By "To draw period" he means that these tips for all drawings regardless of what you are drawing. You can apply the info to whatever you want. Just clearing it up cause English may not be your first language and it seems like you didn't know what the phrase meant.
basil81Featured By OwnerAug 7, 2012Professional Digital Artist
Very helpful. It's easy to forget the basics, and I commend you for demonstrating it as concisely as you did. I learned about starting from the chest a while ago and it worked well for me, but my lizard brain caused me to revert to starting from the head. This is a sobering reminder. Start. From. The. Chest. Thanks...
The chest is the center mass. The spine is only capable of turning in so many directions, so arms, legs and head are only appendages. When you start with the chest, you can put the mass in a space on the page and manage the limbs within that space. The mass of the chest will also regulate the scale of your limbs including the head. Besides, when you start with the head, you may find your pose will stiffen up or you will digress to a more basic stance.
An action line is great, but I like assigning the line to the form. With just the line, you still have to marry up the form against the motion. It also doesn't give a sense of scale off the bat.
ahh I see, thanks for the reply. It's more natural for me to draw the head first but when I draw the chest first my poses are way more dynamic but I have difficulty placing the head. I suppose I should just practice drawing the chest first. Thanks again for the reply.
I've always been very poor when it came to sketching poses, they would always look ridiculously stiff and random (I always started drawing the head first... >>) except if I used a reference and insanely copied every line of it... just a simple sketch could take me some hours to end up freaking wrong, and I was afraid of *gasp* foreshortening and perspective...
then I saw this, and it kind of unlocked something... a big something, for in about one hour of seeing this, I was able to draw any pose I wanted, and actually WANTED to draw perspective and foreshortening, and could pull it off more quickly than ever before...
Really, I already knew those "build with geometric forms" tricks, and they never worked... they looked awkward as hell and took forever, and the pose were still off... while this approach just seems so natural. ^^
Anyway, I'm definitely grateful, drawing was starting to bore me, and theses tips just started my drawing rage again! Thanks a whole lot!
Thanks so much for the tips. I've been having trouble with posing as well, but I've been gesture drawing to help me get a good idea of how the body can be positioned.
Think of your poses as words. You build your vocabulary by referencing others poses or real life gestures or sit your butt down and doodle like a mad man. I've drawn some of these poses a thousand times, but the real trick is to not have anything in mind. By not trying to hit a target the lines let you find your way. In time, repetition will give you muscle memory and you'll be able to hit the pose you want more quickly.
Yea, I'm thinking I'm going to buy myself some cheapass notebooks and just focus squarely on doodling poses. I'm usually conservative with my paper and I'm thinking that's what's been limiting me. I want to make a epic piece with every single page. I need to break that habit.
WHOA! these drawing tips are very helpful. i try to see what i was able to conjure up from memory..zilch but soon as i looked at a reference photo, i start seeing the magic! thank you for posting this because this is going to helpful with getting down quick gestures to wonderful build up for fleshing a character out!!!
and i also agree about anatomy. it's great to learn it but for me it was causing sooo much confusion. do i need this book, do i need to draw these tendons, how to make it look perfect(vitruvian man). i find this method with viewing things as shapes easier. i was told to look at things like that but just wasn't shown. the forearm looking like a bowling pin...i will never forget that or any of those other shapes for that matter!!!
Sometimes I have trouble when it comes to making limbs face directly at the 'camera' or something of the sort. I keep forgetting that I should layer the shapes to keep track.
Really cool and useful especially because of how it's shown like a video. (｀・ω・´)”
More from DanNortonArt :origin()/pre00/7140/th/pre/f/2012/216/b/9/untitled_drawing_by_dingo107-d59s9mq.png)
:origin()/pre00/8af8/th/pre/f/2012/216/9/3/untitled_drawing_by_dingo107-d59u94h.png)
:origin()/pre00/92d9/th/pre/f/2012/208/4/3/untitled_drawing_by_dingo107-d58uc9r.png)
:origin()/pre00/5537/th/pre/f/2012/208/e/c/ugly_robot_sketch_by_dingo107-d58thjx.png)
:origin()/pre00/485b/th/pre/f/2012/209/0/3/untitled_drawing_by_dingo107-d58xgql.png)
:origin()/pre00/f30b/th/pre/f/2012/214/b/f/untitled_drawing_by_dingo107-d59ho5h.png)
:origin()/pre00/d193/th/pre/f/2012/212/5/3/untitled_drawing_by_dingo107-d58zaj0.png)
:origin()/pre00/d30a/th/pre/f/2012/215/0/2/untitled_drawing_by_dingo107-d59p2ct.png)
Just clearing it up cause English may not be your first language and it seems like you didn't know what the phrase meant.
i'm not really good with human anatomy..
but.. thanks for sharing this
I've always been very poor when it came to sketching poses, they would always look ridiculously stiff and random (I always started drawing the head first... >>) except if I used a reference and insanely copied every line of it... just a simple sketch could take me some hours to end up freaking wrong, and I was afraid of *gasp* foreshortening and perspective...
then I saw this, and it kind of unlocked something... a big something, for in about one hour of seeing this, I was able to draw any pose I wanted, and actually WANTED to draw perspective and foreshortening, and could pull it off more quickly than ever before...
Really, I already knew those "build with geometric forms" tricks, and they never worked... they looked awkward as hell and took forever, and the pose were still off... while this approach just seems so natural. ^^
Anyway, I'm definitely grateful, drawing was starting to bore me, and theses tips just started my drawing rage again! Thanks a whole lot!
Really, really appreciate the words.
and i also agree about anatomy. it's great to learn it but for me it was causing sooo much confusion. do i need this book, do i need to draw these tendons, how to make it look perfect(vitruvian man). i find this method with viewing things as shapes easier. i was told to look at things like that but just wasn't shown. the forearm looking like a bowling pin...i will never forget that or any of those other shapes for that matter!!!
once again thank you and cant wait for more tips!
Sometimes I have trouble when it comes to making limbs face directly at the 'camera' or something of the sort. I keep forgetting that I should layer the shapes to keep track.
Really cool and useful especially because of how it's shown like a video.
(｀・ω・´)”
<333 THANK YOU