Poses

Going into these kind of classes, I was expecting nice stationary, simple poses for our sustained drawings.  But I soon found that being able to draw the body in all sorts of poses and tackling that beast of a burden we all know as foreshortening is an essential skill set.

In short, I hate foreshortening.  But I can handle it.

Outline

 

How the figure fills the page is as important as any texture or lighting contrast you might add later.

I found there are many ways you can give the figure a presence on paper.  

Some outlines are simply that - lines.  

But thicker slabs of value can also give a composition depth.

Head Study : Establishing Form and Value

First Impressions: Gesture

Gesture drawing is capturing that first impression of the figure, how it inhabits the space.  It can be quickly scribbled down without worrying too much about details.  However, accuracy is still important.  Simply scribbling gets you nowhere.  Being able to quickly observe and interpret onto paper is a skill that takes years to master.

You can even just focus on practicing the basic shapes and forms of difficult body parts.


Mastering the figure limb by limb can be a useful way to add variety to your practice.

Also, if you have the time, adding a splash of midtone value and then erasing back some highlights can make even the most rudimentary gestures pop.

Cast Shadows vs. Form Shadows

Drapery

Lighting

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I took two figure drawing classes back to back, 6 hours straight, four days a week or seven weeks plus sketchbook assignments for homework.  I very quickly got very sick of drawing and redrawing the human form and studying anatomy and physiology and stressing about how to accurately accentuate the acromion process and other nit-picky overly analytical stuff.  But, much to my chagrin, all the hard work paid off in the end.

I started the class at this level:

And ended it here.

I'll post more about some of the techniques I learned in my grueling crash course later on in the week.

Salem

 

Here are some very quick character roughs I did for a job that never went through.  

The card game was based on the Salem Witch Trials.

 

I had some fun really sculpting their facial features

and I may end up doing some more finished versions later on.

Wheedles

In my character design class we were given a written prompt for an old sea captain with a peg leg on his left leg below the knee who is completely bald and what little hair he does have is gray.  

He is bronzed from long voyages and has gentle blue eyes. 

At first I just played around with different styles in head studies,

 then moved on to full figure proportions.

I felt like this fella had the most potential to be an 

old salt yet still have kindness in his eyes.  

While this guy had a great coat that I really wanted to stick with.

Once I established what posture I was after I settled on making a full comp of the character, 

really playing with the balance of positive and negative space created by the twisting rope.

 Captain Wheedles is a character from one of the Oz sequels.

Hallelujah!

I'm back!

I tried the sketch dump in another failed blog that was quickly and quietly abandoned, but this one will be better.

Promise.