Spartan Training Camp #8 - 50 Gestures plus Optional Human Facial Study

[Cwn Annwn]

The aim is to produce 50 gestures by Sunday the 19th of August.

The gestures can be of anything, human, animal, zombies, clowns on speed....and can be in any media, digi or traditional is fine.

In addition to this, participants can choose to do a human facial study. It need not be a portrait, you can choose to study human expressions if you wish. It's very open. The only stipulation is that the study is of a human face or faces.


Come on soldiers! Flex those muscles!!

PS...critting each other is highly encouraged!! Let's help each other get better!

Hall of Fame - Spartan Camp #7

Those with a star next to their name have also completed the optional exercise!

tmyohlaing
shattered halo
Hunter Killer
Anthis
Act.Appalled
Adi

[purplerose]

I'm in.

[MeTaL-Mike]

Cool. Hope i'll make it this time

[shatteredhalo]

that was flippin awesome practice. i'm in

[MeTaL-Mike]

Hey all. Here's mine.

[Cwn Annwn]

These are more studies than gestures...just trying to get balance sorted.

[purplerose]

Nice ones you guys.

MeTaL-Mike - I really like the rotation of the poses. As an overview of the gestures, I would say to watch out when doing sitting poses; some of the butt/torso areas look a bit stretched.

I should have my images posted either later tonight or in the morning.

[HunterKiller_]

I was going to spend more time this time 'round, but the week went so fast, so... here's another last minute entry.
About an hours work, again.

1. Posemaniacs 45sec.
2. Posemaniacs 30sec.
3. From my head.
4. Really fast and crappy face gestures.

[Miracula]

Puh, I'm a bit nervous posting my results here... noob altert I would say
Well, first of all it was the first time ever I really tried to draw humans, gestures, whatever... ^^"
There are no masterpieces, I know, but it was a good practice - so please don't kill me for posting this beginner stuff

The main reason I tried to draw these 50 gestures (believe me, it was really hard for me to do it and I spend a long, long time!) was to get more practise and a (better) feeling for shapes and the body. I don't want to draw perfect humans but it's not a good feeling when they are looking like monsters... *argh*

So my hope is that you guys can tell me some tricks or where to find basics/ tutorials about human anatomy. I know - practise is important, but my results show that something went completly wrong Maybe there is an important trick I do not know.

Okay, according to my beginner-try I have to say that I mainly used references. First magazines and books, then a how-to-draw-book for fashion artists (is that the right word???). Well... it didn't help much....

[grenogs]

dont worry so much about making to many mistakes at first. becouse you often learn more through your mistakes than if you go safe and do everything right all the time. im not the best at human figure drawing here, and others here may disagree with me, but i find how to draw for fashion artists books are not always the best way to learn proper human anatomy(unless your learning fasion), they always seem to elongate the legs a bit to much for my liking. Learning to draw the human anatomy for artists in general and similer books are usualy better, but they will not teach you everything. Actual real life drawing of actual people is usualy the best and quickest way to learn, try both long and short poses, 10 second poses are great, becouse they teach you to put down the basics which is fundamental for any good figure drawing, apart from that, just practise practise all the time, becouse no matter how good you get, there is always something new to learn.

[Cwn Annwn]

Puh, I'm a bit nervous posting my results here... noob altert I would say
Well, first of all it was the first time ever I really tried to draw humans, gestures, whatever... ^^"
There are no masterpieces, I know, but it was a good practice - so please don't kill me for posting this beginner stuff

The main reason I tried to draw these 50 gestures (believe me, it was really hard for me to do it and I spend a long, long time!) was to get more practise and a (better) feeling for shapes and the body. I don't want to draw perfect humans but it's not a good feeling when they are looking like monsters... *argh*

So my hope is that you guys can tell me some tricks or where to find basics/ tutorials about human anatomy. I know - practise is important, but my results show that something went completly wrong Maybe there is an important trick I do not know.

Okay, according to my beginner-try I have to say that I mainly used references. First magazines and books, then a how-to-draw-book for fashion artists (is that the right word???). Well... it didn't help much....

No, don't worry!

This exercise is for everyone!! It's to help people from all levels learn and improve. I'm glad you joined.

Reference is important! It's good to use reference when you are first starting out. How else are you going to know what things look like? All my studies this week are referenced from stock photos.

I noticed in your gestures you seem to be drawing things as you assume, a symbolic approach rather than studying the image in front of you. Take a little time and look for basic shapes in the human body, and work from there. Try looking at various different books on drawing anatomy. "Figure Drawing for all it's Worth" by Andrew Loomis might help.

I'm not very good at explaining things...if I didn't make sense, just ask.

[tmyohlaing]

53 gestures. From pose maniac.







And a human facial study. Photo reference used.

