littlellama goes Emo with figures & Ashess

[littlellama]

Let's go Emooooooo with figures & Ashess!

With me under the mentorship of Ashess, we will explore the emotional expressions in body language.

Thank you Ashess for mentoring me in this area, your ability to express emotions through the lines of the body is superb.

I will work very hard to learn from you and make you proud! =)

:^^:



SketchBook: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=110655

[ashess]

haha. woaw. Now to live up to expectations ;)
well, I've been thinking on how to tackle this, and I think the best way will be just to dive in, and if we notice any particular troublesome subject, we'll tackle that along the way.

I'd like you to start just with a sketchpad and a pen or a piece of charcoal. never mind erasers and stuff. Now, find yourself a spot where you can comfortably watch people. this can be at home, drawing your guests or roomies or family. or, you can go to a cafe, or sit out on a terrace. The subway on your way home from work will even do.
Doesn’t matter; as long as you can watch people. Now, just do 2 minute sketches of them as they walk by.
Never mind accuracy or resemblance. This is just about their poses. People will often strike a memorable pose as they move. Look for it, hold it in your thoughts, and put it down on paper.
You should try to go for quantity here. 20-30 would be good. More is always good here. if you can only draw half an hour, just do 10 a day, 10 the next day.
here's an example of what your sketches might look like:

[littlellama]

wooot! Thanks Ashess, sounds like fun! I will get right on it! Too bad all the people at work just sit around all day on their computers!

[ashess]

well, I always enjoy it. actually, at work 'works' too.. if you can get away with it ;)

[littlellama]

is it ok if I cheat a bit and do random google outdoor pictures? I might run into HR trouble if I stare at any one person for too long. =/

[ashess]

dont do that, that's really not the same. I used to think I'd get into trouble too, but I never did. ppl even like to have a look at waht I made. even if it sucks. if your really, really sure its not save (damn tough country ;) ), try poses from tv. that way, at least it'll be moving.

[littlellama]

I will try to get a bit from everything, I think I understand what you mean. It's harder to get the movement and style from still pictures, I've first practiced with drawing stills slowly, then started to do quicker scribbles that demonstrate more of the essence of the person from people/videos.

[littlellama]

So first I drew poses off still pictures to get the hang of sketching bodies =) *ducks*

[littlellama]

then I did quicker sketches to try and capture the essence of the pose, then I looked at random youtube videos to do it in real-time. Trying to draw people in action was pretty difficult for me!

[littlellama]

and there's some more

[ashess]

ok. You’re off to a good start here -thought I do think you need to evaluate this fear of drawing real people. I've had it too, but don’t forget, some of the greatest artist of all time did things like, go to nightclubs and draw the dancers and guests there. if they got away with that, we can get away with drawing someone on the subway, right? You can always draw the guys on the next platform. That way, you'll have time to start running if they're angry.
--
ok, so as you can see, non-moving pictures give you much more time to relax and get things right. But that's not what we're after here. you are studying gestures and postures now. as an added bonus here, you can work on your lines. Now, first thing to remember here, is drawing moving people is one of the hardest things out there. its frustrating, and really almost never pretty. but again, we're not going for pretty picture yet, so don’t worry about it.
--
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=245520&stc=1&d=1195854956
a part your getting pretty good, is the shoulders. these, together with the neck, tell you a lot about how a figure is positioned. another one to look for is the position of the feet, how they attach, or do not attach to the floor. that’s something to work on.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=245521&stc=1&d=1195855023 the lines are getting rougher now, and that’s good. but don’t worry too much about putting down every contour out there; just get the ones that describe the movement. sometimes a leg or an arm are completely left out of what interests you in this move. then don’t bother with that limb.
last, don’t worry too much about the lines describing the exact hand/ elbow etc. just make a nice, long flowing line for the action. I think we should get into some anatomy soon, but not here; just draw a pretty line.
some ways to get your lines to look good: do not leave them parallel (like, one on the top of the arm, one on the bottom), but make one straight and one flowing. another way, is to give a line that's concave, a convex start and end. (or convex then concave end and start)
lastly, and this I also find very hard, dont, whatever you do, hesitate on a line. just put it down. worry wether its right or not later.

