Forum posts by Sanne

AND, 'Delete topic reply?' doesn't translate smoothly into Dutch. 'Verwijder onderwerp antwoord?' doesn't roll off the tongue and is just weirdly phrased, so I simplified it to 'Delete message?' = 'Verwijder bericht?' -- it's not the most accurate one-on-one translation, but it gets the intention across accurately!

I also ran into the fact that 'reply' and 'react' can both be the same word in Dutch as 'reactie'. I opted to translate 'reply' as a version of 'answer', and to keep 'react' as 'reaction'.

So reply = antwoord

And react = reactie

Having both the reply and the react be the same word could potentially be confusing, so I feel this is a worthwhile distinction!

So for the Dutch error messages, I'm running into the problem where 'the' is gendered when translated, and it depends on what the noun is which of the following are used:

de, het, een

It doesn't appear consistent across the board and it can be tricky to figure out the noun in these instances. I think the ideal workaround may be to simply leave out 'the' entirely in the translation? Otherwise it's going to read super awkward when translated with the incorrect articles.

What's up gang? :D

A couple of weeks ago I discovered an oil painting app for VR (virtual reality). It's called 'Vermillion' (available on Oculus Quest/Rift and SteamVR) and it aims to simulate realistic oil painting while providing a handful of digital tools alongside the experience, including layers and an undo button.

While I have no prior oil painting experience, I have been absolutely THRILLED with the experience and the results. As I get to know the program better, I keep noticably improving. :) The hands-on experience without the mess, storage, smells, and expenses of buying all the supplies is something else!

These are 3 of the 4 paintings I did in the app, in order of creation:

Vermillion tutorial, Bob Ross inspired





Tropical Paradise painting





Octopus painting




For those curious, I streamed the Octopus painting process. The first 6 hours or so were streamed live on Twitch, the remaining 14 hours were recorded and edited into a speedpaint video. (The Twitch stream videos are linked in the video description.)

youtu.be/z69VBUepLKg

I know that there are other apps for VR besides Vermillion, but VR also still feels in its early stages for app development, so I'm not expecting there to be many folks out there who are actively pursuing this medium at this time.

But... if you are.... what is your favorite program? What kind of things can you or have you done in it? What are the pros and cons for you? I'm very curious to know and connect!!

Hi Aunt Herbert!

I don't think what's happening right now constitutes as spam. :) The sketchbook only shows a fraction of practice images for a technical reason: people with a doodler subscription are limited to 5 image uploads a month, and people with a full subscription get unlimited image uploads to their sketchbook. Members without a subscription cannot upload images. On the flip side, everyone can self-host their images and post them on the forums.

This is likely why the submissions of some members (with a full subscription) can appear to overwhelm the student work pages, and why a lot of folks stick to the ciritique forums instead of uploading directly to the site.

At the end of the day, that page in particular simply showcases recent uploads, and we're not going to limit anyone to only a certain number of uploads being shown on that page for now. You've paid for a subscription that allows unlimited image uploads and you're more than welcome to make use of that.

If excessive image uploads are a problem for the 'student work' pages, the responsibility of managing this falls on us (specifically, Kim), not on the users using what they've paid for. :)

How you want to manage this at the end of the day boils down to what you're happy with!

Hi Aunt Herbert!

You can go to Your Studio (at the top of any page), then click on the blue Go Critique button in the middle. This will select a recent random image that's been marked for critique, and it will also show any other comments made. Below the image is the 'Skip to next' button which will cycle you through to the next image. :)

I hope this helps!

Hi Momo!

I, too, would love a dedicated app for the site! Unfortunately I don't believe this is possible anytime in the near future. The site was built and is maintained by a single person (Kim) who does everything by herself. The only help she gets is some moderation help and photo bundles that are submitted to the site by its members, all other functionalities are created and maintained by just her.

In order to build an app, it has to support two major platforms (iOS and Android) and be updated/maintained alongside the website itself. Line of Action is not her only project, there are several more, including a daytime job to go alongside everything. Mobile apps are requested for virtually all of her projects, and she is the sole developer on all of them. I'm sure it's evident at this point how daunting of a task it would be to make mobile apps for all of them and still work a daytime job and keep everything updated every time the website receives an update!

Her solution so far has been to make the website as mobile friendly and accessible as possible. In most cases, you can create a bookmark to the site that can be tapped from your device's homepage and opens in a borderless window, immitating a mobile app. Notifications are also supported in Chrome/Android devices at this stage for a smoother experience.

I know this is not the answer you hoped for, but I do hope it brings some insight to the situation and that the bookmark option is a workable solution in the meantime. :)

This is a very interesting topic, and something that I feel has been something I struggled with myself for almost 20 years.

The more I think about it, the more I feel it boils down to clear communication. A beginning artist will not know the common terminology and will have to learn it to begin with, but perhaps challenging them to analyze and break down their own artwork is a good first step to fostering a better understanding. I think you did a good job of it in this post: is this stiffness related to the fluidity of the lines? Is this stiffness related to capturing the overall pose of the model? Or is this stiffness originating from the model not maintaining a dynamic pose?

While it's tempting to try and show somebody from the start "This is how you do it", I've found that being being asked to analyze the drawing myself and more pointedly consider what I need help with goes a long way. Some of my biggest learning moments have been when I was asked to stop and think about "What do you find the most challenging? Can you name one concrete part of drawing that you struggle with?" -- or, in this case, "What does 'stiffness' mean to you? For example, does it mean: ... or ... or .... ?"

