Spartan Camp #192 - 50 gestures + Optional "Master Anatomy Study"

[Anthis]

Spartan Camp #192 - 50 gestures + Optional "Master Anatomy Study"

The aim is to produce 50 gestures by Sunday the 7th of August.

- The gestures can be of anything, human, animal, cavorting capybaras.... You can draw full figures, but you can also go for heads, arms, eyes, or anything specific. All media can be used, both digital or traditional. Coloured or black/white. Quick scribbles or long studies. Imagination or referenced. Clothed or nude. Specifics are up to you!

- In addition to this, participants can choose to do an Optional "Master Anatomy Study", in any medium.
Additional notes on this weeks’ Optional Study:



Surely, everyone has his or her master artists that they look up to. Your goal for the optional study this week is to take any existing work from any master of your choice and to do a study of this work. Fitting the context of this activity, your study should focus on anatomy. You are free to choose any artist you consider a master (classical old masters, but also living artists). Artwork itself is also a free choice (drawings or paintings, sculpture, 3d).

- Remember - studying is not copying and copying is not studying.
- You will obviously need reference for this one... unless you consider yourself a master....
- Colour, medium, time frame, any specifics are up to you! Good luck and have fun! And feel free to ask questions!


50 poses is a challenge, but don't hurry or stress yourself reaching it! Focus on drawing, as practising is the main goal of this exercise.

Criticizing each other is highly encouraged!! Share constructive criticism, reference images and resources!! Let's help each other get better!

Come on soldiers! Flex those muscles!!

HALL OF FAME - SPARTAN CAMP #191

deadlyhamster
anthis
Jenny7332
Vertical:star:
samming:star:
ShiNIN
BlackDelphin

[LordLouis]

"by Sunday the 7th of February."

:o

I'm in :)
I don't really have a master I look up to, I know everyone talks about frazetta, but while I love his anatomy, it's not that I cherish every piece he's painted (as a matter of taste)

[Strato]

I attempted to do all 50 last night, and by #10 I realized that I SUUUUUCCCCKKKK at gestures. Gonna practice this all week until I get a respectable 50. As far as the master study is concerned, I'm thinking of doing El Greco to get a sense of his elongated figures. Not sure how I feel about the choice though, and if I should settle for something a little "safer." Thoughts?

[samming]

Nah, forget safety, do something challenging.

[shiNIN]

Strato: I don't know about your gestures but I tremendously suck and I drew quite a few figures in my life. I'm an antitalent. Or need a winner approach... whatever. Faces or animals are hard too but still I see I can do it... But human bodies are a mystery to me.
El Greco sounds good, I love his hands :D

As for me, I obviously will try to finish some old Bougureau wip :D But it would be cool to do more master studies...
After the 8-bit computer party last weekend my biorhytm got weird but now I start to produce stuff :D
Not much this far. Mostly refd.
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/trad0803.jpg

[BlackDelphin]

Starting with the master anatomy study. Though I think I'll be doing another one.
Found this Da Vinci study. On the right I tried applying it on a different pose.

[zy.]

boo alllzzz...

this is my stuffz from last week, but mid last week. and I'm all excited cuz I haven't been here for so long, so post at the end of this week and now, comments with the second post!

These top two are from a life drawing class I went to:
1293220

1293221


These bottom two are largely un-ref'd. The lower right 3 in this first pic are ref'ed.

1293222

No real ref's here. Did peek back at my life drawing class. Trying to apply what I learned...
1293224

[0xym0ron]

Damn, it's been a while since I did this, sorry for the absence. A lot of things happened lately, mainly a rearrangement of furniture, a new sketchbook... eh, what am I saying. Things like this (http://i.imgur.com/xKIHX.png) happened.

Everything is basically the same as the last time (except the source is now Posemaniacs), but I did try some new things if I remember correctly.

http://i.imgur.com/OEmQk.png

No imaginary figures/optional study yet...

Next time I might try something new, like contours or faces, maybe animals? And remember to take this in much smaller doses of course.

