Gestures and Mannequins

Hello,

I'd appreciate any critique and insights for gesture and shapes/forms. Anything wrong with these that hits the eye? Any advice on how to exercise better? Anything that comes to mind is welcome, I believe looking for feedback is important.
Thanks in advance.

Good evening to you, Eshlost, I'm Polyvios Animations, I'm greater, how are you doing tonight? Greater job on your range of movements and motions of your gestures and mannekin constructions. Keep up the greater jobs indeed.

Meanwhile, here's my one smaller, tinier, and littler constructive criticism. I love your broad lines of your animation drawings, but they could use a little bit more pushing and plussing in the action and acting. Kindly free up your non-dominant hand with your first-ever, if you really haven't already, 1 hour class mode consisting of figure poses. Question: did you really just do your 1.5 hour class?

Fast forward to my constructive critique is because, to make your drawings the less stiffer and more gutsy, more organic and flowy. For more info, be sure to look into some gesture drawing for animation Youtubes.

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Hope this videos have helped you out the very absolute most.

• Polyvios Animations edited this post on March 8, 2022 11:24pm. Reason: Added missing videos.

Thank you for your quick response!
So, just to clarify, you think my figures are stiff and lack flow? I'd like to know what you think I should focus on specifically.
To answer your question: No I was just taking random intervals I've set myself, I haven't tried the class mode yet.
I'll be sure to check those videos out tomorrow, for tonight my creative energy has been emptied :D
Thanks again!

To answer you question: Yes, I really do think that some of the figures you've posted are totally stiff and broken. What I completely think that you should focus on is that way you draw organic flowing drawings and poses of your models, especially your figure drawings. Thanks your your response. so, please take it easy for the night. Happy practicing.

Hi Eshlost.

I don't agree with the previous poster who said that your figures are stiff and broken. Of course this is something we can all practice and get better at but in this regard it looks like you are doing something right and are headed in the right direction. You manage to find some good gestures in most of your poses. I would advice you to skip the shadowing though. Yes yes, I know it's tempting and that it can make a figure look cool. But at this stage I would drop it and rather do shorter studies fucussing exclusivelly on rythm and flow.

Sometimes I think that it might in fact be better to practice gesture drawing by not drawing human models at all but rather do many and very short sketches of simple shapes that have "flow" and "gesture" in them. Like drawing quickly but intently the shape of a horses tail while it is running in the wind... or the way water swirls in a slow moving stream, cascading northern lights, the way a snake moves in the desert sand... My point is that the "movement" or the "gesture" of the shape is what gives life to a drawing. Practice it until every stroke you make has it ;)

Practicing with human models can sometimes be too distractive because we all want to make our drawing look as much as that person as possible but this is missing the point. Finding the relaxed state of mind where you express the movement-of-the-shape with speed and ease is the key. Don't care to much about how the finished sketch looks, not yet at least. I would advice you to shorten your time to 30 or 60 seconds poses and be sattisfied with doing a lot less "finished drawings". Only mind the biggest lines, never mind the rest. Good luck.

Hey, thank you for kind words.
I've watched the videos suggested by polyvios and I think I took away the same thing you've said, that I should be focusing on faster gestures, but... I don't know why but somehow I feel like 30 or 60 second gestures turn out to be stiffer than the longer ones I make. I think it's because I usually take my time to observe the figure, while most artists I've watched doing gestures kind of jump right into it the very second they see the pose, however if I do that it really feel like some mindless doodles with no gesture to speak of. It's odd to me because most suggestions I've got from youtube videos or elsewhere was the opposite "If your gestures seem to be stiff then try doing quicker poses".
Any suggestion on that?