Not all useful critique comes in the form of instructions or analyzing drawings ourselves; it can also come in the form of asking the artist themselves to look at it from a different perspective and giving them the words to name what it is they need help with. Stiffness is a useful term that applies to various aspects of art as you've so aptly described, so rather than finding a different way of naming stiffness, maybe the solution is to help artists create the context by teaching them which aspects to look out for.

Hi there!

It looks like you found a bit of a bug. I think the title including a .com might be confusing the server and making it unable to find the topic. I'll forward this to Kim to take a look at!

Heya Fluxbugs! This is definitely the right board. :)

The purpose of the longer sessions is to flesh out your studies. When you're doing the 30-120 second gestures, they're considered warmups that help your body and brain loosen up. As your classes progress to 5-10-20-30-60 minutes, the idea is to do more detailed works.

You can opt to start those as you have so far, with the line of action and basic structure as a base, and then start working on capturing the details on top of the base. Some people find this helpful and can create a more detailed figure.

Others take a different approach, where they try to loosely sketch what they see and then get more detailed and flesh out the figure. For example, they may start with a very faint line of action and very faintly lay out the basic porportions, or they may skip this entirely and just start drawing. The end result is a recreation of the reference image as much as they can during the time they spent on it.

So in short, gestures are mostly warmups and serve as a potential base, but longer studies are meant to encourage you to draw a more completed image.

It can be helpful to try and focus on specific goals here. "Draw what you see" is an incredibly broad goal, but if you narrow it down to "This week I want to focus on getting proportions right", then you can spend that time trying to focus on that. And next week you can change your goal to "I want to focus on making my figures fluid/lively" and so forth. It also helps to switch it up - this week it's full body figures, next week could be animals, hands and feet, or faces! :) Keeping it interesting gives your brain breaks and makes practicing more fun.

I think our ability to produce creative content is in a state of fluctuation by default; meaning that you'll have days where everything just seems to go smoothly without any effort, and other days where you can try three times as hard and still feel like you're getting nowhere. It's something to expect and keep in mind, as people are dynamic and so are our moods and abilities. That by itself isn't alarming, and something we should accept and work through. The important thing isn't that all your content is as good or better than the previous, it's about staying in motion and continuing to practice.

I also believe that our perspective is by default skewed and biased. When I was in my mid-teens, I drew things I felt were awful and unskilled, as if I unlearned everything I learned. A few years later, I was able to look at my drawings and suddenly they looked totally different to me. As I got older and progressed with my skills, I was able to stop judging myself so harshly and appreciate the things I did well. Sometimes, it's a matter of being too harsh and criticizing yourself without praising the things you did well. So maybe with your next sessions, instead of comparing it to your previous works and judging the things you didn't do so well, try to look at the work as standalone and allow some praise towards the things you did do well!

That said, breaks are important! Just like how atheletes need to take breaks to allow their muscles to heal and grow, we need to allow ourselves some days off where we try to process what we learned and just rest. It's good to have a daily routine, but if it comes at the expense of your progress, consider adjusting your schedule so that you can take a breather between sessions.

We really couldn't agree more; our library needs more diversity, period. In skin colors, in ages, in body types and weights.

Most of the current images were provided by generous photographers. Although we have curated the selection, trying to prune out poor quality images or poses with no educational value, we only have what was offered to us. Young, skinny and white made up the vast majority of the images we were sent, and many of the ones we continue to receive. We've been making some slow progress toward expanding the collection, and were planning our own photoshoot for this summer to make a big dent in the problem. Unfortunately, coronavirus has put those plans on indefinite hold for now.

We're currently working with a photographer in a country that has been able to control their outbreaks and lift their lockdowns, who is trying to help us with at least a few batches of more diverse photos over the next couple of months!

Hey Acharbonnet, have you tried our Hands and Feet tool? Studying anatomy isn't limited to just skeletal and muscle studies, so make sure not to exclude resources of just plain old pictures of the limbs. :)

You're welcome to post any art you've made that you'd like to receive help with! :) It doesn't have to be just Line of Action images you referenced.

Heya Bo3o!

What is your exact goal when you do a 30 minute class? Gestures aren't really about meeting a timed goal, they're about training your brain to break a figure down into simple quick gestures/lines to capture the dynamics of the pose and not get stuck on trying to get it right every single time -- you want to move on to the next gesture after a certain amount of time to keep your brain engaged in the pattern recognition. They act as warm-ups for more detailed drawings and help to grow an understanding of how these shapes and lines work together.

A lot of your first couple of gestures are very scribbly, which tells me you may be overthinking the initial gestures and are unsure about what to put down. Before you do your next class, try to set yourself a smaller goal; for example, "Reduce stiffness and make my drawings feel more dynamic, energetic, fluid"

Next time you do 30 second gestures, you can try to limit the amount of lines you put down on the paper. It can be really helpful to try and capture the broader lines of a gesture pose with only 5 lines max, for example a nice fluid curved line for the spine (the line of action), and confident strokes for the arms and legs. If it doesn't end up looking like anything at first, that's totally okay! You're training with this, you're not putting out refined sketches.