Critique on poses

Hello! I've always felt like there was something off about my poses, and I was wondering if I could get some critique on them. Also, I'm not entirely sure on how I should practice, and I would like some advice on that as well.

https://imgur.com/a/9XIWNqd

(The last 2 images were 1 minute poses, while the first few had more time spent on them)

• retrocrisp edited this post on March 19, 2022 11:51pm.

Hello,

First of all, your poses look really solid, I think you're heading in the right direction! If those are meant to be gestures/ quicksketches I believe you could improve them by considering the following:

- Exaggeration. Drawings aren't supposed to be photographs, they must convey the flow, the energy, the force of the pose! If you see someone slanting leftward - draw them slanting even further! Twisted sitting pose? - twist it further! etc. I believe that would give more life to some of the poses. Even when a person is standing still, Human body is so gestural you can always invent a few twists and bends of your own and it'll seem natural!

- CSI lines. There's a wonderful video by Stan Prokopenko about gesture on YouTube, if you haven't watched it yet, where he insists that you shouldn't use a line more complex than C or S for the curve (Lines that look like C and S) and I for straights. Anything more complex than that risks raking away from the flow, think of it as making a road too "bumpy". Same is with the eye when it is trying to follow a line that it too zig-zagged. Now, this only really applies to the first lines, the gesture lines, later on when you add shapes you can do all sorts of lines of course!

-Trying focusing less on the shape of the form but more on the flow of the pose itself. In some of the drawings I feel like you're more focused on getting the overall 2D shape rather than making sense of what your own drawing needs! You aren't copying, you are drawing from a reference and subtle differences in angles or shapes aren't just fine, they're great to have!

As for advice on how I think would be nice for you to practice: Try to separate gesture practice from form and/or anatomy practice for now. For example, you could do 1 week of gesture practice only, then another week of studying the shapes of the body and then third week you could combine the two, I'm sure it'll bear great results!

Good luck : )

Good evening, retrocrisp, this is Polyvios, Polyvios Animations, how are you doing tonight? Say, I love how much solidity and flow and life in your nude constructed poses that I've seen so far. Keep up the great work.

But I've got one small constructuve criticism. I'm not getting enough of the motion of the fluid and flowly lines and poses. Would you kindly mind if I asked you if you could and should go for an online interactive drawing tutorial on our website right here? You'll be able to visualize the poses, forces and forms quickly from 30-5 second poses. Good luck to you, and I hope this tip had inspired, nay, influenced you.

Hello Retrocrisp.

my advice to you is, to dont stop practicing the figure drawing, do it maybe 1 hour a day or a few minutes before start drawing your doodles. It can help you to relax your thoughts and hands to doing something that you like :).

other advice is to start learning about the human anatomy, it can help you to understand every point of muscle and joint.

Some books to understand anatomy are

Andrew Loomis head and hands

Andrew Loomis Figure in action.

Some atlas of human anatomy.

These are really nice, especially the structure and proportions of them. I think to help improve the look of them, focusing on the line of action and the energy of the poses at first might really help you, since it seems like you already have the structures somewhat down. Also, focusing on the lights and darks of the areas rather than the outlines can really help to capture unique body shapes! I find that using watercolor or some other type of brush marker/wet medium after a base sketch and focusing on the dark and lights of the image really help me find those specific shapes.

Don't be afraid to try and sketch different body types and poses, too! Great job so far!