Foreshortening

[Nerahla]

This is probably a long drawn-out question, so, apologies. :)



I'm in the process of learning to draw without reference. I put my tablet away and bought 4 100 page sketchbooks for just this purpose. Last night I just finished my first sketchbook. It took me 2 months! I took LOTS of breaks of days and days without sketching (damn World of Warcraft) but I have been learning a /ton/.

For information purposes I have these books on the table in front of me whenever I sketch:

Loomis: Figure Drawing (that old hardcover)
Bridgman: Drawing from Life (it's the complete set in one volume)
Hogarth: Dynamic Figure Drawing

and a few other less well known volumes.

Now, these have helped me immensely of course, and where I could barely manage to draw /anything/ without reference before I sat down with my first sketchbook, I can now confidently create a face/head full rendered with shading and a full body, straight on, with musculature -- with no reference at all. (and they look decent, go me)

While this is indeed progress, I am looking to begin practicing the human form in space - and that requires foreshortening... and I am finding it nearly impossible.

I liked the Hogarth idea of using the shapes of the body as a base, and drawing /them/ in perspective ... and this may indeed be the way to go (as it makes the most sense to me)... but I was just wanted to tap the collective knowledge here about what tips and tricks you yourselves use to make dynamic poses in your character drawings with the aid of foreshortening.


Also any rules or tips you can give regarding a 3/4 face would be great, as I'm kind of on a roadblock with that one as well.

Thanks in advance for your help!


(note: cross posted at pixelbrush.net)

[Seedling]

Do some drawing from life. Get your friends to sit or pose for you. Or get two dorm-room mirrors (which you can set up to see side views of yourself.

[Nerahla]

While that would always be optimal, this is quite impossible, as I have no one who would be willing to sit still for so long.

Not a single solitary person I know would be willing to do this. So yeah, I'm on my own.

Now the mirror thing, THAT may work out... except I hate looking at myself. Hah!

barring all that... How did you learn forshortening?

See, while staring at myself is nice, I'm moving away from using reference to learn to draw correctly from my imagination. I can look at the zillion books I have to copy a 3/4 face, or one of the hundreds of Hogarth drawings to copy his forshortening..

But what I am looking for is tips for doing this without reference :)

I guess I just mean, copying doesn't really help me learn much actually. I do much better by having a technique and practicing it until its better.

[Seedling]

Try bribery. :-) Offer to treat your friends to a movie or something if they sit for you for a bit. Or, what about family? Or are you in any art classes? If so, you may have fellow students who would love to have you pose for them. Also, don't be sheepish about drawing yourself. You've got proper humany anatomy and that's all that matters!

I still struggle with forshortening, because I haven't yet practiced it enough. It does become easier to do from imagination after practicing a lot from life and from your head.

[Nerahla]

I guess I wasn't really clear enough :/

Copying is really very easy. It helps me ZERO. For some reason, no matter how much I /copy/ it goes in and OUT. I don't retain anything whatsoever. When I copy (i.e. looking at a ref image and drawing on my sketckbook in my lap) it isn't like I'm doing anything at all, just blankly 'seeing' and 'copying' and for me, this is not the best way I learn at all.

It's much better if I actually use my brain and try and use techniques in my own form.

I totally get what you mean about how this may work for most people -- but I just know how my brain works, and copying doesn't work for me at all :/

I also get little satisfaction from it, there is that, too :)


What I'm wondering, is how do people who draw from their imagination (and there are tons of them on this forum) learn foreshortening? What do they do when imagining a character form in 3d space? Do they use blocks/shapes? Do they have some way that they just manifested themselves?

Just wondering what other artists did to learn foreshortening :)

[dose]

I don't think it's the kind of thing that you just learn once and for all- it's a big can of worms, and something you will probably be working on for the rest of your life (I know I will be).

My recommendations:

- learn how to draw the basic geometric solids from any angle. Understand how lines drawn on the solid change as the solid rotates. Particularly understand the middle lines (the ones parallel to the axes).

- learn how to distort the basic solids, and how lines along them would change depending on the rotation

- learn how to combine solids of various levels of distortion into more complex forms

- learn how to project a more complex form made up of multiple distorted solids from one viewing angle to another.

Those would be the building blocks that you would use to develop a really solid sense of foreshortening, and give you tools to fall back on should you need them for difficult situations. But you get to a certain point where the amount of work to figure it out doesn't make sense, and you're better off getting a model or reference, and using your newfound sense of foreshortening in analyzing that.

