Anatomy Lesson Series: Body Part 2 - The Torso

#81

Hello everyone, :slight_smile:

Itā€™s nice to see the new entries that have been posted - I wonā€™t be able to address everyone, but I really do appreciate seeing everyoneā€™s work here - please continue to post! :slight_smile:

Wiggin,

Good to see your piece. I would recommend trying a slightly darker pencil - a 4B or 6B, to really get a darker line. While you donā€™t want to draw darkly at first, you want to eventually be able to get a stronger, more expressive outline once you are confident of the placement of major features. :slight_smile:

HugeHarhar,

Good overall sense of volume. What you next need to work on is finesse. Before drawing, look at the master study, and look at the lines first. Notice how they intermingle and relate to one another. Try to mimic not only the overall sense of volume, but the lines themselves. The best way to do this is to copy Master Drawings first - they will show you exactly how itā€™s done, whereas with copying a sculpture or painting, the lines are sometimes a bit more blurred or subsumed within the medium of the work. Copying Drawings will really get you into the original artistā€™s primary language.

coCoKNIght,

Lovely start. :slight_smile:

Mark,

Thank you! :slight_smile:

vincent1,

Thatā€™s a very nice start - I might recommend working against a toned background of a mid neutral color - working against white makes it unnecessarily harder to establish the full range of values. Would love to see you continue to post, there is a lot of potential with your use of opposing curves in your work.

paolodelarosa,

Lovely sensibility to your drawings and a nice touch.

HuiTzu,

Welcome. :slight_smile: Your painting is gorgeous - I agree that the hands are a bit small, but you could easily fix that by scaling them up a bit. The navel seems a bit misplaced, you might consider moving it to the center line of the body. Otherwise, really lovely job with this, I hope to see more work from you. :slight_smile:

Frejasphere,

Nice to see your pieces. One thing I really recommend is focusing on the big shapes and perhaps working less tonally than linearly - something really revealing is that artists like Michelangelo often drew in the equivalent of a crow quill pen:


http://users.wfu.edu/elyjm5/FYS%20100/Cross%20hatch.jpg

[left]You can see how strong the lines are - even though they are reinforced by tonal cross hatching, the exterior lines are really dominant and the most important thing. Particularly with charcoal, lines are easily obscurred and blurred with too much tonality, and the great thing about a master drawing from the Renaissance or from an artist like Rubens is the subtle interplay of dominant line and the less dominant tone:

[center]
http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/rubens.slide.5.jpg

[left]I might recommend using black Carb Othello or Generalā€™s 6B Charcoal Pencils - and sharpening them in a way that Iā€™ll show below (using an exacto knife, and sandpaper pad).

Or really dark conte crayon.

I look forward to seeing more of your work. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

-Rebeccak
[/left]

[/left]
[/center]

#82

Ytresu, thanks a lot! :slight_smile: As you know I very much admire the work that you are doing. If you are going to do a large drawing, you will want to use good quality paper - I tend to use just newsprint, since it is cheap and I donā€™t feel too badly if I screw something up. :slight_smile:

Here is a picture of the basic materials I use for traditional drawing:

6B Generalā€™s Charcoal Pencils (or Carb Othello Pencils)
Exacto knife to sharpen pencils / shave away the wood
sandpaper to refine the point of the pencil
paper towels

I use 18" x 36" newsprint on a drawing board with clips.

[img]http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a35/rebeccak4/CG_Talk_Anatomy_Workshop/tools_of_trade.jpg[/img]

[left]For anyone interested, here is a gif of some general principles to bear in mind when drawing:

Disclaimer: I certainly donā€™t think my drawing is perfect, the following is just to highlight some useful general principles which I always try to keep in mind when drawing. :slight_smile:

First, I realized with my copy how much I had distorted / elongated the figure, so I fixed that in Photoshop by scaling it vertically.

The gif also shows how I use the principle of Opposing Curves in all Drawings / Paintings - for a full Article on Opposing Curves, click here (Nudity).

Also shown is how artists should think around the form instead up just around it. The mistake many artists make is to draw an outline of the body and never address the interior. The figure is volumetric and very much rounded. Try to express this in your work by drawing ACROSS the form as much as possible.

The other key consideration is the direction of the light. Shading is as much about describing the direction and effects of light as it is to simply fill space in to show form.

I hope this demo is useful:
[/left]

[left][color=Orange]EDIT: Please remember to bookmark and / or subscribe to this thread if you would like to keep track of updates.
[/color]
Cheers, :slight_smile:

-Rebeccak
[/left]

#83

Wow Rebecca
You knowā€¦ you should write a book, Iā€™d buy it and Iā€™m sure I wouldnā€™t be the only one :slight_smile:
Thanks for the info

Dear Frejasphere, thanks for your input :slight_smile:
Biggest paper I have at the moment is 36cm x 27cm but next time Iā€™m at the store Iā€™ll buy a bit bigger format and some additional charcoal pens

In the mean time Iā€™ve tried to imitate this charcoal on rough sketching paper look, which I really really love. To be honest I was also stimulated to do this by seeing zhuzhuā€™s wax pencil sketches

         011:
         MICHELANGELO Buonarroti
         David
         1504
         Marble, height 434 cm
         Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence
#84

Hey Rebecca,

Thanks for the tips. Iā€™ll have to try that. Iā€™m at work all day today do I only have a couple of pencils with me, but Iā€™ll definitely use darker ones when I get home.

