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I don't really have direct critiques on your drawings themselves, but if you're focusing on gesture drawing, I think you may want to reconsider your approach to practice. Rather than spending 7 minutes on a pose, focusing on gesture, form, and shading simultaneously, I think you'd be better off spending 1 minute on each pose and focusing only on the gesture. Of course, doing a proper completed figure drawing is important, but it's better to do focused practice on the areas you want to improve on first, and then bring those separate pieces of knowledge together to improve your final product.
As this is just practice, you don't really have to worry about making the pose "readable" or making things look particularly nice (even just incomprehensible scribbles is ok); rather, focus more on understanding the pose 3-dimensionally, feeling how the forward bend of the torso pushes more weight down on the leg that's pushed forward, causing the toes to flatten against the ground, or how the fingers, hand, and arm of a hanging model tenses to counteract the weight of the rest of the body being pulled down by gravity, and how that tension of the arm (vs. the slack in the rest of the body) twists the torso.
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CarbonCopyCat
edited this post on March 1, 2022 8:53pm.
Regarding the "stiffness" of your drawings, I feel like it mostly stems because you're not actually doing gesture drawings, but contour drawings: that is, focusing more on the individual bits and bulges of anatomy, rather than the actual pose of the figure. The actual gesture drawing can be something as simple as a stick figure as long as it carries the essential parts of the pose down, as it's what helps to form the base for the structural portions of the drawing. Don't worry about getting a good-looking drawing down when practicing gesture, that part comes later. For now, just focus on capturing the essence of the pose.
For now, I'd recommend trying to reduce the amount of lines you use when gesture drawing. You seem to be getting some idea of the gesture down right now (right arm in #3, left arm in #4, shoulder and left upper arm in #8, for example) but your gestural lines tend to use a bit too many curves, which makes things look disjointed. I've traced over some of your drawings here, with some suggestions:
Upper arm on the left is two c-curves that could be simplified into one. Neck, back, and upper leg is broken into an s-curve and a c-curve, but could be simplified into only an s-curve.
On the left, torso + right leg could be simplified into a single c-curve. Similarly on the right, where the torso + right leg could be simplified into a single s-curve.
You can also branch off portions of curves into separate ones, such as using a c-curve for the torso + left leg, but also branching off from that c-curve into another c-curve that represents the right arm.
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As for proportion, I'd say to keep it in mind but not worry too much about it for now. Trying to get good gesture while also maintaining proper proportion is difficult, and trying to focus too much on proportion without first having a proper grasp of gesture is just going to hamper your progress on both. Proportion is something better studied with the 3D structure of the body in mind, so I'd worry about that once you get there.
As for whether you should switch to a 3d shape approach, I'd say yes and no. Yes, being able to break down the human body into 3d building blocks will definitely improve your understanding of the structure of the body, which will improve your figure drawings and help provide a basis for studying proportion. However, I also wouldn't stop studying gesture, either. Gesture is the foundation of the drawing itself, and even if the forms and shading put on top of that foundation look good, a bad gesture drawing's still going to be visible through all that. So basically, if you study 3d form, make sure you bring that knowledge back into your studies of gesture, and vice versa.
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Do note that gesture drawing is something that has "no right answer", and the methods and execution are more up to the artist; what I'm doing (and suggesting) here might not be the correct way of doing things for you. I prefer keeping my gestures as simple stick figures, though I've seen very good gestures that draw simplified figures with snake-like limbs, constructing figures out of 3d shapes, etc. I'd recommend experimenting on your own and trying to find a method that works for you.
A lot of what goes into gesture drawing is pattern recognition, as in being able to recognize what and how parts of a pose connect together. Although you can pick up some tricks here or there, this mostly boils down to experience, which comes from practice, making progress painfully slow at times. I've been going at figure drawing for around a year now, and I think my gesture drawings are alright, but far from great (although, to be fair, I haven't been practicing enough).
Ultimately, as someone's who's been in the opposite situation from you (practiced figure drawing first, and is currently practicing portrait drawing), gesture requires a different mindset than the more analytical one needed for portrait drawing, and being able to understand that mindset is the hard part. If you're looking for some more information on figure drawing, you could try looking at Michael D. Mattessi's FORCE series which has some great info, but honestly, when I first read it, most of it just felt like gibberish. I can understand what he's trying to say now, but getting over that first hurdle of getting in the right mindset is something that requires time and patience. Wish I could help you out more, but good luck.
2Your main issue seems to be that the perspective of the drawing isn't particularly consistent across the head, which is probably because you simply aren't indicating enough of the structure of the head to keep the perspective consistent inside your mind, and aren't taking enough care to lay the lines out properly.
