[PaK-RaT]

hey everyone,

i thot i'd lay down my 2 cents on figure drawing, since i've seen a ton of people tal;king about it recently here. Critisim 9so long as it's constructive) is MORE then welcome.

i wrote this for my webpage, but 3dpalette.com is down for the count and i wanted to get this out while it was hot.

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fundamentals
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The beauty of developing your skills at drawing is that they vastly improve all aspects of your progress as an artist. All artists must learn to draw and draw well, be it sculptors/animators/3d modelers/designers/digital painters/illustrators/draftsmen, all artists embrace the fundamentals of drawing.

There is no concievable way i could stress how important life drawing is to an artist, especially and animator like me. Animators do gesture drawing like sharp shooters do target practice. Once is never enuff. Last quarter i did 1000 pages of life drawing. That's about 5 poese per sheet, so approximetely 5 thousand gesture drawings in 3 months...no f**king around, i gesture draw everyday. when im on the bus i draw, when my teachers lecture, i draw. my notes for class are in my sketchbook so i dont have to switch books. On the weekends i goto bookstores and draw. 3 times a week i goito life drawing sessions and draw nude models for 4.5 hrs atta time, and i have 2 drawing classes this quarter where im drawing the nude m,odel about once every 2 weeks for 4 hrs a shot. I draw more then im online...and u guys know thats alot :P When im waiting on someone i pull out my book and draw, when i see a cute girl i get her attention by drawing her (d00d, i swear it works, and if they're not scared its a great ice breaker

Now there is a valuable lesson and additude that one must accepty before embarking on this mission to become a better artist. My instructor Tom Price said to us the first day of class "a professioanl artist is one that believes this is a race to improve and hone one's skills, a student belives this is a race to get finished." You can never learn all you can from life drawing, there is ALWAYS room for improvement. It is much like a ship that sets sail to a destination unknown, you never know when you will get to where your going, or where this mission will take you, but it will be an adventure of a lifetime. It�sd the journey that drives those who are succesful

The first practical step is to familiarize yourself with the tools you will be using. fetch yourself an elevated drawing board (tilted up) some thick drawing media: chalk, conte, charcoal(messy), compressed graphite, cjhina marker...whatever u want, just make sure its something u can lay flat on the page top get a thick-ass line. You will also need a a dark pencil (6B is good) a light one (3H) and some steps in between those. Get a brush with some ink, sumi ink is great. If you dont want to get a brush then get a quil pen...they're hella cheap. you will aslo need lots and LOTS of paper, so go cheap, by some of that huge 11x17 The last thing you will need are blending totillions (smudge sticks) get the rolled paper kind if u can find em, get 2 big ones, 2 medium ones, and 2 small ones....and a piece of sand paper to sharpen it. Now you dont have TO GET ALL THIS STUFF, BUT IF U WANNA TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE INSTRUCTION IM GIVING YOU, SHELL OUT THE GREEN BABY!

Berfore you sit down to draw ever again you should do this exercise, it will get you to switch your brain off from left brain mode and into Right brain mode...the drawing side of your brain. Tell your brain to shut the fuck uop and stop telling you "thats not an arm, its a scribble! you're leting the paK tell u thats an arm and its just junk! stop wasting your time!" well my friend, your left brain thinks in language...i dont see any words written on the model do u? i dont see any grammer, puncuation or verb tenses on that fine sleek 25 year old seXXy piece of man/women flesh? So tell your left brain to shut the fuck up! cuz iiiiiit's drawing tiiiiime!

Anatomy
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-remember that the body is divided into sections for language puroses only, so we can say "i pierced me nipple today" or �doctor my ass hurts� but as far as we're concerned, the body's limbs and shapes flow into one another. Dont feel just beacuse the arm stops that u have to hault your line there, if the arm is raised in the air, the outer edge flows into the ribcage, so DRAW IT THAT WAY. Remember...language Fucks you when yer drawing, be an illiterate moron when u draw (that doesnt mean u drolol at the sexxy model either *wink*)

-s curves work well with ink. What you want to do iscreate a flow and patturn-flow and paturn are acheived when u get a sense of rhythm...can u guess what im gunna say next?

