Figure drawing - improvement suggestions
3yr
D S
Hey everyone, could you please tell me what you can see first thing is off in my five-minute sketches when you look at them. Some examples attached. Looking for specific things I could improve during further practice. I know my lines are dirty and get sketchy sometimes, I know shadowing is a bit hectic... what else could you spot and maybe recommend your way of working on improving it? Thank you much!
So I’ve been drawing for the past two months with all the advice in consideration. Do you think there’s any improvement? Thank you!
Well done and good efforts. The arm closest to the viewer looks a bit unclear. Because it is closest to the viewer, make the lines thicker and the volumes stronger. The arm furthest away should be a little lighter. For me the sketchiness doesn't matter. Your lines suggest some hesitancy, but that can be charming as well. If all figure drawings looked like curvy, confident animators drawings it would be a boring world. There is a bit of angst in this line quality that I like. But... It's good to show you understand atmospheric perspective even if you don't use it all the time. But definitely practice it and show you can use it. Also, Try grounding the figure more to suggest solidity by using a stronger floor shadow. Keep up the good work!
Thank you, graphiter, - I just started to add more shading and line difference, and I completely not thinking about the purpose of the lines, and forget about volume and perspective implied in the drawing. Some more things to focus on. Thank you!
your work is great i love how you still managed to keep the dynamic gesture of the pose only problem in my opinion is it seems like your hiding your mistakes will the shading practice constructions more and it will be perfect
Your work is already great! But the problem is not your lines though. The problem is that you combine the sketchiness of a pencil with the straightforwardness of a pen.
Pens are great, it's like painting with watercolor. The stake is high, because if you make the wrong stroke, the mistake's probably irreversible. But when you do make the right strokes, that feeling is unbeatable.
In your work, you're still halfway through. The lines are in pen, but the shadow are in pencil sketch. It's like you paint with watercolor and dab them with oil paint at the same time.
From my experience, the reason of sketchiness is that you haven't build up your knowledge of the subject really well (in this case figure/anatomy). This makes you less confident in putting bold strokes on paper. It's like in your head you keep saying, 'is this the right stroke?' 'maybe I should leave it blurry, so if it turns out not to be the right stroke, the mistake isn't that obvious'.
So I will encourage you to keep using pen, but be bold with it. That's the reason we use pens at the first place. And don't blend them with pencils. I've painted over your work to show you what pen boldness looks like (it's digitally made, but as you can see the lines resembles that is of conventional drawing pen's).
Thank you, Vinecntius for your reply! I was thinking about what you said, and I think you're right about direct corelation between anatomy knowledge and line quality. I, for some reason, never though about it. It makes sence now why I can make a clean sketch of a toy car, but figure drawing is a mess. Also, ambout mixing pen and pencil, - my intension of usnig pen was to go bold and think less, make figure cleaner, but than I got carried away and made a mistake trying to paint over mistakes, rather than fixing them at the beginning of the sketch (or in case of short sketches, planning it). Thank you very much for clearing this up for me!
I just wanted to say that I really appreciate all your time you put in your answers and advises
I know you were looking for non-line related feedback but practicing "line confidence" would be your biggest level up right now. Your proportions and gestures are really good, I especially like the pen piece.
To build up line confidence, sketch your quick gesture lines in much lighter, and then only really use pencil pressure when you put down the final line. Practice making only one "final line" and committing to it. It might be frustrating when you're not happy with the first dark line, but committing to it is important to avoid overly sketchy drawings. Practice makes perfect :)
Thank you for the feedback, Kesley! I see there is no way for not talking about my lines (lol), I think pen sketches are a bit 'better' because I had to put more confidence into something i cant erase. I can't find an 'exercise' that will teach placing one final line (Watts level). Maybe I am doing something wrong? - I do gesture lines, I place head, torso and pelvic area as lightly market boxes that are turned the right direction, positioned against each other, and foreshortened. And after that all the mess begins. Part of the mess is shadowing, part of it is not using eraser, but the biggest problem (i don't know what it is) i don't know how to make it cleaner. Should I erase between drawing construction stages?
Hey D S,
Nice five minute sketches. Quick sketch is pretty hard, so these are getting there. I did a draw over of your first sketch to show you how you can improve. I don't really know what the pose actually is, so I took my best guess. I hope this is helpful, and you find some value in it :)
Thank you, Steve! Showing more perspective through the structure is what I don’t do very well, thank you for showing how it works for this pose! You made it look so much clear now. Thank you for your help!
