"Draw from life"

[Nalayah]

Hi, I'm a bit of a lurker here, started after seeing some of the dramatic threads linked to by Encyclopedia Dramatica. During my lurking, I saw a lot of people telling lesser talented artists to "draw from life," especially when doing fantasy art, and one person stating that sometimes that's because the artist needs to completely start from scratch.

What is it about this that helps lay the foundation for drawing? Does one need to understand real objects before they can move on to drawing things out of their head? I just started drawing again, and want to start the right way this time, instead of copying manga style furries. Thanks!

[Max Challie]

It's good to see you've taken this path, and have decided to be honest with yourself. There is a lot of hard work ahead, and it's all very worth it.

Fantasy worlds (sci-fi, fantasy, steampunk, surrealism, everything from imaginaton) are most rich when based on a firm grounding in reality. The more you know about the real world, the more believable your fantasy world will become. All the greatest fantasy stuff you see, from books, to illustrations, films, games, anime, are based on a good understanding of what is real.

In art, life drawing will teach you a lot about the proportion objects, the effects of light and how it bounces around, how light plays with colour and the effects it will have on it, the rhythm of drawing, and a lot of other things. You will learn a lot more from life than from the more artificial resources such as photographs. Because, it's the real thing.

If you want to learn how to draw characters, you will need to know about human anatomy and the best way to learn is to draw from life. Draw people in coffee shops and learn the proportions of heads, draw your own hands, attend life drawing classes and study nude models (even the naked old men :P)

If you want to be able to draw mechs/robots, draw machinery from life. Observe the mechanism of cranes, joints, hinges, and anything else machine-related.

If you want to do environments, draw or paint environments from life. Go out to the street, or to the country, observe how it all works. Learn perspective; objects get smaller as they receed into the distance. Learn Arial Perspecti ve; mountains get more blue and lessen in saturation (become more faint/ghost-like) as they get further away.

The best way to learn is from life, and you will not become good unless you study from life. So, make sure it is fun.

[Nalayah]

Thanks for the reply! Very informative. Right now I hope to eventually have a focus on character drawing, and have been working on basic matchstick models with bubbles for the head, torso, and hips. Should I put that aside and start setting up a few simple compositions to work on drawing? Also, does contour drawing help out with drawing realistically?

[•Lindsay•]

A lot of new artists come in here asking what order they should do things in. I don't really get it. You shouldn't put anything aside if it's useful. You can tell if you are learning anything from an exercise or not. Even the magna furries are useful if you like them, and they aren't mutually exclusive with drawing from life. The cowboy bebop guy bought a real welsh corgie just so he would know how to draw one.

[Max Challie]

Agree with Linzoy. Mix it up, do lots of stuff. It will all mingle and amalgamate into something called progress. Blind Contours are good. Gestural drawings take records of the personality of who you draw, and will help to add character to your characters.

There are 3 masters which you should study the human form from: Loomis, Bridgman, and Hogarth. So far I've only been involved with Bridgman while life drawing takes up most of my time (as it should). I'm starting to get into Loomis but Hogarth is sort of distant to me. Download Andrew Loomis books here (http://acid.noobgrinder.com/Loomis/). Finding physical copies of those books is insane. I've got to get my hands on a physical copy of Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life, though. Definitely.

If characters are what you're interested in, you shouldn't "eventually have a focus on them". Do them right now. Draw what you like. If you want to be a professional artist, act like one. Do what you love all the time. And if you don't love it, learn to or do something else. But it sounds like you love it. Have fun! :)

[Nalayah]

Thanks again for the info and setting me straight. I was afraid of taking the wrong path or not laying out a strong enough foundation in art. Right now I've been using Freaks! (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Freaks-How-to-Draw-Fantastic-Fantasy-Creatures/Steve-Miller/e/9780823016624/?itm=4) by Steve Miller for basics, and I just downloaded the Loomis books, which I'm reading through right now. I guess I'm doing it right, as I'm enjoying it immensely. Soon I'll be spending plenty of time in the sketches section, asking for critique :D.

Thanks again!

[Max Challie]

You're welcome. I'm glad to hear you're having fun!

Start a sketchbook here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=41), and show us your progress. We'll give you critique and advice on what to do next, how well you're doing. :)

[CCThrom]

The only "wrong path" is to figure you know it already... and stop growing. Sure, styles like manga can be limiting dead ends, but only if you get stuck there.

Enjoying the process is still the most important part.

[Rabid]

The only "wrong path" is to figure you know it already... and stop growing. Sure, styles like manga can be limiting dead ends, but only if you get stuck there.

Enjoying the process is still the most important part.

Completely agree!

[dbclemons]

The things inside your head had to get there from somewhere, so undertanding the source is always a good idea. Those imagined images may be repurposed from other art you've seen without you even realising it. "Drawing from life" allows you to base your art on something fresh and correct, and make the work more believeable; although, the details can also be taken to an extreme where it saps the artistic appeal. Photos come from life too, but they're an abstraction of it. They're still useful, but no shortcut for understanding the real thing.

It's not required for everything. Some artists can be perfectly happy without it. If nothing else, life drawing (including still life) trains your eye and hand, and improves your coordination. Understanding the way things work, and being able to apply that to a drawing is also mentally enriching.

[Arshes Nei]

You can download some Bridgman books from Archive.org http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=george%20bridgman

I also recommend Gottfried Bammes over Hogarth. His German books are around in PDF format. Some of his plates: http://graphic.org.ru/tors.html

I believe it was Ron Tiner that said that you need to draw from life because you need to build a library in which to draw from memory.

[Lulie]

You can download a bunch of the books mentioned (Bammes, Bridgeman) here: http://processjunkie.blogspot.com/2007/09/best-figure-drawing-books-ever.html

Incidentally, I'm still struggling to understand explicitly precisely why drawing from life is better than a photograph. Is it because there's a lot more information in life? (With photographs, you can only see one angle, which might be misleading about the shape or what you're seeing or whatever.) I suspect there's a pithy way of explaining why, but I haven't really got an good explanation that I think would quench a newbie's curiosity.

[fanficbug]

Incidentally, I'm still struggling to understand explicitly precisely why drawing from life is better than a photograph. Is it because there's a lot more information in life? (With photographs, you can only see one angle, which might be misleading about the shape or what you're seeing or whatever.) I suspect there's a pithy way of explaining why, but I haven't really got an good explanation that I think would quench a newbie's curiosity.

It's because when you see things in real life, you can evaluate the full meaning of what you're seeing. For example, when observing a bird and drawing it in life, you get a good sense of its personality and mood by the way it moves, and thus you can better evaluate which details to include/emphasize and which ones to leave out.

Also, when drawing from life, you see your model in full 3D, and draw it from different angles, perspectives, and distances. It forces you to draw quickly, too.

And, cameras can (and do, often) take photos with distortions that make studying anatomy through photos difficult. The fact is that even if you perfectly copy a photo, it won't be true to life. Plus, you can easily get bogged down in details that way, which can confuse the viewer. Plus, it's very easy for your figures to become habitually stiff because you don't take down the "mood" or motion of your model. When observing someone, we see the average of their movements in our mind's eye. But a photo freezes the model in place and, unless it's a very very good photographer who took a lucky shot, the pose will be slightly unnatural when drawn. It doesn't look unnatural in photograph form because we take those for granted; we "know" that the pose is natural because the person had to get into it for the picture to be possible. In drawing, you have to work harder to gain your viewer's trust.

Hope that helps. :)