Liking your stuff, shiNiN, as always, especially the eyes. My only critique regards line economy and asymmetry in some sketches, but it's not very big of a problem.
m
zy., I like your approach to blocking out shadows (and figures overall) but generally these "dark spots" seem pretty small and light with only the outline defined. I assume this is to let you focus on the figure? It's just a bit strange, but perhaps you could go over them with another layer of hatching? Not necessarily crosshatching though.

Nice golems, BlackDelphin. Back muscles? Sorry then, poor judgment. I think each one might be a tad bit too defined, unless you're using this as a sort of reference guide for future work, in which case I do somewhat understand your approach to lighting each one individually instead of focusing on how the simplified back would be lit as a whole.

(Too large?)

[BlackDelphin]

0xym0ron - ref intentioned, thank you. nice strokes with your posemanianc;
i don't think it's to big, we get to see the details better, and there are many figures

zy. - you have very nice, clean linework; i really like your non refed stuff

shiNIN - nice studies overall, perhaps try varying the line strength more?

Trying to control my digital sketching, I'm beginning to have an idea with what settings I work best.

[shiNIN]

0xym0ron: Yeah, I know, some faces I draw are a bit assymmetrical (though usually not so much as some real people... I didn't know they exist till lately). But you didn't see my usual standing figures, they tend to fall into one direction. Really much. It's quite annoying.

BlackDelphin: I don't quite know how to do that... I don't think I can focus on more than one thing at once... :(

Some new pencil heads.
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/trad0804.jpg
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/trad0804b.jpg
And some digital stuff, very very unbalanced wip, I mean the lighting that is totally inconsistent. Colors were my least concern.
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/dig0804.jpg
Cats as always.
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/cats0805.jpg

I try to do some figures and the optional (I decided on David again :D) but right now I'm not feeling very well.

[Guardian G.I.]

I'm posting these gestures here in spite of the fact that they are quite horrible, comparing to similar drawings made by other people around here.
But, anyway, even Glenn Vilppu sucked at one point...

[warburton]

- Remember - studying is not copying and copying is not studying.
- You will obviously need reference for this one... unless you consider yourself a master....
- Colour, medium, time frame, any specifics are up to you! Good luck and have fun! And feel free to ask questions!

Hey Anthis, this has confused me. how do you do a study without copying from your reference?

[shiNIN]

Guardian G.I.: At least you drew figures! I often avoid those even here.

logistic puppet: I don't intend to answer instead of Anthis, just to share my thoughts.
Copying and referencing is different. You can copy without having too many thoughts about what's going on. You just study the surface and copy what you see.
But using a reference should be more than that. You notice hidden things, use your anatomy knowledge, you yourself draw the picture, the reference "just" aids you.
Eh I thought I can explain it better.
I usually try to analyze my reference but if I keep looking at it, I tend to end up just copying it :( I experienced it's hard to study my reference and focus on my drawing at (almost) the same time. When it's about heads, using a reference often gives worse results than my own doodles because my focus is elsewhere. Sometimes I focus on the details and the whole thing gets inconsistent or wonky... Drawing is so damn hard.

Erm sorry I carried away as usual.

[samming]

logistic, basically, instead of just drawing what you see (copying), you ought to learn something about whatever you're looking at and be able to apply it to things later on (studying). Like how (ideally) you should learn by studying during school, the same thing applies to art here; you should be able to do an anatomy study and have learned something about anatomy, like what muscles can be seen when flexed/relaxed, how the body bends, what shapes are present in anatomy, etc. I hope that answers your question and that I wasn't too vague or confusing.

[Strato]

Well, I finished my master study of El Greco's Laocoon (Original here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/El_Greco_-_Laocoon.jpg) I'm afraid I rushed this a little to meet my deadlines, and overall the study suffered as a result. I put in about 2-3 hours on this, which is fairly short in my opinion. I would have loved to spend more time observing light and tones because it gives you such a better idea of the muscles and their shapes, but I only had time to rather quickly go through and throw down the most important tones I saw. I should definitely do another one on my own time limits. Also, my scanner's backlight absolutely kills whatever I scan. What are good options for scanning that won't result in overexposure?