-music, something with a smooth beat (not too fast,techno wont work for this) Hip-hop works well, guitaremusic is cool.-The medium 9ink) can be messy, and a pain in the arsefor some of u, remeber the drawings dont have to look good to teach u something.

Drawing Styles

*Contour line drawing

-Remember to draw what u see, not what you have learned to be true about the human form. your not using the model as a reference we're using the models the subject...draw exactely what you see...tracing your eye around the contour is a good way to separate yourself from your 'drawing what u think' habbits. His is the best way to teach u to draw what u see. It�s commonly known as contour line drawing.

-get some ink and quil-some smooth paper, something that the ink will sit on the paper

-a model is ideal, nude is ideal further still�but if u cant manage all that, or, rather, any of that as the case may be, then some ref photos of a person (preferably nude) Since getting a live nude model is hard for the avg artist, i have provided some pics i shot...dynamic poses are what we're looking for.

What this exercise is doing is removing your from your comfort zone. The message here is Line wieght, getting the idea of shadow and depth without using tone.

-the more you push wth the pen, the thicker the line becomes. Use this to your advanatge, this is the key.

-keep the drawings to no more then 2 inches across and tall. This will force you to use the line qualities of the quil-tip.

-as in all drawing, don�t anchor your wrist to the surface, use your whole arm,

-stand while u draw this will help those of who make lots of tiny sketchy lines and want to get more of a solid flowing line.

-understand the nature of your drawing tool. It's a flat quil, when u stroke down your line is thick, when u stroke right to left your line is thinner. If you want your lateral lines thick twist the pen while u make your stroke, sounds obvious but...u'd be surprised how long it took my arm to do what my brain was telling me while practicing this excerise.

-be conservative with the lines yiu draw. Spned each stroke with a definite purpose. Don�t fall I to the trap of �thinking� about it too much, what I mean by this is not to draw 4 lines over top of one another, or to make 14 �pencil masturbation� marks to complete a line that could be done in one stroke. Here are some examples of what you�re trying to practice and what I suggest you avoid.

-graphite drawing
This is probably the one medium almost EVERYONE has drawn with. The beauty of pencils are:
-tonal variety
-smooth cosistant lines
-decent resistance
but regardless of these advantages, pencils excel at only the tonal variance. Inks have better line weight properities, chalks and charcoals have better resistance, blue/animation pencils have better consitancies.

Remember, use the median that works best with what you want to practice.

gesture drawing (chalk/charcoal)
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alright class, this is my fav section. this is what i love about drawing. gestures. No no we're not talking about obscene signs u can make with your middle finger, we're talking about quick pose drawing, skeletal drawing, figure drawing, or better known as gesture drawing. The idea behind capturing the gesture of a pose is not drawing each individual eyelash and every nook and cranny like we were in contour, the idea behind gesture drawing is to capture some basic ideass:

-mood/emotion
-proportion
-capture the pose

a good gesture drawing could just be a skeleton, it could just be 7 lines. you dont have to necessarily close off all your shapes, suggesting the forearm with a vector line might be all u want to do, doing a fully closed shape is also something u might want to do. the idea is to be able to show someone the gesture drawing and they would be able to say 'oh yeah, he/she is poising like this" and be able to reproduce that pose. here's where we start:

Line of action:the line of action is the biggest discernable shape you can find in the pose that captures the main motion of the figure. often enuff it's the spine, if the subjects spine is foreshortened (To shorten the lines of an object, in a drawing or other representation so as to produce an illusion of projection or extension in space. To reduce the length of; curtail or abridge) the use the line that exteneds from one shoulder to another (extend the action line from the shoulders into the arms if necessary)

