Hey, I'm back. I just finished reading up "Fun with a Pencil" by Andrew Loomis(Thanks again Mizu!). Currently, I'm just looking through Sycra's and Proko's videos for additional information and I just DL'd 40 books for Mizu's resources thread. I'll keep on drawing heads until I've mastered them then I'll move on to the upper body and so on so forth. I'll be focusing on the human body for now.

Note: Criticisms are highly appreciated and welcome. Bodies practice section is below this post. Thanks Rosie!

Most recent:

#16













Last updated:
June 26, 2016 (Sunday)

Your anatomy in general is pretty shoddy
Try to take more time on some more basic poses until you get the hang of things

Your guidelines appear to be there for no reason other than to look like guidelines. They do not reflect the actual shape of the ribcage or torso. You also have little knowledge of how muscles look in various angles, and you end up with balloons as a result.

Get some actual guidelines, briefly learn some anatomy instead of trying to feel it out by drawing poses.

Is this what I think it is
Is someone actually starting off on the right foot
I think I'm crying
I THINK I'M FUCKING CRYING
In all seriousness this is great man, you are starting out were you should and great job for that. You should look up Andrew Loomis "Fun with a pencil" and watch videos by Sycra and Proko these will really help. The proportions and all that are shoddy and shit is chicken scratchy and not really good, but you are beginning as as long as you keep doing these and take your time with them you're gonna get better. Keep posting your progress.

I think you're trying a little too hard to make some more advanced poses. Especially the ones from different angles.

But, as mizu said, you do seem to be starting off on the right foot. Just take your time with it and start off slow; try some simple, front-facing poses to really learn the bone structure and where/how the muscle groups fit in with each other.

Especially try some gesture drawing though, I think Proko made an excellent video of it. It helps teach you about the natural flow of how the human body moves, and lets you get a decent grasp of the different proportions of the body.

Good luck and keep it up

Quote from mizu

Is this what I think it is
Is someone actually starting off on the right foot
I think I'm crying
I THINK I'M FUCKING CRYING
In all seriousness this is great man, you are starting out were you should and great job for that. You should look up Andrew Loomis "Fun with a pencil" and watch videos by Sycra and Proko these will really help. The proportions and all that are shoddy and shit is chicken scratchy and not really good, but you are beginning as as long as you keep doing these and take your time with them you're gonna get better. Keep posting your progress.

the fact that so little people do it makes for a sad reality.

SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS. SOMEONE IS ACTUALLY DOING DAILY FIGURE DRAWING PRACTICE, AND ITS LASTED FOR MORE THAN 3 DAYS!!!!??? AM I ON STICKPAGE??? Excuse the obnoxious response I'm just a bit excited is all.

You have no clue how much this work will pay off in the long run man, you have no clue.

ok some CnC time:
To be honest i think I'm already seeing improvement so that's good.
[spoiler=]


[/spoiler]
I would say your first two goals would be:
1) To get consistent proportions down for both male and female anatomy. This means getting used to (at least the ideal for starters) the relative lengths in relation to one section of the body to the other. Keep female parts a bit more slender, curvy, and generally smaller than male body parts. I gave you a little tip for getting rid of those broad shoulders you give most of your female sketches. A females (ideal) shoulder and pelvis length should be about twice as wide as her head while a mans should (ideally) be about 2 and a half as wide for shoulders with smaller hips than a females.

2) To get down gesture. I can see you're already off to a decent star but you should being getting the rhythm and flow of your lines down to a concise and little as possible. I know one thing that helped me was start a limit for line strokes. Something like 15 strokes per image (or something like that). This will force you to take careful consideration for every line you put on the paper, reduce the amount of unsure lines you make creating clearer poses, reduce the amount of time per image eventually, and really getting the pure essence of the gesture you're drawing.

Once you get down basic proportions and rhythm/gesture you've pretty much started to get a decent foundation into intermediate figure drawing. Once you get these two things down you'll want to start practicing "figure on ground", "anatomy", and "perspective"; but for now you might just want to stick with capturing the essence of a basic human figure so worry about all that shtuff l8tr.

***Pro tip: when trying to give a figure balance (or lack thereof ) draw a perpendicular line going from the ground to the pit of the subjects neck, if the amount of stuff on one side of that line completely outweighs the amount of stuff on the other its most likely going to feel awkward. (I dont really know of any hard numbers for this ration but id wager anything more off than 1:3)

Your eraser looks like a potato hahaha...

dam son calm down pl

First and foremost, thank you everyone for sacrificing your precious time to criticize my artwork, I appreciate it very much! Now, on to the criticisms:

Quote from Drone

Your anatomy in general is pretty shoddy
Try to take more time on some more basic poses until you get the hang of things

I see, I'll stick with basic poses but may I ask examples of basic poses? Standing, sitting, lying down? Also, what does "Shoddy" mean? I feel like it stands for "Messy" or "Unclear" but thank you Drone! I'll keep on practicing

Quote from Lobotomizer

Your guidelines appear to be there for no reason other than to look like guidelines. They do not reflect the actual shape of the ribcage or torso. You also have little knowledge of how muscles look in various angles, and you end up with balloons as a result.

Get some actual guidelines, briefly learn some anatomy instead of trying to feel it out by drawing poses.

Ah, alright then! I'll start studying the human anatomy starting today and I'll re-start my drawing exercises by Monday. Thank you!

Quote from mizu

Is this what I think it is
Is someone actually starting off on the right foot
I think I'm crying
I THINK I'M FUCKING CRYING
In all seriousness this is great man, you are starting out were you should and great job for that. You should look up Andrew Loomis "Fun with a pencil" and watch videos by Sycra and Proko these will really help. The proportions and all that are shoddy and shit is chicken scratchy and not really good, but you are beginning as as long as you keep doing these and take your time with them you're gonna get better. Keep posting your progress.

