Forum posts by Madammallow

Hello Tinayashami, your proportions already look great in my opinion. I would try prominent lines, basic shapes, negative space and boxing the figure. I think each one would make you think about how you approach your work in a different way. What might work for you is getting the anatomy right first (correct bone structure). After everything is in the right place see what parts of the drawing you can exaggerate. Look for straight lines and opposing curves. You can also adjust the pose. If you think it would look better if the arm was raised more, feel free to push the pose even if it doesn't match the image exactally. It also looks like you are using a graphite pencil. If you do your initial work in blue pencil it would allow you to be a little messier initially and be able to clean it up with the graphite pencil after. That will also allow you to be more fluid with your lines without having to worry about the structure. I hope that helps you.

This is the blue pencil I like to use. Its eraser is actually good and doesn't carve into your paper like a lot of the other non photo blues.

https://www.amazon.com/Caran-dAche-Sketcher-Non-Photo-903-302/dp/B008AZ61BE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537529148&sr=8-1&keywords=caran+dache+non+photo+blue

Col Erase by Prisma Color is a good one as well.

Hello Pilot, do you do any visual measuring (that thing where you hold your pencil up and measure)? It helps with seeing how far away things should be from each other. It looks like you already have some basic shapes of where the knees, shoulders, head, chest, pelvis and elbows are on the body. From there check the distance between those points. As an example is the knee to far away from the pelvis? Is the foot to far from the knee? I hope that makes sense. It's best to do that kind of measuring with the longer poses, because you have more time to really study the image. Happy drawing! : )

Here are two videos on the subject that you can apply to the human form.

https://www.ctrlpaint.com/videos/visual-measuring

https://www.ctrlpaint.com/videos/visual-measuring-proportion

Hello Jaded Tiger, welcome! I like how you have simplified things with your gesture drawing and that we can see a clear pose despite the simplicity. When you do your more finished drawings I can see that you started with the same stick figure base and drew around it. If you map out some basic shapes in the human body first (shoulders, rib cage, pelvis, knees, elbows) I think it would help with your proportions overall.

Hello Noddson, your images are a little hard to see. I would recommend editing them a little if you can to make your lines easier to see. There is also a great phone app called camscanner that works just like a scanner for your phone. What I can see though is great! You have a lot of motion in your figures, especially the ones that are twisting. The 2-5 minute timer is very useful, because you can take your time making sure the proportions are right. However the 30-60 second timer is really great for training your brain to see shapes. Because you only have a short amount of time to draw a gesture it forces you to ignore the details and just get the shapes and basic placement right. It helps you generate poses faster. That being said I think you should also try a longer timer to start working on some details too, because your anatomy is already looking solid and I think you're ready. And don't be afraid to show your work! Everyone here is trying to improve and understands the struggle! Keep up the great work.

Hi Mike, great work! I struggle with my figures becoming stiff as well and have talked to others on this site who struggle too. What has helped me is using a brush to do my inking with (you can get brush pens too if you don't want to deal with the mess), it keeps things looking fluid. I think part of it is the desire to make the image clean, and as a result I lose some of that great motion my figures have. With gestures there's less pressure to create a perfect image and you have less time to overwork the drawing. I think when we are more decisive and quick about creating lines the less stiff the image become. That's just my input on it anyway, hope it helps!

These look great, and I think Line gave you a really great critique already. I will say however that I would encourage you to do the shorter time limits. It forces you to simplify the figure, because you do not have time to think about details. It also forces you to make quick decisive lines.

Hello, I just registered here last week. The community here seems really positive so far, so I'm sure you'll get some great feedback. I'll start first by saying that the motion of your poses is really great and you definitely captured the line of action. I think you need to work on proportion. I would recommend doing the 30 second gestures and just mapping out basic shapes of where everything is. Then when you do the 60 second gestures add in all the nice detailing that you've done in these samples. The pose on the far right of the woman from behind is my favorite.

Hello! Your work is lovely. : ) Your anatomy work looks pretty solid already so I think just keep going and I'm sure it will get even better. Some of your figures do look a little stiff compared to others, but I'm not sure why. I actually have a problem where my sketches are lively, but when I go to refine them I lose some of the motion and they become stiff. I think I needed quicker movements during the refining processes to keep the motions in the sketches. Using a brush pen helped me too because it wasn't as static as a fine tip marker. I think if you pushed the poses on the figures that feel stiff that would help too.

I agree with the previous post. Think of people as just a collection of shapes. I grew up drawing in a manga style too so I understand this problem. Drawing in that style is not necessarily a bad thing and its ok to exagerate, but a strong understanding of anatomy is still required so that things don't look weird. What helped me is drawing the torso first and ignoring the head. This helps me focus on the body more and less on the stylization of the eyes, hair ect. Once you have an understanding of the human body you can then simplify it down again if you want things more stylized. I really hope that all made sense. I also recommend doing the gesture practices with only 30 seconds so that your brain only has time to see the general shapes.

First of all, these are great! The anatomy and proportions on all of these are very solid. It looks like you do lots of short strokes when you draw. Have you tried doing one quick stroke? For your sketches I actually kind of like how it looks, but if you want to clean them up more try using less strokes. I recommend using a brush pen. It makes you think about your linework more because there is no undo button. Keep up the great work!

Your style is super cute! It's always refreshing to see people still working traditionally. I think you could focus on refining your images. Experiment with line weight and inking techniques. Also I'm not sure what you used in image 2, but I think you might like water color pencils (I recommend using them with a water brush). Keep working on basic foundational stuff (like figure drawing, facial expressions, ect), but I think if you focus on cleaning up your images it will make them that much better.