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Samuel Eli
Samuel Eli
Kentucky
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Samuel Eli
I would say that they definitely "seem" accurate to me. Which, I'm assuming is the goal. But, someone with more mileage behind the figure in perspective, in regards to anatomical shapes, might have a better eye. Would you say these are in true orthographic view? The skeleton is still in perspective and foreshortened in a few areas in both frames. You could try and draw the skeleton in a similar but basic pose in a pure profile view. Maybe just having the skeleton squatting with their arms out. You wouldn't even need to draw details of bone structure, of course That way, you can draw the lines necessary to transfer to a foreshortened image. It's a bit of more work, but worth a try - maybe? One thing is for sure though, the form seems a bit hard to read because you've drawn through everything. So like in the frame where they are facing away, the pelvis area is hard to read accurately. But, it's cool and I think it reads, just maybe beyond my abilities to nit-pick!
Samuel Eli
Lot of awesome replies already, but I did want to mention something on line quality. I think overall, your line quality tends to lean towards feeling a bit scared and uncommittable. In the longer sketches, I think this becomes more apparent. As other's have said, focusing too much on the contours of the form can lead down a not-so-desirable path in gesture drawing. In these drawings, I feel when you get caught up in the contour, your commitment and confidence of strokes becomes lessened - you make more smaller, corrective strokes. Some artists call this "scratchy". You said in a thread below you were doing DrawABox, which has good exercises to help with that! What I think too could help is to slow down, ghost the line-of-action enough to where you can be more confident in where it's going. In the longer sketches, I wouldn't approach it as "ah, I can do more detail now", but rather "ah, I've got more time to do the same thing but better"!
Christopher Lebreault
slowing down has def helped!
Samuel Eli
I wouldn't worry about any conventional horizon lines or any vanishing points for that matter - if you are drawing from these sorts of references, and just working on the figures themselves (that is to say, you aren't drawing them as a part of bigger scene). The photos have the figures so close to the picture plane in deep space that any real convergence of any curved or straight line would be pretty minimal IF you are plotting a vanishing point. Plus, you would be tracking which contour and cross-contour lines are parallel and converging, and which are not. With an organic form, that's pretty hard and overkill imo. What could be useful is working on foreshortening. Which is just a form staying at the same distance from the picture plan, but changing orientation. https://youtu.be/R60e9_ofV68?t=600 This whole video is great, but Marshal Vandruff show's what I'm talking about here pretty nicely and concisely.
Natali Santini
Thank you for your feedback. I'll focus on foreshortening now more. I just have a question - how does the distance of the picture plane from the subject (building, a person, an object, etc.) affect the distortion and everything? And the distance of the viewer from the picture plane? I know that the closer we get to something, the closer the VPS get to one another. How does the distance from the picture plane tie into this? Thank you once more.
Samuel Eli
I know that the pelvis's front plane tilts down in normal standing posture, and the front plane of the rib cage tilts upwards. But, when the model is in these twisted positions, I can't seem see how they should slope.
Samuel Eli
Here's the reference photos as they appear;
Samuel Eli
Decided to take a break from grinding perspective stuff, and move onto doing robo-beans from regular beans and gesture drawing. For context, I've been studying some from Michael Hampton's book on figure drawing as well. Any feedback is super appreciated :) Specifically, I'm having a really hard time figuring out how to position the pelvises when they are in odd positions other than a normal full frontal or 3/4 view. They feel very stiff and robotic to do, which I'm not sure if that's the stylistic point, or if I'm missing some gestural stuff.
Samuel Eli
My immediate reaction to seeing these; cool rendering! Did you use a reference, like a photo or proko's vids, or are they imagined? The jaw construction on the lip study seems a little "elongated" vertically. I think this would work in caricature, but sense I don't have much else to reference in the construction (i.e. I don't have a nose, eyes, or face shape to see how they are pushed in relationship to the lips), it just feels like lips that are stretched in a vacuum. The vertical narrowness of the perceived mandible shows this too, I would maybe push that out a bit. The eye ball itself has a good sense of rounded form. However, the iris and pupil don't seem to map onto the rounded surface exactly, in perspective. Maybe work on circles, ellipses, and stability of the stroke of the circle? I guess this would depend on where the person is looking. One big thing about the eye study though, is that I think you've got some anatomical features in reverse, or didn't include eye lashes on one side of the eye. The inner part of the tear duct usually is on the opposite side of the where the most noticeable eye lashes fan out. The nose stands out to me. It feels like the bulb at the tip of the nose is actually turning to the figures left side, and down, rather than being exactly in the middle. It also feels a little elongated. Again, don't know if it's the reference, but it feels like the position of the nose isn't lining up with the ghosted figures head in deep space. I want to think that it should be turned more inward, and upward, so that we are mostly seeing underneath the nose in a more triangular fashion.
Samuel Eli
Right now, I'm working in a very small room in a townhouse that I share with my roommate. So, can't have huge easels or desks. I have two desks (2 ft X 4ft), with one being sequestered to one side of the room and other opposite. One side of my room is my art space, while the other is my "other" space. I'm pretty satisfied with that basic layout. I'm looking for a good drawing surface/board I can use with my table top easel. I have a Art Alternatives Ravenna Table Easel, and I love it. BUT - I can't seem to find a decent, sturdy drawing board to go with it. I have a 18x24 Alvin Cutting mat that I'd like to also lay on top of said drawing board. Basically, I'm looking for a good, sturdy, and not-too-heavy drawing board where I can lay my mat on top of it. I've used 18x14 Masonite boards before, but they tend to bend and warp as I get closer to the edges with pressure (simply because they are so thin). Does anyone have any suggestions or tips? I love to work on a tilted (45-60 degree) angle when I do any sort of traditional work. Wouldn't be opposed to replacing the whole setup if it means I won't run into drawing board warping problems :/ Left a pic for scale :P
Martijn Punt
Hi @Samuel Eli, i went through Marshall's perspective course recently as well. The first thing i noticed was that the box you drew is not a cube, the length sides are larger than the height of the box. This means that if you want to draw a perfect circle in one of the side planes the circle will touch the top and bottom of the rectangle, but it will not touch the left and right side of the rectangle. So i think the construction of the ellipse is fine. Try doing it on a more perfect cube in perspective and it will work out better. In the beginning of Marshall's classes he eye-balled/estimated a perfect square in perspective, in the last class he actually provides a method to draw perfect squares in perspective (Planned Projection). Hope this helps
Samuel Eli
3yr
It does, I see the problem now. A little frustrated with myself in how I didn't pay attention to that particular detail >.>
Gannon Beck
One of the things Scott Robertson talks about in his book is using ellipses to estimate a cube. In other words, draw the ellipses first, get them placed, and then draw the cube around them. Your ellipses look like they are in correct perspective. They are just too far apart.
Samuel Eli
3yr
Yeah, you are correct. Actually, I know what your talking about with regards to Scott Robertson. I actually found his steps as rather self evident, but when I was studying other sources, it was in the reverse order. I was getting frustrated as to why I couldn't reverse engineer by going square>ellipse, instead of ellipse>square.
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