Spartan Camp #257 - 50 gestures + Optional "Balance Study"

[Anthis]

Spartan Camp #257 - 50 gestures + Optional "Balance Study"

The aim is to produce 50 gestures by Sunday the 10th of March.

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


The exercise
When figure drawing, there's the risk of ending up with 'floating figures'. Or figures that don't seem to be firmly standing. Or they fall over or look just slightly awkward. The balance of a figure is important, so it's time for some exercise!
How does one study balance? Some common methods utilize the center of mass (or gravity) and a balance line. We're not studying physics, but some background can be useful. Any object or form (say, a body) has a single unique point, usually somewhere in the middle, around which the mass is distributed. The mass is balanced around this point. For us, the center of mass can be a reference point. For example, if you indicate your approximation of the center of mass in a figure drawing, you may notice that the legs do not support this point very well. You can also draw a balance line from the center of mass to the ground to test this (see reference links 1,2 and 3).

Sounds confusing? Check some of the reference links below! For the current exercise, draw a center of mass and balance line for one or several figures. Use these to check whether your figures are in equilibrium.

Reference
Link: Guide about the center of mass and balance in general. Good advise here!
Link: Google books, pages 120 and 121.
Link: Google books again, pages 64 and 65.
Link: Decent video, somewhat applied to fashion but good overall.
Link: Useful info about the center of mass itself. Note that this applies to figures as wel, including the 'magic trick' with the two forks!

As always- reference advised, not obligatory. Colour, medium, time frame, any specifics are up to you! Good luck and have fun! And feel free to ask questions!


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 #256

Animare
LeanneMGardner
e-nat
BlackDelphin
vinterdragen
Anthis
Raoul Duke
Flashback
niphree
Cerasela

[Viking Raider]

Okay this looks like a good idea...never done this before but goodness knows I need the "forced" practice. Here's my contribution so far!

Because I thought having some Spartans in the Spartan challenge might be fun...

[Pete Hidalgo]

I hope I can get this done. I dont think I have completed a Spartan camp but I will try my best with this one.

[Anthis]

Viking Raider- You're off to a good start! I like the variation, and your insistence on doing some hands and foreshortened figures too. Not shying away from the tough ones! I'm spotting something for the optional study in there as well. In some of the faces, your emphasis may be slightly too much on the big features like eyes/nose/mouth. Things like the chin shape, cheek bones and shape of the head don't tend to draw as much attention but they can add just as much character to a face. At least, that's how it seems to me. I think you're doing pretty good on the proportions overall though. More full figures please! Pretty neat batch of sketches.

Pete Hidalgo- Impressive! I'd say you're doing a great job with both studies and figures constructed by yourself. Good to combine those. Nice structural approach, good dedication! I see you're doing Loomis too. Remember how often he talks about mostly simple shapes and forms and the planes they create. From my own experience, I think its good to keep that in mind. No need to draw a beautiful outline of a nose, you can pretend it is some sort of sloped pyramid shape. Makes it easier to draw from any angle. Consider that much of the head has bone directly under the skin, so many of the shapes have a fixed form too. Great work!



As it turns out I really needed this optional study. I decided to start with the optional study and things went much smoother than I expected. I'll see if I can do some more gestures later on because I didn't have much time to experiment yet. Really looking forward to it, I feel I can do much better after this.

[ashess]

Anthis- going strong AS EVER I see! hmmm.. alright, gonna get officially off my lazy ass and draw too tonight! Spartan camp was good for me.
I think I still miss a real drill-instructor to come yell at me when I'm slacking off though :p
My awesome laptop is dying on me :/ soI guess I'll have to use old-fashion pencil and paper.. and scan it. how low-tech. I'll see if I can push myself to do it though. usually, if I draw something like that I get bored with the scanning phase :p

Pete Hidalgo- you, my friend, just got me drawing again. I saw all those wonderful, hard-worked on scetches by you, and then I noticed one very basic, unnessicary mistaken, and I had to do a draw-over. the mistake is, you use contruction-lines, but you do not draw them around the shape, only on the side you can actually see them. this makes the construction-lines pretty close to useless, as then you can no longer check if they are going round in the right way.
ie, example this drawover:
(my apologies in advance for butchering your hard work; its meant in the nicest and most contructive way.)

[Anthis]

Heya Ashess! Thanks for adding the paintover. Also looking forward to seeing your sketches again. Personally I think the quality of my gestures tends to fluctuate but I'll be adding some decent ones later on .




Important:
I'm sure many of you have noticed the recent developments in the lounge and on various other websites, putting Conceptart.org in a negative light.
Personally though, I have no intention of leaving CAO or ceasing my activity in the Spartan Camp for now. Just clearing the air!