[littlellama]

wow that's awesome, I shall make my lines more efficient next batch! One question I have is that, at which point do I put the imagery down on paper? Because I cannot draw on the paper for long without looking down at it,should I draw a small section then look down, or should I take a mental snapshot of the body posture then start drawing the whole thing? My mental snapshot would only be suitable for the general postures, I would assume, without some kind of mental snapshot training.

[ashess]

I think at this point, it would be best to look at your paper as little as possible. you can do this by not taking your pen off the paper; just keep on the same line. we will work on mental snapshots after doing some anathomy.

[littlellama]

I'm trying to create cleaner faster lines, and I find that as I practice I am able to cut down on the number of lines I use to define the form, as I am able to "distill" the action more into my head before I put it down on paper.

[littlellama]

Here I watched more action oriented videos and I found that I am able to capture the exaggerated movements better than the subtleness in slower motion, have to start somewhere I guess! =)

Also, I tried to look at the paper as little as possible, but my lines go wayyyyy off what I wanted to draw, so I tried to capture a mental image of the motions in my head then replay it on paper.

[littlellama]

Here I watched some Jacky Chan videos, including his movie Drunken Master 2. I am trying to use as little lines as possible, but I find that practice is helping me a lot, especially since I'm studying people's forms from a perspective and level I haven't before. :lifedrawing:

[ashess]

haha, ye, I think you're definitely getting the idea. if you're confortable enough, I think we can move on to a next lesson. but only if you think your ready ( I know I tend to blow over important stuff like this like we have to be done next week. take your time). of course, the exersize is of the type that always remains usefull, and should be practised time and again.
here's some last pointers.
whatch for the center of grafity. if this is not between the feet of the figure, the figure has to be in movement. (else, he/she will fall over). also, look for the line of action. this is usually a single line, that alone catches the essence of a move. all other lines are secondary to that one. finally, I see you are already moving towards more 3d poses. thats very good. in these, it is important to let lines overlap, so that the front shape is represented as in front.

[littlellama]

Thanks Ashess! I'm ready for whatever is next, of course I will keep these exercises in mind for every character that I draw from now on, so that my practicing will never really end. My characters does not have the clean decisive lines yet, but perhaps after I absorb more 'drawing' in general, I will achieve it.

One question, I do not quite understand the lines of action part. I did some research online but it seems like there is more to it than a quick read can teach me. I'm assuming it's sorta like the 'spine' to the character/action ... but I do not understand its importance over just doing a rough outline sketch...

Great lessons so far, thank you!!! =)

[ashess]

You’re welcome :) great going from you so far; as for decisive lines, you need to be decisive in your head for that I guess. It gets easier when you have a lot of experience, but I think that has to do as much with the confidence as with skill. anyway, I have trouble putting in just one line myself so I’m not one to judge ;)
and. there I go, skipping something as important as action lines. Good of you to put attention back on it. Action lines do often follow the spine, but this is not required. it is once single line; the one you feel best describes the action.
As such it is a subjective matter. Though there are often only one or two (good) choices. There are basically 2 things you want your line to do: first, run through your subject’s body, covering as much (paper!) distance as possible. Secondly, you want the line to describe the movement; this is usually achieved by the curves that suggest a certain twist or direction. some examples down here:
Red marks my chosen action line. orange a secondary and yellow a third.
when drawing, you would start with the red, then chose second and third. the reason you want your actionline to cover as much of your drawing as possible, is that it will make the movement feel bigger and stronger.
(please do keep at the exercises when you can. I will add the next lesson when its done. I might want to do some work on in first, so let’s say it'll be done in 2 days.)

[ashess]

LESSON2
all right, now first, for what I’d like to do, we need a simplified skeleton.
Now, my eye fell on dimagyan’s in this very useful thread:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=106852
I asked and I don’t think he minds us using his sketches.


