Pencil Miles - 425 down, 575 to go

[Pigeonkill]

post #121 the shapes are coming out nicely. If you are ever by a gym, you can bring your sketchbook and draw people on the tread mill.

[FiftyFortunes]

*busts out guitar and starts singing songs of encouragement* No worries man, heads look a little small on the last one.

Sometimes a concept is so simple for me to grasp one day, then the next I suck ass. To help curb my frustration I just take a 10 minute break and clear my mind. Keep it up.

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 175 down, 825 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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Kawauchi: Yeah, the proportions were out of whack, for sure. And I couldn't seem to do anything to keep them in check. Todays are better, though... so I'm not as stressed out Thank you.

jatherip: Thanks man. Hopefully so!

Blacky: Yeah, it was 1AM It's 1:22 AM now! What the hell am I doing? Mr. Proportion is out today. Maybe he'll be back tomorrow.

And sorry... I didn't wake up in time to do any drawings today... until late. Homework all day. I'll get back to you on this, though.

Thanks, Blacky.

m0uS3r: Yep. Proportions. It's worse when you know they're wrong, but can't seem to stop drawing them wrong That's what went on Saturday.
Thanks for the visit!

The man with no name: Jogging does work; I normally work out every day at the gym; but I haven't been for a week... too late nights because of school and drawing I have to get back to it to sweat out the toxins.

Thanks d00d. Keep working on your drawings, too.

arttorney: Hey thank you for the return visit. You may be right about the exhaustion thing. I think sleeping until almost noon today actually helped; getting less and less sleep certainly takes away the ability to fully concentrate.

In that state, you may *think* you're concentrating, but your mind begins sliding off the subject, and your eyes wander, and you don't even realize your concentration isn't peak. All you know is that what you're drawing sucks

Thanks for the perspective, a.

Pigeonkill: I'm sure #121 was a good one A blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while I'd just like to find them when I mean to

And if I were at the gym, I'd be sweating too much to draw :o

Thanks for coming back to my SB

Valve: (takes guitar, cracks it in half, and hands it back to you saying "Sorry" like John Belushi in "Animal House")

Sorry, I owe you a new guitar. Would you like to borrow my Taylor 414ce?

Breaks are nice, but when your days are packed like sardines sometimes you forget to take them.

I think the general consensus is correct; I needed some more sleep & rest.

Thanks, everyone. You all ROCK!

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This set: 2 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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Sorry about the frustration the last couple of days, folks. I think that's done.

Didn't have a helluva lot of time today. In fact, I just busted these out in the last hour. The two sheets isn't for a lack of interest; just time today. I worked on homework literally from noon until midnight, taking an hour break for dinner.

Good news is these two measly sheets of 90 second poses felt better than the 7 or 8 previous pages. The proportions are a lot closer, even if I didn't get the time to finish the drawings. That, I'm not worried about. That sort of speed comes with practice. I'm just glad to have the general accuracy back.

[The man with no name]

17.5% done as oppose to my 1.1%, I gotta get a move on you figures are looking better everyday don't worry, your not the only one who has issues with head proportions, mine are probebly the worst on this whole forum , yours are getting better though, keep it up

Edit: What are you studying at uni? or by school do you mean secondary school? just curious

[adammelo]

Quite the undertaking p sage. i have alot of respect for your will-fullness to do this, keep it up! As the man with no name said, your stuffs looking exponentially better with each update!

[Karein]

Awesome work man, Keep it coming, you will reach you goal in no time

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 180 down, 820 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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The man with no name: I'm studying percentages Actually, I'm in computer science at the Uni... and have done some 3D modeling and junk. I'll be graduated in December.

adammelo: I'm glad you think so; the progress is more like constant slow crawl, followed by a huge setback... then some more steps forward
Thank you.

Karein: Hi, new buddy Thanks! You keep drawing too... ya hear?

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This set: 5 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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Good day today. Ya know why? I switched something very fundamental: the way I hold my pencil. RADICALLY different.

I tried it the way Vilppu holds a pencil... with his index finger right behind the tip, and the pencil held in the hand instead of between the fingers.

