I am trying to get better at figure drawing and drawing the figure from memory. Please critique these gestures
5mo
@anon_762
Almost all of these are from imagination, save for one or two which I referenced character poses from the manga "Akira". These are drawn in ballpoint pen on an unknown, but slightly rough sketchbook paper. Each pose took under a minute, at most maybe taking me just a few seconds over a minute. They appear messy, and that's likely due to me not really sticking to a method like Loomis or Reilly, and really comes from me trying to pick up David Finch's method of starting a pose.
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5mo
Nice gestures, with a recognizable Finch influence! (Finch Flock Fo' Life!) Something I'm noticing is varied proportions within your figures, particularly in the torsos/legs. I know nailing accurate proportions isn't generally the primary goal of gesture, but once you internalize a proportional canon you'll start to see more accuracy seep into your poses, and you'll know a bit more about what you can exaggerate to help tell the story. If you're a Finch Fan I'm sure you're familiar with How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way, if not it's one of David's key references for gesture drawing. In it you'll find a great proportional canon for Super Heroes that goes along with how David teaches gesture. If you study these proportional diagrams you'll pick up on some key measurements that will help you when you draw from imagination. One measurement that helps me when sketching figures from imagination is that upper body and lower body are almost equal in length, and can be generally seen as approximately 4 heads tall each. It's not a hard rule, but a good one to generalize to get your figures feeling balanced. Here's a free video on proportional measurements that may help, and a few proportional diagrams from David Finch, Marvel, and Loomis. Keep up the gestures, would love to see more!
https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/human-proportions-average-figure/downloads
These are really cool, and a great example of how to do quick gesture sketches to work out poses. The one thing I am noticing is that your torso and pelvis are too close. I did a quick adjustment to show you what I mean :)
It's something I'll try taking note of and fixing as I continue doing more of these. As gestures though, do they feel grounded and convey the action well? That's my primary concern with these and other I post in the future