If I indicate some of the Loomis construction lines you put down on your drawing, it's clear that things aren't adding up properly. The brow, nose, and chin lines seem to be parallel, but aren't properly perpendicular to the center line (which also seems to be a bit too far to the right). The vertical line of the side plane didn't seem to be indicated in your drawing, but if we assume it's parallel to the center line (which it should be), it doesn't seem to match up with the side plane that was indicated (although I wasn't very sure as to where the side plane was meant to be).
If we use the inferred vertical line of the side plane (not looking at the center line), it matches up with the plane, but of course isn't parallel to the center line.
The inner ear seems to line up fairly well with the side plane, although it's too high (top of the ear should be under the brow line). However, if you thought the outer ear was correct during construction, you're either having issues placing the ear on the side plane, or I didn't read the side plane correctly (and therefore the perspective of the side plane is even further off from that of the front plane of the face). I wouldn't worry too much about ear placement on the basic Loomis head, though, since the side plane on an actual head isn't perfectly flat and also bulges out slightly.
When practicing, I would try to indicate the center line of the head and the nose line across the entire head, rather than just across the face, such as Loomis does in some of his drawings:
I feel like drawing these lines (as well as further lines around the head in other locations) helps me understand the structure of the head a bit better.
I would particularly make sure you get the center line of the head in around the whole head properly, as it and the brow line are are the most important lines for forming the structural basis of the head. Make sure you indicate the vertical line of the side plane properly, as well.
Regarding the visibility of the structural lines of the Loomis head when adding in the features, you can try switching your drawing instrument when transitioning from one to the other for better visibility. For example, you can use ink for the structure and pencil for the features, or black ink for the structure and red ink for the features, or pencil for the structure and colored pencil for the features, etc. etc.
However, if you're using the placement of the features as an excuse to not properly indicate the structural lines, I'd advise against doing so. Unlike the brow/nose/chin lines, the actual features aren't perfectly aligned with each other, so you'll need to keep the brow line around to better offset the brow ridge a bit forward, or the chin a bit back, etc.
A bit of a late response, but I've been studying Loomis recently as well. I'm not good enough to remotely be an expert on the method, of course, but I feel like I can at least give you a push in the right direction.
To actually answer your question, there are couple of landmarks you can use to identify the side plane:
The main one, of course, is the brow, which marks the center of the head sphere. The top front quarter of the side plane runs along the curve of the skull, where the curvature of the front/top of the skull meets the flat portion on the side. You did mention using where the forehead turns to the temples as a landmark, but this landmark is a bit further back and has a corresponding ridge on the skull. Additionally, the bottom front quarter of the side plane runs down alongside the outer corner of the eye socket, where the cheekbone transitions to the brow ridge. This landmark is also along the same ridge on the skull on the outside of the orbital rim, rather than inside the orbital rim closer to the eye. It's a bit more visible on an actual face than on a skull. For a clearer feel of where the landmarks are, I'd recommend feeling out those locations on your skull with your fingers while looking at yourself in the mirror.
The Loomis method is more of a template of the skull rather than that of the complete head, so keep that in mind. The structure of the Loomis head isn't arbitrary, but helps to map out the landmarks of the head, although the top front quarter of the side plane is the main thing to keep in mind here. Also, focus more on the *axes* of the sphere rather than dwelling on the shape of the ball and side plane too much. Proportions that are too far off aren't great, but most skulls aren't going to be perfectly spherical, nor is the side plane going to be perfectly circular. The side plane isn't perfectly flat either, nor is it a perfect 90 degrees to the front plane.
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Anyways, regarding your practice, I feel like you're spending too little time understanding the structure of the Loomis head, and are instead rushing to get the facial features in quickly. Your 1 minute drawings stand out in particular, as, although nearly all the facial features are filled in, there's practically nothing on the page regarding the structure of the loomis head itself. Your longer head drawings *are* quite good, but it's difficult to tell what parts of the head are coming from genuine understanding of the 3d forms of the head, and what parts are simply copied from the reference. Right now, ignore the shading and the smaller details, and just focus on getting the construction of the Loomis head down properly.
This means not just drawing the head, but going back and asking questions like: Where's the center line of the head? Where's the brow line? Bottom of nose? Chin? Jaw? Are the center line and brow line properly perpendicular? Is the brow line parallel to the nose line and chin? Can you draw the brow line wrapping around the entire head? What about the nose line? If you could see through the head, where would the other side of the jaw be? Can you draw it? What about the center line? Brow line? Side plane? Ear? Was everything properly symmetrical? Where does front plane of the head start and end, particularly at the chin/jaw and cheeks? How about the side plane? Back plane?