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the reason I particularly like this is the way the hips and leg joints are represented.
First, I would like you to practice sketching these simplified skeletons.

Now when we have down, there I have two points I want to focus our attention on. The first is discussed in Dimagyan’s lesson: the contrary movements of the hip and shoulder line. When a person tilts his hips to one side, the backbone will make an S-curse, trying to keep the weight of the head and shoulders straight. (shown in the drawing as the third and fourth figures). This does not only work from side views, but in many cases, in top views too.
252851
Of course, it is only the natural position for the shoulders and hips to oppose each other. It is very possible to counter this movement; mostly with the power of muscle. But doing so will often result in clumsiness; you need the natural counter of shoulder and hip, to get the most out of you move.
The second thing I want to look at, is center of gravity. The center of gravity usually lies around the top of the pelvis area – a little below the navel. (you can move this point down or up for great effects, but we’ll get into that later I hope)
For a figure at rest, one can draw a line straight down to the floor (I line for the direction of gravity), and from this point, the figure’s carrying point (usually the feet), will have to be positioned around this point. I’ll make some drawings to clarify.
252852
Ok, now for the exercise. Choose 6 pictures of people in a ‘rest position’ (meaning, the are on moving), draw in their basic skeletons, taking in account especially the spine and the contrary turning of hips and shoulders. Second, draw the center of gravity and its centerpoint on the ground; check the placement of the feet (or, hands, butt, whichever the figure rests on.)
PS:
I hope this is all clear. I found it a little hard to explain this right, so if anything is unclear, please say so. Ill try to clarify.

[littlellama]

thank you very much, it is very clear. I shall get cracking on this wonderful new exercise then! Sorry I may be a bit slow on the weekends, as I usually spend it going out a lot.

There is definitely a lot covered in this exercise and I shall try to give you some good sketches in return! FYI, I have learned 3D character animation before a long time ago, so that may help me now. On the other hand, it is kind of silly to learn 3d character animation without learning traditional aspect of it first. =)

I've also been trying to learn /practice other aspects of drawing, as you can see if you go to my sketchbook. Hopefully one day soon I can bring everything I learned together to draw a complete figure that is convincing and beautiful.

[ashess]

thats fine llama. I cant be checking every day either -most, but not every. ill be gone thursday-vriday btw. but just go your own pace. unless you've got some deadline to this, there should be no rush; just try and keep the exersizing regular. I see in your sketchbook your putting a lot of effort into faces right now. ill try and do something with that next.

[littlellama]

haha actually I think I'm trying to cover a little bit of everything at once and trying not to get overwhelmed somehow. I would like to stick to posture and body work with you if possible for now, because I'm actually learning a lot from you just in this area. Meanwhile I'm going to try and just draw as often as I can just to get my brain used to it!

[ashess]

ok that sounds best ;)

[littlellama]

Sorry it took so long, spent way too much time with the last two Daily Sketch Groups haha, it's all their fault! It's addicting!

Finally got some dedicated time on the weekend to practice my figure drawing, it's so fun! Can't wait till I can get the posturing right every time so I can start focusing on better expressions.

This first sheet I just drew without looking at the instructions.

[littlellama]

Then I read the instructions and began by drawing the frontal view, drew a lot of it before i realized that the pelvis is kind of too wide?

[littlellama]

here's the side view, I had the most trouble with this, I don't know the exact structure I should use for the chest cavity area, it just seems so thick from the instructions.

[littlellama]

Here i've started on different poses from pictures and from imagination, still getting used to which way bones curve, I think I should just learn what a real skeleton look like so that I can draw this simplified version better.

[littlellama]

here are more poses based on photos from a magazine, trying to allow some room/physical resistance for where the flesh should be.

[littlellama]

it seems to be easier to draw bigger sketches now that I'm a bit more confident in my lines. Still a bit unsure about that chest cavity, and also unsure about a diagonal point of view (lower right figure)

[littlellama]

and here's the final sheet out of my first batch of skeletal figure drawing! With improved skeletal structure, the flesh seems to want me to draw it in to complete it. Can't wait to get to muscles! =) Thanks again Ashess for your patience, this took way too long, will try to get it to you sooner next time!