Lo and behold.. no more paper/knuckle drag! That's huge. Problem is I've drawn that way for... many many years

It's going to take some getting used to, but I can easily be much smoother with my strokes (as you may see) and the accuracy will get better. After that, I'll just have to practice putting fine lines in there... as that's difficult using a 4B pencil (at least for now, when I'm not used to holding the pencil that way).

These ones felt good; even the propoprtions. There might be a pinhead or two sneaking in here or there, but by and large, these are much better. Satisfied with the effort

The Music: (For Hamms' benefit): Stanley Clarke "The Toys of Men" (CD)

[Nateman742]

Wow man, just read this from start to finish, and your improvement is through the roof! Really inspiring stuff, you've certainly convinced me to do more gesture drawings!

Subscribed, I can't wait to see how the 1000th page looks!

[miycko]

more poopoo now means less poopoo later, i love that the latest updates are great, i can see you've managed to pull off even the harder poses

[The man with no name]

These are getting seriously good, your characters are going to look amazing by page 1000

[Izer]

Looks like lots of progress throughout, great gesture work, looks like you have your hands full. Best of luck, keep at it.

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 183 down, 817 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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Nateman742: Cool dude! I wonder if you'd be impressed by this... look over there! A blue car! (Homer Simpson) ... lol... j/k. I'm glad to have some small influence on you.

miycko: After a year, God puts smell into the poo poo </BillCosby>
Thanks man.

The man with no name: Thanks for the continued support, bra.

Izer: Yep; certainly a lot more work to do. Thank you for the visit.

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This set: 3 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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Not many tonight either; crashed for about 2 hours (er... sleep crash, not computer crash)...

Now, it's a matter of improving accuracy. I think the proportion stuff is coming well; I look at the model to get the gesture and then look at the paper and I can see it. At that point, it's easy to do. From there I just "bracket" the volumes/forms as Vilppu suggests... try to put centerlines on them, and then see if the forms are twisting in relation to one another. Reconstruct the form, don't copy it, he says.

I'm also trying to improve the "sharpness" of the lines... which would be simple if I didn't change my pencil grip so radically. But the ease with which the actual "action lines" or "gesture lines" or "transition lines" are coming is palpable; I'm also getting proportion MUCH better (yay)... so those are two signs of obvious (big) progress to me, in this month plus.

Tomorrow evening, life drawing session again. Best $10 I'll spend all week.

[adammelo]

I like the bottom one on 182, keep it up!


My updates up btw!

[miycko]

very nice man, i agree with adammelo the ones from page 182 came out great

[The man with no name]

Looked back on your previous update, and these are noticebly better, I'll leave you with some words of wisdom, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore,
is not an act but a habit." Aristotle.

[Kenny_Callicutt]

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." Aristotle.

You are well on your way to fulfilling that quote P. IF you find yourself burning out on gestures but still have the creative urge pick up differnt media and play with that?

[Monkeydominator]

Awesome, awesome, awesome work. Just... wow. Now I want to do this too.

Great improvement and wonderful motivation! Keep it up!

[FiftyFortunes]

impr-you-evment is very hard to spell, but it describes your progress. (I would play my guitar but some idiot broke it )

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 188 down, 812 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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adammelo: Cool. I'll come check it out.

miycko: Glad you liked... I'm not really going for finished, as much as for 'accurate' and 'action' right now. But it's good to have a few good ones in there. Thanks!

The man with no name: Nice quote. That means I have to work harder and do better work Thank you.

Kenny: That's a good idea. I've been switching between graphites (6B/4B/2B/HB) but would really like to do some conte crayon or something different. You'll probably see a few of those soon. Thanks d00d.

Monkeydominator: Cool. Go for it!

Valve: It's one of Troy McClure's favorite words LOL... ukelele's are cheap, I hear

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This set: 5 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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Life drawing... Wednesday version tonite. Director asked me if I'd like to do some quick poses to start with... I said "COOL!" ... cuz they know I do gesture and no long pose stuff. So everyone got their brushes and pencils and graphite sticks ready and we did 2 minute timed poses for the first half hour or so.. Model was good.

