(

More practice to come on the subject.

Then I've got these guys. A couple of portraits just done in pencil. I admit I had more fun and think I did a better job capturing the likeness of the female subject than the male (the male was found via doing a search for asian male models) and frankly the woman was just more fun to draw (though I think I got her head leaning a bit. I'll do some full paintings soon that'll hopefully demonstrate some portraiture improvement.

Unit 4: Portraiture-eyes

You know what are fun to draw? Eyes. Also, I'm actually rather proud of the top right sketch on the bottom image.

Unit 3: Limbs cont'd feet and Unit 4: Portraiture

 

Okay guys, heads up here's a brief summary of both why posts haven't been coming lately, and why that's changing now in a big way.

I recently quit my job with Walgreens and I realize just how much of my energy the place was sapping. I hadn't been drawing or taking care of myself because I hated what I was doing and hated my situation so much. I'm back to trying to keep things in order and I feel so much better. Now it's time to start doing what I do best again. On that note...

Hands and feet man. Two of the hardest things to draw in existence. I know more than my fair share of artists who are scared of attempting to put too much focus on either of these areas because they're so easy to make look weird. In all honestly I could spend a month just learning to draw these well and I've put nowhere near the focus on them they need. I will likely return to these at some point.
 

Part of the reason I admittedly rushed this important but easy to overlook segment of the body is because I also have another area that is both extremely important, NOT easy to overlook and is an area I've struggled with in the past. The head and face. 

If there's one thing to be on guard against with drawing the face in my opinion, it's drawing what you think is there instead of what is. Everyone spends a lot of their lives looking at faces and while we instinctively know when something is wrong, it doesn't mean we instinctively know how to make it look right. Also I've noticed I have to be on guard for my lean (something that sometimes happens when objects seem to distort and "lean" in a direction. For me, usually up and to the right since I'm right handed. 

These are planar drawings of the head to get a general idea ow how the big shapes are connected. Next up are the features of the head and portraits. I expect I'll do more than a few portraits. Here's one as a baseline before I leave. Let's see if I improve and how quickly. 

Unit 3: Limbs Cont'd-Hands

Okay, it's been a long time since I've posted anything here. Too long and frankly I'm a little irritated right now as one of my other sites I post things is giving me fits again so I'm going to start by posting what I need here and seeing if it works.

 

I promise if I get this to do what I want, I'll give a bit of an update on what's been going on. 

Unit Three: Limbs

Well here's the thing, I love Bridgman's life drawing for MOST of the body. That being said, he's a real let down when learning to draw legs. I'm having to rely on my other books pretty heavily and of course, the references I've got. Also I'm going to have to spend some time drawing my own legs. 

I seriously thought I'd have more to say here. I wish I did but I don't. The limb unit is finished and I think I'm ready to move on to the hands and feet. Something I've wanted to tackle (because they're important but very hard) and now it's time. 

Bonus Post: Perspective

Well I actually had time to do a little bonus exercise and I thought I'd upload it before I have to start thinking about going to my hellish job :(

I learned about perspective very young. I was about 8 years old when one of my first art teachers taught me the technique. I remember loving it but I guess sometimes, since I learned it so young that I take for granted that I need to practice it as often as the other stuff I do and link it with the new stuff I've learned. Someone noted that working on the solidity of construction, especially with regards to perspective would help so I decided to give it a go. There's a pose from the gesture drawing tool with a low angle shot that I love but it also has a great sense of perspective that I wanted to try to learn from.

This is the reference pose. I chose to look at this in a VERY planar and blocked out exercise. The goal was not to get it to look like the model but to examine perspective, planes and a certain level of proportion. 

First, some small scale sketches.

I like trying to work out perspective small scale first. It helps me keep the vanishing points situated and means I don't always need a ruler. I went with one this time just so I could be POSITIVE of the angles and everything. 

Legs are a different unit down the road but I couldn't resist as the pose emphasized the legs through the low angle shot. Also extra points for a bit of lighting practice. 

Unit Two: Trunk Cont'd-planar stuff

New stuff today. I wanted to put this up yesterday but life has a nasty habit of getting in the way of making art.

I got blindsided by my store manager at my job and my schedule got changed without my knowing. I was in the middle of a drawing when I got a call from my manager wondering where I was since I'm always on time (early in fact) and I was supposed to be there about a half an hour ago when he called.

I, however, was unaware I was supposed to even bee at work! Needless to say I was pissed. I'd been planning on going to sleep within the next hour when he called and then ended up having to do an overnight shift out of nowhere that I was not physically or mentally prepared for.

Anyway enough of that nonsense. Drawings!

