Forum posts by Sanne

It's really hard to give any solid advice on this without seeing the drawing. There are a million ways to adjust a drawing to achieve the desired 'following eyes' effect you're trying to accomplish, so without a visual reference we'll just be wildly guessing. That's not very efficient I'm afraid! :(

Wow, I really like how the model after looks more realistic! I especially love the facial features. :)

Perhaps you can share with us what you've noticed specifically in your own improvement? It's fascinating to me when an artist is able to dissect their own work and progress!

What Gyoung said is very true! You've probably become to used to animals and still life drawings that the human body feels completely alien to draw. You get discouraged by that because you're not used to it working out as well as animals do. But don't give up!

You say you struggle a lot with proportions. I strongly recommend taking a look at www.posemaniacs.com and the site's very own gesture drawing tool. Instead of refining the shapes and details of these drawings, try to break the images down into sections: a circle for a head, a box for the torso etc. Only draw the basics and compare them with your references.

Study people in real life too. Notice where the symmetry is. A belly button usually lines up with the elbow when someone is standing in a relaxed pose with their arms down the sides of their body. The fingertips are halfway down the upper thigh. The crotch is usually around the wrist area.

These key elements can be a very useful guide to help you get used to the human proportions. Practice is the most important element though, but I'm sure you're going to improve rapidly with that! :)

When drawing animals, I think it's especially important to convey body language. It is their main communication tool in the animal world, so just by getting body language right you can already get a lot of leeway with other aspects of the drawing.

I suggest focusing on the basics first. Try to get the dynamics and energy of the animal into the rough lines of the drawing. Make the body flow, not stand oddly stiff, and don't worry about dimensions and negative and positive space. You'll want to focus on the shape of the animal.

You can try using the same basic sketch stages of a human body (circles, squares and lines) to get the rough skeleton of the animal down, then work from those to flesh it out.

These tools are all excellent! Thank you for sharing. :)

I would like to point out something about the stock photography on DA: some stock artists do NOT allow derived works to be posted anywhere other than DeviantArt! Please double-check with the stock rules so you won't be breaking them. I know a lot of them don't mind if gesture drawings are posted around, but some do. :) Better be safe than sorry!

Can you specify what sort of proportions you're referring to? Sighting and using grids are excellent ways to maintain proportions, especially in still-life/landscape drawings.

If you're drawing people, proportions may be more easily accomplished by using the proportion rules of the human body. For example, when standing straight with your arms at your sides, the elbow will be at the same level of the belly button. The body will also be approximately 7 heads tall etc.

The Buddha Board looks like a useful tool to practice things on, but I think that's a bit deceptive.

Part of practicing is comparing your works with each other to notice progress and find repetitive flaws, and since Buddha Boards works vanish after a while, you'll never really be able to tell the difference! Seems a bit counter intuitive to me.

I think pen and paper, or saving every drawing on your computer if you work digitally, is the best way for gesture drawing. The Buddha Board looks like something to use when you need to sit back, doodle something and relax without worrying about the lasting effect of your drawing. :)

Interesting, it took me a bit to figure out what was wrong, so I can definitely see why you're struggling with it!

The length proportions are all fine in your drawing. I think it's the shape of the lower leg that makes it look off.

In your drawing, the lower leg is very round in shape and stays relatively thick from the calve up to the ankle. Take a look at this (watermarked) stock photo:

http://i.istockimg.com/file_thumbview_approve/9540560/2/stock-photo-9540560-classic-female-leg-posing.jpg

Notice how the leg considerably slims down at an angle halfway down the lower leg? In your drawing this doesn't happen. It starts tapering down at the ankle, when it should start tapering halfway down already. I think if you fix this, your drawing will look a lot more anatomically correct!

There are two more small things that I noticed:

1. I'm unable to tell if the line you drew down the center of her lower leg is a sketch line to guide you, or it supposed to outline the bone/muscle in the leg. If it's the latter, try making it straighter. It doesn't curve with the fat deposit and muscles, so if you straighten that out it should make it look a little less awkward. If it's a sketch line, then it's not directly relevant to your drawing!

2. Feet are roughly the size of the lower arm, starting at the inside of the elbow to the wrist. (I use this as a measuring tool when I go shoe-shopping all the time!) Unless she has unusually small feet, try making her feet a little longer to fit with this proportion so she looks more balanced. :)

All in all I really enjoy the drawing, you seem to have a good grasp on pretty much everything!

Hi everyone. :)

I registered on this site a while ago but mostly browsed and used the tools here and there for practice.

I started drawing when I was about 13 years old and am 25 now. About 85% of my art has always been created digitally, and I used a tablet after my first year of really getting into drawing. Because I've specialized so in digital art, traditional has become a bit more difficult, although I enjoy using traditional mediums a lot! (I miss the undo button though! :()

The past couple of years, drawing has been put a bit onto the backseat in my life after a lot of things happened, so nowadays I'm not as frequent of a drawer as I'd like to be, unfortunately! I do try to take time to doodle and practice every now and then, and am planning to do it more often. :)

I had the pleasure of working alongside Kim as a moderator and have recently been appointed as moderator to this site as well. I'm very excited to help Kim out with another one of her amazing projects, and welcome everyone to let me know if something's up. I also will regularly check the forums for new topics and offer my help and encouragement where I can. :D

I'm glad to finally be part of this community as well and am looking forward to getting to know everyone!

You're welcome! Please do share your results, I'm very excited to see the progress you make. :)

Welcome to the site! I hope you'll find all the motivation you need around here to keep going strong. :) Let us know if you ever need help with your drawings!

Another suggestions is to ttake pictures of friends or family members from different angles, then practice using those!

I personally find working from photographs (especially ones I made) to be useful and inspiring when they show different angles on the same object. It gives you a better understanding of their structure and the diversity. Using different models is especially useful if you're stuck with similar looking faces.

You can pretty much stylize noses however you want once you understand their true anatomy.

Here are some sample tutorials for you that break noses down for you:

http://cataclysm-x.deviantart.com/art/Tutorial-how-to-draw-noses-44708765

http://conceptcookie.deviantart.com/art/Nose-Tutorial-Resource-342487080

http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Nose-Tutorial-120934771

The rights:
Dynamic poses are always a pleasure to look at! You've done a great job at trying different angles, poses and involve objects, which are usually really hard but very important to do. In the first sketch you've also added depth by using shadows. I really like that. :D

The improvements:
Something specific I noticed is that the collarbones you draw feel a little bit glued on to the chest. They have a very specific purpose of helping your arms move around. They're attached to the chest in a certain way. Give this tutorial a look-over so you understand how it attaches:
http://jilllenad.deviantart.com/art/Anatomy-Tutorial-Collar-Bone-217101968

In your second sketch, the belly button feels misaligned. I get the impression I'm looking at the body from the front, so the belly button should be in the center. It feels too far to the right though. The head and neck also feel placed too far left.

In the third sketch there are minor proportion issues. The head could be a bit larger, and the hand that's pointing away from her back is too large and could be sized down a bit. Her left (our right) breast isn't attached properly to the chest either, it's too far to the side and moving backwards too dramatically. Its attachment point is lower.

All in all, I really like these sketches. :) They incorporate many difficult elements but it's clear to see where you're going. If you pay attention to these pointers, you should be able to improve tons! Well done!