"I don't know why but somehow I feel like 30 or 60 second gestures turn out to be stiffer than the longer ones I make"

Yes this is often the case for everyone and it means you have got to stick with it. I know this will sound strange, but it's almost like you have to give up.. Don't get me wrong and Do Not Give Up, but you have to do the grind with the quick 30 second studies until there's something in the brain that eventually let's go or gives up in a way. It might be the fear of messing up a nice fresh paper that lets go, or maybe you have done 5 good ones in a row and all of a sudden you get scared to botch the last one on that sheet of paper. Or it might be something completely different but whatever it may be, it has to go so you can sit back, observe and draw and enjoy without stress, this is the essence of gesture drawing! When this happens is also when you start to get better at drawing really fast.

You just gotta hang in there and grind away drawing after drawing and suddenly you will start to see that when you are hitting "the zone" everything all of a sudden starts to flow. You don't feel like you need to stress in order to get anything done before the time is up and even though your figures might not have hands or feet and certainly no facial features, they will still be more expressive than anything you have done before. This is the sweet spot you want to hit but to get there you have to go the distance.

If you feel like 30 seconds is too short, it means you are trying to draw to much detail. Be mindful of this! If you feel stressed or get tired from drawing 30 second poses it means you need to simplify the drawing. Simplify the hands and feet (or discard them entirely) untill you can comfortably "finish" in time. If you do this for 20 minutes every morning and every night. I guarantee you will see a big improvement in about two weeks.

• Thestripper edited this post on March 11, 2022 12:14am.
• Thestripper edited this post on March 11, 2022 12:18am.

Well, I will keep going I guess. I just don't know what am I looking to improve at what am I supposed to think about what should I find? What must "click"? I don't understand.
I'll report the results in 2 weeks, so far I just feel like I'm developing bad habits and actually getting worse.

Only do it if it's fun to you, it shouldn't be a burden. It's totally normal to feel like you are getting worse. I can recognize that feeling for sure. Simplify your drawings and stick to 30 or max 60 second poses. You are doing quite well I think, your drawings are not bad at all but I think you are on the verge of getting really good. But first you have to learn to simplify your drawing. Short studies are the way. Look at some videos. Proko has good ones for gesture.

Hey there!

From where the drawing are seen, it is hard to say if you putted a timer with a specific amout of time to do each drawing or if you just draw them and then marked how much time it took. If it is the latter, then you're actualy not training gesture, which i dont bilieve to be the case, since your lines are really fluid and you seem to capture the essence of the pose with ease. Considering that you are in second case though, trying putting a timer instead of just noting the time it took, this will show you if the gesture is really strong in you or if you're just taking advantage of the extra time.

Now, considering the high quality of the drawings, u should go for a step foward, anatomy and then rendering, for gesture now will keep you sharp, but wont take you much further. Consedering that you already think the gesture seeing volume and structure.

Well thats what i think. In the road of mastering art, good trip!

Hey,
The poses have been timed with 5, 10 and 20 minutes. The ones that are 3, 7 and 15 is just I thought "I don't need extra, time I think i'm done" (3 minutes one was timed 5 minutes, 7 ->, 15 ->20).
I've started only doing 60 and 30 second timers now, so I'll report in a week more so we could see if I'm going in correct direction, I'd appreciate if you could comment then! Thanks a lot!

Hello there,
Top left drawing:
The uper arm looks a bit weird, like the muscles went down, maybe drawing an arm with just the muscles could help you understand better the shape of each muses and the way they move.
Same remark for the top middle one, the right leg look a bit out of shape. I think the wave of the thigh was reversed.

I don't see anything else on the other drawings, well done on rendering the dynamic or the poses
I really like the 20 minutes ones, lines and movements are great!

Hey, thanks for your feedback.
Yeah hand proportions actually seem odd on the top left one, I see that now. Although I'm not sure I get what did you mean with the muscle training. Those are supposed to be gestural lines (At least the 5 - 10 min ones :p) meaning that there are no muscles included.

Update after 2 weeks. Majority of these are either 30 or 60 seconds long gestures! (There are a few obvious exceptions).
Progress goes from top to bottom of the page. Would you say I've improved at least a bit? What is the most repetitive mistake? Anything that comes to mind, please tell me