Spartan Camp #245 - 50 gestures + Optional "Shape Drawing Study"

[Anthis]

Spartan Camp #245 - 50 gestures + Optional "Shape Drawing Study"

The aim is to produce 50 gestures by Sunday the 25th of November.

- 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 "Shape Drawing Study", in any medium.
Additional notes on this weeks’ Optional Study:


The background:
Many drawing books use shapes to compare and describe the human figure. Heads, chests, pelvises and limbs may be described as cubes, ovals and rectangles. This can help you envision the form in a 3d context. This week we'll practice some shape drawing in general.

The exercise:
Take some objects from your surroundings and create a small still-life. Try to gather some different types of shapes (like rounded, straight, organic, curved, flat, and so forth) and arrange them. There is no need to go for an actual composition. Just place them so that you have some objects facing different directions, and perhaps have a bit of foreshortening and/or overlapping objects. You can make it as complicated as you wish, but don't produce an elaborately rendered still-life. The goal is simply to get used to drawing these various shapes. Pile up some objects (books, drawing supplies, any stuff lying around) and draw!

Colour, medium, time frame, any specifics are up to you! Good luck and have fun! And feel free to ask questions!


Upcoming optional studies:
Caricature study



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 #244

Hamorhage
Flashback
Spivak000
nance
Animare
Umbravita
Obacmar
andartius
e-nat
Animare
Klaustrophil
Wingal

[- nat -]

Here we go with gestures!

From observation


From imagination

[andartarius]

im kind of bored with drawing... i need to kick myself in the ass.... spending so much time and energy at work lol XD

this isnt really what the assesment was... but at least its an object!
Attachment 1643667

[Hamorhage]

This is a compilation of my drawings from yesterdays' life drawing session.
All the drawings full scale are on my blog: http://dailysketchbookchallenge.blogspot.ie/
I also bought a small sketchbook today so I can do some drawings during lunch at work

[- nat -]

Andartarius and Hamorhage- Great stuff ! I feel more excited to do gestures from seeing your drawings!
@ Hamorhage, I have some question in regards to the medium you used for the quick poses? Is it graphite or charcoal? - oh, nvm I read the blog, it's pastel! Thanks for sharing

Also, how do you usually start the quick gestures, from the action line or head or ?
Sorry if I'm asking too many questions


Anyhow, here are my gestures for today:10 minutes

[Hamorhage]

hey e-nat! Fantastic output so far this week! Looking at your first batch of sheet I'm really impressed with your quickies. Like in number 12 I really feel that body slope forward, very interesting dynamic! Your 5 min poses are good too, but you need some work on your 1 minutes, they are less accurate than your quickies and you seem to make more mistakes there.
The drawings from imagination are great too, but please don't draw eyepatches It's clear you are covering up a wonky eye ? At least if you do that, turn the entire character into a pirate

As for my own approach. When using the pastels I was experimenting so there's room to improve that approach. Since the pastels leave very definite marks, I didn't draw a line of action, but instead started marking areas of importance often starting with the area around the hips. Up close they look great because the medium leaves fantastic marks, but I think my gestures lacked structure. Hard lines, the lines are wonky lines, so next time I will focus on getting some more straight lines in there and maybe work on a bigger paper size, because I couldn't leave any marks in the face without turning it into a blob

Andartarius: Great work! The only thing I am missing are indications of how long each pose took? Your male figures look better than your females actually, maybe because you have quite a solid structured way of drawing. I would probably try to exaggerate the poses a bit for the woman and get some more curves in there.

Great work guys! Keep 'em coming

[- nat -]

Thank you so much Hamorhage! Your comment is spot on. I did more 1 minute poses with the area of importance in mind (I probably didn't get it right tho)...The areas kept changing from torso to rib cage to head to pelvis depending on the pose. It is quite challenging

I don't know about structure but your quick gestures capture the essence of the pose and incorporate a lot of information with economic brush strokes. Definitely to learn from!





ps: evil eyepatch of doom, my bad

[kabewu]

Hello, i'm trying to get into a habit of drawing some gestures everyday and was happy to find a place to put them... instead of throwing them away, which would be sort of sad :/

Body gestures are from posemaniacs and face gestures are referenced from screenshots.

I'm not sure if i understood the optional study topic correctly, but did it too - around 10 minutes for each. (Closest to a real life still life i got in 4 years )

btw- why is spartan camp called spartan camp?

[andartarius]

hey so i thought i would comment of everybodys work, which all of you did fantastic by the way, hamorhage, i am better at males than females, because i dont find them as appealing to draw! but you are right i need to step it up and do some more, next week ill only draw females, as for the poses, this week i really didnt put much effort, most of these are 30 sec 1 minute, especially the female one which are both quick and without much effort, guess my work is draining me out so much. so lets get to constructive criticism...

e-nat, those are pretty good, i wish there were some with values and tone but you did great, i can see you improving a lot.

hamorhage: you impress me, those simple and bold tonal poses look amazing, and you inspire me to do more female, i dont have much to critique, especially since i have certainly not outdone myself this week and my sketches leaves to be desired, yours look amazing. keep grinding man, your awesome.

Kabewu: Dang thats a load of poses , and it all looks great, i need to up my game if you people are going to step it up

[- nat -]

90 seconds gestures with a big chalk brush to show values. (thank you andartarius! sorry for the lack of critique, I can't think of anything aside of maybe drawing clothed models to try different shapes and forms.)