[ashess]

hello llama :) ye its been a while. still, I've had a pretty special week so I cant say I mind. first, I love how much better you lines are getting. its really improving the overall feel of your work. second.. I will try to get to expressions, but lets look at body language first. and on that part, I think this exercize already did quite a bit! I can really read what you ppl are doing quite well, so great job there.
now, a few pointers. I would like you to try the magazine once more, and this time place the sheet over the page. maybe you'll need to take out the page and do it over the window, but try and draw in the character over the actual foto. best way for me to be able to tell how you've done would be to scan both the drawings and the magazinepage.
but I have already noticed some general problems. as you said, with the body area. first, you have the tendency to make the distance between chest and pelvis. I think thats why you felt the pelvis was too big, becuase you might have some big ones on your first page, but as you progress, the pelvis keeps getting smaller and smaller. here's an example of a ladi sitting. notice you the pelvis is as broad as the shoulders. with some women broader.
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I also did some sketches here of the chest. the best way is to think of the chest as a kind of barrel, cut off on the bottem. the chest is not quite as deep as it is wide, but it comes closer then you may think.
second, the area between the two circles does not want to stay one size. perhaps it is better at this stage to draw a solid wedge between the two circles presenting the pelvis. a lot of basic models just draw the wedge instead of the circles, but the circles are there, so try and keep them in.
257329

[littlellama]

thanks Ashess, perhaps I will select images from the web then trace them on the screen. Then include the images to show you as well.

[ashess]

you dont have a wacom do you? then you could do it straight in photoshop.

[littlellama]

I do have a wacom, I just didn't think of doing it that way since I completely separated my sketches & paintings in terms of traditional/digital.

But I guess it does make sense, I'm just worried about how crappy I would do on the switch to digital for figure drawing, guess there's only one way to find out! =)

[ashess]

haha. well, I had some trouble at the start, but you got used to it in a couple of weeks. its worth learning tough. there's a lot you can do digitally that's just impossible analogue.. as you well know I bet!

[littlellama]

I'm back! Sorry for the long delay, had quite a few life things to keep me occupied over the holidays. Happy New Year 2008 by the way!!!

Here are the assignment results. I was a bit unsure about the chest area, so it's not as precise as I would like it in that area. Thanks for your patience! =)

[littlellama]

more assignment unloading!

[littlellama]

more assignment unloading!!!

[ashess]

glad to see your back lama! and so many exersizes!
well they should give you a feel of what we're looking for. be carefull of two things though. sometimes you kinda 'rough-guess' the pelvis area, like in the last batch, the black guy in front of the mirror, you got the reflection right, but the in the real one, his pelvis is obscured by his shirt. you kinda just draw it under there. 2nd, quite a few times you neglet volume. if you cant get exactly the right shape, perhalps use a box to get the right direction.
last, you're using a wacom tablet. with what programm? I cant help but notice the lines are 1 thickness and a little wobbly. with shape dynamics in most painting programs, you dont get that.
its fine for the exercize of course, just wondering if you got the right settings/ programm so we can do more digital stuff if we want.

[ashess]

well, I bet you can guess the next exercize- draw from the heart, and just make it the rough sketches based on the scematics from our first exercize. the goal is to think up your own pose, but a good stepping stone is to take one of the pictures you've drawn a skeleton into already, give m one last look, and then do it by heart ;)

[littlellama]

thanks thanks =) You are correct, I tried to implement the structure with what I remembered as "correct", I think I had more luck just building my own 3d geometric shape and drawing that in. Hopefully with more practice in freeform drawing I can figure out the proper 3d structures to draw.

