gesture digital??
© 2022 Nikuman
I took figure drawing in college but now I'm doing digital and it's been years since I've drawn and I'm not sure I've even gotten the idea of what I'm supposed to be doing when practicing gestures...idk it's so much different from using physical media. but I wanna be a better digital artist. so if anyone has any advice or resources (aside from this site) to point me to it would be appreciated.
Compounding this issue, the figures don't feel like they could credibly represent a human in a real world environment: no foot is planted on the ground, kneeling figures have no apparent ground on which they lie, the tension of gravity does not bend any part of the figures forward in a credible manner; overall there seems to be no real weight or tension in the bodies you've drawn.
To this end, try to keep in mind the orientation and shape of the surfaces your figures interact with, even if you don't directly represent them. Additionally, try to reflect the real location and size of the extremities of the body such as the feet as they exist and not as you feel they should look, even if you have to simplify it down to something like a single curve for the arch of the foot. This can be difficult, so in order to get distances, sizes, and 3d rotation roughly correct from reference, try to see which landmarks on the figure you've already drawn are at roughly the same horizontal locations of the feature you're trying to draw.
Some of your figures are a bit better on these front than the others; I particularly like the 3 in the lower left and the one above it also has nice dramatic weight to it, despite being brought down a bit by the disproportionately long lower legs and feet.
You may prefer to work by defining the outer limits of the body first, I don't know how good that looks when you're doing traditional art; but if you're just starting out with digital art, I recommend starting from the basics and blocking out the major inner masses of the body along the line of action (head, chest, pelvis) followed by blocking in limbs as lines before going all-in on defining outer boundaries of the figure. I recommend reading "Figure Drawing for All It's Worth" by Andrew Loomis to get
If you'd like to get a better feel for digital art, and just improve in general, I recommend tracing over reference images (including other people's art) to try and get the curves and proportions people use for realistic forms committed to your muscle memory. It isn't cheating so long as you don't publish it as if it were your own work.
Hope this helps, or at least that it isn't too incomprehensible ><.