Bring them to life - gesture drawing help please :(

[Clipper]

I been studying anatomy and gesture drawing, practicing daily. My sketches as far as proportions and proper anatomy but they seem to lack life. They are only sketches but they still look a little flat and lifeless, i've seen alot of people post pics of stick figures with more life than my own. Currently i'm working on a pose of someone running, the anatomy seems right but he seems too...stiff i guess is the proper word, any tips suggestions to makin it better?

[pantless_wanderer]

You should have posted some examples of your work so people can have a better idea of how to help... anyway, anatomy and gesture are two different things*. Gesture is all about quick and very instinctive (at least for me) motion lines that define the main idea of movement in the figure - they're not even the same as contour lines - so one of the best ways to learn it is to sketch people in movement, since it forces you to lay down the gestures in a few seconds and forget about anatomical details. Try doing some quick gestures while watching an action movie, or a football game, or an ice dance competition (some awesome poses here)... or something like that.

Gesture drawing is not something that can be easily teached or explained since it's not an exact science, specially for someone like me, who's not a native English speaker, but you could always buy this book. It's most probably the best book you can find about this subject.

* Well, gesture and anatomy are somehow related since the anatomy of the human body is all about rhythmic curves, but this can be ignored in the initial stages of gesture drawing, which are also the most important since they define whether the pose will feel stiff or not.

EDIT: I just noticed that this thread seems to be in the wrong section.

[Clipper]

thanks for the advice, i'll look into your suggestions, i'll try and upload my progress when i get my scanner up and running again