Not sure where to start with critique? Check out these two guides:
<a href='https://line-of-action.com/benefiting-from-critique/'>Benefiting from critique</a>
<a href='https://line-of-action.com/giving-good-critique/'>Giving good critique</a>
Sorry for the late reply -- I know many people who are in wildly unrelated careers to their degree. Simply having a degree will unlock many many doors that you would not expect, and I no longer think of degrees as being a straight line to a specific career for the vast majority. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Visual and Critical Studies myself, and now I run a web development company and do a lot of heavy-duty programming (which I turn out to love, go figure.)
Not having a BFA, I'm not sure how to advise you specifically. Does your school have a guidance center? They will often keep a record of what their graduates went on to do, and sometimes their average income 1 to 10 years after graduation -- you could go ask them what people from your department have done with themselves historically! :)
I'm unaware of one! We're actually smack-dab in the middle of working on producing a hands & feet practice tool, thanks to the very generous support of this community. :) I've been documenting our progress as we go! Here's the most recent update:
We're also already at work on the next tool after hands & feet, which will be for environments. My expectation is that after that, we will begin raising money for a faces/expressions tool.
On the other hand, now that I think about it, I've seen a number of artists jump straight into the stick figure stage while gesture drawing. To me this is a little crazy, but it definitely works for some!
On youtube there are even some boggling people who start at just drawing the fully formed human -- I am impressed by these videos, but also find them disheartening as they tend to rank highly when a student does a search for gesture drawing. I think it creates the wrong impression and sets a too-intimidating bar. I also wonder if those artists have not just trained themselves to see "outlines" very accurately, and wonder how solidly their foundations are rooted in underlying anatomy. What would happen if they had no model, for example? I really don't know.
To summarize my follow-up rant: Artists work very differently. You will probably need to experiment to see what works best for you!
My best advice is to work large, so you can fit a skeleton and eventual flesh inside/on top of the original gesture and still see the details.
For me and many artists I have observed, the method seems to be rapidly capturing the energy, direction and "gist" of the pose using the free-form gesture scribbles of our choosing, then at a slightly more sane pace, overlaying our chosen structural representation on top of it.
This helps to ensure the skeleton takes the pose and the energy, but still gives you the chance to put limbs back into sockets. It's like a second draft that takes into account real anatomy, without completely writing out the energy and expression that was captured in the first draft.
The third draft would then be changing that series of sticks and joints into a fully fleshed human, with the gesture and the skeleton slowly being erased but still informing the final, outer layer.
Those are good tips! And perhaps this will help you with distinct? <a title="definition of distinct" href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/distinct" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/distinct</a>
Hey Vyse (and everyone!) I'm sorry for my silence. I've had to work evenings and weekends for the last two weeks and I've been so exhausted, napping every minute I'm not working has been top of my mind. Makes drawing hard!
I know I said this awhile back, but back then it fell through and this time it looks like it's going to work: I'm in the process of hiring office assistance, so hopefully I'll be back to a normal person schedule soon. I definitely haven't forgotten you guys or my drawing goals and I can't wait to get back!
And hi there, Robbjosf! It's a pleasure to have you joining us. We're definitely not going to laugh at you. I myself am pretty darn rusty, and no one has been anything but encouraging. Constructive criticism and practice is the name of the game for improving! Keep at it and welcome to the 100 project!
