Forum posts by Sanne

Hi Megaoofers!

One of the things we'd love to be able to do is provide this feature for everyone, including people who don't have a subscription. The reason why we can't is that hosting images is one of the most expensive parts of running the website, and Line of Action doesn't have the resources to provide uploads for free to all. The subscriptions currently help cover the basic expenses of running the site, but it's unfortunately not enough to do much more beyond that without making the site admin pay out of her own pocket to cover the additional costs.

We really want to, but we can't without causing financial distress. I hope this helps explain it!

Hi there,

Sorry about the delay! We're okay with people using Line of Action in their videos, all we ask is that you give a link back to us to your viewers so they too can make use of our resources. :)

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Hi Ian1111,

That's an interesting idea! I'm curious what Kim thinks of this, I'll make sure she sees it.

The current class setup exists because it emulates some of the real life figure study classes people attend, and is designed to warm you up with short gestures and then allow you to spend more time on detailed figures after your warmup. Can you explain what made you want to try this in reverse? :) I'm personally not really sure how this would help me practice and improve, but I'm super curious and ready to learn!

Hey Maria, sorry it took me a bit to get back to you!

Let's see, the code you're using is this:

https://imgur.com/lXLOvyt

See how https://imgur.com/lXLOvyt does not end in .jpg or .png or .gif ? If you go to that link and right-click on the image, then click 'Copy image address' (or if your device is not in English, a similar phrase), it should copy a link that looks like this:

https://i.imgur.com/lXLOvyt.jpg

Now if you copy and paste this into your post, it will automatically look like this:

I hope that helps!

Hi again Maria!

No worries, things can get confusing. I think the other user whose thread you posted on had the same question. I went ahead and posted my answer there but I also want to link you to it in case you missed it: https://line-of-action.com/forums/topic/how-do-i-upload-images-1?page=1#post-4199

Hope it helps!

Hi Maria,

Thanks for explaining! The feature you're trying to make work doesn't allow for uploading or downloading images (uploading is when you try to get an image from your computer onto a site, downloading is when you're trying to get an image from a site to your computer). It's for when you have images uploaded to a different website, then you can copy and paste the URL into the blank space. That will make the image show in your posts.

If I do this:

Then it will show the image from that URL as an image. This is the URL: https://i.imgur.com/ooGMLtn.png
And it will look like this when posted:

You can try uploading your images to a site such as www.imgur.com and then copy and pasting the link to the image in your forum posts!

I hope this helps. :)

Hi Maria, I'm not sure what you mean with download drawings in the forums, and opening pictures that other students are sending. Could you try explaining what you mean?

Hi Claes, can you please send Kim a direct message about this? Thank you!

Hi Setuwegus, I'm sorry you're having issues!

Can you tell us a bit more about what's happening? What device are you using? Which browser does this happen in? Does it happen in other browsers also? Does the image end in .jpg, .png or .gif?

The more info we have, the better we can help you. :)

I don't know how fewer lines will make me improve the capture of the gesture but I guess I have no other options

There's no right or wrong way to study figures as long as you're making progress and meeting your goals!

I think what the other posters are trying to say is that confident lines make for a good foundation in gesture drawing. Using multiple lines to draw, for example, the waist can hamper the ability for a gesture to look confident and fluid/in motion within its foundation. If the foundation is off, then the drawing that results from it will also likely (but not necessarily) look off.

The reason why is that your gestures focus on adding details, when what you're trying to capture is the underlying basics to build upon. A 1 minute gesture doesn't have to include the skin folds where the ribcage and hips come together, that fold detail doesn't really do anything to capture the underlying curve that motion and fluidity rely on. In the bottom right gesture in this drawing, you have 1 line that depicts the curve of the front of the torso all the way down the front of the leg, which makes her feel very dynamic and is the basis for the gesture. On the second row, third gesture, the figure feels less dynamic. You used multiple short strokes to draw the ribcage, middle of the waist, and then the hip. Compared to that single, confident stroke in the bottom right gesture that captures much of the pose in one line, the other gesture feels stiff and less demanding a flow for the eye to follow. Does this make sense?

Some people like to challenge themselves by doing a 10 minute gesture, and trying to draw it with 10 lines or less. This way they're forcing themselves to study the figure, and make more informed decisions on where the lines should go to best represent the entire figure. Their goal is not to get the entire figure down to the very detail, but to lay down the few lines that create the essence of the figure.

You don't have to do anything you don't want, but I've personally found it refreshing to change how I approach figure studies by reducing the amount of strokes I put down on the drawing.

Hey Silmarillion Sun, it looks like we don't have permission to view the images you linked here. Would you maybe like to try uploading them elsewhere?

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.

Hi koon! Do you have any examples of your art? Without those we can't really be of much help to you I'm afraid!

You're correct that the licensing from the donated portion of the tool photos mean that we can't consistently say it's okay to save every image, since not every photographer agreed to have their works be downloaded. In this instance, fair use is accomplished by using the original image as reference material to create your own, and it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not we provide downloable copies. Since we provide tools with donated photography, photographers can still ask us that we don't offer the images in a downloadable format as part of their license to us for example.

I'm not sure if Kim has plans to change this at this time, but members have worked around this in the past by saving screenshots of the tool for the images they're drawing.

Hi Retrodictionary,

When you sit down to draw from your imagination, how do you go about that?

I find it's extremely hard to just sit and wait for inspiration to hit me, I don't think it really works that way for most artists and it's an unreliable method of creating. You might want to consider finding a theme and maybe creating a moodboard for it. (That means collecting a bunch of pictures related to your theme and creating a collage that shows these things together on a single board/picture.)

You can use this moodboard to create a new drawing that is based on what you chose. For example, you can collect images of certain clothes and bodytypes and then draw various models that fit these themes, but instead of recreating a reference you're creating your own.

I think if you do this regularly, you can train your brain to create new concepts from source materials in your environment (or even relying on your memory) and then 'create from scratch'.

It's probably best to let go of the idea that all original work has to come into existence from literally nothing. Art exists because we see the world in a certain way and then create based on that. Nobody ever creates something from absolutely nothing, it's always traced back from a source. Unlearning this is probably the hardest part for me and many others.