1295465

I don't know exactly how to do an effective study. If somebody would care to guide me through a good process for analysis, I would love them forever. That being said, I took a stab at it.

1295466

I've begun by going through and coloring each muscle that I knew how to identify. And I did a fucking terrible job which doesn't surprise me because I haven't gotten to the point in my studies where I feel comfortable doing serious anatomy work. I got maybe 10% of the (surface) muscles in the human body, and I sure as hell have no idea where they anchor and what shape they are. I consider this a VERY humbling first step, and a great window into my weakness in this department. I think I'll start going through Rubin's anatomy book and start coloring through it as one of the TAD streams suggested.

I also went through and red circled areas that I can easily see that I made a mistake. The hands and the wrists are rushed and STUNNINGLY poorly drawn and awful and just looking at them makes me want to delete this post. I have to say though, that the wrists in his original are utterly wicked! El Greco's hands are gorgeous, and I think that I was thrown off by that and was doing much more drawing what I thought I saw instead of what El Greco painted. I also need to spend more time practicing hands (Who doesn't?) In addition, there's something off about my pelvic region, where the femur is visible through the skin. I think I set it too far down the figure's thigh. Also, his neck is too thick. Finally, I probably should have measured the negative space between the legs a bit better. Seems a little wide in my opinion.

Onto really cool things I noticed (Which I purple circled). First off, when I set off to draw this I assumed that El Greco's anatomy would be kind of weird and wrong. Boy was I foolish. His anatomy is stunning here. Look at how both the bicep and the tricep are flexing at the same time in the figure's arms. That's of course not possible, but I'm certain it was done for expressive purposes. He's showing both muscles hard at work to fight off this snake. Something I would have never thought of if I were doing this piece.

Second, look at how that pec and deltoid flow into his arm. Maybe it looks a little over the top, but holy shit there is obviously some very intimate knowledge of anatomy going on there. That was actually the first thing I noticed about this piece. I could spend 2 hours just studying that!

Finally, look at the twist in his quads and thigh. Simply diabolical! It adds such an intense shakiness and almost creepiness to this painting, don't you think? His leg looks serpentine, just like his attacker.

I had a suspicion going into this that El Greco's figures looked tall (10 HEADS!) and distorted due to an overall lengthened core region. His chest seems in proportion to me. However, by the time you get to his abs, things get funny. I estimate them to be about 3 heads long, which while I don't know the exact ideal measurement is obviously crazy long.

At any rate, those are a few of this most important points I could think of while working on this piece. I've never done a master study before, and I really enjoyed it. I'll scan my 50 gestures tomorrow and discuss those too.

Edit: Oh, yeah, it's clear that I didn't give 2 shits about the feet either. Well, that's what I get for cutting corners. =\

[LordLouis]

Huh, almost forgot to upload my stuff from this week!
@Strato: wow that is.. well that is quite an exagerrated proportion you have there, must have been so tricky to study.. your analysis was very interesting, cheers!
@Guardian G.I.: never mind the quality, what matters is that you train, study and learn. If you are not working from a life model, I would suggest reading not just one life drawing approach but multiple, because the learning effect from photos can be slower as you don't translate 3D into 2D, but 2D into 2D.
@shiNIN: your faces are getting better.
@BlackDelphin: ahhh another Bammes fellow! :D Looking good, but make sure you understand to read the figure in boxes, cylinders and other simple 3D forms. For example the back study you posted: all muscles are just an array of flat planes when the back is tilting; but in real life muscles flex and stretch, causing "bulks" on the back because it is, in the end, a 3D volume with too many muscles :p

Here's my stuff! No master study, had absolutely no drive for it.. I went to the library got a pass and got books about my only two idols in art, but I was more interested in reading /tut tut!

[samming]

Stuff
Then digital study of Bouguereau that I might try painting up in grayscale sometime, but I didn't have time this week
Then Bronzino study, of just an arm though.

[Anthis]

I'll get to comments tomorrow, started out way too late myself!

