How to improve and how to continue
3yr
@vesuvio
I have been following Proko's figure drawing playlist for a while now and I am pretty excited about it, especially because up until I started following lessons and practicing somewhat regularly, I never thought something as "subjective" as drawing could be in my skill-set.
I managed to draw both on paper and digitally although I prefer the latter.
I currently reached the mannequinization after watching gesture (which I did practice but ALWAYS feels a little... off?), bean (I had nightmares drawing that digitally!), robobean (I loved this one), landmarks (I barely remember anything... agh...) and structure (Although I only did draw stand alone forms such as cubes or cylinders). It has been fun and all but now I am slowly getting the sensation that "this is not enough". I mean, as I draw and watch the critique lessons I see other student's work look way more clean than mine no matter how much I practice (probably I just repeat the same mistakes without noticing) and even if they look good, how do I go from a mannequin to a finished drawing/some design I could use? How do I fill in the detail? Should I start already learning anatomy and proportions? I had a quick glance at the shading video but I feel like it too doesn't help enough on the detail part.
At the end of the day, I decided to post here my questions and concerns in hope someone may provide me the answer I am seeking for.
I will post one of the exercise I just did using a photo from "line of action". The exercise I did today is divided into 4 parts. First the gesture, then the mannequinization without the use of the gesture itself and then two tries of mannequinization having the gesture as a guide.
(I am not at my usual working desk and as soon as I reach it, I will post two more exercises I did a few days ago).
Thank you for reading my way too long text and please if you have any advice on how to improve at my current stage and continue from it, share it.
I realized one of the two I was supposed to post was a way too complicated pose and turned out pretty badly so I discarded it.
However I made two more drawings to check out. (The one with the bean is the older one, the other two are newer).
I also followed Steve Lenze's advice and made both the ribcage and the pelvis more "indipentent" while before the box for the torso and the box for the pelvis were close by.
I also noticed that giving contour to the figure made them better so I did.
I still am a little confused on how I should start moving on into a more defined character, with detail and all.
I also wonder if there is anything else I could improve with as other people work still looks, at first glance, more clear.
Hey Vesuvio,
These are much better. The first and third one are not bad, but the second one has some issues.
Make sure you start with a good gesture, then move on to the structural drawing. Also, try to use shapes for the structure that look more like the actual body parts, not just blocks and tubes. This will help you to move toward more realistic drawings. I hope the sketch I did helps explain things and is helpful :)
Hey Vesuvio,
I like how you broke down your thinking on this drawing. I will say, you picked a pretty difficult pose to work on, sitting poses can be hard, especially with a twisting torso.
try to work out the pose by drawing the two major masses in the body, the torso and the pelvis. You also compressed the pose because of the sitting pose. I did a sketch to show you how I would do it. I hope this helps you going forward :)
Hello! Thank you for answering! I see you made the ribcage more indipendent from the pelvis too! I tried to apply it and posted two more drawings with it! Please check them out whenever you can!
