Spartan Camp #165 - 50 gestures + Optional "Clothed Figure Study"

[Anthis]

Spartan Camp #165 - 50 gestures + Optional "Clothed Figure Study"

The aim is to produce 50 gestures by Sunday the 9nd of January.

- 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 "Clothed Figure Study", in any medium.
Additional notes on this weeks’ Optional Study:
Straightforward topic! Clothing obscures the actual body, creating a difficulty. Observing where clothing 'rests' on the body or is supported by it can give you important information about the body underneath it. Make sure this is actual clothing and not 'just' some drapery (which you can often find in reference images). As always- reference advised, not obligatory. Colour, medium, time frame, any specifics are up to you! Have fun! And feel free to ask questions!

I will edit this post tomorrow with some optional reference.


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.

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

Come on soldiers! Flex those muscles!!

HALL OF FAME - SPARTAN CAMP #164

Bethany K
Iarchist
Anthis
JR McGee
J@n!t
intruderz
shiNIN
aprat
skMOP

[LORD M]

I have been bad when it comes to studies lately so I gotta redeem myself for myself, so I will join this. 2 days should be enough to finish 50 studies.

[Ceinwen Fang]

Reducing the head to geometric shapes is not as easy as I thought it sounded.

[Cory Hinman]

larchist--the point of geometric conceptualization of the figure is to express its structure and perspective. Look at the pix below before my gestures. the elf has a nice moody quality, but again details like the hand, fore-arm and upper arm are nebulous spacially, and I think the upper arm may be disproportionately long.

my gestures; my refs were photos from this book

http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Bound...4555018&sr=1-1

media are black Prismacolor and blue and black Pigma brushpen

[J@n!t]

Cory Hinman: Really dynamic gestures! Do you find that this kind of practice translates well to more finished drawings? I'm on a "gesture quest", really exploring the meaning and usefulness of the exercise.


Mine for this week start with 10 second gestures in marker to quick sketches from my photograph archives. Some Posemaniacs (gotta stop doing these, I don't think they help) and Character Designs in there too.








Clothed figure study is a self-portrait (eeek!) The light falling on the jacket folds is far too light

[Cory Hinman]

J@n!t---It absolutely helps finished drawing. Life has got in the way of my drawing regimen over the last couple years, but as I say and display in my sketchbook--plug!plug!---I used to start every drawing session with about an hour of gestures like these, reffed from photos, anatomy books or comics. I think even my posts here show more fluid, confident mark-making as the series progresses.

I admire the economy and subtle line in your gestures. One of my favorite fiugrative artists here, AztecFireFlower, advised me to culitvate just these values in my own drawing. Accordingly I'll be altering my drawing pattern to beginning with my pen never leaves the paper, lines race through as well as around the drawing, but progress to more considered and therefore fewer and more sublte lines.
Plus, your animal studies really make me want to do animals!

[LORD M]

larchist - Nice going with the 50 faces, although I advise you to pay more attention to the facial landmarks, some looks quite off

Cory Hinman - Really impressive gestures! The poses are so alive and full of movement, I really like how you started off with the blue prismabrush. Hehe the last pose is particulary great, the way they are interacting with eachother was really portraid realisticly. Great effort!

J@n!t - Nice lines! Sometimes fewer lines will tell as much or even more then many lines, this is especially true for the "X-posed" figure in the first paper. I agree with you that posemaniacs ain't really that good, I looked before for alternatives but couldn't find any untill someone posted this here on CA.org:

http://pixelovely.com/tools/gesture.html

I noticed you like animals, so this also contains that as well.





Here's some of my junk. First up with some Bridgeman studies (shameless copying I should avoid) and then a Da Vinci study "Leda and the Swan". In the numbered ones, the first 21 are from photos and 22-26 are from life (my sexy legs!) and the rest are from my mind.

I realise I probaby spent too much time on them. Critique highly welcomed.

