[ArMaDoN]

Hey Guys, I am busy with a pic but can't post it what and where do you guys get inspiration from i get it from weird stuff so i can't actually say i just start drawing do most of you guys do traditional art still?? pls tell me if you do. is it possible to work from only one stupid anatomy book or do you have to get a bunch? i don't and can't buy any books i don't have a credit card or i can't import from amazon.com it will cost me about 500 rand per book cause of the poor state our country is in, i live in south africa, i have tried to go and search for classes today no figure study classes here? am i buggered?? i don't know what do to. i have lost all sense of drawing since fred told me that without figure study i won't be able to draw the human form .. shees!
well i hope you can help me fred i really do!


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[TENMAN]

Lets see, how I do say this without sounding like a wierdo. If you can possibly find any bodybuilder magazines to study anatomy particularly female body builder mags because they look more like ideal male builds(the guys are just freakishly large) If you can get one book get Bridgmans guide to drawing from life. If not, I'm a nice guy I'll look into how much it would cost me to ship it to you and put together a package to send to you. E-mail me and we will discuss you options [email protected] .
Also while it does not take the place of drawing from life, draw from any nude or semi clothed reference you can and post it here, there are quite a few talent life artist here who can help you.

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What?

[Fred Flick Stone]

I have included a document of sketches in a little 5� x 7� sketch book I carry everywhere with me now. I notice that I waste so much time doing other things that I need to be more productive with that time. SO everywhere I go I try sketching the people and things I see around me if I can. They are quick sketches, about 30 seconds to 2-4 minutes per sketch. It is very difficult to do these kinds of sketches but are very valuable.

They teach you things about natural gestures, the way people move, composition to a certain degree, life drawing, etc. These are very important if you don�t have life drawing because this is basically life drawing, but quickly. It is no substitute for a live model, but it is very helpful anyway, because once you know the components of a model, you then will need to pose the model in situations, whether it be a scene, a portrait or whatever.

Use as many anatomy sources as you can, one source is never going to give you everything, and one source alone may not teach you the way you learn. Different books are written by different people with different backgrounds, and someone will better explain something to you than another, and for this, you need to continue looking past one source of reference, even if that source is a well of information. Eventually, you will have heard everything that source has to offer you, and you will need to find more, for even those sources are limited�

Use magazines, but don�t expect them to necessarily explain to you the things you need to know about anatomy unless you have that info in your head already, in which case then it is a matter of finding the components you have studied, study the photo and then learn how those components apply to that particular pose, always remembering to identify with the object in its 3 dimensionality in the photo, and not just copying a photo alone�

Anyway, I have to get back to the grind, if you have any more questions, feel free to email me. I have received your emails already, I just need time to type a response. Good luck in your search�

[mattready]

you don't NEED any book, class, or magic formula. Just practice.

This will also vary with your style and interests. If you are into comic book style drawing and figures, go with the obvious, COMICS!

if you are into very contemporary, classic, fine art....study Davinci, Michealanelo, and others.

The others are right, bodybuilder mags are great for practicing muscle tones and anatomy. be careful though with studying muscles and photos.....don't COPY mindlessly. The whole idea of sketching out a photo is to understand how the body relates to itself....such as proportioning and shapes.

hope this helps.

[ArMaDoN]

Thx alot you guys, From a south african view i have never met so much people with the same interrests as me and i am happy to see that you guys don't get mad at me for posting these questions, I live in South Africa and no where here do they actually have art classes like i explained so my only resource is internet and you guys, i really appreciate it,
Tenman i will email you as soon as i get to work tommorow, i love working on email at work it's faster there and i can email all day and reciece it costs too much to stay online here in south africa,

Are you guys able to scan some pics for me out of your anatomy books? and send it to my email address at work

[email protected] once more i thank you guys .. you just don't know how much i appreciate it.
Thx alot for your reply Fred you help me alot!

[Fred Flick Stone]

Mattready-don't mean to chime in negatively, but that reply sounds a bit uneducated, or young and cocky, I am not sure which, and I do not want to slam, but if you don�t have any idea what to do, just practicing is not going to help. And certainly DO NOT copy from comic books to learn to draw better. Most of the comic book artists cannot really draw to save their lives. I know, I am friends with a lot of them. They have their jobs more because they were the friend of a friend who knew a guy that worked in comics�oh you want to draw comics too? I�ll introduce you to my friend�s�yada yada�

There is a back step to this though, if you do want to break into comics, go out and purchase a few comics currently in print, to get a better gauge on what the styles and trends are leaning towards. Japanese Manga had it�s stay in comics, and it�s influences are pretty much here to stay. A perfect example is Joe Maudiera. Japanese comics heavily influence him, and as a result, that look has fused to his fine art studies that he took up in New York, and now look at him. Only producing one comic every two years�.hehehe�j/k
Seriously though, his style is very influential in the here and now comics. If you want to stay in comics though, you had better learn your figure drawing stuff or you ain�t never gonna get past the fad wagon you jumped onto�3 cheers for Travis Charest�god bless his slow-ass, turtle pace soul�

The anatomy books, ones concerned with art in general are very important, if you plan on using figures in your work. Anyone who has ever been anyone in art had some traditional training, and with that, comes all the benefits of what you really need to know and learn in order to make your art work stand the times�a great example is Picasso. If you have a book on him, they usually show the art he was doing as an adolescent. At the age of nine years, he had done a portrait of his mother that was pure genius. Oh, but he was enrolled in art classes, so it was to be expected that the portrait would possibly be better than average. As he moved forward, he decided to just limit his paintings to the abstraction, or simplest forms of the figure. But the abstraction, lo and behold, is a part of traditional training. He would not have found those abstracts if it weren�t for that training.

I rarely ever considered art classes in my youth, and was hailed by adults that I was an art genius. Ha, they were so far from the mark. With all that in my head, I went about thinking I needed no training at all. That was a big mistake. If you want to go anywhere with your skills and talents, learn to train them, and harness the potentiality. Do not be deceived by the praise of the common folk. It is a big wrench in the gut. I learned the hard way. I had work for a while, but it soon dried up as the limit to my abilities was tapped. I was limited to what I taught myself, which is not much for anyone without any guidance. I knew then that I had to find the way, whether it be art classes or books. The rest is history, and now I am incredibly thankful to have a brain and know how to find a clue, and the right information. The rest has all been at the right place at the right time shit, just like everyone else.

With all that said, I hope you can see the need and importance for learning correctly. No one is born a genius, NO ONE. Genius is a learned process of the intuitive mind, usually one that is free of hang ups, be they social, political, religious or what have you. Genius is the ability to juggle many things at one time, and not in some hair brained state of being�Yes books are important, yes, figure drawing is important, and yes copying is important so long as your sources are solid, and not misguided. And yes, practice, practice, practice, you will not get any better if you don�t put in that mileage. Just make sure there is a method to your madness and an end goal to achieve, the rest will be the funnest times you ever had, trust me. Once you are professioned, it is a whole new set of head aches and miseries you have to get past. But that is for another thread�

[ShyGuy]

I totally agree with da Fred Man..

Ahhhum....
OK Armandon (gope I got that right)
I will write this one more time
"
I actually have a Pdf document that someone
send me at the AniPerp mailing list( ken christianson)
that's is a collection of the lessons Mr Villpu
had on AWN.com I dont think there is any copyright issues since it was freely avaylable at awn (and still is i think)
If you or anyone else would like it let me know and I will see to that you can get your hands on it.
cheers
ShyGuy"

[ShyGuy]

Sorry about all the splelling minstakes
in that post

[ArMaDoN]

Hi Guys,
Thx alot for you reply's i really do appreciate it. shyguy can you send that pdf to me at [email protected] pls i would like it very much and fred pls contact me at work at that same email address thx alot guys i will stay in contact but today i will go look for those boookS!
but i need some help

[garuda_x]

like with music....copy and learn from the masters, then cover some of the classical styles that interest you........and with much time and effort you will develop your own style which will enevitably be categorized by somebody else. lear anatomy. lear to keep proportions consistent and lay them in quickly. i see lots os drawing that are heavily rendered, but have really bad underDrawings...by this i mean that the proportion was incorrect before they started to render it....and that is just not cool. heheh. draw from life to leard to draw. i draw lots of cubes and circles and thick and thin lines....still to this day..... especially when i have no inspiration on what to draw. lots of times i just open a pShop file, drop a toned bg, then have a few layers that i sketch on for a bit, then move on...thats mostly how i work nowadays... i do it in either pSHop or flash. then you can work over your sketches and what not....and refine, then save merged layers for the web. two cents.

have fun.

[ArMaDoN]

Thx alot Sa'ge, Well i do wanna study figures i do have the time and all the skill and determination is on my side it's just that i do not have enough info . pls can someone help me? maybe scan a BOOK of anatomy in for me or something pls guys i need more references, i know it's copyright stuff but ... ag well i think it's a good idea i am not making money out of it ... if you guys can maybe scan like 1 pic each for me out of a anatomy book i have tried looking no where here i can buy !!! pls SCAN a PIC FOR ME, that seems like a helpfull way to help me if you don't mind anyone pls read this hehehe

This sounds like a desprate guy.
cheers everyone sorry for being such and nusense

[ArMaDoN]

Thx alot once more Sa'ge, Your a great help,
Like i asked before do you think it's possible for you and some guys to maybe get me some anatomy books and maybe scan in some books or pages and zip them and email them to [email protected]
if you don't mind i just want to check cause i can't find anatomy books anywhere those online tut's are great but just not enough, i do not know what to do ...

ehehhe i am a crazed person anyways thx alot once more sa'ge thx alot
and all the guys in this forum your a great inspiration to me and the world!