Tutorials from the russian renaissance tradition(explicit nudity and bad language!)

[Pauladrian]

Thank you for these very interesting insights into your working process!

[Imaginary_Skull]

This might be a stupid question, is there any english translated books on these techniques? Or any books you recommend on this approach of perspective and anatomy? I am still struggling with perspective, stuck with profile and frontal studies.

Any help would be really appreciated, thanks!

[hummel1dane]

cgpauli - Thanks!

Imaginary_Skull - I haven't yet seen any books that deals with the rendering. The closest thing would be Drawing lessons from the great masters, Robert Beverly Hale, but that's more theory.
On the construction there is a new book in English building on Vilppu and Gottfried Bammes -
http://www.amazon.com/Figure-Drawing...ref=pd_sim_b_1

But the book "die gestalt des menchen" by Gottfried Bammes also explains the construction insanely well even though the text is in German. You don't really need the text. that's the number one book I would recommend. And also all Vilppu anatomy dvd's.

As for the perspective you can download those by Andrew Loomis for free.

[a.k.a.Brady]

This is really interesting.

I look forward to your next tutorial.

[hummel1dane]

Thanks a lot Brady! It might be a while though, maybe easter if I can find the time. Otherwise I might wait untill the summer.

[hummel1dane]

All right kicked myself and made a new tut.

Find the horizon line, thats the eye level, build perspective from that..
Find the hip and ribcage tilt. Think in terms of twin points.
Find the midline, analyse the midline by looking at the figure from front and side - remember that the pelvis and ribcage can both move in 3 dimensions. If it helps you can draw them as simple boxes and try to figure out how each is twisting, tilting and leaning foward back. In this case there is no twist and just ordinary lean and a contraposto(tilt). I think because of the extended arm(removed here) the ribcage is actually tilting a bit to the same side as the hip. Be aware of the pose before you start drawing, analysis is extremely important.

You should continue the line of the ext. obl even when it becomes invisible - you can think about the twin points and draw measuring lines between these.

Understanding of spinal column - should be drawn if you are doing a 100% analysis of figure. But if you don't want to draw it at least you should think about it, it's important knowledge - responsible for the leaning of ribcage and hip.

[hummel1dane]

Figuring out the rendering, the light dark planes, main lightsource and reflected light.

[hummel1dane]

He's beautiful

[hummel1dane]

3.5 options when rendering the abs with choosen lightsource(right above)

1. (the chosen one)
The front plane has 25% shade and the side plane about 50% shade, their turning point is rendered with max amount of tone, thus making use of reflected light from the side...

2. No reflected light from the side, gradual turning darker towards the side.

3. Two plane render(no smoothing). Front plane in one tone, side plane in one tone(darker) very squarish looking...

3b. Two plane render(smoothing) Like above, but with a gradation between the planes.

[hummel1dane]

Midplane bend of abs, gradual darker tone towards the downplane. Even though the edge between the downplane and midplane has the most concentration of dark, this is not very obvious since there is a smooth gradation, and the reflected light from below is only a faint value lighter than the edge. This organisation of light/shade takes years to learn.

[hummel1dane]

When working with values it's important to understand a few things.
Because of the glowing effect it is necessary to constantly refine the values you'd be working with - you might do something that looks good, but then if you tone down the area next to it, everything changes. For the same reason don't worry so much about being messy in the beginning, you can leave thousands of messy lines as long as they are of light or moderate value, then when you start working darker you'd loose most of them anyway.

It may sound strange, but for some reason we would always judge the darkest tone we see on the paper as being very dark. This has something to do with the way that the eyes and the mind work.
Even 2B pencil doesn't go very dark and if you doubt this compare the darkest pencil tone with a slip of paper rendered totally dark with charcoal or black chalk or black ink. Then all of a sudden the pencils darkest tone becomes a dull grey!
You can do the same trick if you are not sure how dark you are working - simply take whatever drawingtool you be using and a small slip of paper, and then just put on as dark value as possible. Then you can always put this slip of paper next to your drawing and it becomes easier to judge.

Another thing to be aware of when working with pencil is the fact that graphite is light reflective. This means that the darker you make something, the more it will actually reflect light. Thus when working with very dark areas in a pencil drawing, if these areas get direct light they will actually glow up and create specular highlights!

