Forum posts by Sanne

Hi Lisa!

I'm glad our article have helped you with your gestures. :) I took a look at them and you definitely have the basics down. It might be worth noting a few things.

First, try to incorporate more curves. A lot of your sketches look a bit blocky, which actually hinders the flow of a gesture. Is there anything on your body that is square or overly straight? The shapes can help you get a base down, but ideally you'd accomplish a gesture in a few, curved strokes.

Swen is one of our members on the forums who has gestures down to the T. Why not head over and take a look at this gestures? He includes useful notes that can help you out. :)

https://line-of-action.com/forums/topic/my-daily-gesture-drawings/

If you look between your gesture and Swen's, you'll probably see what I mean with incorporating more curves. Don't be afraid to draw an arm with a single curved line. The focus is proportion and motion. It's okay to draw over your lines a few times when you do this!

Hey amberday!

There's no right or wrong answer here. It's a good idea to switch between the two at regular intervals, but if you want to focus on one or the other first it will work.

Personally, I advice to go with measurement/proportion first. I've found it easier to work this way because if your proportions are right, they are easier to dramatize. I know of people who had success the other way too though, so maybe it's worth asking yourself, what are you drawn more to?

It's good to hear from you again! I'm digging those sketches in the second image. :D

As for thoughts, there are some wonky perspective going on with some torsos from what I can see, like there is a misalignment between the rib cage and the midsection/pelvis. It may be slightly over dramatized? The rib cage is still attached to the spine and can only stick out so much, I think it would be worth paying attention to in your next sessions.

Keep up the good work! :)

Hello Panic!

That's a good start for your gestures. :) What is your goal that you're working towards?

I'm noticing that there are still quite some anatomical inconsistencies that are related to inaccurate proportions. Have you tried 30, 60 or 90 second gestures and focused on proportions in basic shapes?

Hey Lenick, I agree with Jardiel. :) Got any updated sketches for us?

I think focusing daily on some short sketches and keeping up that habit is better than forcing yourself into a block of time refining a sketch. Not so much because you're 'polishing a turd', but because things in motion stay in motion! The discipline and continuation of your practice is more effective for long-term gains than stopping, restarting and burning out on a long piece only to stop completely again afterwards.

It's easier to speed up when you're already driving than to reach max speed from a standstill, right? Same applies to practice! :)

There will be other opportunities where you can focus on longer, more detailed drawings for sure.

Hey dutch, welcome to the site!

In addition to the playlist that was posted, we also have some quick getting started articles to help you out:

https://line-of-action.com/gesture-basics-1-line-of-action/

https://line-of-action.com/gesture-basics-2-torso-and-hips/

https://line-of-action.com/gesture-basics-3-joints/

Heya Weles!

Welcome to the forum, and thank you for sharing your work with us!

Before I address your sketches, I wanted to highlight this first:

"Disclaimer: I’ve never been good in anything related to art. I have never been able to draw well (I think even my stick figures were terrible), so don’t expect too much."

Please don't beat yourself up for 'never having been good with art'. A lot of people think talent is something you're inherently born with, but I don't think that's true - we all start at the same point and our drawings all looked similar. The progress you make is something you owe to your hard work and discipline to keep practicing, even through the less pleasant and more difficult parts! Every time you sit down to work on your drawings, you are advancing and learning new things. (Even if it doesn't feel like you are, honing what you already know is part of advancing!)

So when you move forward with your art, remember that every artist you look up to got to where they are by walking the path you're traversing right now - lots of hard work and dedication to a craft they enjoy.

"Now, as I’m trying to take it more seriously and spend at least an hour drawing every day (which doesn’t work 100% yet), I start hitting the wall with some aspects of my sketches. I can see how the line should be drawn but I can’t get it right. I think it’s most visible in proportions."

First off: VERY good job and working so hard on drawing every day! You can be gentle on yourself and do 10-15 minutes on days where an hour isn't possible, the important thing is to keep going. It's a lot harder to start from a full stop than to pick up from a slow walk. :)

Most of your sketches look good to me! You're absolutely on the right track.

One thing that I'm noticing is that while you get a lot of the shapes down well, you seem to be missing some understanding of the underlying bone structure. This is where 30-60 second gestures can come in handy - they force you to disassemble the object you're drawing into simpler shapes so that you have the underlying structure down. It can be hard to figure out how to though.

