Pomato Soup's Cookbook [Updated 04/11/10]

[no surrender]

Here's the redline for you, there are a few mistakes, but hopefully it'll give you the general idea. :P
The two faces down the bottom are a simple way of foreshortening. Just imagine that the face is a triangle, and it'll be far easier to position the features. :>  

[Griffonage]

I've never seen that triangle thing before... interesting.

Link to old image
Comments

I have absolutely no idea how to do clothing folds on a figure that's in motion. I'll probably look up a few tutorials or something before I finish the sketch and ink, but any tips would be greatly appreciated. Pose was taken from a Pose Maniacs warm-up sketch again. I'm also noticing that I have pretty much no concept of the proper size for men's feet.

 

[Griffonage]

Current Image


Comments

More perspective practice. Basically, any help on the angle, anatomy and clothing would be great. I think the guy's hand is too far forward, but I wasn't completely sure where to put it. This is for an OC contest, btw, so they aren't my character designs.

 

[Folken_Schezar]

i don't see any orthagonals so i can't say for sure how correct it is but its seems fairly in the right place. but i'd double check to make sure ^^  

[Griffonage]

I think since comments I get here are a bit few and far between, I'm just going to start treating this as a sketchbook thread.

I went to the zoo today. Focused on primates (Golden Lion Tamarin, Mandrill, Schmidt's Red-Tailed Monkey) and birds (Kookaburra, Black-Necked Stilt, Marabou Stork, and two others).




Any tips on line quality? I'm not sure how to achieve a bold, single line rather than what I have now since I'm trying to determine gesture.  

[Folken_Schezar]

well tbh if you are going for gesture i'd worry less about the line and form and work more toward the gesture. gesture drawings are more emotional i think and should be done very quickly and loosely. try working from the shoulder more to achieve those organic curves. it should consist of basic shapes at the most.  

[Griffonage]

Thanks for the critique. The suggestion "draw from the shoulder" is a bit nebulous to me, though. I kind of get what you mean, but it's a little confusing to try to reproduce.

What I meant by "determine gesture" was not that I was doing gesture drawings- you can see that these are, for the most part, quite static- but rather that I have to do a line of movement to get the gesture down before building up the sketch. The lines just aren't fluid enough for my liking, and that's true for my drawings in general.  

[Errol McGillivray]

I got used to drawing thru with my whole arm by using an easel or putting the paper on the wall and standing back from it. You can also just keep yourself from leaning over the page. Keep your wrist and fingers still. All the motion will come from your shoulder and elbow. Side to side will most likely be from the elbow, and front and back will be from the shoulder. So if you go in a circle, they mix. Give it a try. If you have to, Wrap your fist and wrist in plastic wrap so you CAN'T move it, just to feel what it's like to move from your arm. Sounds extreme, but hey, it might work and it's a hell of a good time to play with plastic wrap.

When you draw with your arm, your line of action and such will seem more fluid. It just takes some getting used to.

Let's see what you do and we can help with the gestures after.  

[Griffonage]

Oh! Okay, I get it now. I'll try that out this weekend.

These are pre-instruction drawings from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Done in an hour (about 20 minutes each).



For the record, I don't actually look that old, and it looks like I need to go back to practicing drawing hands again...  

[Errol McGillivray]

Haha, I did those too. I made myself look like a serial rapist. gonk  

[Griffonage]

More exercises from the book. Optical illusion thing (right side drawn first) and a Picasso reproduction. Five minutes for the first one, about an hour for the second.



More reproduction sketches later, I think.  

[Sunsway]

Huh. I keep walking past that book in the store (Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain), but it looks like there might actually be some interesting exercises in there.

About the line quality -- maybe you could try drawing in pen? It would force you to be bold (and hopefully make more continuous lines). I also noticed that I draw bolder when using scrap paper rather than my sketchbook -- maybe that could work for you too. If you mess up, you know you can just toss it out and forget about it.

It's good to see how your zoo drawings are so complete. It's not easy with the animals constantly moving around. =4  

[Griffonage]

If nothing else, that book is an interesting perspective on what might make the artist's mind tick when they draw. It's worth at least checking out from the library.

I might try the pen thing, since I generally refrain from erasing when doing life drawing anyways. I found out today that it's a lot harder to control my strokes (i.e. not do short lines) when I draw from life than when I do drawing from imagination.

It's actually easier for me to draw zoo animals when they're moving because I can get a sense of their form/construction. I don't have any zoo drawings of felines or canines because I can't get a sense of an animal that does nothing but sleep. ^^

More birds

Tapirs (and the beginning of an okapi head)

Okapi
 

[Sunsway]

Lovely! Perhaps the next step would be to fill the outlines? If any of the birds have black on their wings or head (I think it's a pretty natural pattern for many species? Not sure), you could indicate that. Maybe add some feather detail to the wings, though that might be difficult with moving things. You might be able to add those from memory if you're comfortable. <_< Not a critique, just a suggestion.  

[Griffonage]

Yeah. I guess I should get some transparency in here and fess up to what the birds actually look like:
Blue-Bellied Roller
Laughing Kookaburra
Marabou Stork
Southern Cassowary

I drew the Kookaburra in both of my last two visits, and I haven't been satisfied with it either time. The head:body ratio is really strange, and I think my mind censors and "fixes" what's in the real world because it looks off to me. Not sure what to do. I'll try to add in more shading next time, but as you mentioned, I'm not sure how people do that with a subject that's constantly in motion (some more than others).