For this reason looking at a pencil drawing in different light situations gives a totally different effect of depth.

Charcoal on the other hand does not reflect light and goes a lot darker than pencil. For this reason it's a prefered medium of many.
But the ease of pencil makes it best suited in the beginning - and for some people, like sculptors or architects who only care about form, it's just perfect!

[hummel1dane]

Here you see clearly the glowing effect.

Always practice your values, it can take years to learn to see them so better start right away!

[Diego]

Hey man, It's really nice of you to share this information, very interesting reading. Thanks a lot.

[hummel1dane]

Diego - Thank you

Take a look at these images.

For some reason our eye can see even more tones than the general greyscale will allow. We just have to understand that it is a very relative thing - judging tone.
Therefore when doing Bargue copies or other stuff with fine rendering, it's important to work from a colour copy instead of greyscale, as it contains more gradation. A lot of older printers simply cuts away a lot of the gradation.

It's also very important to understand our medium, both pencil/charcoal and the paper. I don't wanna go into that as Dorian has already made excellent Bargue tutorials.



Now can you see it?



Always remember that tone/value is judged localy.

[hummel1dane]

All right, done with this study. I should figure out a proper way to light the chest area but that will have to wait. In general this is how it's worked out - you try this, you try that, and if it works - Way to go!!

Another consideration is what you want. This way of drawing is especially suited to sculptors who have to think in terms of 3d form - they can take many more conceptual freedoms with the rendering and the outlining of the forms.

I had to delete some of the reflected light, it didn't work very well.

I hope these tutorials are useful.

[hummel1dane]

A and B are of the same value... You can save and open in paint or photoshop to check!!

[Sepulverture]

H1D this is a fantastic and highly detailed thread that will serve a lot of fledgling studiers of human anatomy, therefore I've decided to sticky this thread in it's own independent sticky until further notice.

Thanks for making such a great tutorial from your own hard work in school. Keep updating this please!

[hummel1dane]

Sepulverture - thank you so much! Great motivation for doing more tutorials!!

[zou]

hi

thanks a lot for sharing this, it's a great tutorial.
Don' t be afraid to cover things already covered by other members (dorian) you explanations could complete or fill a missing point. And many times, many members may have missed the dorian tutorial even if they always browse CA.

It would be fantastic to post all the things you will do in your school/atelier like dorian did. We would have the russian method of teaching.
and by thr way your studies are great !

[setsuna801]

Hey mans thanks a lot for the tutorial I think except from the books you mentionne+tony ryders classical approach book. It is not possible to find the info you shared with us.

It would be cool if you could do la video of part of the rendering process.

[Zazerzs]

Great info! thank you for sharing.

[mairuku]

WOW! Brilliant! Thank you! It's like hogarth, but indepth!

[hummel1dane]

I was taught that if we want to lead the eye towards something we should draw it with darker value. Later in another school I was taught the complete opposite - that we should lead the eye with the lightest value.
Both ways work - the first is useful for working on a normal white paper, sketching and the like, while the other is most used in painting - check out painters such as Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci etc.


The eye is fixated on the center


If inverted the same is the case


If the small spot of contrasting value isn't in the center the eye will still go there

[BluezAce]

Thx so much for sharing!

[Salavin]

This has been such an interesting read, thank you.

[Imaginary_Skull]

hummel1dane thank you for posting more amazing information and techniques!
These tutorials are amazing! You should write a book.

I did check out the German book "Menschen Zeichnen -Die Gestalt des Menschen". I need to save some money for it.

Thank you again for the hard work and effort.

[GaussianRaider]

Man, the working and studying you're doing by yourself is remarkable, great attitude...keep going. I might do a couple of studies like these in the future, it's pretty inspiring and informative..

[Quike Garcia]

This is a great knowledge source, thank you very much!!!

[jakobweiq]

interesting n very educational!!!!!

subscribed to this thread!

yep old masters r a strict lot..
rem one of my lecturer told a short story on how his 'master' help him improve his crafts: by tearing his work RIGHT infront of him if his 'master' felt that he cld have done better..

[Angel Intheuk]

Thanks very much for this, it's just what I've been looking for