[Cory Hinman]

Lord M--wow, thanks for showing what's possible! I love the variety, from meticulous Bridgman studies to really free-feeling, spontaneous observations and inventions. Around #20 I got really excited.
I do feel that while such line control and finished quality that you display here are admirable, I think gesture drawing can be a really beneficial exercise if you get a litle messy with it. don't pick your up your pencil from the paper, draw through and around your subject, in fact draw the gesture of the subject, not the subject. This helps you loosen up for the "real", finished drawing, and I think the experience of thinking through and around the figure is really helpful for figure invention, though you already show great imagination and ability there.
And I know I'm a fine one to talk, urging you to greater sloppiness after admitting AztecFireFlower cautioned me to seek more precision!

Whew--I hope to make up my 50 by midnight tonight, we'll see...

[shiNIN]

Hi... I still avoid figures as best as I can (maybe my painful experiences though I'm sure I wouldn't suck so much even by myself - or i just focus on different things. I draw more nowadays, that's a good sign ) but I still have a few things to show. I hope animal heads are okay too.

Teresa again... I started to make her more my own (she's originally an anime character but a personification of my love's motorbike as well) and I focused on her look instead of the quality of the drawing...





very unfinished study:


animals:



I promised hyenas last week. Oh I started to use the pressure sensitive opacity hard round brush and I love it! Now I try to use it AND my pressure sensitive sized hard round brush... It's hard but it's fun.
No spots because I'm lazy and they are mere sketches, like line sketches for others but I'm usually bad with lines.



No optional this week... I planned a Bougureau study though
She wears pants too but I don't think it's enough Flawy unfinished copywork, brush practice. The original is so much more beatiful, a nice, seductive gesture and an unusually nice pair of breasts.
Photobucket didn't even cross my mind.

[Cory Hinman]

geez, not gonna make it, but here's more I did, if not quite 50. A single page of invented poses, then studies from Neal Adams' work on the batman storyline which introduced Rhas al Ghul, then Al williamson figure studies, finally figures from a collection of Boris Vallejo's photo book.

And so good night!

[kmoeini]

Hi all, long time lurker, first time posting here.

Thank you Anthis, for organizing this activity.

larchist, I really like your elf painting. With the faces, I'm just a beginner, but one of my art teachers suggested starting with 3 parallel lines representing the brow, nose, and chin (spaced equally apart) to help line the features up.

Cory Hinman, your figures really have a lot of life in them. Are those referenced from ballet pictures?

J@n!t - I really envy your beautiful lines. The proportions are great. Why don't you like posemaniacs? Are you just bored with it?

Lord M - #9 is my favorite. Such a huge variety of drawings. Awesome.

shinin - great job on that last one. Great work on the values in her jeans too, but the white spots on her belt loop and top of the pocket might look better if toned down a little.










I'm not anywhere near 50, but this is what I have.

[skMOP]

CRITS:
larchist: Really try to focus on placing the features correctly on the face, Cory Hinman offered up some good advice.

j@nit!: Another alternative besides the link already posted is just to start downloading a bunch of reference off online and collecting them into a folder onto your hard drive. Then download a slideshow player (IrfanView for example) and then just play the images randomly with 30second intervals. Your lines are really clean by the way.

shiNIN: The only way to get over your fear is to go straight for it. I definitely didn't word that correctly but, what I mean to say is the only way you're going to get better at figures is by doing them.

Lord M: Nice variety of studies, I recognize a few of the Bridgman haha. Sorry I really can't come up with a crit right now

Cory Hinman: Maybe try using less lines? Or what I mean is like using a single line to convey the shape? Or maybe I don't really know what I'm talking about :/

kmoeini: I hope you continue to post here and try hard to make it to 50, I know it's a lot, but its worth the pain!

--
Sorry for the background stuff, I usually do these on scrap paper or back-to-back when I'm doing studies in pencil..
I also think I'm a few figures short

[Cory Hinman]

CRITS:
Cory Hinman: Maybe try using less lines? Or what I mean is like using a single line to convey the shape? Or maybe I don't really know what I'm talking about :/

I don't think it's the case you don't know what you're talking about, my drawings are very sloppy! On the other hand I have this quote from a thread discussing what exactly a gesture drawing is;

"a gesture drawing is usually a very quick super fast and sloppy sketch. to show one of many things such as just the general pose, or perhaps weight of the body's mass through space, form through-out the figure (like how the anatomy would be if seen through the overlapping forms of the figure, or maybe just to loosen up your arm for the day"

