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Corey McCleery
•
6mo
added comment inProject - Simplify from Observation
Asked for help
Here's my first go at level 1, the pear!
•
6mo
Good work!
Steven
•
2yr
One thing I would recommend is to REALLY focus on those mannequin skills. Every artist does mannequins a little differently (some artists have more than one mannequin they use) so don't get hung up on any one system, just pick something simple to start with (Proko's robo-bean + cylinder limbs is a great start) and carefully invent poses, focusing on rock solid clean lines and perspective (sloppy drawing will really hold your mannequins back). Over time it becomes easier to visualize things, and you'll learn lots of bone-stock generic poses that work well which you can modify (the "Masters of Anatomy" books are pretty good references for go-to poses, but make sure you're constructing a mannequin instead of just copying his roughs).
Secondly, to echo nnnnnnnadie's comment - get into those poses. When you imagine one, if you get into the pose, you'll quickly realize if it's awkward or impossible. Once you can find a pose that actually feels natural you can snap a photo and draw a mannequin. Eventually you'll want to work from gesture > mannequin > drawing, or even straight to a pose Kim Jung Gi or Stan Lee style.
If you struggle with getting your mannequins in perspective, just work on simple solids like cubes and cylinders until you're fairly comfortable.
Also... if you get stuck, fire up Daz or Magic Poser or something and just pose away. It's best for learning if you can work out the mannequin yourself, but if something keeps coming out wonky - no rules, only tools. Knock it out and try to get it from imagination next time.
Thank you! I'm a few modules away from the Mannequin section of the Figure Drawing course (just starting the landmarks section) so I'll definitely make sure I overdo the homework when it comes to mannequinizing things. Ironically, given how others were complaining about cylinders, I'm starting to get perspective a bit more the more I do them, and tend to find myself resorting to cylinders rather than boxes for structure.
Hello!
I'm going through the figure drawing course (on the structure section now) and was wondering if the course has anything to do with inventing poses. I want to do fantasy art and scene work, and was wondering if anyone had any advice for drawing from imagination/invention (apart from the James Gurney Imaginative Realism book) or resources on this platform? (I also have the Anatomy and portrait drawing course, as well as the How to Draw Dragons and Secrets of Shading courses) or if this is a skill that naturally develops as I master the fundamentals?
Dan B
•
3yr
I used Sketchbook for a while (iPad), but it just never ‘clicked.’ Nothing was bad really, the brushes just never quite worked with what I was trying to do. I was really just sketching though, didn’t get far trying painting.
Then I found Infinite Painter and that really works well. I just recently bought the full version as the value is definitely there for me (I particularly liked that they had a ‘Proko Brush’ which did a reasonable job replicating Stan’s soft lead with overhand grip, then sealed the deal finding the Wet Marker brush which is great to paint with). Haven’t tried Procreate, paying up front without trying it didn’t interest me and I prefer supporting a diversity of tools rather than just going with the most popular one blindly.
I also use Krita, which has come a long way and is incredible as a free product. It’s a pity guides and demos on the net are almost universally Photoshop, thank goodness Marco Bucci’s recent course here also covers Krita :)
I've sorta switched over to Krita myself, and honestly, now that I've gotten over the rough patches with the keybindings, I'm probably sticking to this.
The title sums it up.
I've been using Sketchbook Pro for a while now; downloaded it for free when it was part of the Autodesk suite, and paid for it when it split off to become its own thing. And I don't see much reference to it. Usually I see Procreate or Photoshop or Krita (which I have).
And part of me is wondering if that's just a matter of popularity or there's something with Sketchbook where a lot of people avoid using it. Is it worth it to switch over to Krita and work on getting better with the art there, after I sank a lot of time into getting used to Sketchbook's format and functions? Is there something wrong or lacking with Sketchbook Pro?
Corey McCleery
•
3yr
Asked for help
I tried treating the top and bottom "meat spear" like they were in space, being lit from a point that acted like a spot light (lit from bottom for the top one, and vice versa for the bottom one). I did have some issues with the middle "meat spear" as I tried to have it lit "point-wise" or perpendicular to its length. Any advice for that would be most appreciated.
•
3yr
That lighting set up is indeed tricky, though it's one commonly encountered in figure drawing- a common example being un-bent legs in a standing pose when the light is mostly from above. The pocket solution is to minimize the amount of "true" light shapes as the ones at the "front" of the spear will be blocking most of the light from the ones behind them, and to get a bit off fall off as you move away from the light. By fall off I mean make each light shape slightly darker overall than the ones that are closer to the light source than it. That falloff doesn't actually happen with the sun, whose illumination is generally even, but it does with most other light sources and explains things clearly to the viewer.
Corey McCleery
•
3yr
Asked for help
I was rewatching the video and decided to try it out. Drew a reference (sorta bulging crescent shape) below.
Used a combination of random mechanical pencils lying around (not artist mechanical pencils) for the outline, and a Prismacolor 6B pencil for the shading (as well as a tiny bit of erasing, using a Tombow mechanical eraser and a gum eraser I ripped a chunk off of).
•
3yr
Nice, I think the side view and the 3/4 view schematic generally agree with each other- good job. Your shading in the shadow areas looks a bit patchy, try to go a bit slower next time and fill in gaps more evenly- this makes it easier to assess the true value of the shadow for yourself and keep value differences in the shadow area very subtle. Right now your reflected lights jump up in value too much. Don't do it as fast as I do it int he video- I need to rush to make it watchable in real time, you should go a bit slower with laying in shadow areas.
Rizwan Piracha
•
3yr
Asked for help
Hi Guys, Gestural quick sketches attached. Any help appreciated. Thanks.
Hi Rizwan!
The toughest part, in my experience, with beginning gesture (or in my case, getting back into it) is shifting from trying to capture contour to trying to capture the gesture or rhythm. Beginning artists, I've seen time and again (and I myself have been guilty of this) try to nab things like proportion or shape/form. They try to draw the body, rather than draw the pose, or the motion. They end up being stiff, rather than flowing.
All of your gesture sketches are flowing and smooth. There are only a few where I can't immediately tell what the motion is, and in most of them, I can feel the dynamism of the pose. These are REALLY good.
As with the previous critique (from Carolyn Moore), you may be able to improve in one area, and that's where there's overlapping limbs, where someone's limbs are folded in on themselves (example being the bottom-right sketch on page 3, the one that looks like it's a man crouching). Another thing you can do is use some cross-contours (Stan demonstrated some for foreshortening in the first video on Gesture) to hint at structure; don't go too crazy with them, as structure isn't the goal, but it can help establish some more concreteness to the drawings. Overall, however, I struggled to find anything to really critique with these drawings. They're great.
Keep up the good work!
