February 11, 2011

• What I know about Drawing: From top to toe.

  

  I’ve loved drawing since I was very young, but despite enjoying it I’ve not actually spent all that much time learning it until just recently. I am still learning and have no great skill as yet but there are a few things that I’ve either learned my self or picked up from people, the internet and books that are useful to know if you fancy teaching yourself to draw.

  First and foremost go with something that inspires you. I really struggle if I’m not fired up by the concept I’m drawing, so find out what you like to draw and what concept seed gets you excited and then spend sometime visualising what your going to draw.
  Personally I like drawing characters and especially caricatures or an image that takes someone or something else’s idea and personality and creates something new from a mix of outside influences. And when I’ve settle on the idea I’ll spend a day or a few mins before drawing really planning out the body position and the emotion/theme I’d like to capture.

  Then (and this is rather obvious but still) use a pencil and make sure you have an eraser. Most important of all don’t feel like you can’t edit what you’ve drawn, it took me a while to feel confident enough that I could do something better to allow me to really use an eraser again and again until you get it to look good and feel right, and also it’s okay to have a really messy sketch to begin with you can always erase (as long as you’ve not pressed too hard) and the extra graphite on the paper makes nice shading.

  Also very important depending on your preferred subject learn from the world. I like drawing people (can’t draw landscapes to save my life) so I spend my time examining people in TV shows or in RL see how they look from different angles, checking proportions and body part relationships.
  Also use photos or images to practice from, I still find it amazing but just having an image to check back to really helps, you can suddenly draw exactly what your seeing and all the lines fit it’s very confidence inspiring. Again for people you can just search google for nude photography or any image you need really.

  There are some illustrations to go with this section check the image
  Now to the actual technical details I’ve thus far learned: (this is pretty basic drawing book sort of info but hey)
  The head; Start with a circle then depending on what angle you want the face to be draw a line from the top to just outside of the bottom, then another line across the middle of the circle but going horizontally (this is the eye line) onto this line (and I just recently learned apparently there should be one eyes width between eyes and one half eyes width to the side of the head) draw your eyes, eyes can be tricky and I’m not perfect at them yet but just play about and look at reality for examples.
  The eye line should help you keep them level with each other.

  After the eyes add a nose onto the middle line and you can add an ear or two depending on angle, (the top of the ear is level with the eyes)

  Also once the eyes are in you can chisel out some of the head and skull shape, the little dip near the eye, cheek bones and jaw line, use the line that protrudes below the circle to create the chin. Edit the skull a lot until it fits.

  Then you can add a mouth, I’m pretty rubbish at mouths so far so I can’t really tell you anything apart from look online. You can also erase the guide lines and add a small circle inside the eyes with a central dot (try to make these mimic each other to avoid crosseyes)

  Finally on the head add hair, and I find it best to just let hair grow, as in just kind of keep adding layers until it looks good for the character, again don’t hesitate to erase.

  Proportions and body:    
  In this section we find out the value of boobs
  The average human can be measured into 7 to 8 heads. So take the size of your head and count it and 7 others down and you’ve got the height of a human, this is very handy to remember.
  And It helps place all other major features, counting the actual head the breast or more accurately the nipples are one two heads down, three and three quarters down you’ll find the crotch and you can usually have legs as long as the body and head combined.

  What I do is draw the head then using my finger nails just count down eight heads marking the key locations like breast, belly button, groin and feet. Then I begin drawing or sketching the rough body shape.

  And a quick note about boobs, they are pretty tricky but fortunately we have a sort of built in pattern recognition with regards human body shape and when you get them too high or too low it just looks weird, as long as you can follow the heads rule it usually works good and once you’ve got the breast done it helps no end with arms and chest and can also inform your body perspective.
  (I will admit the internet dose have some pretty good resources when it comes to naked photos…hey at least I was being creative )

  When it comes to body shapes well we all know the differences, female is an hourglass and male more triangular or even straight, just play about with it and when it starts to look ‘right’ go with it.
  Hands are a nightmare for me I suck at them, but what little I do know is…first use your own hands or body as a model, it really helps for getting thumbs on the right way lol. Also our hands are a lot bigger than we think, cover your face with your hand and you’ll see that they are actually bigger than I usually imagine them.

  Legs and arms:
  Legs I’m getting better at after a friendly Russian gave me a tip that you can see illustrated, one bit oval for the thigh then a small circle for the knee and a smaller oval for the calf, connect them all up and fill in the gaps. Different perspectives are tricky but fun, the leg is really quite beautiful in it’s architecture so go look at some and copy reality.
  Arms all depend on position and perspective, I’m only average at them so far but again you can get the feel of them, just get the elbow in the middle and then make sure you taper the forearm making it wide at the elbow and really wuite thin at the wrist.

  Feet are really tricky but super hero comics and animes taught me that they can look good if you just have a round bit at the heel, then hourglass in around the middle and end it with a pointy bit, so far my feet are pretty basic unless I get lucky but as illustrated the superhero socky foot is very handy to learn from.

  And finally Clothes:
  Yes clothes come last, I find it’s much easier to draw a character naked first, (you don’t have to get anatomical unless you really want to hehe) get the body shape and perspective right and then start adding the clothes, it gives you much more freedom to try to add the proper effect of cloth and rumples, crinkles etc.
  Once again you have to have the confidence to completely erase the great body you just drew but the resultant clothing will look much more ‘real’

  I have loads more to learn but more and more I’m really proud of my drawings and often surprised at how accurate to my mind and even to reality they are becoming.
  Best tip just play around and do something that your really enjoying and the rest will come naturally.

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  If there are any proper artists or even other amateurs who also have tips suggestions or techniques I’d love to hear them.   

   

  • 8:21 am
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