Forum posts by wk28

Oh, that pose, when I saw it at the first time I thought the guy was about to hit something or something with his axe, but gently... was funny. I usually tend to add more movement in my gestures, which I thought could be an error in this case. So is a good thing, right? I feel relieved x)

Now I'm doing a lot of 30 second drawings so I leave them as they are. For larger poses I start with drawings like these and build on them the figure with simplified forms as boxes or cicrcles, cylinders, etc, trying to understand where certains muscles/bones are and how they are moving or flexing, but sincerely I lack of advanced knowledge about anatomy to do very detailed/accurate figures. I want to improve with my gestures before go deeper on anatomy, don't know if is the better thing but my gestures look odd to me, they seem to not capture the movement properly and I want to change it.

Thank you! I'll surely check them out. :)

Hi Nsw, thanks for your reply!

I'll try to follow your advice and improve on construction/anatomy as well. I never drew gesture before (not as how it should be intended) so I struggle a bit.

Have you any tip for construction/gesture, or any recommended text? I will appreciate it so much (I'm reading Vilppu's drawing manual at the moment).
Thank you again :)

Hi there,

Your drawings are very good considering you are a beginner, so don't worry too much, eventually you will know how to handle better your time, just keep practising.
You may try to clean a bit your lines. For example, the 5 minutes drawing it's a bit hard to understand. Instead of define the figure by adding more pressure with your pencil, you can use an H (4h, 2h or h) for the sketch and a soft pencil (hb, b, 2b, etc) to finnish your work. Or simply try to avoid doing a lot of lines. In this way you will be able to see better what is wrong.

I like how the last draw looks (30 min), but I can't see many photos and the 30 seconds one is wrong.

Do you do gesture drawings? Check the site's articles about it if you didn't do so, they're very helpful.

So needless to say, keep working. :)

Sorry, didn't know that. I cannot edit my reply so here it is translated:

Your sketches are pretty good, but in many poses it seems that the bodies do not lean properly, it feels as if they were floating. I think this may be because you use many curved lines to define the figure. For example, in the 30 minute drawing the joints look very rounded and maybe that's what takes away some "strength". You could use more straight lines in the parts of the body where there is tension, and if you have many doubts see an anatomy book about the joints and muscles. It can also be a problem of the gesture on which you build the figure, but I think that whatever the inconvenience would help you take more into account where the weight of the body is downloaded in each pose :)

I would also advise you to check the proportions a little (in general you are fine, but in some drawings you notice smaller or longer parts that are not coherent with the deformation of the figure).

Regarding the feet, I recommend paying more attention to the form than to the details (and this is good to apply to anything you draw). You could take more time to draw them trying to discover relationships, for example: how many times does the thumb enter the length of the foot, how much does the heel protrude in profile, how big is the foot with respect to the leg, or how many feet enter a leg, etc. . Maybe you discover some interesting relationship and when you remember it when you draw it will be easier to solve the image you are studying :)
Well, for now I can not think of any advice to give you, so I hope I have been helpful and that you really speak Spanish (xD). Anyway, if I was wrong, I will write the comment in English later.

Regards! :)

Having more time allows you to refine your work, the shorter poses are useful to catch what you consider essential. Personally I feel more confortable with 5-10 minutes poses cause I can do lots of details and the drawing looks better (... and sometimes I need to see that I am capable of draw something "beautiful"; it gives me more confidence on my skills), but I think you can make something realistic without so much details, so maybe it depends more on proportions and a correct construction of the figure.
So answering your question, I am more likely to say yes, but it could be harder or frustrating if you don't know what to detail or how.

Hi Kurt, in my opinion these look good :)

I think you may pay more attention to the arms and legs, in some poses they seem a little out of proportion. Also don't forget the wrists. If you struggle a bit with the hands, try to sketch them with less details: for example, I read a book in which the author drew an oval for the entire hand, added the thumb and only detailed the finger he consider most important for the gesture. You can do the same with the feet.

Keep looking at the figures as a whole and don't get lost into details, unless you have time and an accurate sketch. If you do a lot of details but your drawing is anatomically wrong, it will look weird.
Hope this help you :)

I used to do the way you do but it became a problem when drawing digitally. I spent a lot of time cleaning my artwork and the final result often looked irregular, motionless or weird.
So knowing the times of the pictures I think you're working good! just keep practicing and never forget to "feel" the movement of the poses, to make them look more natural and less rigid

I'm happy to know that I've helped you, but keep in mind is just my opinion and you will receive wiser advices than mine :)

Hi riceball,

As I've seen in your drawings, it seems that you are trying to copy the forms that your eyes see without a structural base, loosing the whole view of the figure and sometimes, the correct proportions. May I ask in wich time do you drew the poses?

If I'm correct, you should try to "relax" your hand with short poses. If you are not already confortable with 30 seconds poses, you can try to do the 1-2 minutes ones. Doesn't matter if you don't get visible results at the beginning (I mean, it's really possible that you wont draw an entire figure in this interval): the idea is to put you into the right focus towards figure drawing.

Another thing that I see is that your sketches aren't very clean. It would help you to define the figure with less lines. In this way you will make your brain take a decision and construct a more solid idea of anatomy.

If you haven't seen the site's tutorials about figure drawing yet, they would be very helpful and more accurate that my opinion.

I'm not a professional, sometimes I struggle like you but these are advices that have helped me and continue to keep in mind them when drawing.

Hope my answer will help you :)

EDIT: when drawing hands I try to separate them in three forms: the palm, the fingers and the thumb. The lenght of the first two are the same. The structure of the thumb is quite different (roughly a short spoon), so you have to pay more attention to it and better check the anatomy if you have any doubts :)

Hi, I would be very glad to read your critiques and advices! :)

These are the 30 second poses, almost stick figures but I tried to capture the movement

The 60 seconds ones

2 minutes

And 5 minutes

• Kim edited this post on September 9, 2018 10:23pm. Reason: Fixing image links

Ohhh it makes more sense now, thank you!
I thought it had to be only a line and never knew exactly where to put it. So those lines are a guide of the movement on which construct the whole figure, right?

Also thank you Sanne, I've already seen that article but I'll rewatch it later to understand better :)

Hi

I'm doing every day gesture and figure drawings but I feel like didn't totally understand the concept of line of action.
Is this a "sinthesis" of the whole movement? Is this the balance of the weight? Maybe both?

I can draw poses or gestures (is even possible?) without the line of action, but when I start with drawing it I get lost.
When drawing short (30/60 seconds) poses, I spend most of the time trying to figure out where the "line" is in the picture and still don't feel very convinced of it. Then I find hard to know where to put the head, rib cage and pelvis.
I have read the site's articles about gesture drawing, also the links related, but still continue to feel confused about it. Should I keep practising and eventually will understand it?

Thank you in advance :)

PS: If it helps to understand my problem I will upload some pictures later.

Uhm, I think you should focus on how the figure looks in its totallity before starting to do details. The torso seems quite static and the waist is a little small, keep in mind that the cavity between the rib cage and the pelvis contains organs; usually the proportion (realistically) is waist = 1 head in its lenght or bigger, but never smaller. Also you did the knees and ankles a bit thin, making the feet look out of scale. Don't worry too much, these are issues that you can correct easily by observing more accurately the relationship between the different parts of the body.

This is my opinion, don't took it too seriously as I'm trying to give you some advice, not to demotivate.

ps: I'm sorry if I couldn't explain things more clearly, english isn't my native language.