Gesture drawings to start. While I'm still not a fan of these they're getting easier and I'm hating doing them less (if only because they look less like hen scratches now. 

Next a up, a paltry pair of planar practice pieces: Try saying that three times fast. The bottom one is actually what I was in the middle of when I got the call and I was NOT happy. I was planning on getting a couple of other things done that night and the next morning but like I said, life. It's a four letter word for a reason. 

Finishing off this post with a couple of body type studies. Not as fun and far more technical than my last body type blast but still educational. 

I think after a couple more digital paintings that are hopefully coming next post we'll move on to some of the limbs. I'm thinking arms since I've been cheating a bit on my trunk definition and drawing them anyway and they're easier to work on at work since I'm cut off from my other references and without a lot of down time. 

Unit Two: The Trunk-back and gestures

Did I mention lately how much gesture drawing infuriates me? 

Just a few today and as usual you can see our dud for the bunch. This time firmly on the left hand side near the bottom. Poses like that are frustrating. 

Anyway onto a few other explanations. The obese trunk study is sort of a follow up from yesterday when I did the various body type studies and is referenced from a study in one of my books, a bit of imagination and lots of pics to try to get it right. Needless to say I think it feel more than a bit short but it misses being the dud this time. 

Okay, these make me feel a little bit better about myself, mostly due to feeling like I learned a bit more from them. These are studies from one of my books where I try to understand the planes of the body a bit more by wrapping contours around them (except for the drawing on the top that's again from the body type studies the other day. I feel like these are helping to prepare me for the painting side of things later. 

Unit Two: The Trunk-Body type studies

Before I head in to work today I thought I'd do something with Celia M's comment earlier and add some variety to the body types studied.

As I may or may not have pointed out here on this blog earlier, fantasy art has a tendency to go with the classical ideas of "ideal proportions" and has a tendency to homogeneity in its body types. I personally think this has something to do with the Greco-Roman tradition inherent in the mindset behind the training necessary to represent a relatively accurate version of the form but that's just me.

Enough philosophizing though. Here's a little something to tide you over until the next image blast.

I really need to remember to give myself some more warm up time though. It's especially apparent in the upper two on the left and right but my lean came back. Mostly eliminated in the later ones it did show up a little bit today. 

All models here are actually pics found around the internet and used for educational purposes. 

Unit Two: The trunk cont'd (retroactive)

Why retroactive? Because I found some studies I forgot to upload. 

Unit Two: The Trunk Cont'd

Okay. It's been a bit since I've posted but I warned you that was going to happen. Anyway, continuing the ongoing improvement of figure drawing skills with a study of the trunk of the body.

The first things I worked on for this entry were some muscular studies. I was working on something else (I think it was another study for this blog) and realized that part of my difficulty probably stemmed from not having a solid grasp of what the musculature under the skin was doing. To remedy that I thought some musculature studies similar to my skeleton studies would work. Above you see the pages from my sketchbook and below you'll see some details.

These were a lot of fun and knowing what I know about the skeleton now seeing how everything attaches is really interesting. It also demonstrates how and why armor design so closely resembles musculature. As the muscles protect the organs by layering and interlocking, so does armor. For example, I've always known the pectoral muscles connect at the sternum but was unaware of how they connect to the deltoids, the muscles that make the semi rounded shape of the shoulder. In the back muscles wrap around sort of like a vest from the mid back to the sides of the pecs. All interesting stuff. 

I did fewer studies this time than last, partially because of the detailed nature of the muscle studies but I wanted to do some work on twisting and the back of the trunk. Also, I wanted to do a study with a different skin tone. I did my black and white underpainting and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'll try again. 

On the subject of doing these studies of the back I think it goes without saying (though I'll say it anyway) one must learn to draw the human body from all angles. These exercises of course remind me of what one of my teachers said. You have to learn to make a sort of 3-D model in your head of what you're trying to draw so that you can rotate and manipulate it in your head. Seeing in the round essentially. A skill that serves sculptors of every sort infinitely but is also remarkably helpful to an illustrator doing representational and or figurative work. 

So I need to be able to build my objects in my mind from the inside out AND make the final 3-D image in my mind manipulatable? 

Why does it sound like I'm training to use a Green Lantern ring? Admittedly, second best super power for an artist ever. What's the first? 

Making your drawings come to life. Duh 

:D

See you next time. 

Unit Two: The trunk

This unit is going to be a good bit longer than the skeletal unit was (though as I said, bits are going to show up from time to time). Without further ado let's jump right in. 

