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Need help to improve on landmark subject and overall.
3yr
@toneza35800
So i just start the fundamental course 5 days ago and i think landmark is the hardest challenge i struggle now. It look terrible. I feel like i just draw a landmark spot from where i think it should be, not where it really is. Another concern thing is i think my drawing look far difference from other in the community, does this mean i did something wrong? Anyone can spot which part i should go back and repeat the practice?
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Liandro
3yr
Hey, @toneza35800! Good to see your early steps in the Figure Drawing course! I see it’s been a while since you posted this and I’m wondering how you’ve been doing lately in the course. I know it feels tough often times, but it’s totally okay to be uncomfortable, have doubts and make mistakes - you’re still learning all this. As much as possible, give yourself some time and patience while you keep practicing regularly and your skills will evolve. Just try not to judge yourself so hard. I’m not sure what you mean when you say your drawings look different from others in the community - is it because you drew yours in color? If that’s so, it’s no problem at all. Other than that, nothing really strikes to me as “different”. As for what to practice, I’d like to make a few comments of my own to add up to what @Steve Lenze already commented, if that’s okay! It seems to me that you gave each pose a nice deal of thought and attention. But the major thing I notice when looking at the drawings is that I believe you might be focusing a bit too much on the contours. One thing you might already know is that the Landmarks are key areas on the surface of the body where the underlying bone structure shows or hints, and which we can use to think of the gesture, measure proportions or make other decisions regarding the construction of the drawing - right? With that said, there is also a bunch of other anatomical information on the surface of the body that is not so necessary or useful for this type of study - for example, outer contours, muscle volumes, bumps or furrows that don’t reveal bone structure or smaller areas of concentrated details. So my suggestion for this exercise would be that you do your best to keep it simple, ignore that excessive anatomical information and focus solely on finding the simple gesture and pointing out, on top of your gesture sketch, the bony landmarks you learned from the Landmarks lesson. If you find it helps, you can also “pre-practice” by drawing the landmarks’ placements directly on top of the photo reference before drawing it on your gesture sketch. And to make it really clear that you understand the landmarks you’re dealing with, you could take little side notes with their names and any other information you find helpful to remember about them. I’m attaching an example of my own and hopefully it can better illustrate what I mean. Speaking of which, gesture is a very key concept not only in the figure drawing course, but in figure drawing overall! Perhaps even the most important one among the basic topics. Make sure to always keep it in mind when you practice drawing the figure and even start your figure drawings with gesture for at least most of the times. Also, whenever you feel you need, you can get constant reviews on it. In fact, if possible, I’d really recommend going back to the Gesture lesson for a while, give it a review and a few extra practice sessions and get feedback on it before moving on through the rest of the course - later down the road, you’ll find it will have been helpful. By the way, I’m thinking 5 days after the start of the course seems to me like perhaps a bit too soon to be on Landmarks already. How did you go with the other initial topics? Have you posted Gesture or Bean assignments for feedback here at the community? (Sorry that I missed them in case you did!) Anyway, whenever you wanna ask for feedback, make sure to check the “help request” checkbox when you post! You might even make your post directly on the lesson’s page, under the “comments” tab (rather than creating a separate topic). And you can also feel free to tag me in your post if you would like to get feedback specifically from me, I’ll be glad to help if I can. Learning to draw the figure is a big step for every artist, and this whole stuff takes some time plus a lot of practice to sink in, so perhaps notice the pace you’re taking on the course and make sure you take enough time in each lesson to get acquainted not only with the information, but with the little bites of technique and skill you’ll be developing and growing upon. Whenever you feel you need, it’s fine to stay a little longer on a more intricate part of your learning in order to figure things out a little better. Don’t aim at perfection though, that can be a trap! :) Just keep doing your thing with passion and intention in the most caring way you can. And don’t worry if you don’t get everything right away, learning can happen in “layers” over the years as we keep growing. Whenever you feel stuck, the best thing you can do is take a break and ask for feedback. I hope this helps. Feel free to ask questions if you might have any. Best wishes and best of luck!
@toneza35800
@Liandro in case you missed my reply ;-;
@toneza35800
Hello, Liandro! I was surprised to see someone comment on my first post (which was supposed to be flooded with new posts already). Thank you for your help (metal support;-;) here. Despite Steve's advice to concentrate on gesture, I continued to focus on anatomy and contour until now (please help). I just have a super weird feeling when I start with gestures because it looks like "not human enough", like sometimes the arm is larger than it should be, the head is too small, the legs aren't correct with the pelvis, etc. Proko's gesture look very accurate to the pose why my gesture look so wrong at every parts lol. So I just tried to aim for anatomy first (though I never managed to make it look identical to the pose) Here is my day 28.6( I usually draw 1hr per day so it progresses slowly). I try to focus on the anatomy of the arm( and important muscles I should know), but seeing many experts saying that I should focus on gestures instead really difficult to think about. Though I promise I will working on gesture 5 poses per day from now on. another things could you draw a line of your gesture? (idk what its say in english, tighten drawing? or something) It might be a guideline for me to see how to work on after sketching part, and your opinion about my lastest work could be great (please). Thanks for your advice anyway!!!
Steve Lenze
Hey toneza35800, Congrats on starting the fundamental coarse, it's going to seem really hard at first, but keep with it. When it comes to landmarks, I use the ones that give me the most information. I did a sketch of one of your models and drew in black the landmarks I look for and what they tell me. These landmarks are meant to help you understand what the body is doing in space, meaning in perspective. They also help us with proportion because we can see if they are in the right spot. I hope my sketch answers some of your questions, keep on drawing :)
@toneza35800
Thanks for the advice steve! It seem more possible to achieve when i see your sketch, and i plan to practice solely on landmark until i comfortable with it before moving on to next subject. A few request if you dont mind, do you usually start with gesturing first? Is it ok to start with bean first? And could you sketch the back too?
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