I am very new and lost

I am a very beginner artist and I just want some help here. So I began figure drawing some in July, but had lots of trouble making it into a full thing I like doing since I didn't really know where to start even though I would binge minutes (sometimes hours) of drawing tutorials on YT. Those gave me an idea of what to accomplish but now I am probably motivated enough to keep going. I aim to make my own kinds of characters, (not too realistic but not too cartoony) that's why I'm getting into art right now even though I enjoyed Art 1 last semester at my high school. Right now I am looking for ways to improve the way I draw male bodies, specifically the torso. Could I get some ideas of what I should do next? (Also these images are download only sorry)

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=48c04c94de&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-f:1786933649224868062&th=18cc76afb73da0de&view=att&disp=safe&realattid=18cc76a7bff678a9c9d1

• Oyster edited this post on January 2, 2024 12:09am. Reason: Correcting what I’m drawing right now

Here are the other ones.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=48c04c94de&attid=0.2&permmsgid=msg-f:1786933649224868062&th=18cc76afb73da0de&view=att&disp=safe&realattid=18cc76aa934ca01a9fd3

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=48c04c94de&attid=0.3&permmsgid=msg-f:1786933649224868062&th=18cc76afb73da0de&view=att&disp=safe&realattid=18cc76a8d2536d84e072

Sorry, I can't download any of these. You could upload them to imgur.com and post a link here, that's what usually works, and it doesn't take long at all.

https://imgur.com/a/vaI72Ze

Hello, Oyster, welcome to Line of Action, I'm Polyvios, Polyvios Animations, and how are you doing? Say, I think your first ever attempts do show some promise. These have a the potential in the world, in regards to line of action, and the looseness of lines of rhythm, but in terms of the simple construction and silhouettes of the attitudes. But, however, these all show some stiffness, but blandness, and therefore, some awkwardness, too. Would you like to please kindly go ahead with our interactive drawing tutorial here on our website?

Thevreason why you could and would be on board is because, your control and understanding of the ideas of gesture drawing will become really strong, but really ambitious, in terms of ideas but with execution. And if you wanna learn more about gesture drawing, learn more about gesture drawing right here on this link. (For some lines of action, of course)

Good luck from us to you and your eternal journey. Happy New Year from us to you.

OK, good, you already understand the basics, that helps a lot.

One typical mistake I see is, that you overestimate the distance between hip and ribcage, thus lengthening the torso. When in doubt, put your hands to your own sides and feel with your fingers how little space there is between the hip bones and the lowest ribs in various positions.

A related beginners mistake, that could be there or not, depending on the references you used, but that I want to mention just in case, is beginner's tendency to straighten the torso. Best immediately practice counteracting it, by trying to make the twists and bends between hips and ribcage as dramatic as you dare to get away with.

A detail, that I started adding right about at the stage that you are now in is the shoulderline, so the clavicula and arm joints. It is basically just one line more added to the top of the ribcage, that helped me a lot to understand, find and depict how the upper torso is formed from the ribcage. I like the way you used an actual ribcage instead of a circle on the figure on the lower right of the first page. You might want to look up some depictions of clavicula and shoulders, quickly, as they are really not sooo complicated, but explain a lot about the upper torso, and the possible range of where the arm joints can be located.

You do depict the limbs as tubes, which I know is proposed in a lot of courses. I am personally not such a big fan of that. My reasons:

a) The shorties, especially the 30 sec ones, should be dedicated to the head and torso. Unless they block the line of sight to the torso, all that is necessary to know about the limbs is where the joints are at, and maybe one line to find their general length and direction.

b) Once you got more time, after you defined the torso, and you get to drawing the limbs, generally their final organic form isn't so much more complicated than the tube form. That's why I personally skip the tubes. Less lines to draw, less lines to erase or to distract the viewer. But that may be just because I am lazy, and is definitely a me thing. If you prefer the tubes, for better spatial orientation, that is certainly not false in itself. Just make sure, that your first lines are dedicated to defining the torso as much as possible.

Thank you two for your feedback so far; about the "tubes" for the arms/legs, those are my finishing of

the limbs that I try and copy from the references. So your saying that I should probably focus on drawing a part that connects the ribs to the pelvis in the middle like I tried for the 1st image? I think there is an app where I can use references when I draw on my iPad I just got. So I'm thinking right now I should use that to try and help me get a better understanding than having to draw every part on a paper, it seems easier. I'll try that later

Oh I also never do the shorter ones because I feel like I'm unconfident when it comes to time limits like 30-60 seconds even though I never tried it. I just hit the 10 min one and pause the photos. That's not getting me anywhere is it?

• Oyster edited this post on January 2, 2024 11:45pm. Reason: “Son” to “for”
• Oyster edited this post on January 2, 2024 11:52pm. Reason: Added the time taking