Some from imagination, then a couple from reference using values.

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb12/Anthis_/spartan%20trainings/192-1.jpg

[Strato]

@Strato: wow that is.. well that is quite an exagerrated proportion you have there, must have been so tricky to study.. your analysis was very interesting, cheers!


Wasn't too bad, honestly. Just had to measure twice on nearly everything =P As you can see, I slightly stiffened up my pose compared to the original. By the time I noticed, I didn't want to start over and figured it was fairly inconsequential. This is a study, not a photocopy. But yeah, it was definitely different, and why I wasn't sure if I should have done it or not. I learned some really cool things though, and now I know how to look a little like El Greco if I want to.

Ah, I see you're focusing on the brachioradialis. That's a particularly nasty runt in my opinion. Really unpredictable to know what it's going to look like when you rotate the arm in various ways, and it's always visible. I didn't even try to do it on my muscle analysis because it's always eluded me. And I see you're doing what I wanted to do with my muscle analysis only like, 40 times better than me. =P

@samming
Those are sick! Very inspirational studies.

[Strato]

Hi everyone. So, I may have missed uploading these by Sunday the 7th, but I've had them done for a while. I just dread my paper-feed monstrosity scanner. I sucked it up and scanned my gestures for you folks to see though. Well, see is a bad term. My first dozen or so of these gestures were so light, my scanner killed them entirely. I'm really sorry for that, but for what it's worth you're not missing out on any profound aesthetic experience.

Anyway, one thing I learned is that gestures mean different things to different people, and it's going to take doing lots of these little buggers to figure out what works for me. Nicolaides goes so much for the raw energy that when I look at it, all I see is a scribble. I've done hundreds of Nicolaides like gestures, and I didn't learn a damn thing. One of my other friends suggests that I try to jot down the bare minimum number of lines to make something recognizable. Those seem too choppy and disconnected. I think that 1 continuous line works for me, but in a sort of constructive manner. I started hitting on some gestures that I thought were pretty decent, but I feel as though I'm simply not quite "getting it" yet. However, I'm constantly experimenting with how I'm approaching these things, and hopefully I'll find a methodology of gesture that works for me. Anybody else have this experience when they started doing gestures? I feel like I've been spinning my wheels for a while now.

Some thing I also don't like is that I absolutely need to ditch the bisected sphere method of head construction. I think a ball and plane method would be so much better. I'm also missing out on the line of action, the rhythm of the pose...I mean, I really feel like I could have spent my time putting black paint on a string and randomly dropping it onto my paper and I would have made the same marks. Please help? :yayca:

In general though, I see a very mixed bag of quality, but a slight progression. I'd also like to comment that my gestures from life are notably better than my gestures from Pixelovey.

Edit: What is it with me and feet? Okay, screw this I'm not going to be like Rob Liefeld and just never draw feet. I'm going to borrow a page from that "Do something 100 times" guy and do 100 feet to break this terrible habit of mine.

Edit 2: Oh, hey, I just finished my first sketch group activity! This was a blast. Hope to see everyone next week.

[shiNIN]

I ended up studying leg anatomy and when I do such things, I don't produce anything decent to show :bashful:
But I show a few messy sketches anyway. Most of the figures are anime referenced.
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/sc192trad.jpg
I usually don't show my gestures based on someone else's works (unless it's a master study or based on a tutorial) but now I'm lenient. I hope it's okay... I totally used some of 0xym0r0n's sketches as a reference, they are so appealing in their expressive simpleness, I did them in the way I could.
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh287/shiNIN666/gfx/sc192fig.jpg

Blackdephin: Last time I didn't comment your last bunch. The figures are nice. The legs... You tend to position the knee way too low. I had problems with this and I realized the patella is halfway between the top of the greater trochanter and the sole.

LordLouis: Oh my... Many arm studies... You are my role model now and have my deep respect ;) But seriously, I wish I could do that. I'm a lazy, usually blocked one.

