Questions about filling out anatomy for my gesture drawings?

#1

I just started doing gesture drawings, and can locate the line of action now, and once I’ve drew that down, I would draw the arms and legs and once everything is drawn, it will look like a stickman.
And, up until that stage, my gesture drawings are like the one that’s on youtube, my ‘stickman’ figure, completed that figure around the same time as them as well.
But, the problem is after that, they are able to draw the torso no matter how the body is twisted and the arms and legs as well. And, I couldn’t and I guess it is because I don’t know how to draw anatomy? Is that the case or?
I tried drawing the arms and legs and torso as well, but well it looks like crap.
What should I do? I need some tips please?
Thank you!

Below are some of my gesture drawings that I’ve mentioned above?

#2

i think you shouldn’t worry about anatomy right now,
i dont think your quite ready for anatomy work just yet

i think you should keep working on gestures, what you have here still seems a bit stuff and mechanical to me

here’s an example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZoeo40gUEk&feature=share&list=UUdJeXoMYRzXFji_x0PJH9Eg

may not be the best example but hopefully it covers the general idea of gesture drawing work and what to aim for.

  • don’t draw the subject, draw what they’re doing
  • the gesture is kinda like a plan, your kinda figuring out what your drawing, planning it out
  • draw through the figure, ignore the sides, the contours. doing the contours is going to flatten out your work
  • try to avoid blocking in/gesturing in/scribbling in specific components (like the arm or leg of foot or head. i know the dude does it a bit in his video but try to avoid doing stuff like that cause that also contributes to the drawing coming out mechanical and stiff)

i know it can be hard, don’t get discouraged
try and have fun with it and just scribble that stuff in, stay loose and care free, relax

#3

i really dont think your quite ready for this just yet, but if you really wanted to take it a step further,

  • work on proportions
  • learn to draw things as boxes in a box like format
  • learn about doing things like blind contours
    (i think blind contours helps with understanding how different forms and components of the human body relate and interconnect with each other)

after all that, then you could probably think about anatomy

if you draw for about 6 hours a day everyday then you should be able to clear all this in about 4 months … its a lot of material to handle.

of course this is just my opinion, im not an expert, not very good myself so … gain of salt?

#4

To be able to draw figures that look expressive and credible, you have to tackle the challenge from different angles. Anatomy teaches the structure of the figure–how it’s put together. Figure teaches you how the body behaves when the person is living and breathing, with a brain controlling it, allowing it to emote through body language, or to perform actions that require constant correction of center-of-balance, regardless of how relaxed or extreme the pose is.

You can learn a lot from books on anatomy and figure, and you can also supplement books with observation of people in real life, such as going to life drawing sessions, watching people (at the park, at the shopping mall, at sports events, etc), analyzing how people pose and move in movies/TV shows (you can do screencaptures and then sketch the characters), or build image libraries of people in various poses (beyond the ones shown in anatomy/figure books) and study them, etc.

But remember, if you have basic drawing skills, you’ll need to acquire them in order to sketch/draw anything that looks credible/accurate, otherwise, you won’t even be able to copy anatomy/figure drawings/photos accurately when you do studies.

#5

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