Forum posts by Spicierleaf

Thanks for the reply!

I'll keep that in mind for next time.

Oops, somehow I missed that... thank you!

Hello, this is an issue I've had just today. When I opened the web page this morning, everything was in French, which is strange considering I don't live in France/Canada and my time zone in the settings is set to US Eastern. I don't know what to do about it, I suppose it's just a minor convenience and I could work around it, but I'd greatly appreciate a fix if anyone has one.

Thanks!

I completely understand, it was quite difficult for me to grasp the first several times I read the book and I still don't feel like I have a great understanding of it.

I think for me personally, it's helped me think about drawing the figure in a different way. In the first few pages of the book, he writes about the "humanity of the figure", and some parts of that really stuck with me. I've also watched some videos of him demoing his process, and that's really made me think about how gravity, weight, etc affect the pose, and how the model is in motion (even though it's a photo). Another few things he emphasized that stuck with me are to really loosen up, "be passionate about the aliveness of the model and the pose", to not worry about the drawing, and to "always have something to say" (don't just copy, think critically about what to exaggerate or emphazise. In the book, he calls it "having opinion").

I'll likely reread the book a few more times, but I hope this helps in some way.

Hello! I'd appreciate any critique on some of these poses I've drawn recently. I've been reading the book FORCE - Dynamic Life Drawing (Michael Mattesi) and watching videos by the same author, and it's inspired me to practice more figure drawing. I would highly recommend reading it. I also plan to read Figure Drawing: Design and Invention by Michael Hampton, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I still have a lot of practice to do, but I'm pretty happy with a few of these.

https://imgur.com/a/liWXhI1

These look really nice!

Working on slightly bigger paper, so you aren't cramping the figures in, may help some amount. Aside from that, I unfortunately can't say much else. I'm sure someone else with more experience could give you more advice.

Oftentimes when figure drawing or planning for a project I'm trying to really think about what I'm doing and focus, so I'll work without music. But when doing other things like painting or doing flat colors (digitally), I'll listen to really anything, and I think it helps me keep focused. I never watch videos though. I don't know how other people do that without getting distracted by either activity, watching or drawing.

Hello!

Your proportions look pretty good to me :)

If you can, it may be better to do your gestures on paper rather than digitally - digital is convenient, but on paper you usually have more space to spread out and can use more of your arm. I think that would help you a lot and that loosening up would help you get back into it. Something like thick charcoal or graphite can feel really powerful and freeing, just nice overall to make some big strokes, which in turn (for me at least) makes more fluid motion.

If you're looking for something more specific to focus on, I'd say trying to think about the forms and shapes of the figure - thinking more 3d rather than 2d (though I suppose that's pretty general too).

Best wishes!

Thank you so much! I was definitely uncomfortable with my page size, but I have some very large newsprint paper that I hope to start using more often. I really appreciate your input.

Thank you for your reply as well!

I'll take the tutorial, and keep practicing of course. I didn't think of it before but that is definitely a weak point of mine.

I'll definitely go watch them, thank you.

Thanks for the reply. I'll certainly keep that in mind, and take a look to see if there are perhaps any books by him I could read to improve.

I've been drawing for a few years and have recently come back to figure drawing for a different purpose than before. When I first started my main goal was to get a decent foundation in form and proportion, but now I'm looking to improve my work overall and focus on fluidity. If you have any advice to give critiques, I would greatly appreciate it!

Here are some recent ones:

https://imgur.com/a/lixkKyk

https://imgur.com/a/boK9Qf1

Thanks :)