Forum posts by Retrodictionary

It's really clear what each pose is, which I admire because on my faster sketches, my drawings tend to resemble scribbles more than anything else. That being said, they do seem kind of stiff. I notice you're not using lines of action, which have really helped me with my stiffness. Especially with really simplified sketches, you'd be surprised how much you can push a pose before it stops looking "real", and the line action helps you to see where and how to push it.

Your drawings have a really nice flow to the them, and I'm a little envious of your line quality.

To be honest, I tend to push the poses on the stiff male models by looking for any angle in the shoulders and pelvis and exaggerating it. As for where to place the neck, it more or less fits in between the shoulders, so if you can figure how the shoulders sit over the rib cage, that makes things a lot easier. There's also a surprising amount of variety in neck length and thickness, so sometimes my intuition on what a neck can do or should look like is wrong, which is of course where Line of Action comes in handy!

These are so cute! You're already quite good at managing your time for the different time intervals. I find that LoA is most useful for practicing things that are outside my comfort zone, since the timed aspect keeps me going past when I would get discouraged on my own. It's also really good for building a regular drawing habit.

"How do you eat an elephant?"

"One bite at a time!"

I'm sorry for the corny advice, but I find it's very, very true in art. Pick one thing -- this can be a fundamental like line, shading, gesture, etc., OR it can be a particular piece of anatomy like the shoulders, knees, hands, stomach, etc. -- and work on that for a week, see if you notice an improvement. When you can't figure out how to do something, look it up! Youtube, books, drawing friends, etc. are all great resources. Then lather, rinse, repeat. Address whatever bugs you most about your art, which should change as you improve.

I also found I started improving a lot faster once I started using class mode. The longest drawing should always be pushing you to do a little more than you're comfortable with.

I've been learning to draw using Line of Action for two years now. While my practice drawings have improved a lot, I've produced only a few original sketches. I just don't feel inspired to draw from imagination, even though I don't want to be stuck doing studies forever. It seems I don't have much of a "visual imagination". Does anyone have any advice or excercises to help build this skill?

As some who's learning to draw basically exclusively on a tablet, I think it's also worth considering what programs you want to practice on for the digital stuff. Things like PhotoShop and Krita can handle more painterly styles, while other programs are more suited to lineart. Also, you'll save a lot of storage space if you practice at lower resolutions than you'd use for a finished piece.

Your 30-sec drawings are nice and fluid, and I'm amazed at the amount of detail you're able to cram into the 1-minute drawings! I find that my art changes and progresses even when I don't practice, and I come back faster and more confident each time. If you can just get past the first awkward bit of getting back into the swing of things, I think you'll find you're not as rusty as you think.