Here’s the first I did
The head was too small and the body didn’t look right, I guess.
So, I did another
Here’s the new one with the guidelines
Here’s the same one but cleaned up
Comments and criticism please?
[PS. I know the girl has no hair, or arms or legs…working on it. Can’t get them right yet =p]
You’re just taking your first baby steps in learning anatomy and figure, so it’s a bit early for in-depth critiques. What you should do, is to draw hundreds and thousands of practice studies and sketches, and pay strict attention to accuracy/likeness (if your version doesn’t look like the reference version you’re studying, then don’t stop until you’ve corrected all the deviations and mistakes). as well as memorizing the structural arrangements of the anatomy/figure and general proportions. That’s what it takes to actually learn this stuff, and if you posted every one of your hundreds of studies and sketches, it’ll be way too much. So my suggestion is for you to buckle down and study hard for several months, and then post a few examples of your progress. After getting some feedback, go and study hard again for several months before you post your next stage of progress. And anytime when you have a question/problem you just can’t figure out on your own, post them and get answers from more experienced artists.
Awesome! Thanks.
Actually I have two art diaries filled with weird sketches and lessons I did. These are the first I did on computer. I’ll take your advice and keep going, though.
As far as legs and arms and concerned, I can’t even get a proper shape. I have an anatomy book so I’ll try to reference to that as much as I can while sketching.
I would suggest that instead of concentrating on anatomy right now that you start on the basic exercise practice of drawing simple geometric shapes (circles, ellipses, squares, triangles,
) and volumes/solids (cubes, cylinders, pyramids,
). You will need to learn a little fundamental perspective drawing at the same time. You have to learn how to break down a subject into more basic geometry. Start with subjects that already represent it, such as a cup, bottle, furniture, electronic appliances, etc., instead of complex organic subjects like the human body.
Its not a matter of drawing a human correctly but one of drawing EVERYTHING correctly. Trying to develop your anatomy drawing skill without being able to properly draw a cylinder or cube in perspective space will probably keep you frustrated for quite some time into the future.
I would also suggest looking into getting the Andrew Loomis books.
Thanks for that. I do have the Loomis set as they were provided as PDFs on this forum. I guess I’ll do some practice on that hehe.
Thanks again, though.
This has been quiet, I know, and so has my other thread. I was advised to work on some perspective and go in-depth in studying that so I’ve been spending quite some time working on that.
Thanks again for all the advice. I owe a lot to what you guys are providing me with.
I hope I not hijacking here. Let me know and I will delete this and start a new thread but it seems relevant to me at least for the moment.
Robert you have often talked about how much starting to use pen in your studies early on was really helpful because of being unable to rub out so you had to THINK about the lines first. I am currently following this advice but the other piece of advice that I try and keep in mind is what you wrote above. It seems almost impossible to do them both since you cant really correct errors when you have drawn stuff in pen or you are at least limiting how much correction you can do. How were you able to deal with this?
What I meant by making yourself think more before putting down each line, is really an overall philosophy of being critical of each action you take as an artist. Too many people arbitrarily draw a ton of sketchy chicken scratches that are just fumbling to find the right line they should have drawn in the first place. Same thing with brushwork–too much smudging and dabbing here and there without any clear idea of exactly what the brushstroke was meant to achieve–in one stroke.
Generally speaking, it’s much harder for beginners to follow that philosophy/mentality, because they don’t yet have the confidence and skills to try and attempt it. I would say it’s something that you’d need to be at least intermediate level before you’ll get any real success with that approach; however, that doesn’t mean you can’t start thinking with that mentality when you are learning and growing as a beginner. The earlier you can adopt that mentality, the more confident you’ll be as an artist later.
I don’t have a problem with you posting that here. I’ll try to answer your question though I’m sure Robert will clarify and confirm whether I’m right or not.
What I understood from Robert’s response above is to continue sketching and drawing time and time again. Not so much as “erasing” mistakes but recognizing them and not making them in the next sketch and so on.
I think the idea of drawing with pen is awesome and my Civil Engineering notebooks have sketches all over the place, lol. It definitely forces you to think before you draw. Awesome practice and awesome advice.
Robert beat me by 2 minutes. I should’ve refreshed before sending my post =P Thanks for the question btw, it helped me too =)
I would not recommend this. Drawing is part muscle memory, which comes from practice. The standard for art education - because it works - is to start out in charcoal, working from live models, on large paper, later on moving into conte and pencil, and then paint. This opens up your entire arm to the lines you’re drawing, so you can see them nice and large, and you’re using your whole arm to make the lines - one of the techniques you’d learn is to make lines as long as possible, to find “s” curves in the form, so your lines flow, to learn to express the contour with one flowing line. It’s hard work, often new students complain of sore arms and shoulders during the first few weeks - and learning to draw like that takes a lot of practice. It also forces you to start handling white space as well, with the large format - and it makes detail easier. A common “cheat”, often seen here, is scribbles passing for the harder parts to draw, especially hands, which is why you draw larger, so you can’t do that. (And why a common beginning lesson is just drawing hands).