I purposely set the wacom tablet in photoshop to not use pressure sensitive settings for this exercise, so it is not accidental don't worry. =) I will reset it to the normal values for any other digital drawings.

glad to see your back lama! and so many exersizes!
well they should give you a feel of what we're looking for. be carefull of two things though. sometimes you kinda 'rough-guess' the pelvis area, like in the last batch, the black guy in front of the mirror, you got the reflection right, but the in the real one, his pelvis is obscured by his shirt. you kinda just draw it under there. 2nd, quite a few times you neglet volume. if you cant get exactly the right shape, perhalps use a box to get the right direction.
last, you're using a wacom tablet. with what programm? I cant help but notice the lines are 1 thickness and a little wobbly. with shape dynamics in most painting programs, you dont get that.
its fine for the exercize of course, just wondering if you got the right settings/ programm so we can do more digital stuff if we want.

[ashess]

hey llama. its been a while. any progress on inventing your own poses?
if its not working maybe you can tell me what problems you are encountering then I can help you out!

[littlellama]

Here's my assignment! Sorry for the long delay, I was stuck with a bunch of other projects that required my immediate attention.

I found a random fractal design on the web, then used it as the landscape/restriction to place my skeleton figures.

The body mass I have drawn are just from me guessing, so the muscle mass and structures will not be accurate most likely. But one step at a time I suppose! =)

[ashess]

hey Llama, dont worry about it, it happens.
well, I guess we should start getting into some anatomy now. but lets just
but lets finish up here first.
stickfigure look to me to be fine, so lets flesh them out a little.
keep thinking of the chest as a barrel or a box btw; sometimes you flatten it a little. take knees heads and shoulders to be balls, the libs as tubes with a little bulge somewhere usually above the middle.
288057

[littlellama]

hey Llama, dont worry about it, it happens.
well, I guess we should start getting into some anatomy now. but lets just
but lets finish up here first.
stickfigure look to me to be fine, so lets flesh them out a little.
keep thinking of the chest as a barrel or a box btw; sometimes you flatten it a little. take knees heads and shoulders to be balls, the libs as tubes with a little bulge somewhere usually above the middle.
288057

hey Ashess, thank you! Do you mean I should go back to the skeleton step, and build a more 3D skeleton first? What do you think about my fleshed figures?

[ashess]

ah, whoops, my bad llama. I was so caught up in how I'd planned it I didnt realize you'd finished the last step already, but before I intended to. yes, they look pretty good. be carefull not to just 'thicken' what you got for skelleton, but draw in the big masses first. hmm.. I guess this means the next part should be up. let me get some ref.

[ashess]

ok, lets get this show back on track.
now, llama, let me start by saying I think you're making great progress already. good job! the biggest problems I see right now are,
1- you sometimes have trouble placing masses right
2- you dont really use lines to show debth yet.
also, you complained about not knowing enough anatomy.
well, lucky you; I got you some bone pics!
picture 1-4(attachments) are the right arm. 1 is frontal (palm to us), 2 is from behind the figure (palm away from us too) 3 is from the side (thumb is closest to us), and 4 is seen from the body's pov; pinky closest to us.
now, a lot of stuff goes on in the arm, but lets start off with the hand.
I know its usual to start with heads in this, but hands have a lot more oppertunity to show overlap. besides, there's very little muscle to be seen in the hand, and I just want to start with the bones for now. they be trouble enough. anyway, the only thing that shows of you skill in drawing more then a good executed hand is, in my view, a foot :p
290294
this is how a see the hand. the palm is often described as a wedge. the thumb's base is lodged against it, like a piramid. the fingers can be seen as a chain held together by the joints. then making up hands, its important to keep the rows of joints (like, first joints from pinky to index) on a curve.
start by looking for some good rev pics. I particular mean pictures of hands where fingers overlap or are in deep perspective. when drawing them, start with putting in the masses (red)
290290290291

ok, assignment time:
first, draw the bones from the hands from all 4 views (you can leave the arm out for now)
second, look for rev photos. start putting in the wedge and thumbroot and finger joints in, then fill in the masses.
third, put a new piece of paper over the drawing from 2. try making a line drawing. not an outline! when a form overlaps, the lines should do the same.