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Joël Gruben
•
3yr
added comment inRecent Figure Drawings - critiques/advice welcomed and appreciated
Hi Alex!
Fantastic study series you have here, congratulations! I personally used this "three crayon technique" extensively myself and it is a great way to quickly draw lively figure drawings!
I think you know about the proportional errors you made in the studies, so I won't get into them, just compare with your reference material.
I have some suggestions concerning the drawing technique and how to utilize the different colors most effectively. Using your drawings as a reference, I've made a figure study myself using similar colors and a grey background with white to highten the image. Provided, I've drawn it digitally, the principles still apply though:
- I think you're over-using the white for the portions of the figure exposed to direct light. The paper should remain as a baseline for your skin color. The white is only there to highlight the brightest areas of the light side of the figure, not its entirety. In some figure drawings, you are using the white more sparingly but its application is still too inconsistent. The viewer has to quickly understand the form.
- I think you should distinguish the shadow side from the light side more clearly. In some of your studies, it is more clear than others. I think this is also dependent upon your reference material: Clear and strong light sources provide strong, hard shadows which is more preferable for making quick figure drawings.
- I think you're using the sanguine well to highlight warm colors of the flesh. I personally used it in my attached drawing as the main shadow color because of the de-saturated background color (warm-cold-contrast). Just keep in mind that it should be applied consciously to enhance the piece's vibrance.
I hope this helps you with your studies. You can also experiment with different colors and paper colors (warm paper using cold, blue-ish crayons, gold and brown, yellow and violet, red and green etc.).
Happy drawing,
Joël
Alex Dejak
3yr
Hey thanks this is great advice
These look really good! I like that you try to put those figure drawings into some kind of composition, I also do that cause I got a little bit bored by normal figrue drawings.
The legs however seem a bit too short.
Alex Dejak
•
3yr
It looks like you understand the basic concept and steps to plot out your vanishing points to make a three point perspective box so you are off to a good start.
I think if your goal for a drawing is to get better at perspective, you may want to hold off on the organic objects and creatures for now and really push yourself to explore how you can use three point perspective to make more interesting complex objects. By putting this limitation on yourself you can try to experiment with what else you can create using only three point perspective besides boxes. You could try taking a box and work on adding pieces to it and subtracting chunks from it for example. You can try taking boxes and cutting them into letters or numbers or nonsense. Have fun with it and experiment.
A major step forward for you might be to try arranging multiple objects in a space that don't share the same vanishing points (VP). For example, as the terrarium is now, it is placed perfectly parallel to the walls of the room, which in real life is unlikely to be the case. If you rotate the box a little bit it will feel more natural.
Also different line weights can help define how far back an object is in space. If you use heavier line weight on the objects in front and lighter weight as they recede into space it will help show depth and what objects are in front of others.
Go have fun with it and experiment.
Alex Dejak
•
3yr
This drawing looks really nice. You did a good job rendering out the feeling of hair, it looks like it has depth and feels 3D, and the proportions look good.
I would like to see some indication of the body of the dog because right now it feels life a floating head.
I think a couple small changes could make the eye a stronger focal point. I don't think you should include the eyelid being half shut. While it may be in the reference, you shouldn't feel obligated to make the drawing exactly like the reference. I would render out the eye completely open without that eyelid and make the inner tear duct cavity dark instead of light to contrast the eyeball and make it feel like its sitting in the socket. If you can create the lightest light on the eyeball with high contrast around it that should help the viewer look there.
Thank you for encouregnment to be more creative, and good sugestions of how I can make stronger focal point.
It looks like you made some good progress between 20 and 100
There is one major thing that stands out to me as far as what you could work on.
It look like you are not adding structure before putting in details which could be fixed by using constructive drawing methods. When you render before the structure is in place correctly the images may still feel flat or proportions are off even if you get the details right. I think if you work on defining how the forms sit in 3D space and the proportions are correct before rendering you will see some good improvements.
Thank you! I think it's mostly because young people tend to have smoother faces, resulting in the need of very subtle shading (which I'm bad at for now) and using lineart to convey small details. Before starting this I used to define all of the planes, resulting in a robot/odd look, which works on older people since they have many bumps and adding value later makes it look realistic.
Would you rather eat an entire jar of mayonnaise in one sitting, or for 2 months you have to wear perpetually wet socks?
Eat the entire jar of mayonnaise and then wipe the last bits of the jar out with the socks and wear mayonnaise socks for a month
your 3 dimensional form for the legs is pretty good. I like that in your last drawing you show the protrusion of the hips on the right side. Overall, you're on the right track. Just keep practicing a ton more . I will also say that the head of your figures are way too large... makes it look like bobble head, but the body itself is good
Hi @Alex Dejak, sorry for getting to these a bit late. Overall, very solid work. I did a brief paint over for one of your images that had the most issues. Namely, I think you just needed a more clear indication of that left leg attaching to the hip and coming forward. I also adjusted the proportions of the ankle and calf on that left leg so it feels like a left leg. In the original drawing, the positioning of the ankle made it feel like another right leg. Additionally, I slightly lengthened the proportions of the leg, just because we have that crazy angle going on. My draw over is far from perfect, and I think having reference images for some of these extreme angles would be helpful in the future :).
I think for some of your figures, you have a bit of a tendency to make the legs feel a bit stout. I adjusted one of your images just to make the legs feel a bit more like they have 'standard' proportions. However, now that I'm thinking about it, it may have been something with the model because I don't see it in all of your images, maybe about 3-4 of them. Feel free to let me know if this is the case. Even so, I think the legs on said images could be lengthened just a tad bit.
Again, this is very solid work overall, I especially enjoy the images you tackled on that last page. If you're comfortable with it, feel free to tag me directly in any posts that you want critiqued in the future, and I'll be able to get to them right away!. Hope this helps
Okay, since you don't mind the harsh truth, I will do my best. I am only going to focus on the landmarks. In 1 and 3, you do a good job laying out the landmarks. I can really see the effort you put into your lines as well. In 2, however, it seems like you didn't use many landmarks at all. I would also recommend for further practice with landmarks that you use other references like free figure pose websites or the model packs. It just seems like you copied from the video. It's better to use other references for good practice in general for knowing if you can lay landmarks on any figure. I think you did an okay job, but that's what I would expect this early on in the lessons. What I would recommend is moving on, going through the lessons, understanding them, not to perfection, but to where you have a general understanding AND can then apply them generally. Then go back through the lessons when you are done with the course and if you feel you are not doing great with, let's say ,landmarks or the robo bean, study those a bit more using what you know from other lessons as well. Hope this critique helps a bit if any.