If you'd like, you can take a look at this video. The artist underlines how to construct hands - this info is very useful to apply to gesture drawings too! Let me know if this helped?

Well I wouldn't be a very good moderator if I didn't check in, would I? :) It's great to talk to people about this stuff!

I've also (and still sometimes do) struggle with wanting to cram in too much detail. I think that's the downside of seeking perfectionism and getting things 'just right'. I actually set a goal for myself to focus on getting rough outlines and to not spend more than x minutes on a drawing. If the time's up, time's up. This ended up showing me that if I focus too much on the small details, I didn't get the overall picture to look right. Basically I trained myself to recognize and draw main focus points first, so that the details I add later fit seamlessly rather than drawing the main focus points around the details.

Does that make sense? It's something that I spent some time to work on and didn't happen overnight, but it was a good habit to develop. I think of it as building on a foundation - if I catch myself focusing on the small details before I got everything else down first, I remind myself that I'm already decorating the house before I got the walls up and a roof over my head. It helps me a lot!

And you're very welcome, thank you for this!! :)

Hey itsjey! No worries, I removed your accidental double posts for you. :)

Please keep on practicing, I see a lot of potential in your gestures! It's true that there are 'preferred' methods to do gestures, but they're not very useful if they don't help you to learn, right? Not everyone learns the same way, and that's fine but should be kept in mind too. You've made good efforts at drawing gestures this way, but maybe you'd benefit from a different approach. What is the goal you're working towards with your gestures, in concise terms? Do you want to improve the visualization of motion, or do you want to work on proportions?

Also, ask yourself what you don't like about your current gestures and write that down. Also write down what you do like! Once you have an idea of what's good and what needs improvement, alongside a solid 'mission statement' so to speak, you can really start working on improving your techniques. :)

Oh wow you guys! I'm away for a bit on vacation and come back to seeing some SERIOUSLY awesome posts and drawings here! Very impressive, I'm stoked to see people deciding to join this challenge. :) Please keep us posted!

Oh goodness, thank you so much for your nice words Mary!! That totally made my day!!

"Could you maybe give a word of advice on how to make people feel good? You surely know a lot about that =)"

I like to acknowledge when and how people try hard, because trying is often times more important than actually succeeding. I think acknowledging effort, regardless of the outcome, is very very important. Not all efforts succeed the way they're planned, but they still help us grow and develop and matter a lot! It also encourages the development of coping skills when things don't go as intended.

People who are emotionally invested in something also suffer from discouragement easily because they're overwhelmed by their (sometimes negative) feelings. Focusing on facts, such as the list I suggested, helps to level the field and allows you to tackle a problem with a clear head and purpose that genuinely feels productive, because you now have unbiased information to work from. This is something I picked up in therapy, but it applies to many areas in life! :)

About your most recent drawing: I'm super pleased with the improvement from your previous sketches. You've been incredibly dedicated from what I can tell and it's paying off!

Your listed minuses are very helpful information for your next sketches, it's good that you were able to write those down. I'm uncertain on the first one listed though - which details do you consider unnecessary? Did they feel unnecessary because you got to them too early, or because it wasn't your goal to be so detailed?

Hey guys!

I wanted to pop in and confirm that IE is indeed the culprit for black screens. Chrome and Firefox are alternative browsers where the tools should function properly.

If you run into this issue, you can switch browsers and let us know which version of IE you were using. If it's a newer version we'll have to investigate the issue, if it's an older version we recommend updating it.

Thanks for your help BluishHazel! It's very much appreciated. :)

Hi Takiro!

It's absolutely okay to post your drawings wherever you want. :) The only thing you can't do is sell your derived works from our tools.

We'd really appreciate a link back to Line of Action so other people can join in though!

Hey Mary!

Great progression so far. :)

I'm very proud that you posted your recent two sketches even though you don't like them. I agree that they're not your best sketches, but you learned a highly valuable lesson there.

Maybe you can break those sketches down into two sides and make lists? For example, list things you noticed went wrong, but also things you think turned out good and like. Having a good balance of both sides helps with critical evaluation and the learning process!