Beginner with lots of questions

[Connors]

Hi. ...I guess I don't know where to begin lol I'm a beginner (relatively; I've been drawing all my life and have a hard time getting some basics down), and I have some art education (formal education which came only in the past one or two years, and I'm mostly self-taught), but I'm still not very good. I try learning from books and whatnot, but still have not found a method which works for me. Please bear with me as I try to explain my situation.

I have about a year and a half to two years' worth of figure drawing experience, yet I still struggle to draw even an inert, standing body. I can draw things sort of efficiently when I do all the parts of the body separately, but when I have to make a full standing body I run into a few problems. First, I'm not sure how to "define the torso", if that makes any sense. I have difficulty sort of "attaching" the rib cage shape to the pelvis shape to make a torso form I can work with. I also have difficulty accurately showing how the pelvis then goes into the thighs (especially on the outer part near the hips). Everything else I'm pretty chill with, and I can figure out how to attach the arms myself :P it's just that rib cage-hip, pelvis-upper legs junction set that I'm a bit fuzzy on, especially when it comes to dynamic poses.

Sometimes I'm very capable of just whipping this together correctly myself, but for some really crazy reason it doesn't work most of the time, and I've bounced here and there between different methods and haven't found one I'm content with.

My experience has taught me that it's really hard to just find a full frontal or profile standing pose of a woman or a man via an internet search, and figures are always DOING something in magazines, so I don't even know where to go for references for this. It tends to be rather aggravating and irritating when I'm looking for something so simple yet it cannot easily be found.

My eventual goal is to draw superhero comics, and I would like to get the female body down soon so I can start drawing a heroine I have in mind.

I want to apologize for being a total noob with this. I've been trying my hardest, my art is radically hit and miss (mostly miss, depending on the season, I guess? lol) and I'm just trying to search for help wherever I can find it. Please do not refer me to more books or classes at this time; I have enough books and there are no classes local to me that I can fit into my schedule (student w/ crappy art department at college). I'm just looking for an effective method for drawing the human body that would be universal to whatever pose I try to put it in, male or female (preferably female). I'm particularly looking for a safe haven in which I can develop my artistic skill, and not be ridiculed off the forum like on some other websites because I'm "having trouble getting it".

Many thanks in advance for your help,

Diana Connors :bashful:

[Hyskoa]

I have about a year and a half to two years' worth of figure drawing experience

How many hours a week, how many weeks a year?
You can have 10 years of experience, but if you only draw an hour per week, it's not going to help that much.

Night classes: 3x 3 hours/ week.
Day classes: 2x 4 hours/ week.
Anatomy class: 1x 4 hours/ week.


That'd be sufficient for improving in those 3 years up to the standards you seem to want. (but only for drawing people ofcourse, you still need to draw environments if you want to get into comics.)


Some people ofcourse attain this with less, some with more, but I'd say this would be a safe bet to get what you want. Unless ofcourse you feel yourself exceptionally skilled :)

[entdroid]

My experience has taught me that it's really hard to just find a full frontal or profile standing pose of a woman or a man via an internet search, and figures are always DOING something in magazines, so I don't even know where to go for references for this.


Try here: http://www.characterdesigns.com/index.php?sitepage=photosets

There are a couple of sets of turnarounds and various other poses.

[Crush]

You say not to reccomend books, but do you have any bridgman or hogarth books...? (specifically bridgman's complete guide to drawing from life, and hogarth's dynamic figure drawing)

If you already have those, and have not copied out every single drawing from them, then do that :P

If you don't have them, then buy them, I don't care what other anatomy books or fashion books or whatever you have, these 2 books (in particular bridgman but hogarth's is also incredibly usefull) are bibles

[Elwell]

Andrew Loomis, Figure Drawing for All it's Worth. Track down an online gray-market PDF (it's not that hard), look, and read.

[FactorZero]

The best thing you can do for quick help is to post you art. Once we can see your art we can tell you where you're going wrong.

[FlameDragon]

Try here: http://www.characterdesigns.com/index.php?sitepage=photosets

There are a couple of sets of turnarounds and various other poses.

Awesome link!

[Blaque]

It's not necessarily the most accurate of refs, but you could always try downloading a 3D modeling program, and a 3D model? DAZ3D comes to mind.

[Flake]

^
Bad idea, for reasons discussed here.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=106006

I'm particularly looking for a safe haven in which I can develop my artistic skill, and not be ridiculed off the forum like on some other websites because I'm "having trouble getting it".

You found it. As long as you can take legit criticism you'll fit right in.

Anyone who would "ridicule you off the forum" is likely to find themselves banned rather quickly. The mods here are not afraid to smite less than constructive punters.*

* Do not confuse constructive crits with "ridiculing", see the "Worst of CA" thread for examples.

Post work, look at the work of whoever is critting you, draw your own conclusions.

[JQP]

DAZ Studio or Poser are better than no reference at all.