Strato: I'm still in the beginning of gesture drawing, no matter how thousand little figures I drew (not many, by the way but there were quite a few in the last years). My lazy attitude doesn't help but still... Human bodies is mysterious to me, I can't really grasp how the hell should I start to draw something this difficult. I still have no method to draw the basic sketch. That's why I usually chicken out of drawing figures :( Heads are hard too but I love them and the bones move much less :D So I can break the wall if it's about heads but figures are different. I'm most lucky with skeletons and have some idea about limbs but the torso is able to confuse me even in the simplest poses.
Oh man, don't encourage me, I don't wanna whining about this anymore. I'm sure some stubbornness and extra attention can make things better ;)

I WILL do the optional next week. I totally will :(

[aprat]

Trying to get a hang of colours.
Kind of hit-or-miss.

[Strato]

@shiNiN Break down the figure into prisms, spheres, and cylinders. If that's still too intimidating, just draw a ton of cubes, spheres, and cylinders in composition, then slowly start piecing them together. You have to make peace with the fact that the figure is a challenge sooner or later, so you might as well make it sooner! But most of all, BE CONFIDENT. You're too good to be scared of doing what's hard, so just do it. =)

[shiNIN]

Strato: Spheres and cubes are too formidable to me (cylinders are fine I guess. I never draw prisms). Faces, for example, seem easier. And less boring.
But I know, base objects are important and I do wonder if it's a problem I rarely draw them (I try when I construct a body and sometimes even when I draw a face).
Though I think my problems are deeper. Proportions. I can measure a standing figure but I wish to be able to draw it simply and if there's foreshortening, I'm lost.
practice and attitude, I guess. I try to do something about it.

aprat: I like those faces... except maybe the middle one, it has too assymmetric eyes with not quite right positions, even if she exists, she troubles me. I'm no good with colors but they don't seem bad regarding that either, at least I can imagine the lighting situation ;)

[zy.]

oh wow, so many people participating!

BlackDelphin-- Nice back muscle outlines, are you sure the guy on the right actually is reflective of which muscles are contracting where? Beautiful knee study.

Oxym0ron-- Love those quick gestures! Out of curiosity, do you find you learn a lot from doing fast gestures like this? I've always been worried about doing quick studies because I am skeptical it will sink in.

shiNIN-- Great pencil heads, I love how you mix styles and animals in!

Guardian G.I.-- Good effort this week! I notice you're using concentric circles to build up the shape of the torso and limbs. This works really well for some of the bests artists I've ever seen, but I've never quite figured out how to make it work for me. Don't be afraid to play around, I often draw a stick skeleton first, and then build from there, or start with shadows and work up. I know shiNIN likes to draw with thick brushes. Just some ideas to play with… keep up the good work!

Strato-- Nice study of El Greco's work. Not to sound like pretentious brat, but I don't think El Greco's figures are super accurate in this piece. Your study of his is spot on though.

LordLouis-- Great lower limbs study!! It looks like you broke the arms into square sections. What was your reasoning for this?

samming-- I effing love your top piece, esp the woman's toro, I love the hard edges. All your figures are very sharp in this.

Anthis-- I LOVE IT!!! You're shading! This is huge, I never see you shade. Keep it up. I want to watch =D

Strato-- Great work, it's a little too light on my monitor to see details, but from what I can tell the sketches look very solid.

apart-- Beautiful portraits. Funny that shiNIN doesn't care for the middle one, because that is my favorite. But I like interesting asymmetries and atypical beauty.

[LordLouis]

whew, gotta reply!
@Strato: good to know that I am not the only one finding the brachioradialis tricky. I ended up thickening the biceps so much that the lower arm degraded into a stick, so I wondered. I don't think that my studies are that good. I mean they serve their purpose, but all I do is look at the ChoW entries (let alone old masters) and then think "omfg". Could you whack up the contrast of your scanned images? Kinda hard to read!
@shiNIN: how funny, I actually admired your determination with those faces. I personally would say, use a pencil and a crappy sheet of paper and start scribbling, I find this less intimidating than digital, as the Wacom Stylus magically forces me into a writing grip, which doesn't help me. I feel lazy. Haven't done still life for 2 months, never set it up seriously, instead doing everything to avoid it - yeah yeah, lazy aren't we all!
..Do you have a mannikin? they are very useful for the box-cylinder method!
@zy: thank you! I used the construction method by Ron Lemen, which I found easier to understand and remember than Bridgman.