What this does is provide you with a great point of reference for each additional line you make from this point onward in the drawing. If you start at a place like the foot, or the head you have to scale everything else in the drawing to match the proportions of that head. Since the first line you make is completely arbitrary you might aswell get the biggest shape down, that way there is less room to fuck up. lets give an example. Lets suppose i told u to draw your computer desk and everything on it. If u started by drawing the enter key on the keyboard and worked your way around that, then you would have to make every other key, then the frame and all that around this enter key...talk about a bitch to proportion! you'd be lost once you got to the table of the monitor. Similarly, if u start by drawing the 3rd eyelash on the right eye, you have squandered your opertuinty to get a nice centralised point of reference. the eyelash doesnt portray the mood of a drawing like the line of action does. Thtis is why the first line u make is the most important line. The line of action doesnt even have to be visable to the eye, it can simply be a guide line that strokes thru the figure (like the spine) The line of action also gives the drawing it;'s frist sign of mood. if its curvy it portrays a different mood then if it's straight. The line of action also sets the direction and balance of the pose.

next line you draw should be something to plant the figure, a stationary limb like a leg or a supporting arm. Planting the figure on the drawing is imporrtant otherwise it seems as if yoiur guy is floating in space...this is somethjing im struggling with myself.

Now each additional line from now on is to define shape. Remember, the lines u draw represent the edges of the figure for the most part (they don�t have to, u could do a thick vector line representing the limbs or spine) buit if u decide to go the traditional route, remember, the lines represent boarders, the information it is describing is between the lines�if u think this way you will respect the shape of the limbs more-so then if you were just drawing lines. Try it, see if that works for u.

that's all for now...

[This message has been edited by PaK-RaT (edited May 26, 2000).]

[Nex]

Great stuff, Pak!

Recently there is a lot of helpful spirit around this forum which is by any means GREAT! So thanks for taking the time and writing this.


P.S. You spoke of reference photos you would provide..

[tzekin]

Cool. Useful info, but I think some examples won't hurt http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/ubb/icons/icon12.gif

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---a.tzekin
tzekin.iloveimac.com

[Sedone]

Great tips, but you spoke of good looking models. All the ones I've had are raunchy as hell. Well, except for my girlfriend, but not a lot of drawing gets done when she's modeling for me

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http://sedone.cjb.net

[pst]

Nice lesson Pak, I would really love to see some of your sketches. I have just startet drawing in real-life myself, but I'm still trying to find a technique that works for me.

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pSt [email protected]

[fragamite]

3times a week, 4.5hours!! holy shit!
this must be part of your education right, or do you do it in your free time?!

I go once a week, 2hours at a time.. sometimes I leave after 1hour because it's very intensive on the brain (our I'm just having a bad day).. we do mostly 30secs and 1minutes but sometimes 10minutes.. but still; I think it's extremely rewarding to go there, you figure stuff out all the time ("figure", hehehe).. i would really like to see some of your drawings

ps: I also definately like gesturedrawing best.. it's the best feeling when you can draw some quick 30second lines and still see what's going on, where the weight is, if the model is tired etc etc..

I'll scan some stuff after the weekend, gotta go to bed now

[PaK-RaT]

as soon a the scanner is free i'll scan some of my recent werk and post it.

the photo ref poses can only happen after i do the photoshoot with the model. Since im having a huge fight with best friend, the ONLY guy who can get me in the photo studio at school, the pictures wont be comming for a long while

fragmite: figure drawing in my school isnt required, i goto the sessions on my own time.

[This message has been edited by PaK-RaT (edited May 26, 2000).]

[AliasMoze]

Pak-Rat,
That's great advice. There's one thing you forgot: repetition. You gotta draw aLOT. Drawing for speed is also very useful, as it forces you to distill the figure down to its most basic shapes to communicate the gesture. By "speed" I'm talking one minute. It also establishes the eye-hand coordination and kinetic memory you need, which is probably most important. It's amazing what great artists like Frank Frazetta (among others) can communicate with a few lines. It makes you say "Damn!"

Anyway, great stuff.