Spartan Camp #144 - 50 gestures + Optional "Animal Gestures" Study

[Anthis]

Spartan Camp #144 - 50 gestures + Optional "Animal Gestures" Study

The aim is to produce 50 gestures by Sunday the 1th of August.

- The gestures can be of anything, human, animal, cavorting capybaras.... You can draw full figures, but you can also go for heads, arms, eyes, or anything specific. All media can be used, both digital or traditional. Coloured or black/white. Quick scribbles or long studies. Imagination or referenced. Clothed or nude. Specifics are up to you!

- In addition to this, participants can choose to do an Optional "Animal Gestures" Study, in any medium.
Additional notes on this weeks’ Optional Study:

This weeks optional study focuses on animal anatomy. Animal gestures would be interesting as you can keep your normal approach, with animals instead of humans. Any type of creature will suffice, some may be more practical than others in terms of exercise.
You can go for some quick gestures, but you may also choose to do a long study. Any number will suffice, the optional study is to just give it a shot. With or without reference. Colour, medium, time frame, any specifics are up to you! Have fun!

50 poses is a challenge, but don't hurry or stress yourself reaching it! Focus on drawing, as practising is the main goal of this exercise.

Critting each other is highly encouraged!! Share constructive criticism, reference and resources!! Let's help each other get better!

Come on soldiers! Flex those muscles!!

HALL OF FAME - SPARTAN CAMP #143

eekolite
aprat
Angel Intheuk

[surus]

Only a few copies of Gottfried Bammes antelopes. I added this tech stuff to change it to a animal robot. The human gesture was with reference (Virtual Pose 4)

[aprat]

surus - The antelopes look pretty clean and accurate but it would have been cool to see some action poses.

I'm really influenced by R. Crumb this week. All done from reference except for the last figure.

[shiNIN]

I started drawing gestures again... The digital part of them is here:


Just some posemaniacs and a few animals. They are messy but it took rather a few hours.
Pressure sensitivity still confuses me, I hope I will get better in the next weeks... I neglected PS for long...

[Anthis]

Surus; I'll reply here to your last question about using shapes like cylinders and cubes in drawing. I've seen it used a lot, and people like Bridgman and Loomis also use those approaches. A way to help you envision a figure in 3d is to pretend you are drawing simpler shapes. A pelvis is fairly square in shape, a chest a bit more like a rectangle. If you start off with sketching a couple of those easy shapes, it can help you draw a basic figure. Example HERE (page 14 and onward). It also works the other way around; If you run into trouble drawing a figure, you can try and 'simplify' for yourself, remember how limbs may look like as geometrical forms. An approach that can be helpful sometimes.

Here is another link with various drawing advice.
http://www.dhfa.net/Artiststatement2.html

aprat; I can see that! It's striking. I recently read "Genesis", illustrated by him. It's interesting to note how strong those round forms in those gestures feel. A graphic approach, maybe, but a meaningful exercise. It's like crosshatching, right?

shiNIN; Yea pressure sensitivity is strange. Guessing it just takes practice to get a decent feel for it. I think those large female poses look really good, the smaller ones appear to be getting more stocky proportion wise. The large ones are slender.. solid.. pretty good I think! Nice animals too, lots of movement.





Some posemaniacs


Ref: http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/


Also went to the zoo and did some drawing. Didn't do too many actual 'gestures' though, so here's one scan. Rest in my sketchbook

[shiNIN]

Anthis: I usually let pressure sensitivity to affect my (round hard) brush size only... It works when I do a tonal study but with these line based sketches, every setting is incomfortable to me I'll keep using PS and we'll see.
Nice animal sketches

[ErikHolfelder]

surus Cool stuff, though I think you could push the robot antelope further. Maybe some segmentation to make for realistic artificial joints. I know it's just a doodle, but might be cool to play with some variations.

aprat I like the style with the extreme contrast. It's very expressive, particularly on the first drawing (love the rendering on her face). The last one is cool too, but the hands make me a little uneasy. Good work!

shiNIN Looking pretty solid this week! I think in the animals you might could have emphasized some lighting details with a darker edge (like on some of the figures). Also, they're looking less stiff than last week. Keep that weighted balance in there, it's good!

Anthis Some nice, clean ones this week. I like the zoo animals. Not sure if I'm wrong, but make sure to watch out for the length of your legs. They look a bit short to me on a few of those there. For example, both the guys with feet on the sartoialist drawings. One of them the legs are deemphasized, but nonetheless it might be something to watch out for. Thanks for the great feedback and work!

--

Whew, been a long week. I wanted to do the camp justice this week though, so I made to (approximately) 50. Still got a lot to improve upon. Quality varies.

The optional gestures sound interesting this week. I never thought of trying figure drawing with chimpanzees...seems like it might be interesting considering their similarity to humans. Might just try some.

Keep kicking ass everyone!

[shiNIN]

eekolite: I don't remember if I told you already or just noticed but you tend to draw little head and oversized legs (they aren't merely long, they're big) if we consider the torso normal... Watch proportions...
I could use the... gracefulness(?) of your figures though... mine are so not artistic, slow, stiff... No wonder, I need to practice much more - and always spend much time on each.
But contrapost starts to be easier to me. Yay.

[aprat]

shiNIN - I would suggest that if you are going to draw figures with lines then use a thinner brush. Also try using a higher opacity, maybe 100 % even for quick sketches. It'll force you to use fewer lines and be more assertive.

Anthis - Yeah it should be a type of crosshatching but i kind of faked it.
I think your faces are looking better and the way you drew the clothes looks really nice.

eekolite - Very dynamic. The last ones almost look like ink and wash even though i know they're not.

[shiNIN]

aprat: Yeah, in the meantime I realized I need to use different brushes for that kind of stuff...
And I need to draw really quick gestures so my inner critic has no time to come into my way...