[pritch]

Hello all! Ran across this site about a week ago and really like it. A nice place with a lot of great artists getting together to show their stuff and help each other out.

I figured I might as well post a few drawings I've done in the past week and get some c&c from people here. I've just recently been getting back into drawing on a consistent basis.

Well I'll shut up now and post the urls:
http://www.pritchslapped.com/dude.jpg
http://www.pritchslapped.com/girl.jpg

[Zarathustra]

Nice work there! I like what I see.

The only issues I see are some slight perspective conflicts, especially with the drawing of the girl. It just looks like you were fighting yourself a little bit on the foreshortening of cetain parts of the body, and so the pose doesn't completely flow. The ellipses drawn for the gun probably need to be foreshortenend a tad, for instance. It looks a bit forced as it is. The arm seems almost like it is being seen through a fisheye lens with the way the perspective shifts from one end to the other, while the curves from the beginning lower part of the shoulder-pad to the topmost part reverse perspective again, decreasing in radius instead if increasing as they get further form the origin.

See the following quick scribble to see what I mean. The cylinder on the left is a slightly exaggerated version of yours, and the one on the right is one that seems more perspective corrected.



You're the artist, so its up to you how much this matters as a part of the motif you're shooting for.

[pritch]

[Zarathustra]

No problem. I think what helps me when I'm having trouble with perspective is to think of each body part as being inside a cylinder or box and make the features obey the perspective of that shape. When I'm drawing well, I am also constantly scanning my eyes over the drawing to ensure I'm relating each part to the whole. Every time I concentrate too hard on one area for too long without standing back, it is almost guaranteed that it will take on a life of its own and before I know it, the perspective is off again.

Deciding on a perspective for the entire figure, and trying to stick with it throughout helps me. Then the perspective will remain "global' and not get "localized" in an arm or a foot. If I begin a drawing without deciding upon a perspective beforehand, then I'll simply try to relate the rest of the drawing by translating the perspective of the one thing to the entire scene.

Sometimes nothing less than drawing light perspective guidelines will do the trick. The mind seems to think that some aspects of perspective are unintuitive and uninteresting and it wants to take shortcuts and oversimplify. Guidelines seem to help force me to do what my conscious mind tells me doesn't make any sense, but is still the right thing to do.