Please Critique!

This is my first submitted piece. About 1 minute on each figure. I'm struggling a lot trying to keep it simple and just follow curves, but I do think I've improved a lot. I would very much appreciate hearing what I need to work/focus on. Please speak laymens to me, as I'm rather new to this. I apologize for the quality and will be getting a scanner tomorrow.

• Literally Mom edited this post on June 30, 2019 4:30am.

Welcome to the site!

These are some great 1 minute drawings. :) Wanting to improve is an incredibly broad goal, and a vague one at that too. What does improvement mean to you? It's almost impossible to give good advice without knowing what it is you want to work towards, so I highly recommend sharing a narrowed down, specific goal. Not only will it enable others to help you out better, it'll also make it easier for you to learn since you won't be trying to practice everything at once, which makes it harder to learn well and efficiently.

Some people want more fluid figures that feel more natural and dynamic, so they focus on motion. Others want to improve their facial anatomy, so they focus on faces. Others struggle with drawing masculine or feminine figures, so they focus on those builds and what makes them different from one another. :) There are many other goals to attain, and they vary per person!

What goal do you have?

• Sanne edited this post on June 30, 2019 11:34am.

That's a good question, I'm sorry. I didn't really think it over, I suppose. I really want to improve on depicting the human form as what it is; an organic, fluid and dynamic thing. I want to be able to say, "I want to draw a person scooping up a jug of water from a river" and be able to visualize how that should look and how to put the body together. A good sense of both anatomy and believable mobility/gravity. I hope that makes sense. Thank you for taking your time with me!

Day two on here. I'm really trying to combat stiffness in my poses to make it feel more whole and lifelike. I had the hardest time with the really muscular guy. I felt like his pose itself was so rigid that I didn't have a lot I could do with it. I'm currently studying muscle anatomy as well, but right now I think I should focus more on action/gesture than perfect anatomy.

I hope this feedback helps :)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1fy_gmXypaVfOhdmzq0DIRFhWVXOsEbcj

Oh wow, that's amazing. I love you! Lol. Thank you, especially for taking the time to make a visual critique. That helps SO much and I am incredibly appreciative! I will try to keep your remarks in mind with today's practice. I need to break my brain of focusing on details.

Day 3 of practice. I am taking the critique I've gotten so far and really focusing on my C and S curves, and using less detail. These are 30 second sketches, aside from two noted otherwise. The short intervals helps a lot.

Good work, especially for 30 sec poses! The last figures feel much more energetic and unified. Keep it up.

Aw, thank you. I'm just really happy that someone as skilled as you is critiquing my stuff, I feel really privileged. Lol.

Here's day 4. I mostly did 30 and 60 second intervals, though I tried a couple five minute ones. I feel I'm getting better. I caught myself midway with the hanging lady and realized her legs were too long, which is usually something I don't notice until way later. I finished it anyway though and took it simply as a lesson learned, and paid closer attention with the next few on having more accurate proportions. The five minutes actually seem to set me back, I feel like. As if I have too much time, and I start working to clean up, but in the process I loose my action (C, S) curves. I'd like some advice on how to avoid this, if possible!

Here's some more: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CrJO5PhD27Ya0dGaT_GHu45IfdJtfGpg

I hope you don't mind but I'm saving those, it's super helpful. I've also been going through your own work for more help. I'm just super honored and I promise that I am absolutely working off of any advice you've given thus far. I never really thought about the importance of force all the different kinds when it comes to depicting things in art.

Took a smaller step forward today. 30-60 seconds each, focusing on thinking about how force affects the pose, as well as keeping proportions in mind.

I hope you don't mind but I'm saving those, it's super helpful. I've also been going through your own work for more help. I'm just super honored and I promise that I am absolutely working off of any advice you've given thus far. I never really thought about the importance of force all the different kinds when it comes to depicting things in art.

By all means. These are for you so I expected you to save them :P.

The human body, and any object on this planet, is affected by the force of gravity. So it's key to consider it if we want to create the illusion of reality. And I find it makes drawing much more exciting.

In terms of time I'd say work with 3 to 5 minute poses. Not to draw detail but to give yourself more time to observe and think. Once the thought process becomes second nature it's easy to draw fast and get good results.

Especially for standing poses, draw the legs and feet. They're the pillars that support the structure of the upper body. Approach the body like a building. Prioritize the parts that keep the torso mass balanced, then draw the rest.

Thank you. I did as you said today and did 3-5 minute pieces. The top three are 3 minutes, the bottom 2 are 5 minutes. I think you're dead on, as usual, lol. I feel like I had more time to think about how the body is working with itself to keep the poses and balance. I still have a lot of work, but I think you have helped me along the right path.