And you probably will need to do a lot of drawing from life- from simple solids to the figure and everything in between, but in a much more analytical light than what is normally thought of when the term "life drawing" is used. The emphasis would be on understanding how things turn in space and how they're connected rather than making a nice drawing.

Good luck!

Tim

[lordofthebling]

Copying is really very easy. It helps me ZERO. For some reason, no matter how much I /copy/ it goes in and OUT. I don't retain anything whatsoever. When I copy (i.e. looking at a ref image and drawing on my sketckbook in my lap) it isn't like I'm doing anything at all, just blankly 'seeing' and 'copying' and for me, this is not the best way I learn at all.If you're copying from photo reference, that could be the problem. Drawing from life is a completely different experience, and requires a completely different skill set. Go to some open life drawing sessions at a local art school, and apply the same methods you've been learning. After enough practice, you'll find it to be a lot more beneficial than you originally thought. Also, rather than using the geometrical method that we all love, try using a more traditional method, at least for the warm-up. If you've never worked this way before, look at The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides, or any other classical figure drawing book:

1) Short poses lasting one minute or less are good for gesture drawing. The model will strike an energetic pose that conveys a lot of action and movement. You are to scribble down a bunch of lines that best represent the action of the pose. Imagine you're actually moving your hand through the centre of the pose, up and around, through the limbs, down to the ground. This helps you warm up, and is actually a good foundational approach for longer poses.

2) For slightly longer (2-5 minutes) poses, do rapid contours. This is basically the same geometrical method used by Hogarth, Loomis, Hart et al, but keep it simple. After you've layed down the basic armature of the pose, do the linework.

3) Mass gestures are drawings where you "sculpt" the masses of the figure, using the side of a piece of charcoal. Imagine you are actually reaching into the page, and moving your hand around the contours of the figure. This helps you achieve a good sense of 3-dimensional space, and you'll also be able to recognize the planes of the figure. This brings us to the next exercise:

4) Cross-contours: Since you'll probably want to save the longer poses for finished drawings, feel free to use this study focusing on one part of the figure. Draw the outline of the form, and then draw the horizontal contours that move across the arm, leg, torso, etc. Think of it as wrapping a string around the model, or lines of latitude. Since you already know a lot about anatomy, this should be a piece of cake.

All of this may seem like a bunch of nonsense at first, but if you keep practicing, your skills will improve exponentially.

[Nerahla]

- learn how to draw the basic geometric solids from any angle. Understand how lines drawn on the solid change as the solid rotates. Particularly understand the middle lines (the ones parallel to the axes).

- learn how to distort the basic solids, and how lines along them would change depending on the rotation

- learn how to combine solids of various levels of distortion into more complex forms

- learn how to project a more complex form made up of multiple distorted solids from one viewing angle to another.


This makes just /massive/ amounts of sense to me.. I think this is the way for me to go.

For all those people who crow "take life drawing, take life drawing" All I have to say is this:


What works for most people doesn't necessarily work for everyone. There are exceptions to every rule :)


Thanks Dose, for seeing what I was asking for and answering me so generously :) You're so right, too - it will be something I will be grappling with for years and years to come :)

[h2rra]

When working from photos you don't have to copy. Try to analyze the picture, where the lighting comes from and how it lights the planes, construct the figures from simple shapes discussed,etc. And make sure you study perspective because that is all about putting forms into 3d space and foreshortening.

[dose]

I think you'll still have to do a tremendous amount of figure drawing. Don't forget that after you start to learn how to draw the solids you'll also have to start learning/deciding which solids the human form is made up of. Not to mention the fact that it is essentially the most complex form around, so it will be sort of an ideal in that sense.

You'll just be doing a different thing when drawing from life- you'll be doing more analyzing more than copying. Working from still lives and statues & casts will be especially helpful- try to avoid copying what you see and try to analyze and understand what it is doing in space. A useful exercise is drawing the object from a different point of view than the one you are viewing from. Quick poses will be useful later to understand how forms flow into each other and create balance & energy.

I would also recommend checking out the Nicolaides book. In the end, you need to have a good feel for foreshortening- not just the analytical ability. You need to understand how to look at a model or a reference shot and add to it, take away from it, and change it to look like what you need. Projecting complex forms is a great exercise for understanding how space works, but it also makes for a lot of tedious work and a stiff, lifeless drawing. Use that and any other technique you hear of or can think of to develop a feel for foreshortening. The Natural Way to Draw is one of the few books that has exercises designed to develop your sense of form.