Project - Cross Contour on Ginger Root People

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

1.5K

Course In Progress

Assignments 314

Downloads 5

Project - Cross Contour on Ginger Root People

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

1.5K

Course In Progress

Assignments 314

Downloads 5

Cross Contour Project Deadline Extended!

I decided to add in an additional project video to practice cross contour. I'll show you how I turn up the difficulty level on ginger root blobs and turn them into characters.

Deadline: 6-10-2024

Turn the Difficulty Knob

Start with random ginger blobs. Make them humanoid by adding limbs and a head. Focus on mass rather than anatomy and proportions.
Use photos of people in dynamic poses. Ensure the photos have depth (things coming towards you, body twisting, etc..). Avoid static poses.
Create specific characters with pre planned proportions, like a monster ogre with a club. More specific characters add more constraints and chances for errors.

Refine the Drawing

Switch to a black pencil for cleanup. Focus on line weight and clean up your shape design. Adjust cross contours to show depth and volume. Emphasize interesting shapes and avoid symmetry.

Tyson

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I enjoyed this.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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These are fun

CharmLotta

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Let's get crazy!

Rachel Dawn Owens

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Woah!

Chauncey Holder

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18d

Trying this, it was pretty fun and was relaxing to do!

Melanie Scearce

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18d

These are great characters. Nice job with the cross contours, you nailed it!

Randy P

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19d

This assignment was challenging but fun. I felt like I was able to combine the information from a number of previous lessons and invent some dynamic three dimensional characters. Line quality continues to be a challenge for me and I’m still resorting to multiple iterations and lots of erasing to refine the lines and shapes. Some of the initial sketches were super messy to the point I was chiseling away all the incorrect searching lines with the eraser. I played with flat coloring this time which I’ve seen in some other posts. It relally makes the drawing feel much more solid and hides some of the mistakes or sloppiness in the lines. Probably not a great thing to rely on while practicing but it is rewarding to see it with color/shading.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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18d

These different characters you made here are really cool. And I dig the addition of some color. It makes your homework more eye catching. Try some more round lines on the forms that face the viewer. Draw around the foreshortened forms rather than worrying about the contours. Heres a draw over as well as a couple of examples to help explain what I mean.

Melanie Scearce

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18d

I really like how the bottom two look like they're wearing armor. Ginger knights! These are great :)

Nicole

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20d

Had a ridiculously fun time doing this… I know the idea is to use less cross contour lines but I wanted to see how well I could control it (which is I discovered badly). It is fun though. Eventually I’ll be able to get good enough to do master studies

@pmirko

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26d

trying to loosen up a little...

@pmirko

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27d

trying different pencils with procreate and having very different results...

Rachel Dawn Owens

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26d

Ha! I love the guy in the middle 🌱

Dani Torres

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28d

I had time to do two today. I like the push-up one the most 😊 It was the second that I did, maybe i was warmed up after the jumping one 🤔

Rachel Dawn Owens

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27d

These are rad! Perfect cross contour linework!

@pmirko

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29d

i can't manage to remove the anatomy out of the ginger men....all my attempts are too close to body anatomy rather than just blobs slowly going into characters... i'll try again without reference and see if i can stick to vegetables people....i also wonder if this s how Spiderman costume was born, or Colossus from Xmen...

Rachel Dawn Owens

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29d

This is a great cross contour study. Your form design rocks. Keep pushing it. If you want to abstract the forms of the figure more, you could try getting rid of the photo and use you own drawing as reference. Push the shapes. Play with proportions. Get weird.

Michael Longhurst

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1mo

The first page is before watching the critique and 2nd was after. I tried to aim for interesting shapes, but not sure I improved much.

Dani Torres

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28d

I really like the horse!

Natasha Johnson

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1mo

Hi , yup i probably need to do a redo on this one . Any critique welcome . Thanks guys .

Rachel Dawn Owens

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1mo

It looks like you almost got it. You could maybe push some of the ellipses more. Make the foreshortened limbs more round. It will help with the illusion. Heres a couple of demo i made for other students that could help you too.

Evan Wray

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1mo

Had a great time with this one. The overlapping lines felt like it really unlocked something for me, especially since I feel like I struggle with hyperfocusing on outlines/contour and this whole project helped!

Rachel Dawn Owens

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1mo

These guys are so fun! I had to give them a go and drew my own version. You could add a more convincing 3d effect to these drawings by adjusting the connection points. I drew this out to help explain- Hope this helps. Keep it up!

Stefan Sharkov

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2mo

I tiny Gingerroot dreaming about two other Gingerroots going for a high-five.

@shopdoc

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2mo

Hoping someone can tell me if my cross contour lines are facing the correct position? Still struggling with this.

Melanie Scearce

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2mo

Yes, you have the right idea! The two things to consider are the position relative to the horizon line and the position relative to the viewer -- is the object straight up and down or is it moving towards or away from us? In this gif, notice that the middle contour line when the cylinder is in side view is completely flat. You can't see either side of it, but it rounds out as the cylinder tilts back in space. The width of the ellipse of the cross-section become wider the more an object points towards or away from the viewer. It might be useful to draw the full ellipse as practice. Try to make the edge that's not visible lighter so it's not confusing. It's a good exercise for pencil dexterity as well!