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@amiel
•
3yr
added comment inQuicksketch Assignment Examples - 2 Minute Poses
Hi all, I would like to share some of week one’s 2 min gesture drawing everyday. (I started this course last week.) The first photo is day one and I drew along with Stan on the videos. Photo two was day 2 and I also drew along. At this point I was pretty unhappy drawing gestures since I couldn’t get them to look like Stan’s and drawing gesture became very tedious and I got headaches after each session. (I kept drawing the contours of the body!) I decided to browse YouTube where I stumbled upon Michael Hampton’s gesture lecture. His method really opened my eyes to what gesture is: storytelling. Tell a story with each figure. I adopted his methods and merged it with Stan’s teachings. Pictures 3,4 and 5 are my drawings with Hampton’s teachings. At this point I’m really enjoying gesture drawing and it’s so fun. Can my drawings improve? Totally. My draftsmanship also needs lots of work (I draw lightly and feathery ugh, I need more line confidence). These are my best ones, but know I have 10 times as many poorly drawn ones. The point of this long post is to share what I’ve learned this past week: if you’re struggling with gesture or you’re not having fun, take a breather and look up new ways to do the things you’re doing (or trying to do). Don’t keep doing the same sucky thing. Always try new things—try things to learn for yourself, not because Stan or someone else said to do it, but because YOU want to see what happens when you try it. Make sure that every time you practice, you learn, not because you’re forcing yourself to learn, but because it’s a product of trying something new. A lot of the things you try might not work out, and that’s OK, but at least you tried them.
tldr: if you are struggling with gesture, look up a new way to approach it! (example: Michael Hampton’s Gesture lecture on yt)
that’s it for my wall-of-text motivational speech. Some helpful stuff I found out: some poses suck for gesture, not ur fault. I found this awesome website called bodiesinmotion.photo or Google “Scott Eaton’s bodies in motion.” No need to pay for this just do the QuickDraw option and it sets 10 figures 2 mins each. I love this thing.
good luck! Happy drawing! Draw for fun and for learning and the mileage will come naturally. I know I will draw gesture even while doing Stan’s later videos (bean, robobean etc) because I love this thing so much
critiques if you have them, they’re always welcome!
@niantre
3yr
thanks for the tips. i do plan to check out some of these resources as i am still following along the examples in this lecture and feel myself struggling a lot getting used to following motion over contour. the later pictures remind me of sketches used in animation and drawings from "figure drawing for all it's worth" from loomis. nice work!
Please evaluate my gesture drawings. It has been a while since I've done gestures. I studied a lot anatomy beforehand.
Hi ryanhyndman738, nice work! I think my favorite gesture that you did was the middle of page one, where the figure is doing a butterfly type stretch. The motion in the legs and hands I feel were well captured. I notice that for the limbs in your figures, sometimes you tend to follow or emphasize the contour of the limb over the motion of the limb. I think this is more prominent in the male figures because it seems they were more muscular. Some of the female figures I think have good gesture lines and do not have this as much. I think the bottom left female figure of page one is a good example of this.
My suggestion is to look for ways to simplify the arms to emphasize the motion over the anatomical muscles of the figure, at least for the purpose of the exercise of gestures. I don't think this needs to be a major change. Going back to your gesture drawing of the figure doing the butterfly stretch, I feel that less emphasis on the biceps and instead focusing on the curve from the deltoid to the elbow would help simplify and capture the motion of his arms (though I think continuing to draw the deltoid would help since it is a primary shape).
Another thing I think might help with some of the gestures is that some of the lines seem a little disconnected. The right figure of page 2 feels like the motion of the body would feel a little more fluid if the lines were connected.
Anyway, hope some of these ideas are helpful.
wow, i love the energy in the horse drawing! very nice execution of 3d form in my opinion and i really like the linework, maybe because it feel very organic but still clean. i would suggest the horse's muzzle to be slightly longer - the current muzzle length gives the impression of a deer or fawn. looks great though.
Antonia Ryder
•
3yr
Asked for help
I started trying gesture drawings some time ago, but took a long break and just now started trying to draw them again. I constantly feel like I'm somehow doing it wrong? I just want to know if I've got the right idea before I move on to the next lessons., so these are some of the two minute ones I did over the week.
Hi Antonia, welcome back! I have just started the course and watched the first two videos but thought I would try to provide some input. I wouldn't consider these gestures to be "wrong". I like that I can see the curvature of the spine and direction of the face (via the jaw) in many of these drawings and think some of these gestures are quite well done. For example, I think the top left sketch in page 5 is excellent. It's extremely clear, and I feel captures the primary gesture very well. Another one I think was especially well done was the bottom right pose of page 4.
From looking through the various sketches, I think one suggestion I have has to do with the arms. Sometimes (but not all the poses) I feel the elbows in some poses have too soft of an edge where it seems like a sharper angle would work better. Proko does mention "noodly" I think to convey certain motions, but sometimes the arms in some of these gestures have a sharper curve than a a soft curve is warranted. For example, the top right pose on page two has the figure covering their face, and the top left pose of page 3 (but i think overall this one actually has a good gesture). In these two examples, it feels like you are used one continuous line to draw the entire outer arm, whereas if you watch Proko's examples, he uses two separate distinct lines to indicate two different lines of motion, and they converge at the elbow. I feel like I don't see this issue with the leg/knees in your sketches, just the arm/elbow in some cases. An example where I think the "smooth" line for the arm was fine was the bottom sketch of page 3, just for comparison.
So overall, i think your gesture lines work very well for fluid poses, but just some minor adjustments such as the treatment of the elbows would make the pose read more clearly. I hope this was helpful and good luck!