Figure study to me is a lot harder on the computer, I would suggest you go get a big pad of drawing paper, and use pencil to draw figures from reference. If you want to work nude, there are online resources, like http://www.female-anatomy-for-artist.com/ or http://www.posespace.com/ or http://www.livemodelbooks.com/, or my fave, http://www.virtualpose.net/ (the poses there are much better, more artistic). It’s important to use virtual images, because, like in a real figure study class, the ability to move around the model to find the angle of the pose that interests you is very, very important. If you can sign up for figure studies at a local college, art school or art education, I would urge STRONGLY to do so, it’s a vital part of any art education, it’s a lot harder to determine the actual volumes of the body from a photograph.
And please don’t use porn. Try to develop an artist’s mindset while working, I did, I can be in a studio alone with a nude woman, and I’m in “art” mode, it’s all I’m thinking about. (I’ve hired models over the years for various projects).
If you can’t take a class, have family or friends pose for you - it doesn’t have to be nude, learning to draw clothes is a lot easier in person as well - and take some reference shots for later. Work in line only until you’re confident with the human body, then move on to shading. Work on men and women. (You will if you take a class). Learn the forms of the body, how they move and distort and change. It will take time. Work large. 18x24 at least. It can be cheap paper, we’re not talking portfolio work here.
I respectfully disagree. The fledgling artist should be concentrating on form and shape, not line quality, which is what working in ink is about, and would force the student into fighting not only the learning curve for figure study, but also for ink drawing as well. Pen drawing is also very challenging, because the line is the same weight and thickness, whereas pencil drawing allows for a lot more expression and the ability to vary the weight of the stroke, to convey physical weight, or even light and dark, and to work fast. Pencil and charcoal is also a lot easier to learn for the newbie. I would say that a new artist should not go near ink, until they are confident with figure drawing - I have no doubt the experience with ink with no skills developed would be a good way to turn someone off of learning to draw, not encourage and motivate them.
Besides my other post, here’s a couple of things:
Work with a different layout. Working with the head and feet so close to the edge “squashes” them to the eye - work with the page taller vertically, and center the figure, so you have plenty of white space around the figure.
Download a pencil brush, if you’re using a wacom. My favorite is the KoiFishSushi brush, found here:
http://koifishsushi.deviantart.com/art/Awesome-Photoshop-Pencil-Brush-88228914
It’s very expressive, and is pretty close to the real thing. Don’t change the size of the brush, use it as is. This brush is always in my brush palette.
I would suggest building your confidence and skill by drawing lightly with something like a soft pencil, and then once you have blocked in your sketch, you can try a clean pass with a pen on top of the light sketch. You can use ball point, felt tip, plastic nib, ink dip pen–whatever.
Billy’s suggestion of charcoal is good too, since it doesn’t allow you to get obsessive about tiny little micro-details such as the typical pencil chick-scratches. Also, you can’t be timid with a charcoal, since it doesn’t make timid marks like pencils do, so it forces you to be bold.
But like I already said (and as Billy also said), line quality is not something beginners should obsess about–it’s beyond their immediate concern and ability. It’s more of an intermediate level concern, and will stay with you all the way to your advance phase as an artist. It’s okay to think about it and get used to the idea of it, but don’t punish yourself over it.
Wow. Hey. Wow.
Lots of information there. I haven’t read through it all yet but I will. Thank you for the time you put into responding back. I appreciate it a lot.
I downloaded the brush you suggested and will start using that instead of what I was using. I’ll also take your advice on the canvas size/orientation and all.
This is awesome. It’s making me want to try more lol. Thanks a lot, everyone!
Okay. I’ve had quite a lot of advice on practicing and upping my skill. I will definitely do that.
Could I possibly get some criticism on the figure itself? What am I doing right and what am I doing wrong?
Also, I have four “courses”, sort of, from four different guys teaching how to draw in four different ways. They all use the 8 head method but they each go a different way, sort of.
One of them goes in depth as to drawing each bone by bone [main bones] of the body. The skull, the spine, the scapula, the femur and fibula and …if I go on anymore I’ll only be making up the names. He then moves on to the muscles and this is called this and that. Now, I get it. It’s important to learn all that and understand what is what and what does what. How much in depth should I go though? Like, how come so many people teach in so many different ways and all can draw fine…except you, the student =P or maybe it’s just me haha
I guess I’m sort of lost when it comes to the figure. I get told to keep sketching and trying and whatnot. I’ll do that. But, where am I going wrong? Can someone draw in the white space of my canvas or even put arrows and notes? Thing is, I look at it and it’s better than what I was doing a month ago. If I keep practicing I’m going to look at that as my standard.
I don’t expect you to take MORE time just for my shocking drawing but I guess it may help me know what to be fixing and working on.
Thank you again for the time you’re putting for me and my thread. I appreciate it so much!
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.