Never taken a figure drawing class...

[Giller]

and I was wondering if any of you had suggestions or thoughts on how I can go about learning how to draw the body, and get the anatomy right. I've been sketching since I can remember, but whenever I attempt to do the human body from my mind, i'm nowhere near to successful.

Here are two examples of quick sketches I did today of some pornography pictures (only place I could think of to look up naked models :o )

10.23.03-006 (http://merlordstudios.com/fileupload/uploads/10.23.03006.jpg)

10.23.03-007 (http://merlordstudios.com/fileupload/uploads/10.23.03007.jpg)


I tried some tutorial online for the first sketch, but found it was rather silly, and took tons more time to sketch and finish then my others. As I continued sketching these, by sketch #5 I already saw myself getting better at judging where which lines went. I tried to do some faces on the ones past #5, but I wasn't so lucky. I use a center line and one for the shoulders and hip, that's all I know how to do.

I would really love to get great at this and my end goal it to be able to reproduce the human body from my mind with no reference or picture in front of me. :(

Giller:

[Tully]

From what I see, the anatomy's pretty good for the most part. Proportion and all that. I think what you might want to work on is the quality of your line. See if you can avoid making it so fuzzy, going back and forth over your lines multiple times as you seem to be doing. What I think these pieces could use is a stronger, more confident stroke (no pun intended...), following the basic lines you have here but without all the distortion.

Try taking a look at the daily sketchbook threads for some reference.

By this I don't mean you should stop working at anatomy. You have some nice little studies here, and the only way to get better at anatomy is to do more just like this.

[Giller]

Ya, I think the more I draw these the more I can get my lines down to just the way i want it.. the way i see it through my eyes. I can't wait till my lines will become near-perfect on the first stroke.... until that day. :p

[jester]

Giller, go to the Reference subforum and take a look to the amazing wealth davi collected and shared there.

Also, why not join the Middle Class and do your studies with help from other ambitious people (who aren't noobs any more but neither pros).

Jester

[egerie]

But....... aren't most porn pictures retouched anyway ? Even standard mag pictures are completely altered -at least for the female figure. What good is it leaerning anatomy/proportions from those I ask ?

[DavidCousens]

Egerie makes a really good point here.

Somebody was reading a national paper a work yesterday, and it had a picture spread of some semi-famous woman (I can't remember who, but my crappy memory isn't the point here! ;) ) and instantly I noticed that they had photoshopped out a large part of her ribcage.

It's not something that people normally spot unless they have experience from drawing real people firsthand.

Life drawing classes are a lot more beneficial than you first realise, and there should always be some running somewhere. If not, get some friends or family to pose for you every so often.

Save looking at the porn for afterwards! ;)

Have fun,

Dave

[S13Drifter]

Giller my suggestion to you would be go down to your local community college and get in some real figure drawing time. And invest in some good anatomy books. If you can get your hands on it, theres an andrew loomis book floating around the net in pdf format. Also theres a book "human anatomy for artist" by elliot goldfinger, which is an extremely thourough book.

Also on this forum in the tutorials section theres a thread started by kevin chen where he posts his demos from class. Hes and extremely talented man, had a chance to meet him once through Carlo Arellano at the art institute in orange county. And ofcourse theres Glen Vilppu.

But all in all i think the best piece of advice i can give you is keep doing what you're doing. Keep the pencil moving, and the draftmanship\craftsmanship will come. You only get better by laying down those pencil miles.

[Giller]

Ya i'm on my break this semester, and im going back to Community College in Jan. I have so much freetime I thought i'd try and get a headstart and really get the proportions right and everything. Thanks for the advice, I'm going to go to the bookstore today and try and find some of the books you mentioned - Thx!

[Phuzion]

One thing that people have failed to mention, but would help you a lot, is to focus more on the layin. Focus on the skeletal structure and build your forms on top of that. You're only drawing the outline now, and it looks like the figures are full of air. Work from the inside to the outside. That "silly" excerise you did would enhance your drawing immensely if you keep at it. Your drawings will take longer at first, and they may not look that good, but as you keep going, you'll improve. And take everyone's advice seriously and go to life drawing classes cause they'll improve your anatomy like nothing else. Seriously, though, this is a good start, but don't shrug off laying the figure down as basic shapes. It's something all pros do, so it's gotta work, right? Don't get impatient. Drawing takes a lot of time and practice, just keep at it. Peace.