[Strato]

Shoulda done this from the start. 4 AM me is delirious me.

@LordLouis For what it's worth, you're further along than I am. =) Also, a tip with dealing with the Wacom: Tripod grip is unavoidable, since you're working on a flat surface. What I suggest is grip as far from the nib as possible. What do you use, Intuos? I like to grip behind where the buttons are placed on the stylus to resist the temptation to choke the tip. Warning: Adjusting to an extended tripod grip ruins your ability to ever hold a pencil like a normal person.

@shiNIN I'll show you some of my geometric studies of cubes, spheres, lines, circles, etc. some time so you can see what I had to go through. I've got at least 20 pages of cubes, which compared to hundreds of pages of figures seems paltry. The geometry behind these constructs are weirdly sublime. Seeing how all the points and planes on a cube relate to each other is neat.

@zy.: Thanks for your nice words, but believe me they're not as solid as you might think. Shrinking down the pictures makes them look a lot better. (Each gesture takes up half of an A5)

[samming]

Wow, lots of stuff this week. Crazy.
Anyways
shiNiN Nice quantity (you have me scrolling up and down the page to find everything), and pretty good quality, good focus this week. You're sketches and studies are coming off a lot more confident than they used to be. Careful about using anime too much as ref though, I don't know if you do that often, but I've heard it's not too good to use anime if you're in the midst of developing your own style..
Also, great Loomis head, I liked that a lot.

blackdelphin I can't say I like how dark the lines get in your master study, but I also don't know what the original looked like, I generally like more subtle things though. I like your second batch of drawings, everything seems relatively in proportion and the joing study is nice (I'm not too good at joint structure myself).

GuardianG.I. I like the content you've got going, a little light on the lines I think, it'd be nice if they looked a little more confident even though they're gestures, but it's great taht you're getting poses and shapes down so well.

strato I don't know much about El Greco, but it looks like your study could have had more time put into it, which you mentioned anyways. Time is always a good thing to take when doing an analysis of anything, but next time you do a study just really concentrate on the subject, you don't have to think too much, I usually just get small epiphanies during a study that stick with me later on, but that probably doesn't help with learning to do an effective study, it's jsut what I do. Your batch of gestures is pretty light, and I would like the lines to be darker, but that might just be your scanner. And with your gesture question, your should definitly lay down a moderatly dark action line (whatever) to show the motion, and then work out the limbs and major shapes after wards ands ee if that doesn't help to get a better rhythm and look. And I agree that feet and hands are troublesome, but doing them 100 times helps to get basic shapes under your belt.

LordLouis Great arms and legs, the arms without the Bridgman construction are a little weaker, but still getting there. Make sure things don't get too messy when you're trying to get the anatomy/shapes down for specific body parts (I least I don't think that's how it should go).

Anthis Nice as usual, i really like the values you got down. I've also really decided I like how you do legs.

apart You seem pretty colour savvy, but I guess I don't have the photos to compare those portraits to, they look good though.

............
And that was a lot

[Strato]

@samming Yeah, I got the feeling that I rushed into posting my study a little prematurely. I feel like there were lots of things I should have finished (hands, feet, legs, more tones) I can't excuse that there were mistakes that I made that I knew about, but didn't bother to fix before posting. I've adjusted the gestures a bit, and as you can see I attempt a line of action that gets buried under details. I'm going to do more gestures tonight and apply what you said. Do you mind giving me further input?

Edit: Uploaded the continuation of everything I said I was going to do to my sketchbook thread.

