overall (professional) opinion?

Hello, I've used this site a few times before however recently I've decided to make an account in order to interact and learn from other artists.

my overall goal is to become really familiar with anatomy and drawing in general till it becomes second nature to me when trying to draw from memory, however im uncertain if my method of copy practice is the right way of doing so.

under my untrained eye, I believe my drawings are. decent. but I would still like a second opinion on my work. such as whether the hatching is appropriate or if there are certain elements I should improve on.

any feedback would be much appreciated

https://imgur.com/gallery/Fm07pXu :)

Good evening and welcome, Emi K.

I really think you've done the greatest work on your figures' range of gestures and poses. I feel that these drawings need the most elasticity and putty-like quality in the poses. Would you care to go ahead with our interactive drawing tutorial RIGHT HERE?

As a result of that tutorial, there shall be two things:

1) To help you refresh yourself in the basics of gesture drawing in general, even if this is all figures.

2) To help you start off with the fastest in lines of rhythm and action, but end the most with the slowest yet carefulest 5 minute pose.

If you're completely, utterly, therefore totally curious about the most figure drawing practice, look into the website, Quickposes for extra practice in gesture drawing.

Good luck to you.

I've followed your advice and tried out the figure/gesture practice you linked to.

https://imgur.com/uKC7dzN
https://imgur.com/C2C5SmE
I really appreciate the feedback!

• Emi K P edited this post on July 26, 2023 2:15pm.

Hello again, Emi K P.

Again, greatest job on your range of gestures and constructions of your figure poses. I really think that you need a particular goal, but I feel that you need to loosen up and lighten up your lines of action and rhythm with 5 minutes of 30 second pose sketches?

The reason is because if your goal next up is to make my gestures and poses less stiff and even more fluider, flowing, but liveliest, then go for it. Yet, to help make your lines of action and balance farthest least stiffest and most dynamic, energetic, and fluidest but plasticky.

My hat's off from me to you.

Alrighty.

I tried the gesture exercise again with the first batch done in under one minute and took my time on the last bunch. I even opted to use a graphite pencil over the mechanical one to really get that fluidity! https://imgur.com/gallery/sfyhMsy

Really tried to loosen my style this time so I hope there's some visual improvement.

• Emi K P edited this post on July 26, 2023 8:53pm.
• Emi K P edited this post on July 26, 2023 8:54pm.

Hi Emi! I wouldnt call my opinion professional, but I will say a few things anyway.

-Firsr and foremost, your crosshatching is fine. Its good that your focusing on the shape and trends of the shadow. Of anything, I'd like it to be more agressive to really highlight those places of deep shadow, but that could just be a style list if choice on my part.

-Secondly Copy practice is a great method in experience, but one method I do a lot myself you may find useful for learning to draw from memory is trace-reference-draw. You take a pose, trace it and it's major lines and shapes, then try to draw the same pose using your trace and photo as references, and then get rid of both of those and try to draw a similar but not exactly the same pose from memory. This excersize really pushes you to study a pose and internalize what you can learn from it, and you might find it really helpful if your goal is to figure out how to draw without references.

-Another thing that might help you with anatomy is taking advantage of the 360 figure tool. Seeing the same pose from different angles really helps you get a sense of how a body moves in space. Optimally we would all attend IRL figure drawing classes for that purpose, but without those being practical. The 360 poses are possibly the next best thing. Just going through one pose slowly and drawing all of its angles may be really helpful to you

-in general your art is really expressive! It feels very geometric, and it's clear your studying the geometry of everything and how the overall shapes pláy out! I think your next step is really going to be pushing yourself to draw from imagination, which is honestly the hardest part, I have every faith you are capable of it however!

Certainly feels more fluid! Im curious, how often do you really study your previous sessions? Its super important and something Im only recently remembering to do.

Its a good way to check your work, spot the things that don't look right and adjust your aproach for the next session. No one knows your process better than you, and if the art isn't working or you are rushing parts to get done, you are probably more aware of the mistakes you made than you think. If you aren't sure about how to fix those mistakes, thats when a critique is REALLY useful, cause its easier to address specific problems and easier for you to correct them.

I think you are underestimating the power of some solid straight lines. Almost every line you used have been curved, which gives the figures a bit of a bloopy feel. Solid lines provide force and structure. Although human bodies don't have a lot of them, in quick gesture drawing, showing off the mood of the piece is more important that the accuracy of the body curves, so knowing where to use a good straight line is super effective.

Way to go on your lines of action and rhythm of your poses, but I think that you're getting there the mostest, but I feel that these all seem or look too stilted to me extremely. Would you love to go ahead with 7 more minutes of 29 second poses? (420/29≈14 quick warmups)

As a result of those warmups, then your lines of action,balance, and rhythm will be quickly sketched out the most dynamicaly, energetically, but fluidly. If you're really, REALLY curious about gesture drawing for art, cartooning, and animation, kindly look into the the PDF of the Vilppu Drawing Manual here.

I hope you've found most of these things and more the most helpful, supportive, and totally useful.

Alrighty. tried the warm-up again, this time using the guidance of the manual you've linked, as well as tried to replicate that artist's style of drawing with the fluid outlines and harsh cross-hatching

https://imgur.com/gallery/RUxQPjB