Another figure study

Short figure study, feedback is welcome

Hello, and welcome to Line of Action, Clara. I'm Polyvios Animations, and how are you?

Nice job on display of gesture sketches, for the strong use of lines of action in your really short figure studies. However, I'm not getting enough of that flow and life and energy in those poses. Why don't you please work more from your shoulders with 5 minutes of 30 second poses, all just to completely loosen you up?

As a result, your figures' lines and shapes will become less stiff and more loose and more expressive. For further info, please look into the Shamus Culhane Gesture Drawing Book here?

Thank you and happy sketching!

Hello and thanks for the feedback on both my posts.

I think im going to do and post the excercise tomorrow :)

oh and thank you for the book links, they look very interesting

You are practicing methodically, and will see improvement over time.

A tip: On the shorter timed drawings, try to separate yourself a bit from the attempt to draw "the whole picture", including a complete outline, and just focus on finding some good lines for head, chest and hips. For the limbs a simple line indicating length and general orientation is more than enough, unless they hide the torso. Head and torso define 90% of the pose, as they determine where the joints are, to which those limbs are attached, and how they are oriented.

The purpose of shorties is to practice the first lines of a longer drawing repeatedly and efficiently, and once you get there, you will realize, that a mismeasured limb is usually easily fixed, while an unclear, unnatural or unconvincing torso is usually grounds to scrap the project and start all over again.

To draw good torsos, really getting an idea of how chest and hips are separate forms, and in which ways they can combine is somewhat key. I see you got our feisty male model quite a few times in the image selection, on him, and on other overweight models I often even add "the paunch" and "the thighs" (and ofc "the breasts" on female models) as additional masses. They aren't as decisive for the placement of joints, but they hide the form of the hips and the chest, so separating them mentally allows a bit of mental standardization of chests and hips to more resemble their relatively uniform bony foundations.

A shorty with clear indications of "the masses", but without any outline or limbs, is ultimately more useful than a shorty with outline and limbs, but only vague indication of masses. Because in the long run you train to start your drawings by finding the masses first and foremost for best results.