[shiNIN]

samming: Thanks :) Don't worry, I see flaws too well and I'm too egoistic to get influenced by anime in a bad way ;) I usually very loosely use them as a reference, I have something to rely upon, considered good enough by me but I need to use my anatomy knowledge as well. I think I learn much this way, a great photo reference or real body makes me copy too much :(

[samming]

starto Input for gestures? Well now that I've looked at the darker images you posted, I can definitly see your action line, but your shapes seem a bit off. I don''t know how often you look at the image, but extra observation and practice should get you improving with gestures with leaps and bounds. Just don't concentrate on the paper so much, like for a 30 second gesture, look at your paper maybe 5 times at 1 second a piece to know where your pen is, then look at the image the other 25 seconds, it should really help solidify you shapes in space. Alternatively you could try a contour drawing (I believe it's called) exercise, where you just look at the object/subject, and never look at the paper when you draw, and see what comes out. Personally for gestures I get the action line, then the main torso masses (ribcage and hips), and then add lines and main masses for the limbs and head. I'll post some pictures that I like below (I didn't do either of them), and you can see how some people do gestures, the action line is kind of lost in all the details/fill to see, but the action line often turns into a spine or center line for the torso and gets lost that way (since the trunk is important in balance).

So just remember to look at the subject a lot, and to keep proportions and shapes in check even though it's a gesture drawing, keep things loose but don't break reality (for gestures at least, you can always try playing with proportions in studies for fun, like with characitures).

I don't know if that was the kind of input you wanted, I might've just rambled on, but it's too early in the morning to tell.

[Strato]

You're awesome, you know that right? Thank you so much for going out of your way to help me out. =)

You're right that I spend too much time looking at the paper instead of the subject, filling in what I think is right instead of what I should be observing. I try to follow Hogarth's hierarchy of important elements of the human figure (Torso->Pelvis->Legs->Arms->Head) I've done a few blind contours, but not any lately. I'll do another one tonight first thing. As for your other points, I'll do my best to apply them. Thank you once again. =)

Edit: Oh, in your examples it's pretty clear how I should be applying blind contour to gestures. That was another thing I wasn't able to figure out on my own. Thank you.

[shiNIN]

samming, Strato: I actually try to look less at the reference while drawing (but it's strange as well) because I usually looked at the reference too much and my eye see but my brain doesn't work and I got nice results without learning nearly anything. I value what I can do without a reference.
Maybe I wrote before but I think the best when I draw a figure two times at least, once looking at the reference, then "by myself", relying on my memory.

[Anthis]

Well, this round blew my mind... Everyone did an amazing job. The progress is inspiring, as is the critique going on.

Here's some things and thoughts.

ShiNIN; I was working on a Bouguereau last week but didn't finish. Should pop up in my sketchbook at some point. Doing great on those heads. You know the Loomis books are now freely available for download, right? I like how you're rotating those heads, now try rotating them on a vertical axis too! Sometimes it's just that little challenge and the ability to pull it off successfully that can get you going. You're doing good on exploring different ways to draw figures. Go with what feels best, perhaps?

BlackDelphin; Although this may be Da Vinci, I think you picked a tough piece of reference. The muscles are somewhat exaggerated for study purposes and I'm having some trouble discerning them. You won't see this on 'regular' people, and in that sense your other figures are more accurate. I can clearly see some big muscle groups that are almost always apparent, Trapezius, Latissimus dorsi, some of the External Oblique.
Good job on the digital experiments. Digital will grow on you but it takes some trial and error!

zy.; You've picked up some elegance in your drawing that's resurfacing in the last image (no ref) you posted. You don't just move the line along the shape of a leg carelessly, but you 'weigh' the pencil along the way, capturing the small irregularities of the human shape. In some cases like the far left and right figures, a stiff arm or pose studdenly reappears and the feeling is lost.
Which is why drawing from imagination is good practising too!

0xym0ron; If "too large?" refered to your image, I'd say no. This way we can see your images, and this place is (usually, haha) not that crowded either way. Doing very nice on those gestures. I like how dynamic they are and how this method allows you to pull off some of the tougher poses. Should add some of your own though! Or some refined ones. That way what you've learned will really sink into your mind. Perhaps I've said that before. Also, watch those feet when it comes to balance!