[Miracula]

grenogs and Cwn Annwn, thanks a lot for your answers!
I know that learning from a how to draw for fashion artists book is not the best solution for beginners. The proportions are wrong there for example. But it is the only exercise book for people drawing I had at home ^^"
I'm just downloading "Figure Drawing for all it's Worth", thank you for this tip!
Now I'm going to practise and maybe participate again - give me a few weeks ^.^
Ah - three last questions: grenogs, did I understand you right? You meant to draw short poses in ten seconds?! Do you go outside and watch people or do you have a model? Ten seconds are damn short!
Cwn Annwn, you said something about stock photos... well, my english isn't as good as it should be... do you mean a kind of database with reference photos?
And the last one: on which paper format do you work? It seems to be much bigger than my 20x30 cm...

Okay then - one last THANK YOU for your patience. I really enjoy the CA forum for threads like that - highlevel but beginner-friendly ^_^

[Anthis]

Crits!
MeTaL-Mike; Nice idea, same pose rotated, and angle shots. Could be wrong here, but some of the heads in the middle groups seem a little small. Like the facial study. Off topic question; how did you do the gradient bg?
Cwn Annwn; Those are some neat studies. Good to have an example. Post more often, inspirational . You probably started with the top left? they look unpolished. Not sure about the one far bottom left, proportions seem off?
HunterKiller_; Seem accurate, on a short timer. Never tried it myself though, probably good for getting the basics down? I see you've got a gunner too Like the emotions btw.
Miracula; Welcome! Keep joining and you'll improve. See if you can pick up a site/book/topic on proportions somewhere. I nearly have no experience with human drawing and find that pretty helpful.
tmyohlaing; Some daring poses there. With angles too. You're very consistent. Some parts seem a little thin, mostly in the 2nd pic though. Like the face too, but isn't the ear a bit turned?

Hope that was helpful, I'm not much of a pro myself, just listing what I see.

Wasn't quite sure what to do with the facial study. Decided to go with a self portrait, heard those are good practice. And 50 poses from head.
Tell me if it's a little big.

[grenogs]

miracula Yes 10 seconds, and yes it is very short. If you can get someone to model for you then brilliant, but if not then, just go outside in a buisy area, lots of people ,draw them sitting, standing, walking and just draw quick 10 second sketches, dont worry about shading or any detail, just do the real basic lines. At first you may make a total mess, but give it time and you will get better, your basic drawing skills will improve, you'll learn to draw much quicker and i know this might sound realy stupid, but you will learn how to see what your drawing. Suppliment this with your other drawing activities and you will learn so much from it. Theres no right or wrong way in art, just technique, and if you try every technique then you'll always improve, also try different types of medium, dont just rely on using graphite pencil, (dont ask me why, becouse theres no real logic to this, but i find a blue pencil can work better for me.) just experiment.

[purplerose]

My scanner is acting rather slow today, should be up in 15 minutes.

Edit// Sorry for being semi-late (still Sunday in California.. ) Gestures range from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. Used to doing these almost life size, so drawing on a smaller scale was a bit of a challenge for me. Pose Maniacs, fineart.sk and magazines.

[Cwn Annwn]

Cwn Annwn, you said something about stock photos... well, my english isn't as good as it should be... do you mean a kind of database with reference photos?
And the last one: on which paper format do you work? It seems to be much bigger than my 20x30 cm...

Yes, you are correct! A photo database...there are many online. Here is one I liked, it has old photos from the 1920's. http://gentlemansclubstock.deviantart.com/


This particular post was drawn digitally with a wacom tablet, I set the canvas to 40 cm wide and 30 cm high, 300 dpi. I did most of my drawing at 50% zoom. I shrunk it down to post it.

Those are some neat studies. Good to have an example. Post more often, inspirational . You probably started with the top left? they look unpolished. Not sure about the one far bottom left, proportions seem off?

You're too kind. Yes you're correct I started in the upper left! I was a bit slow to start off with, but studies/gestures are for warming up...gets easier as you do more. Yeah, I had some trouble with the man in the lower left, although he had a long back, I think his legs are still too short. Ah well. More studies is the way to fix it.

[HunterKiller_]

Anthis: Hey. I'm glad you noticed my gunner! I took me a couple of minutes to figure out what you were talking about. Hehe.
You've got some nice gestures. The only major error I can see is that the legs are getting a bit short on some of the figures.

Cwn Annwn: Thanks for sharing that DA page! Much awesomeness inside.

[MeTaL-Mike]

purplerose - your right. the butts do look too stretched alright. Thank for pointing that out, i'll be more carefull next time (i'll try)
HunterKiller_ - cool! i discoverec Posemaniacs too. it's an amazing website
Miracula - don't worry. you have to start somewhere and we all make mistakes. that's what were here fore. to practice and improove. looking forward to seeing more of your stuff
tmyohlaing - as always, nice work
Anthis - thanks. their from Posemaniacs. cool website (check out the link below). the gradient was done in photoshop. it's very simple really. you just draw on a separate layer then your original drawing and make sure that the background of your drawing is transparent. then just use the gradient tool to make a gradient background on a layer under your drawing. hope that makes sense


for all interested check it out it's a great website with loads of good references.http://www.posemaniacs.com/
als a very good reference website
http://www.characterdesigns.com/inde...page=photosets