I'm currently reading "Fun with a pencil" in .pdf form(I'm too poor to buy the book and support him) and it is wonderful! I also looked up Sycra and Proko and their tutorials will help me a lot but I'll finish reading "Fun with a pencil" first before I get too excited and rush things. Thank you so much Mizu! I'll try my best to keep this updated as I have a busy schedule with my animation projects too! Thanks!

Quote from Chamel

I think you're trying a little too hard to make some more advanced poses. Especially the ones from different angles.

But, as mizu said, you do seem to be starting off on the right foot. Just take your time with it and start off slow; try some simple, front-facing poses to really learn the bone structure and where/how the muscle groups fit in with each other.

Especially try some gesture drawing though, I think Proko made an excellent video of it. It helps teach you about the natural flow of how the human body moves, and lets you get a decent grasp of the different proportions of the body.

Good luck and keep it up

Ah, it's sad how the tool I'm using just randomizes a figure so I can't control which pose I'll draw but, I checked out Proko and my God his drawings are magnificent. I'll study these this weekend so I can get a grasp of what I should be doing. Thanks!

Quote from PLasmaghost

SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS. SOMEONE IS ACTUALLY DOING DAILY FIGURE DRAWING PRACTICE, AND ITS LASTED FOR MORE THAN 3 DAYS!!!!??? AM I ON STICKPAGE??? Excuse the obnoxious response I'm just a bit excited is all.

You have no clue how much this work will pay off in the long run man, you have no clue.

ok some CnC time:
To be honest i think I'm already seeing improvement so that's good.
[spoiler=]


[/spoiler]

I would say your first two goals would be:
1) To get consistent proportions down for both male and female anatomy. This means getting used to (at least the ideal for starters) the relative lengths in relation to one section of the body to the other. Keep female parts a bit more slender, curvy, and generally smaller than male body parts. I gave you a little tip for getting rid of those broad shoulders you give most of your female sketches. A females (ideal) shoulder and pelvis length should be about twice as wide as her head while a mans should (ideally) be about 2 and a half as wide for shoulders with smaller hips than a females.

2) To get down gesture. I can see you're already off to a decent star but you should being getting the rhythm and flow of your lines down to a concise and little as possible. I know one thing that helped me was start a limit for line strokes. Something like 15 strokes per image (or something like that). This will force you to take careful consideration for every line you put on the paper, reduce the amount of unsure lines you make creating clearer poses, reduce the amount of time per image eventually, and really getting the pure essence of the gesture you're drawing.

Once you get down basic proportions and rhythm/gesture you've pretty much started to get a decent foundation into intermediate figure drawing. Once you get these two things down you'll want to start practicing "figure on ground", "anatomy", and "perspective"; but for now you might just want to stick with capturing the essence of a basic human figure so worry about all that shtuff l8tr.

***Pro tip: when trying to give a figure balance (or lack thereof ) draw a perpendicular line going from the ground to the pit of the subjects neck, if the amount of stuff on one side of that line completely outweighs the amount of stuff on the other its most likely going to feel awkward. (I dont really know of any hard numbers for this ration but id wager anything more off than 1:3)

Your eraser looks like a potato hahaha...

I KNOW IT LOOKS LIKE A POTATO! Anyway, it seems as if I still can't apply the "Head" guide in dealing with proportions properly yet. I take the human total height to be 7 heads in total with 3 heads for the upper body and 4 heads for the lower body, 2 heads from elbow to middle finger, 2 heads from the pelvis to the knee, and so on. It's hard to apply these but I didn't know about the balance pro tip PL! I'll keep that in mind while I draw. Ah, so many things to memorize but I'll persevere. Thank you again PL!

Once again, thanks everyone for criticizing and giving me great tips to be better! I really appreciate it! For now, I'll start studying the things you guys sent me(Mostly Proko and Sycra).

Cheers!

Stop the chicken scratching, and use references. Also get some basic anatomy down

Your anatomy (as pointed out) is pretty sloppy, and you should focus more on the basic shapes. A problem with these I think is you're doing them rather small, so a simple mistake with sketching has a larger impact on the whole thing. When you're studying poses, it's better to work a lot bigger, and of course to draw in finer lines over the sketch work to get a more specific idea of where you're going, since your sketches are rather rough.
It's a good job you've actually studied all this before going into any actual final artwork, since in basic studies these issues are a lot easier to fix and understand.

Quote from Salt

Stop the chicken scratching, and use references. Also get some basic anatomy down

Sure thing! I'll try my best to refrain from the messy lines and follow PL's advice on trying my best to just limit myself to a number of lines. Thanks!

Quote from Charry

Your anatomy (as pointed out) is pretty sloppy, and you should focus more on the basic shapes. A problem with these I think is you're doing them rather small, so a simple mistake with sketching has a larger impact on the whole thing. When you're studying poses, it's better to work a lot bigger, and of course to draw in finer lines over the sketch work to get a more specific idea of where you're going, since your sketches are rather rough.
It's a good job you've actually studied all this before going into any actual final artwork, since in basic studies these issues are a lot easier to fix and understand.

Ah, yeah, I just started reading "Fun with a pencil" and it's been great so far. Showing that the human face can easily be made with shapes which we never really see. Thank you!

So, after a few days of reading, I tried my best to follow the book "Fun with a Pencil" and did what the author told me to do. This is what I have so far:


I apologize for the quality

Fun with a pencil!! :D
I' reading that too atm.
Looks really cool Zero keep it up :>

I finished "Fun with a Pencil" chapter 1(Funny faces) then I moved on to "Sycra" at the moment to get the female proportions, eyes, and objects right.