[ashess]

^^it was my pleasure. as for fluctuation of quality, it happens to us all, I think. something about out of every thousand drawings ten being okay, and only one actually good?
though, I imagine I'll have to do at least a few thousand before I'm back @ decent again. I had a little conversation with my hand just now, while drawing. it went a little like:

"omg, my hand! what are you doing? you call that an elbow? that's not an elbow, it's a blob!"
"oh, really. what does an elbow look like then, head?"
"its, uh. the joint protrusion is all at the wrong spot. it needs to move."
"really? which way should it move?"
".... I forget."
"yeah, that's what I thought."

so... yeah. I knew this moment had to come. I actually tried to own up several times in the past. picked up the pencil, drew about one picture, and quit shuddering in revulsion :p its not that the drawings are bad per say; it's just like it feels like my hand and brain have lost the means to communicate. the problem should clear itself up if I stick with it.
1 page of no ref, then some ref studies, so I at least remember what an elbow looks like :p

no ref:

ref:

[- nat -]

@ Viking Raider, Wonderful start! I like that you're tackling more than one study objective, love the details on the spartan helmets. I would suggest adding more timed studies, like 30-60 second gestures as those will help you a with line economy and dynamic poses.

@ Pete Hidalgo, Head construction FTW! It's clear that you're also thinking about body construction in your full bodies, I can see the volume in the torso areas in some of the figures. For the timed studies, try to avoid details like the hair and finer elements of clothes...You can spend that time on the gesture/structure of the figure itself. Keep up the good work! for the rest, Anthis covered it perfectly.

@ Anthis, you're made of win! I'm taking notes on how to handle balance and volume shading. You flesh out the form in a thoughtful and deliberate way. Do you use different gesture drawing sites than lovecastle, pixellovely, quickposes? Because I see different poses.

ps: drama alert? I didn't hear of anything negative about CA aside from that virus attack a couple of months ago. Hope everything stays good.

@ ashess, Good energy in those lines! You have an interesting style, I'd love to see more gestures/studies. short for the short comment, I can't think of anything of anything else.



I wanted to dedicate today to drawings from imagination. Again with the muscle form vs straight outline thingy.

[Viking Raider]

Next batch...

Anthis: I have noticed the same thing about my...not really proportions I guess, but features being a little too big...I almost always have to go back and either tweak the chins, cheeks, etc., or shrink eyes nose mouth, etc...now that I'm playing more digital it's a lot easier but I suppose it would be easier still to just do it right the first time! LOL easier said than done... more practice!

e-nat: Thanks for the suggestion on timed studies...I went to quickposes and tried the 30 second challenge...WOW I've never done something like that before. Talk about intense!! That was loads of fun...definitely will do more! Thanks for the nudge. I've seen so many people post about it but never tried and now I can't wait to do it again next chance I get. What fun! Here's the results...

[ashess]

Viking- those are good gesture drawings. I could tell you to focus on stuff, maybe indeed proportion or composition. but its a gesture, so it shouldnt matter much right?

e-nat: yow, I love your lines. espec on those legs in the 1st page. one of the legs might be longer then the other on that middle one, the one with the knee. but who cares. I love the round/sharp angle thing, and then the shading too.
As for my style: haha! I call it 'not half as clean as I wanted and too lazy to fill in the blanks.'
heres a few more. just 1/2 an hour. had karate practice today. come home late and tired, and only just set myself to draw. I did draw my kids a bit this afternoon, but it was a complete fail, and then my daughter stole my paper too. (omg. it that like my dog ate my homework?)
some 5 mins from pixellovely.

[Flashback]

Head studies and life drawings.

[Animare]

Back from my holiday.
Loving the new link we have at the top! Although it currently links to the previous topic lol.
Great start from everyone!
I'm just gonna quickly dump what I did overseas in here and then get on with the new topic.

Some of these were done before Sunday and some wernt lol but I will just keep them all together.
The moleskin pages are drawings from life.
I got to try archery for the first time whilst I was there so I did some poses from imagination afterwards. Not to brag but I won too!

[Viking Raider]

Okay so had to get this last batch in because I'll be out of town for a wedding the next day or so and then my kids birthday party is this weekend so no time to draw let alone upload! But had to finish the challenge and get at least my 50 in. This was fun, can't wait for next week!

[ashess]

@flashback- hey! good to see you still 'round! good solid head-studies. I like the life drawings too, but I notice you do the same thing as I. there's a very big descrepancy between the two. almost like 2 different people drawing those :p I think bringing both together would be better. not sure on how to do that either.
(ps- on what happened, first on account of too much drawing, I hurt my wrist. then, on account of too little drawing, I had trouble getting starting again (ei, I sucked too badly and had trouble getting through that.))

Animare- oi, I like those swimmers! you got the whol reflection thing down nice.

Vicking- 50 already? well, guess you are out of time, else I'd tell you to do longer once :p

this took way too long, on account of the 3rd getting me pulled in. 45 min? total? no ref.

