Activity Feed
Marco Sordi
2021/9/27. Hi All. This is my latest portrait. It still seems too flat to me. Any idea or advice to make it better? Thanks.
Anton van Dort
Two things to improve: Darker shades like on her neck (will make her face pop out more) and and some highlights like that "silver line" on her left part of her face. For the rest you have the proportions pretty good.
Caleb D
Been doing this for about 2 weeks. Very new to all of this. I feel that some of my lines are pretty sloppy. Still getting more comfortable drawing from the shoulder. I'm using the suggested grip from one of Stan's videos, the one he uses in these videos. Here are my latest 10. Not sure when I should move on to "The Bean" lesson. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
Anton van Dort
Hi Cdil, I think you are doing a great job here. Your lines seem more confident compared to most beginners. Besides that, I think your landmarks and angles are also good. The main constructive feedback I can give to you, is to look at two things I have been struggling with myself. First, is look at the proportions. How to the limbs are doing in terms of size to the rest of the body. Secondly, in some cases I would emphasize the knees more by using a sharp direction change in the action line instead of an S-curve. For me the trick was to move back to stick figures and make these correct from a proportions and balance point of view and making sure the landmarks are in the correct positions. Once these are correct, spend more time on adding more "mass" to your gesture drawings. And don't give up. Getting good at figure drawing means going back and forward every now and then. Believe it or not, but my stick figures I create today are better than the stickfigures I created 6 months ago.
Jeffrey Schout
This week I spend time drawing inside behind the computer but also outside. I have to say it was a really nice learning for experience. When you draw people walking, picking something up or sitting on a bench you realise how many movements / positions people can take. It also helped with not overthinking. So I am glad I started. Below I have added yesterday's sketches wile drawing outside. Feedback is welcome.
Anton van Dort
You have really drawn a lot! Looks like a lot of fun you had! Keep it up Jeff! When drawing poses from life, you get a lot of information to process. You are not into the miniversum of your desk and your screen. Besides that, people on the street have all kinds of different clothing which makes it more difficult compared from the stylized poses of professional models. Make it a bit more easy for yourself and start with stick figures like in 30 sec sketches. But.... try to make the stick figures more dynamic. This will make it more easy for you to focus on the proportions. My advice is to study the proportions again. And draw pro model poses just with dynamic stick figures. And measure the proportions after wards. If the proportions are not correct, correct them. After all, this is a learning experience. Once you feel confident about the proportions, do have a new look at your life pose studies and see where you can improve them.
Jeffrey Schout
@vandortstudio These are 30 second scetches. I found 30 second is challenging, I was hardly able to finish the drawing. Feedback from other people is also welcome.
Anton van Dort
If 30 seconds is too challenging, which is quite understandable, I would simply stop the video and take more time. Maybe even draw a pose more then once and compare the differences. Don't forget that a gesture drawing should communicate a pose to the viewer. And need to learn two things: 1 - to observe 2 - to draw to communicate what you saw Just take more time to observe. It is the start of your drawing. 1 - Analyze what you see and decide what you like about the pose. 2 - After that, when you decided what you like, see what makes that happen. Is it the angle of the shoulder? Is it the position of the hand? Is it because the arms direct the eye of the viewer? Is the leg making the impression the model is about to jump? Why is that? 3 - After you have a good idea of what you want to communicate to the viewer, what you want to document, first look at the blank paper and decide where you want to draw what. First make a plan in your head 4 - Now you are ready to draw and first make ghost lines before your pencil is about to touch the paper. I think this method will help you to step into the pose. For now forget about the 30 seconds. Make it 3 minutes or maybe even 30 minutes. Just take the time you need and enjoy the analytical part as if it was a meditation. Over time, the 30 minutes will become 3 min. And the 3 min become 30 seconds. Hope this helps. And keep up the good work!
Anton van Dort
Some excercises in head types from a galaxy, far far away...
Sashank G
3yr
Great work !!
Rika Navani
Hello! This is my first time doing gesture drawings. The reference pictures are from lineofaction.com. These are 2 minute gesture drawings made after doing 50 or so. I want to make sure I'm on the right track. I'm finding myself run out of time before the 2 minutes are up. I'm using a chalk pen on clip studio paint. Do you prefer learning with pressure sensitivity or not? Do you work traditionally or digitally? Thanks!
Anton van Dort
Hi Rika, I really like the flow of your lines, they are very strong from a rythm point of view, like the waves in the sea. The only constructive feedback I can give now, is that the exageration of gesture drawings should be in the action lines, but not perse in the volumes and proportions of the bodyparts. The reason for that is when you want to put bodyparts into the gesture drawings later on, you might get into trouble, because it might look distorted. But again, the flow in your lines is great (I wish I had that flow in my lines!)
Jeffrey Schout
This is the progress of day 3 following the course. I drew this without whatching Stans drawing. I've noticed there are alot of spaghetti arms and legs. I will work on that tomorrow. Other feedback is more then welcome.
Anton van Dort
Hi Jeffrey, you are putting a lot of effort into this, which is very inspiring to me! My main feedback for now is that your lines are looking a bit scratchy. This often happens a lot to me as well, when I am insecure about what I am drawing. A tip I once got is to look very closely at what you want to draw, then "ghost" the line a few times without touching the paper and when you feel secure enough, you touch the paper and draw the line. Just like an athlete throwing away a discus. It is very basic, but I did notice that approaching your lines like this does pay off in the near future. 1% progress per day leads to a big improvement after a week and gigantic one after a week. Keep up the good work! Looking forward to your next post!
Anton van Dort
Hi, my name is Anton van Dort, a Dutch "artist", between " because I do this as a hobby. In my daytime job I am an IT consultant. In the evenings and weekends I am always doing something with art. My dream is to become a professional illustrator and to tell you the truth, I have had some set backs because for example, I got rejected by Disney, so I decided to go into a different direction. Although my dream is to become a pro illustrator in the area of scifi and fantasy, I decided to focus more on portraiture and make one buyer happy instead of a big company like Disney or Marvel. To save time and to have more control over the creation proces, a lot of my work is done digitally. When moving to portraiture, I feel the need to get more experienced with analogue media, like acrylics, charcoal and pencils. Having said that, I still enjoy creating fantasy art, because of the delicate use and application of "cheap effects", to get the attention of the audience. Things you need to avoid when doing portraiture, because you will need to do justice to the person in the portrait. In other words, how should I continue with my "career" as artist? Does my work has the potential to help big companies support their franchises? What will this ask from my mindset, so I can decide if I have that in me? And will portraiture for single buyers be satisfying in the end? Will it give enough challenge compared to being a professional illustrator for big companies? Besides that, any other constructive feedback to the pieces I submitted is always very much appreciated (I think I have a growth mind set ;-) )
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