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First attempt at drawing from imagination
4yr
James Doane
I have been drawing for a long time, but I always used references. I was never able to draw from imagination... but I always wanted to. I tried these from imagination. I did the 'scribble until something appears' type of approach and just created some quick characters. I was not going for any level of detail... just wanted something that looks like a character. I did each of these in just a few minutes a piece. Let me know what you think of my first attempt... I am open to comments and critiques.
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Gannon Beck
These are great, James. II think drawing from imagination builds a different kind of muscle. If you look at someone like Jack Kirby, who had to crank out four comic book pages a day, his real world objects often looked a bit faked. There was no Google, and he often didn't have time to look up how to draw all the things he had to. BUT, when he had to draw a world no one had ever seen before, he could pull it out of thin air because that's what he was used to doing.
Alec Brubaker
Nice sketches James! The scribble technique is a fun one indeed, I use it quite a bit myself. There is nothing wrong with sketching and 'seeing what happens', but I would like to propose an idea if you want to improve your abilities drawing from imagination, which is to 'build your visual library'. I like to practice drawing from imagination by first studying for a while from some reference. As a random example(draw whatever interests you, of course!), you could spend some time drawing European armor, really focusing and observing the different shapes, the different pieces, how one cuirass is different from another, what kind of clothing is worn underneath, different helmets, gauntlets, sabatons etc. After your session drawing from and studying the reference, try to draw those items from imagination as a test to see how much you've retained. I'm sure you've heard of @Kim Jung Gi, an incredible artist with a ridiculously developed 'visual library'. It takes lots of practice and will chew up lots of brainpower at the start, but If you invest the effort into building your visual library like this with many different subjects, you'll be able to find quite a lot of fun things indeed in your 'scribbles'!
@withoutrespect
Niiiice. One recommendation is to explore different body types as most of the skectches here are like buff strong people. Keep up the great work!
Josh Sunga
4yr
Hey James, thanks for sharing! I'm always excited to see people draw from imagination :) Always a good challenge- I think your first attempt is good just for that. But for the sake of a potential second - I'd say you could explore different body types like you did on the bottom right. The drastic waist and buff forearms are great- love pushed proportions! You also already have different character fragments on the page but it could help to think about them as a group. It might spark some ideas about how they relate to each other which ultimately helps us imagine who they are and how they look!
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