Guardian G.I.; Exactly.. he probably did. And I believe that's a comforting thought. Most people attained the level they are at trough lots of practice, and the same principle should apply to us. Your approach is good. By trying some different methods and focusing on different aspects, you can grasp different elements of figure drawing. Proportion, flow, balance, anatomy, etc. Lordlouis has some good comments on the use of photographic reference. Additionally, drawing from life is great too. You pick up diffent things everywhere. For now; heads are on the small side. Sometimes it's good to check proportions on small intervals trough drawing.

logistic puppet; Good question, should have answered earlier. Some of the others have gotten the idea across though. Basically, by copying is just that; copying. No active involvement in the process, no knowledge gained. When studying, you do not necessarily imitate every single line precisely, but rather imitate or emulate the artists method, process, style, or anything else. You try to understand his work and 'draw along'. Perhaps the difference is in the intention.

This is getting somewhat late.. I'll get back to the rest of you tomorrow!

[AboutaDirk]

Slightly off-topic but I have to say;

This thread nearly made me cry.

I've done so little drawing since high school, and I've always just drawn dragons, knights and anything else that has obscure anatomy or is covered up in some way.

When my girlfriend asks me to draw her naked, I say no, not because I'm afraid I'll screw up, but because I *know* I will and am afraid of getting eye to eye with what I already know: I draw like sh*t.

So yeh, this thread has made me reconsider. I'll start at the beginning this time. Take it back to the core. Strip it all down and start by getting the first step right.

Cheers guys, glad I joined these forums yesterday.

[Strato]

Jeez. Spartan Camp #192 kicked ass. =P

Hope to see you in 193 ;D

[AboutaDirk]

Jeez. Spartan Camp #192 kicked ass. =P

Yeah, mine, lol :D

[shiNIN]

AboutaDirk: Welcome here! You better come and draw gestures this week...
I totally understand you but if you can't draw, you have even more reason to practice :D
And you should appreciate your girlfriend's offer, because
1. not everyone has a real life model
2. real life drawing is the best. Even compared with very high quality and resolution photos, 3d gives more information ;)

[Anthis]

Here's some more. Yes, this has been an astonishing round. On to the next one!

Strato; I assume you mean Marshall Vandruff's stream here on CA? I recognize the advice. You got some good points on the anatomy there already. Nice to include the reference and your thoughts on it. I'll add mine. The "weird" and "wrong" side seems intended and certainly adds to the mood. There's some artistic freedom, the anatomy is great. The gestures are uncomfortable, showing how they fight for their lives writhing in pain. You don't see much of the face; all of the expression is coming from the body. I'm not sure about the size of the original. Sometimes it helps to draw bigger if you want to cover the whole body, as you're including so many muscles. Samming got some great advice on the lifedrawing. Unless you're going for a long figure pose, elaborate construction may not always be required. Go with free, organic drawing and try to capture what you see.
LordLouis; These are absolutely great studies. You're covering the arms and legs in just about every way possible. I recognize the mirror drawings, I use that a lot. I think especially those wrists are really improving troughout. There's some good advice in your notes too, like about the muscle groups (applies to forearms really well). Keep adding those drawigns from imagination (they're good!) and show the feet some love! Wonderful work!
samming; Recognized the Bouguereau! They have great poses, think you did a good job at capturing those. Those value drawings are really working for you, it's clear you're drawing with round forms n mind. Proportions and placement occasionally get lost, perhaps when you start rendering too early? Nice advice in your last post, very helpful.
aprat; Hah, I see what you mean there. I like that you're not using too many lines. It may be tempting to outline lips and noses and such, but lines are not required if you are simply picking the right value and color to distinguish shapes. The far right one is very effective, good expression too. Especially considering she's pouting. I'd like to advice you on how to blend colours more effectively, but I'm afraid I'm at a loss myself on that point.

[Strato]

Original size is as tall as an A4, so I felt a little cramped. I normally like to work on A2 paper, but it's too big for my scanner. A4 is...surprisingly tight feeling once you move up paper sizes. I probably shrunk it a little too much for fear of posting something too big. If it matters, I can post a bigger version.