Gesture critique

I've recently started. Not necessarily trying to get proportions exactly right but just trying to get the general flow. I tend to have trouble with finding the gesture or rigid poses that some of the male models take and shots taken from profile. These are all my two minute drawings. I Also have trouble connecting the neck to the torso, any tips?
I'm bad at uploading the images on here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1an8nUZxWWU8Iefi473q8O7jkA7hQbYHn/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VLnvD23jy5IrfTxudRQeosU-_FrP-NiU/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gyTe4R-Njr9PkKOgyFxfr3-M_wCaMcjK/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FMjVsQhgH654TWUqNPYBqXWBrl_eGjSQ/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VWHHhxAtsnz9kqdNI6ZhzLCHHmu5Bpf1/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i_4onTH_NkIqEN3oPgRTry8XfbMWUrXN/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ItP6c-HmkxMJhqPGN_bubC1Kmrik_nDz/view

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19NX0LhfL_jzEfiWl-SmCIxKi1P272-IQ/view

• Vvalverde edited this post on June 6, 2019 5:18pm.

Just a heads up, seems like the links you put are set to private.

As for connecting the neck to the torso, I usually focus on the placement of two large neck muscles: the sternocleidomastoids and trapezius.

oops, thanks, should be public now. Also thanks for the neck tips.

Your drawings have a really nice flow to the them, and I'm a little envious of your line quality.

To be honest, I tend to push the poses on the stiff male models by looking for any angle in the shoulders and pelvis and exaggerating it. As for where to place the neck, it more or less fits in between the shoulders, so if you can figure how the shoulders sit over the rib cage, that makes things a lot easier. There's also a surprising amount of variety in neck length and thickness, so sometimes my intuition on what a neck can do or should look like is wrong, which is of course where Line of Action comes in handy!

For the neck, consider that the overall line of action often is closely related to the line of the spine. Not the same as. Just there‘s a relationship between the two. And the spine goes through your neck, and is a LOT less bendy than people might assume. I mean, yes spines are flexible, really flexible. But they‘re not pipe cleaner flexible.

If you‘re not used to watching ballet or figure skating, definitely hit up youtube for some video. Or contortionist stuff like Cirque du Soleil. Yes, there‘s male contortionists. Yes, there‘s male figure skaters and danseurs.

Figure skating and the like will also help with static poses because they have a lot of static poses where you can learn to see the muscle movements it takes to hold still. Yes, holding still takes muscle. Lots of muscle. And there can be a lot of movement involved, and in a gesture drawing we draw what moves. There‘s even movement involved in a relaxed pose like for sleep, but in my opinion those are more advanced.

In the LOA photo set we more usually have ballet poses than figure skating, but the two sports are really similar on the fundamentals, and it‘s easier to learn the figure skating names for moves usually. If you can name it you can search for it ;)