Then, of course, the long pose.

I feel like the proportions are getting easier now... I make use of negative space, angles, horizontals and verticals,.... and just plain try to feel the placements when I move my eyes back to paper. I just have to remember Vilppu's advice to not get "caught up" in the details before the action lines are laid out. "Get the total first".

Getting used to the new pencil grip; used HB tonight, and was able to get fine lines in there, too (sometimes)

[miycko]

great stuff dude, keep up the good progress at this rate you might not even need the entire 1000 pages

[The man with no name]

Sweet update, your lines are getting better by the day, just one question, I wanted to try a life drawing session, are they worth it? do they help a lot? thanks in advance and keep up the good work

[tdHendrix]

Whoa, very nice improvements. I'm watching the Vilppu DVDs right now too I asked my Intro to Anatomy teacher about Vilppu and she said they were students together. What a coincidence!

@The man with no name: Yea, figure drawing is very worth it. It will help you improve tremendously. It's different drawing from 3D life than just drawing from 2D images. If you can take figure drawing classes then do it cause you won't regret it.

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 191 down, 809 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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miycko: Hey man, thanks. Hopefully I can improve pretty well before 1000
, but I hope I never stop learning.

The man with no name: Dude, life drawing life drawing life drawing Nude models. Do it. It helps. Something about drawing from life. You can experience it, because you can empathize with the model. Because you're a human, you can do that. You know what a certain pose "feels" like, because you've felt it. Or you can try to do the pose, and you will "understand". That's why drawing people is critical. It helps you to connect what you see with what you can do on paper. Much better than drawing fruit

tdHendrix: Cool, man! Small world.

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This set: 3 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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Only 3 tonight because of heavy homework workload. Didn't start drawing until 10:30. More tomorrow, of course. Should have the whole evening.

On the last page... I dunno. Started losing concentration or something. Kept inadvertently slowing down. Not a problem; practice will fix that, as will rest.

[miycko]

looks like the batch on page 189 came out best this time around, keep those updates coming

[The man with no name]

189 = A+ especially the last one
I have cookies in my SB now, feel free to take a few

[Eric Young]

Again your dedication is something to be admired. Where do you get your figure references from?

[Pretty_Angel]

Your determination is impressive! Go go go!

[BlackDelphin]

i know what you mean with busy times >_< i have bin completely slacking off so to say ^^'
not proud, but that is that
i'll try to do my best though and get something done~

about your proportion! mister came back right after you commented to me, but then he started disappearing again towards post #157, and even more at post #162; just look at the first figure for example!!! neck, legs, you name it! it's just not there

quality, not quantity!
take care~

[p sage]

The Plan: 1000 pages of gestures drawings. 193 down, 807 to go.
Goal: Massive improvement by page 1000.

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Thank yous
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miycko: Thanks!

The man with no name: Ah cookies! But no lo carb option


The Original [E]: On Wed. and Sat. I do life drawings, so from models.
The rest of the time--usually Posemaniacs.com, or from some book showing poses of some type. Thanks for the return visit.

Pretty_Angel: Thanks PA!

BlackDelphin: Boy, that Mr. Proportion. He sure did disappear, didn't he? LOL. That's life for me, yeah? I do have to concentrate quite a bit. But I think it works when I do.

Thank you Blacky.
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This set: 2 gesture pages | Using Vilppu's techniques
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Talk about SLACK... lol. Got caught up watching a dumb game tonight instead of drawing.

These two pages are mostly suck... wasn't that careful I think... plus it was late. Bah. Excuses. No excuse for suck. Just two more bad ones; not much to see here, move along.

Tomorrow... life drawing in the morning. Will try to get to page 200.

Also... will get to your SBs tomorrow... a bit late right now and time for bed.

[KingElvis]

good progress so far. I like p 193. Maybe try and not just draw the pose for the poses sake, but try to emphasize what the figure is doing. Like the figure on p 193, bottom left. Shes actually resting her hand on her hip and her right leg is supporting that additional weight. maybe you can push those subtleties a bit more and make some poses more interesting. Its the same with the NBA figure on the same page.
bring it dude!