[- nat -]

My eyes are killing me this week, dunno if I can finish the last 11 gestures. Also I'm crushing on baseball.

[IDrawOnions]

Hi all, this is my first Spartan Camp. Trying hard to make my figure drawing not suck so badly, and this seems like a good way to kick myself into gear, so I'm hoping to become a regular participant here in future. Anyway, here's my first 15. Just some really rough gestures, hoping to do a few more finished ones later. The rest to come tomorrow (hopefully!).

[Animare]

Welcome to Spartan IDrawOninions! Nice start.

Really like the 90sec baseball drawings e-nat

Some good old Bridgeman balance studies from his book.
Speed painting of myself but got frustrated again with the face - end up wasting a lot of time on shading faces.
Balance studies from various references.

[Flashback]

e-nat: they don't call the Spartan camp for nothing!

ashess: Yeah, I understand it's hard to tie it together, since people are moving so much, or I'm drawing two subjects at the same time.

It always takes me up to 20 or 30 gestures to get into the zone. 120 sec. gestures.

[BlackDelphin]

Balance studies



And a couple of figures.

[IDrawOnions]

Getting there... That foreshortened hand in the last sheet was an absolute pain in the backside! Think my next Spartan Camp might consist of a lot of hand sketches. In any case, awesome effort from everyone!

@Animare - thanks for the welcome!

@BlackDelphin - Loving that first sheet of studies. Really cool approach, and it really captures the feeling of the poses. *Makes a note to try that some time*

[- nat -]

4 more- from imagination




Comment Space:

@ Viking Raider, Glad you liked the challenge. I can tell you're thinking about proportion and balance, it's a very good try for a first time. You can also increase the time limit to become more comfortable with idea. a tip: With quickies it's better to focus on the action and avoid details like hair or props. Keep up the good work

@ ashess, Thank you! Indeed agree, the leg is a touch longer and wider than the other one. Don't be too hard on yourself, you have a good sense of movement and capturing enough detail to show form/function. I'd love to see longer poses from you.

As for the longer poses, mmmm maybe you distracted with details somewhere in the middle. Because 45 minutes is a lot for the third one.

@ Flashback, love your dedication! I'll also repeat that some of the head constructions look squished, as if they don't have enough space. I might say something controversial here, and suggest that you trace the source image first then re-draw the same head from observation (no tracing) and then draw it a third time from memory (remove the ref)... Rinse and repeat. I did this after I grew frustrated with my inability to learn proportion right... The reason is because we have so much embedded information from media around us; animation or comics and their proportions become ingrained in our subconscious. The best way to break that is to learn the real deal directly.

@ Animare, welcome back and thank you!! Sorry for the late comment. Hope you enjoyed the holiday Love the change from your usual long studies. These sketches have few lines yet a lot of character. Especially the beach and cafe ones.

IN the second batch, your longer poses seem to benefit from doing the quick ones first. There is a good sense of movement in them. Great speedpaint!


@ IDrawOnions, welcome! You seem to know what you want from the quick gestures and that's great. It's all about the action and some construction, love it! A suggestion would be to pay attention to the rib cage and pelvis area as they seem to be flat in some of the figures. Concentrate on volume. Vilppu is a good resource.

@ BlackDelphin, Great job on the balance study. Some gestures could be pushed a bit more in terms of values. Maybe changing the brush would help. Nonetheless it's great work!Oh and be careful of long legs.



See you in next round, Spartans!

[ashess]

great studies nat.

but, hey, am I the only one? I cant get to the sub-forum for this and check out if there's a new thread. it keeps giving invalid forum specified.

[- nat -]

I think the url changed yet again. If you're using bookmarks ir browsing history, it wont work. You will have to back track from this thread her or from the main forum.

[IDrawOnions]

@nat - thanks for the feedback. It's funny you should mention that, I was just doing some upper torso studies last night. I always find it tricky giving the ribcage a feeling of having volume. Definitely something to work on.

@ashess - yep, I had that problem. The sub-forum URL ending has changed from /community-activities to /art-community-activities. Had to update my bookmark.

[Anthis]

Seems the forums are available again! Will be posting a new round shortly.

Also I'm aware of the outdated link of the new 'thumbnail up top'. Let me see what I can do about that.

[andartarius]

Hello everyone, been working hard at my job... been tired, but now ive got back to the gym and doing light therapy and the sun coming out again helps a lot. so im trying to get back on track
those are all 60 second, shouldnt take too long to get back what i lost since ive been drawing a little everyday to keep my skills alive. some of those pose are very crappy others are okay, i need to make them great!

[BlackDelphin]

Good to see the forum up and running again!

Animal studies.

[Anthis]

A new thread is up! Link HERE

andartarius and BlackDelphin ; Your gestures probably count toward the new thread, feel free to post them there .

Also - welcome to the new participants!