While your own drawings show admirable line quality, many of the poses feel stiff, which can come from drawing "from the outside in" rather than the inside out. I think J@n!t's and Lord M's efforts here are unique and worth study in that they retain the life and energy of the poses despite their economy and elegance, which are by no means a bad thing, but are values which Kimon Niocclaides would say work against the spirit of a gesture drawing.

well, I have to admit this response to the previous quote makes sense to me;

"Gesture drawing is an excercise in capturing the rhythm or basic idea of a pose without worry about superfluos details (drapery, anatomy, etc.) Your drawing might be more direct or forceful if you can capture the gesture in relatively few and rhythmic lines but the idea that a gesture is defined by being quick, hasty and sloppy is untrue and potentially damaging, in my opinion. Glen Vilppu is anything but quick and sloppy in his gesture drawing. He is actually very thoughtful in putting down marks. As he says, the drawings LOOK like they were dashed off quickly because that is the nature of rhythmic lines that flow into one another. They give the impression of a fast "read" of the figure."

[Anthis]

Need a little sleep now; will comment on this excellent round tomorrow! The new topic is up!

[skMOP]

Thanks for the long post Cory, haha I was a little unsure when I was giving that crit, and I do believe it was me not really knowing what I was talking about..
I agree about my stiff poses, love the atmosphere here in Spartan Camp

[J@n!t]

LordM: I like that your ladies are not the typical super-skinny chicks. At first I was going to point out that they are too thick and short in the lower body, but I see you have a variety of bodies in there. Most of us draw the same body over and over.

skMOP: I agree that this is a great atmosphere, I love it here. Your dancing ladies are perhaps squished from head to toe, making them look wider in the body than they should be. I think I know the site you got them from. The athletic, non-curvy bodies and the clothing they wear make it tough to pick out a femine form. I had a hard time with their torsos when I drew them. Couldn't make out any shapes.

shiNIN: I challenge you to do the 50 gesture challenge next week. That's what Spartan Camp is here for The sooner you stop avoiding the figure, the better. The nice part about gesture is that you just need to capture the basic form, or the movement, and nothing else needs to be right. I know you have a hard time wanting to do this, but it's good for you!

____________________


My clothed figure study disappeared from my original post. Here is is, short arms and all. There should not be so much contrast in the jacket, as it is black and the day was overcast. I might rework a little, but I did spray it with a little fixative to keep the pencil from smudging all over. It is a self-portrait, and wasn't as painful to do as I supposed Even looks like me.

[Ceinwen Fang]

I'm really not qualified to give crits but I was feeling more and more guilty that so many people gave me helpful comments and I'd left nothing... so here goes.

Cory Hinman - Can't thank ye enough for the useful advice and especially the pictures of the planes. I think I am starting to get it. I love your lively drawings, they really get the poses across. The only crit I can think of is that I can't always figure out what the more contorted shapes are doing, you might want to prioritise having the figures readable, for those obtuse people like me who aren't very good at understanding anatomy yet hehe.

J@n!t, I love it when people mix in horses and figures...and little wizard gnomes sitting in arm chairs (Sorry if I'm being obtuse and that's not what it is!) Its rare to find someone who can sketch horses AND cats AND dogs accurately, their faces are so different (I can't do cats at all)

Lord M - Hey you can do the geometric shape thing. Brill inspiration. Leda is very nice, even the soft line quality evokes Da Vinci.

shiNIN - If you're having trouble with lines digitally you could use ink or pencils, I think having good lines is one of the foundations of drawing, but your realism is great anyway, so don't listen to me

kmoeini - embarrassingly enough I have been using those lines sometimes but not others, I think I just need to pay more attention to them and use proper vertical lines too lol.
Don't get so hung up on shading if you are having trouble reaching 50, just get the lines down in what time you have, then add tone if you want, the lines and forms are the most important thing, without those being right the tone will look almost arbitrary.

skMOP - very good outlines, the construction isn't always right as far as I can tell, try drawing a few centre-lines/joint marks/geometric shapes sometimes just to check everything lines up?

Anthis - Thanks for organising this challenge, hard work but very educational, great stuff.

[surus]

Wow ! The camp is growing! Thanks to all participants for posting! Keep on posting at the next camp!