Project - First Steps to Mastering Gesture

Lesson by

Michael Hampton

inThe Gesture Course

739

Course In Progress

Assignments 185

Downloads 10

Project - First Steps to Mastering Gesture

Lesson by

Michael Hampton

in The Gesture Course

739

Course In Progress

Assignments 185

Downloads 10

For your homework this week, you'll be doing a series of gesture drawings. Use the six steps to break the body down into asymmetries, focusing on keeping within that 16 to 17 line ballpark.

I'd like you to:

Do 10 gesture drawings from master copies.
Do 10 gesture drawings from your imagination.

Master Copies

When I say "master copies," I mean drawings from any artists or sources that you like. Masters are not limited to classical artists like Michelangelo or Rubens. They can be from comics, video games, movies, or anything that inspires you. Go online and get art from the masters you love and admire! Draw from a range of contemporary to classical masters to broaden your understanding of gesture.

In the upcoming assignment demos, I will be drawing from:

Michelangelo
Rubens
Rodin
Rob Liefeld
Abby from The Last of Us (Her body language communicates different emotions throughout the game and I want to show that you can draw from 3D reference as well.)
Kratos from God of War (The evolution of his pose and body type tells an interesting story.)

You do not need to draw from these masters, they are only suggestions.

I believe that 3D character artists have just as much understanding of gesture, body language, movement, and dynamics as 2D concept artists. So, feel free to draw from 3D models, concept art, or any visual media where these principles are evident.

For other teachers, it might be unconventional to mix these sources, but I encourage you to use anything you like. The key is that the principles of gesture and asymmetry are present.

Drawing from Your Imagination

For the last part of the assignment, try 10 gesture drawings from your imagination. I know this is more challenging, especially with a new technique, but drawing from your head helps you:

Disconnect from needing to represent something specific.
Quickly learn what you don't understand.
Identify areas where you need more focus.

If you're having trouble drawing gestures from imagination, try this: look at a reference photo, then visualize that same pose from a different angle and draw it. Or, use the reference as inspiration to create a follow-up pose from your imagination. I have included a handful of reference photos in the downloads section that you can use for this purpose. Give it a try!

This exercise will help you come back to your work with fresh eyes and a better understanding of where to improve.

* * *

Submit your assignment drawings (and reference images!) by March 5th for a chance to be included in the video critique. The Critique video should come out about a week after the due date.

Good luck with your homework this week!

Mario Ulloa

•

21d

10 Gestures from Comics and one video game and 10 gestures from imagination

@thaihoch

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21d

Enjoyed the exercise Michael. Some of the poses I'm not sure if I got the thoracic and lumbar right. I'd love some feedback!

Covenant Abu

•

24d

Hello everyone Thanks Mr Hampton for this wonderful course... My knowledge and skill in gesture drawing has increased a lot... Here's my assignment... 1. Me following along with your drawing 2 & 3. 5 master studies and 5 from models 4. My 10 from imagination I would appreciate a critique. 🙏

Zander Schmer-Lalama

•

25d

Here’s my gesture from master. Some I think I did okay on and others don’t look so well. Feedback is appreciated!

Martin Defensor

•

1mo

My drawings for this lesson.

Mariëlle van Rijn

•

1mo

My first steps in rethinking drawing from focusing on exteriors to the idea of the interior.

Sarah Rivera

•

1mo

I know I'm late for the critique video but wanted to post anyway. This was fun. The imagination poses were harder because I just had no idea what to make them do

@cloudhopper

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1mo

Aloha! Love learning gesture from MH at a ripe stage where I'm just beginning this skill! I practice some, then rewatch, learn more, and repeat. Wrapping my mind around this approach gives me a new understanding of communicating through drawing and makes it more fun. It sucks to suck at drawing, but I love art so much and am coming back to it after decades of not drawing (because I didn't like what I made and lacked skills). ANYWAY, I was wondering about applying this method to other creatures. Will we talk about that at all? Or am I on my own to learn the underlying main skeletal structure and try to come up with a way? I believe a lot of other methods teach more of the style of representing the outside of the forms, right?

