The Great Figure Drawing Debate!

[Red Giant]

As anyone who draws the figure knows, in the early stages it is a nightmare to get construction from the imagination down. So many book titles that are bandied around with conflicting advice! I thought it would be interesting to start a thread to see how other poo folk went about formulating their knowledge and what method they have finally settled on. Walt Reed promotes th 2/3rd torso to 1/3rd pelvis relationship, Loomis, Bridgeman and Hogarth favour establishing the rib cage as the initial point of reference. How do these two methods compare when setting up complex action and deep forshortened poses?(thoughts please). With both methods mentioned you are at least working with solid forms from the get go and are better able to visualise layout and relationships. The wireframe though, does anybody actually use this method for constructing finished figures!? I'd love to hear what all at the poo think, maybe even provide a little pic to illustrate your thoughts.

http://uk.geocities.com/hybridlogic@btinternet.com/figure-drawing.txt

[StylesDavis]

that's an interesting topic. would love to hear fredflickstones or kevin chens opinions about dat...

when i construct my figures, i've got the problem that they tend to look all the same or very similar to each other. perhaps i consumed too much loomis and too less nature or so.
at the moment i try to get rid of construction methods and attend an un-instructed figuredrawing-course for the first time of my life. i am pretty curious if it affects my from-head figures in some time...

[Red Giant]

When I say 'poo folk' i'm not being rude. This is also posted on the eatpoo forum and I just copied the text over.:D

[ghost79]

i use the head/nose unit. to anyone unfamiliar with this method it goes as follows: top of the head to the bottom of the nose equals one unit.

-1 unit from bottom of the nose to the pit of the neck

-1 unit from the pit of the neck to the bottom of the sternum

-1 unit from the bottom of the sternum to the bottom of the 10th rib

-1 unit from the bottom of the 10th rib to the top of the pelvis(tip of the iliac crest)

-1 unit from top of pelvis to bottom of pelvis

1/2 a unit from top of pelvis to start of femur(great trochanter)

2 units from top of pelvis to middle of knee

2 more down to bottom of feet

that'll give you about a 7 1/2 head figure

another thing i keep in mind is 4 heads down to bottom of pelvis, cut that in half to find the bottom of the ribcage

[JackalAnubis]

I use the head measurement of head, chin to bottom of pecs, pecs to belly button, button to groin, etc. My figures usually suck though so I'll try using some of those other measurement methods. something that DOES help when I do it is lining up the figure. keeping it really loose and making sure things line up in two ways. first vertically helps, like where the edge of the face should be behind the line of the hips, or legs. also sometimes things line up like the edge of the leg to the edge of the opposite arm.

[Hale]

Well all of the techniques discussed are good for standing figures but I believe you asked about foreshortened and odd poses as well. It just so happens that we were just taught the "Envelope method" also known as blocking-in the figure. It wokrs good for seated and foreshortened figures. Basically you go in with a blue pencil (or a really light pencil) and use straight lines to line up the angles between the parts of the body. for instance (and remember you keep the envelope lines loose) you start lining up the angles (head to hand, hand to knee, knee to foot ) all around the obsy. Keep all lines straight as you are trying to make accurate angles and relations between the landmarks of the body rather than trying to make an accurate contour. After you have made the envelop around the figure you can go in and start drawing the angles between the shoulders, the knees, head, etc. but keep them all straight still. You can also go back and fix whatever because you need to keep it loose and accurate. Finally when you see that all the angles and blocked in forms are corerct you can easily go back in and draw the contours. This method is actually very easy to grasp and quite easygoing and fun as you aren't trying to nail the contours from scratch. Hope this helps, and maybe I can post a step by step later on.

[syco26]

Hey Hale would there be any chance you could scribble up a quick demo on that for us to veiw?Would be good to see and try out.