First one here... yeah this doesn't have a lot to do with the figure... or does it? Dun dun dun. Okay in all seriousness it does and it doesn't. Really I felt very tight when I started working one day and though that some perspective shapes might fix that. It does help with the body though because essentially what I'm trying to do is reaffirm my knowledge of how the body behaves with regards to perspective. Having a shape, say a rectangular prism, around the body helps to figure that out. 

Decided to play around with changing camera angle and what that does to examining the form. That sort of came off of the perspective shapes exercise earlier. Also gave me another opportunity to practice turning of the trunk. A couple are referenced from one of my books and one, the one with 'reference' written next to it is from the gesture drawing tool. however, several are me trying out some of what I've learned about the spine, torso and body movement so there are a few from imagination as well. 

Did another digital painting study of a female trunk. Once again the gesture drawing tool provided the model here. Don't think I succeeded as well as I'd like but once again I did learn something from it. 

Finally I've got two male trunk studies. Both were done relatively quickly and helped me decide on my next move. I definitely need to do some muscle studies for the front and back of the torso before moving forward. So that's what you'll see on the next episode of Go Figure. 

See you soon. 

Unit one: Skeletons continued

No gestures this time. Don't worry, there will be more. There'll have to be. Sigh. Anyway continuing the skeletal studies has been most enjoyable. Getting a better idea ow what the internal workings of the body are like has been very, very helpful. All images in this post are scanned directly from my sketchbook and were done on the 3rd and 4th.  

Perhaps a bit too helpful. I'm starting to notice a kind of funny side effect. I'm starting to be able to see how the skeleton is positioned when I look at someone standing. It's only brief flashes in my mind, but it behaves like a really weak and unreliable form of X-ray vision right now. Like, for the briefest moment I'll look at how someone is standing and then all of a sudden I won't be seeing them but their skeleton. Something similar happened during my first painting class when I couldn't help but look at something and see how it would be taken from a drawing to a finished painting. 

Anyway, moving away from my unreliable but developing superpowers the above studies are from one of my books. Specifically The Human Figure  by Vanderpoel. My notation for those unable to read my chicken scratch:

"A part of a person's size and dimension is obviously determined by the shoulders and ribs (implying the skeleton as a whole). Varying these must produce varying body types."

Obvious notation is obvious yes but it is a note that I need to make sure I study many physical types. I like fantasy art but it has a habit of being rather homogenous with its body types. Especially where women are concerned. 

More stuff from the gesture drawing tool in the image right above this one. Now remember when I said no gestures this post? Well I kind of lied. Forgot that these started with me trying the new gesture drawing technique I picked up in Anthony Ryder's book and THEN doing the skeleton on top of it. I tried to keep things loose here. Multiple colored pencils helped me to care less about perfection and more about the character of the pose. 

Again, stuff from the gesture drawing tool. The skeletal stuff is sort of finished as its own unit. You'll see elements of it in all the drawings of course but it's time to move on to the trunk. For the purposes of practice I'm defining the 'trunk of the body' as the neck to the upper thigh. A part of this is so that there will be overlap when I move to the arms and legs and it'll be easier to mentally put a whole figure together in the end (I hope. I'm partially making this up as I go admittedly). 

This was mostly me trying out a couple of tricks I remembered from my figure drawing class in college and a couple of new things I picked up out of Ryder's book again. He's got a technique called using an envelope that I'll outline in a later post and I'll use it to develop a figure from reference and imagination for anyone interested. Every time I do a session there is always a dud drawing. A runt of the litter as it were and the female planar study is that this time. I think the twist threw me. I was also starting to fatigue. Hitting that one dud drawing is usually the indicator it's time to take a break. 

Let's Begin: Gestures and starting studies

Alright folks. Post one to begin this. After this, the blog is officially fully live. How should be begin? Well, frankly, with gesture drawings. 

 

 

If I'm perfectly honest, I hate gesture drawings. Not because they're not useful. They are. Immensely so. It's just they're also incredibly frustrating for me. I hope that changes as I do more of them. They always just look so bad. I know the point isn't necessarily looking good but it always bugs me. Only blind contour drawings get to me worse than these.

Not all of these are done in the same session and they're not all the ones I do, just the ones that made me want to chuck them in a fire the least :) Okay, after warm up I move on to some other things. Usually full figure studies only going 5 to 10 minutes. They tend to be things I'm a bit happier with and I feel like I learn more from them.

Here are a couple from relatively recently. Take a gander if you will.

You should know I've discovered I really loved toned paper.

The drawing here was 15 minutes but I was working toward something specific. I'll explain in the next post.

Note: Because I do not have access to alive model at this time, all poses are from the gesture drawing tool unless otherwise stated.