@gaetanam

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1mo

I believe Michael mentioned in a comment that this would be human figure only, but since his approach is based on the spine it should work with any vertebrate creature! To think about drawing quadrupeds, just imagine applying this method to a human on all fours (someone posted a great master copy from Dirty Dancing as an example). An interesting exercise would be to do the proportion chart from our first assignment with a different creature. This will force you to pay attention to the proportions of the animal compared to itself, as well as what distinguishes it from humans (e.g. Michael mentioned the difference in the number of vertebrae between humans and horses). Either way, the gesture will still follow the lines of head-spine-weight bearing limbs-support limbs. It's funny, after watching these videos I wanted to draw other creatures too! I started paying attention to spines (weird, but very interesting lol) and if you want a first animal to try, I'd suggest cats! Their spines are relatively easy to see, they bend into all kinds of interesting poses, and their shape is sinuous which is great for gesture! As for other methods, which ones are you thinking of? I could be wrong, but I think most gesture methods emphasize the same thing as Michael (rhythm/idea/energy > contour)

Darin

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1mo

I seem to have trouble figuring out hands and feet. They seem like the should be simple, but they always end up looking blocky or flat. In general I enjoyed doing these. I think the master studies turned out pretty well, but when I was uploading the images, all I could see were the mistakes. As for the ones from imagination, they started a little stiff, but I think after doing a few I started to get a little more dynamic.

Sean Ramsey

•

1mo

We're gonna have a lesson focusing on just the feet pretty soon!

Darin

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1mo

Here are the ones from imagination

Eric Bunn

•

1mo

Freestyle

Mon Barker

•

2mo

Some gesture master studies of Moebius’ Blueberry characters. Number 4 was most successful. I was most frustrated with my line quality. Your lines are so much more elegant and flowing Michael!

Glenn Hughes

•

2mo

I really struggled with this. I'm finding a conflict between lines that flow into each other, without symmetry and the desire to copy what i see and create fully formed limbs. Sometimes i think i'm just arbitrarily leaving out lines and i don't have a good sense of when i should or shouldn't. It leaves me feeling like some of the figures have less structure. In particular the placement of the spine (neck, back, pelvis) doesn't seem to fit within my design at all, and i seem to be drawing around it, rather than it playing a role in defining the body.

@gaetanam

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1mo

Idk if it's apocryphal, but there's a story of how Picasso drew a series of pictures of a bull - first fully detailed and lifelike, but then increasingly abstract until he only had a simple line drawing left. Essentially he kept removing details until there was nothing left to remove that wouldn't sacrifice the essence of the animal. Maybe pick 3 of your favorite poses and do something similar with the goal of finding the most important lines. After doing this a few times, maybe you'll have a more intuitive sense of which lines should and shouldn't (or rather can and cannot) be left out to communicate the gesture. Good luck!

@gaetanam

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2mo

This was such a fun challenge! For the 10 copies, I wanted to observe balance/ weight distribution in motion. IMO dancers are masters of balanced movement so I played around with different dance styles and dancers using themselves vs others as counterweight. Unfortunately one of my kids was sick this week so didn't have time to submit 10 from imagination. I'll be doing them this week anyway - this was really a great exercise in understanding "practical" anatomy

@cloudhopper

•

1mo

great photos, can't wait to try them, thanks for including!

Minqi He

•

2mo

Drawing gesture from imagination is very difficult, and I often draw the gesture which I have seen before.

@gaetanam

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2mo

Don't be hard on yourself - there's a quote about writing that is also true for drawing - "you can't get out of a brain what isn't there to begin with." It would be almost impossible to draw a pose you've never seen before since our "imagination" is really just a synthesis of all we've seen and experienced up to this point. If you feel like you're always drawing the same poses, try changing up the content you're observing. Examples - if you love classic art, watch videos of modern dance. If you love superhero movies or comics, try fashion catalogues. Creativity is really just about connecting dots, so make sure you have some varied, interesting dots to connect! Good luck :)

Blane Nasveschuk

•

2mo

Ten gestures from imagination. Challenging.

Steve Wright

•

2mo

I found this very fun, though my proportions may be off a bit and wasn't quite sure if they are done correctly. I think the poses I chose were quite varied and some were quite challenging. I only managed five imagination gestures due to time. I'm very eager to learn more.

Vincent Goh

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2mo

I think I might’ve chosen the wrong reference images to study gestures, these are sooo hard!

Vincent Goh

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1mo

I reworked these to try to make it better, I’d like to know if I can make the gestures better for these three characters, any critiques and comments are welcome

Francesca Puccio

•

2mo

I had a bit of difficulty with this assignment.

Francesca Puccio

•

2mo

From imagination assignment. These were even harder!

Nose Feratu

•

2mo

I got stuff from Cris Stevens, Ryan Ottley and Steve Huston. First, I need more than 16-17 lines. Otherwise it looks like a bunch of fishbones. And second, all of this is incredibly abstract. I went trough the video twice. Michael Hampton is talking almost all the time, which should be good. But, I have no idea what he is talking about. It’s like listening to art politician. And no invented poses. Inventing anything is pointless at this point.