Also on the list of artists #87 is missin the author name. Itā€™s SUVƉE, Joseph-Benoit. And the number is wrong, it says #111 at the moment.

#85

Rebeccak- I have been thinking that drawing the sculptures first has been a little backwards. Once again your demo is incredable.

          003:
         MICHELANGELO Buonarroti
         Bacchus (detail)
         1497
         Marble, height: 203 cm
         Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

#86

Thanks for the kind comments paolodelarosa and Rebeccak!
My 2nd post here will take another 24 hours, so apologies for the late replyā€¦
Didnā€™t have much time today so I couldnā€™t draw. Iā€™ll post my 2nd torso tomorrow :slight_smile:

And wow! this thread is moving fast! Keep it up everyone :thumbsup:

#87


024:
MICHELANGELO Buonarroti
Male Figures
1530s
Chalk
MusƩe du Louvre, Paris

#88

Rebecca great demo as alwaz:)
NR43: Very nice shading of David!..
102:
CARAVAGGIO
Christ at the Column

#89

Wooo, good opportunity to learn Painter too =P
Michelangelo
Slave (dying)

#90

Hey Beckieā€¦:slight_smile:
Hey peopleā€¦:slight_smile:

Great job guys:thumbsup:

ā€¦hereā€™s my shot at 080ā€¦second attempt.

#91

My shot at 099

#92

[left]Hi Nazirull,

Good to see you here. :slight_smile:

I hope you donā€™t mind that I took the liberty of doing a paintover - I hope this helps. :slight_smile: Basically I just created a layer of black and set the layer to 75-80% (working against white is generally not a good idea as all values are relative, and white distorts the relationships amongst your values. You want to work against a midtone, in this case, a mid gray). I then created swatches, white, gray, and black, and used a soft brush set at 50% opacity to create the range of values.

As much as possible, simplify major areas of light and dark before going in to define details. Work from large shapes to small shapes, and from a mid tone to dark and to light:

[/left]

[left]For additional links to Workshops and Tutorials on Grayscale Shading, and how to turn a Grayscale painting into a Color one, see this thread:

Personal Sketchbook Primer and Tutorial / Workshop Guide
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=403198

I look forward to seeing more of your work! :slight_smile:

Cheers,

-Rebeccak
[/left]

#93

OOOOoooā€¦please do paintover!!:slight_smile:
Im blessed if you do soā€¦:scream:

Got that! Will try that on the next one! Thanks beccaā€¦ure the greatestā€¦

Heres my shot at 042

#94

Hopefully this will be a good way to get me up and drawing again. What a great grouping of references. This should be a real challenge.

#95

Psstā€¦Beccaā€¦like this?? :sad:

No. 032

#96

109

#97

Vidar3d,

Good to see you in this. :slight_smile: My suggestion would be to emphasize the tension between the major shapes and to place the most emphasis on the outline, and the interior shapes to a lesser, supporting degree.

Nazirull,

Heya, much better. :wink: Slow down a bit - go for quality over quantity - though the goal is 50 torsos, Iā€™d rather see you do fewer studies that are to a greater degree of finish than all 50 torsos to a lesser degree of finish. Try to use lesser opacity brushes to blend some of the areas (for example, the dark black on the thigh). Keep pushing yourself, and with each one, you will get better. :slight_smile:

EDIT:

Womball,

Good to see you in this as well. I think that drawing traditionally will really be a great thing to help you with your ZBrush work. :slight_smile: My suggestion would be to try to shade consistently in the same direction, taking each stroke to be an expression of how light is falling across a form or casting a shadow upon or beneath it.

Cheers,

-Rebeccak

#98

Here is my contribution, I am busy lately, so not sure how much I will be able to participate. As I was painting this, I thought it looked pretty darn close. I was thinking hey man this is right on, they are going to think I traced. Then I matched it up with the painting, over lapping them, and omg, my eye is not what I think it is. So many parts are way off, oh well, from a glance it look pretty close.

I had a hard time matching the colors. But it was a fun study, considering the tummy muscles are the hardest thing for me to acheive.

#102

#99

Good to see everyoneā€™s entries.

PremiereBoris,

Welcome. :slight_smile:

Womball,

Hope you donā€™t mind, I did a paintover of your piece which I hope points out a few things that might help: :slight_smile:

[left]The best thing to do when approaching an figure is to simplify by finding the major axes - of the shoulders and hips in particular, and also find the graceful centerline of the figure first. Then build opposing curve structures around these basic axes, thinking always of the major forms - alway think in terms of big shapes first, vs. the details.

Also, shade according to the topology of the form and the direction of the light, vs. to fill in the space that the form and shadows create.

Hope this helps. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

-Rebeccak
[/left]

#100

Hi everybody ā€“ so much nice work!
I followed the past couple of ODFWā€™s but didnā€™t have the time to join in the fun, but now Iā€™ve actually done it ā€“ my first post! Iā€™m really excited about getting back into drawing and improving my skills ā€“ thanks Rebecca, for the great opportunity!
Iā€™ve taken Rebeccaā€™s good advice and am starting with the drawings first. Iā€™m trying to reproduce them as faithfully as possible to start with, so I can figure out how to shade and crosshatch. Started it with my new Wacom and Painter, but got extremely frustrated and reverted back to good old pencils on newsprint. Will have to try the Wacom again ā€¦ soon.


[left]
093:
Rafaello
Kneeling Nude Woman

[/left]