@ kabewu, Amazing work! I love the cleanliness and efficiency of your lines, The faces are so expressive.

[Anthis]

quick midnight-update.


Edit:
- first 3 imagesfrom ref
- one with quick gestures (pen)
- three pages of imagination
- shape drawing study

[Animare]

Everyday this week I tried to bash out a set 30 second poses from posematics. I'm not sure what I'm meant to be aiming for and they all look like crap lol but I will keep trying this each week I think so see if there's an improvement.
Will add my other studies in later.

[Klaustrophil]

My entry. Puh, a bit late i guess, but not too late. I focused mainly on animals and their skelletons.

[Hamorhage]

Wow guys, what an inspiration to see all of your work. It's amazing what kind of talent is here.
Klaustrophil: Love your skeletons most of all, probably because they stand still
animare: great output, just wish they were a bit bigger so we could spot some mistakes
anthis keeping it real as always It's good to see you lead by example here, don't think I'll manage to squeeze in a shape study :/
e-nat: really happy i got you to work on those 1 minute poses, fantastic work you've put in!
andatarius: those animal studies are gorgeous! Making me want to do some myself.

I still squeezed in a session today, it's been a while since I've drawn digitally, was working with 2 brushes to try and emulate ink washes. Doesn't quite work and I noticed I've been wobbly with my lines, got to work on confidence in my strokes again.
EDIT: not really life drawing, but I did an attempt at a caricature.

[- nat -]

Inspiring work everyone! So many cool ideas, I'm taking lots of notes



Finished some half an hour ago (and yesterday) ..so they're technically still property of week 18-25

[andartarius]

these past weeks have been great... cant wait to start next week!!! im so much more motivated now that there are some people to exchange and grow with! you guys are all very awesome

klaustrophil: those skeleton are great, your giving me lots of ideas as for my next studies

animare: so small, looks spot on though, keep grinding man!

e-nat: great set of sketch, i think you are definitly on the right track ,i would definitly put some longer studies in there though, although quicker sketches are great and very useful, a few longer ones would make it an even more complete brain training.
there are some great sketches in there, but some feel a little rushed . even if they are gesture, i think you should focus on the dynamism and less on small details like hair or ears,

[Klaustrophil]

@Hamorhage thank you very much - you are an amazing artist. :-)

@Anthis wonderful linework. You have perfect control over the line :-) Thank you for your effort and this geat study group.


@andartarius Thank you and keep it up :-)

see you all next week :-)
greetings
klaus

[Anthis]

Fantastic work guys!

Like some of you have noticed already- the last few rounds have been exceptional. It also seems these forums as a whole are getting more active again.


e-nat - Nice job on solving the issue with that eye Really strong gestures overall though!, good to see some from imagination in there as well. Nice job on the female pelvises and lower body- that area is still puzzling to me. Also that last batch may be the most sketchy of them all, but very effective in terms of gesture. I noticed you use the typical head construction with the oval and the cross sometimes, but I think the ones without tend to be stronger. Perhaps its become more of a habit than a method?

andartarius - Liking the value studies. I think the dogs are especially standing out, trying to figure out why. Most of the values are pretty close together, perhaps that's why the shape is well-defined. Or perhaps its simply just about picking exactly the right value? I've got to do more of these studies.. Nice work!

Hamorhage - Checked out the blog to find out about those gestures. Pastel seems really practical for studies like these. Not sure how that works, you probably use the side or something? Strong caricature as well. You should post it in next weeks topic ( I'm creating one right now). Did you think it was for this week or are you just early? I think you nailed the form and expression, though you may have chosen a tough reference image to start with.

kabewu - Welcome! And yes, you did well on the optional study. The optionals are usually not studies you have to spend days on, though you can take as long as you want. Nice posemaniacs gestures. You keep the proportions under control, and the drawings are actually getting better along the way. I'd throw in a few figures from imagination. I feel it allows you to compare and helps you figure out which areas require improvement. Solid work, nice!

Animare - I don't quite agree, I like these posemaniacs studies. You're pretty effective at showing the gesture without having to draw every single detail. I think posemaniacs has different drawbacks though. You can't really use it for in-depth studying, and these generated poses will only get you so far. It's a fine exercise, but I think you should complement it with different types of studies. At least, that's my view.

Klaustrophil - Great stuff! always love animal anatomy. Got any specific source for these? I think you did a good job depicting how many of these animals actually walk on their toes. That's a pretty critical characteristic. Good use of a perspective grid as well. Make sure though that IF you use one, check that it's correct. Starting off with a bad grid can get you in a lot of trouble! Thanks for sharing these, fun to see something different every now and then.

[- nat -]

@ Anthis, thank you so much! Indeed the cross for the head is a habit I'm trying to stay away for some time, dunno where it came from.
I love the way you draw the contours of the body (imagination and ref'd), it hints at different planes. The body is not made of straight lines and you are able to show structure (even in the female pelvis area , it would be great to see values! Awesome job on the shape study also


@andartarius, thank you I see that you add some drawings (the animals, cars and some of the values were not there when I first looked), they're great! I like that you're mixing long poses and short poses, paintings and lines.
I will try the longer poses since god knows I need more anatomy practice.

@ Klaustrophil, I love your animal studies, it's also good that you worked on the skeleton as well. I should try that too

@ Hamorhage, More awesomness I admire how much gesture you can capture in such a short amount of time.