Get the ball of the head, side plane, chin/jaw, and center/brow/nose lines down, as well as a simple ear, if you'd like; don't bother with anything else for now. Draw the head, look back over the drawing (looking through a mirror or taking a photo and mirroring it can help spot mistakes), ask the questions, make corrections/redline, and *redraw* to make sure you understood where you went wrong. Ideally, you'd do your corrections immediately after, with your reference in hand, but even without the reference, it should still look like a solidly structured head.
Also, I'm going to have to greatly disagree with Torrilin here, 30s/1m is way too short to get a proper Loomis head down on paper. You're preventing yourself from properly observing/analyzing the reference and aligning it with the Loomis head, and are just rushing yourself to get anything down. Give yourself at least 5 minutes, or just pause the auto-advance entirely, and take your time to analyze and understand the 3d forms of the head. Even highly experienced artists take a lot more than 30 seconds to draw a simple Loomis head,
">as can be seen by Stan Prokopenko in one of his videos (I'm sure he's slowing down for the camera, but still).
Additionally, you mentioned that drawing these lines doesn't provide much information on an individual's head, which is partially true, but I think you're missing the point of the Loomis head, which is to serve as a 3-dimensional basis for any head drawing. As you stated earlier, when drawing from a reference, mistakes in adding smaller details make the deviations from the reference exceedingly more obvious. If you're looking at things two-dimensionally, when you start adding details, you might end up having an eye a bit too far up, or the chin a bit too far down and to the right, or the back of the head in the wrong perspective. However, if you look at things *3-dimensionally* and orient your details relative to a fixed base, these deviations in detail are greatly minimized. You might have a head that's tilting a bit too far to the left, but since all the facial features are drawn relative to the head, rather than the reference, you still end up with a proper-looking drawing. Adding the lines might be tedious, but they help reinforce your understanding of 3d structure. Once you get the basics down, you can build up that knowledge to start drawing the basic and secondary planes of the head, which can then be used to properly structure detailed human faces. Line quality is a good thing to focus on, but isn't the point here.
(Adjusting the proportions and shapes of portions of the Loomis head is also extremely important in establishing character too, and can be done without adding any extra details. See the video linked above.)
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Sorry about the extremely long post, but hopefully this provides some insight for your next steps regarding this.
Some extra comments:
- Not being able to draw these details without a reference is normal. You learn these things over time with practice, but using reference properly is still extremely important as an artist.
- If possible, I'd recommend not using the brush you seem to be drawing with for this kind of practice. Thinner lines mean you need to be more exact with your line placement, which forces you to be less vague as to how things are oriented and structured. Something erasable like pencil/charcoal would probably be the best, since correcting mistakes is important, but if you only feel comfortable using your brush, then stay with that.
- For studying this topic, I *highly* recommend reading Loomis's "Drawing the Head and Hands" directly. Could be personal preference, but I find that his book best describes what to specifically focus on when using this method (it is his method, after all).
- Drawing from reference photos is important for learning how the Loomis head landmarks align with those of a non-Loomis head, so that's what I recommend. However, if you need help structuring the Loomis head itself, you look up the Loomis head (or facial planes) on a site like Sketchfab to see recreations in 3d.
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I was in your position not too long ago (basically a complete beginner ~10-11 months ago, self studied), so I definitely know where you're coming from. I'm far from the greatest artist myself, but hopefully some of this advice helps you out. Mind, I'm not privy to the inner machinations of your mind, so you may already be aware of a good amount of this.
Personally, the most important thing you should be working on is getting an internal sense/feeling of 3d space, depth, and perspective. Both form and shading help to build a sense of 3-dimensionality, which both heavily rely on your own internal sense of 3d space. Ultimately, the depth of your drawings is limited by your own understanding of it, and while techniques like foreshortening help establish this depth to the viewer, those techniques (at least in my experience) should come intuitively as you develop your understanding of 3d space.
Your problem with drawing arms and legs seems to stem from this (incorrect perspective, lack of foreshortening, etc.), although these issues are also noticeable in other areas, like the torso; you seem to be focusing more on 2D contour rather than 3D form (particularly on the torso on the top right). You have started to implement some cross contours in areas like the upper thigh, which is good (shows that you're starting to understand 3D form), but that application also has to extend further down the limbs, as well as in areas of the torso.
Not sure if you've reached it yet, but the beginning of Lesson 2 of Drawabox elaborates on "thinking in 3D"; that is, not just mimicking 3-dimensionality with 2D shapes, but actually convincing yourself that what you're putting down on the page is physically 3D. It may feel weird to think that way at first, but I've found that it definitely helps out.
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Here's a few exercises that might help you out:
1. Do a page or two of 30s gestures with curvy stick figures (don't consider contour at all). Draw your gestural curves while being aware of how parts of those curves are aligned in 3d space (up, down, left, right, but also forwards and backwards); don't say that a line "goes down and to the right on the page," but instead that the line "comes forward in space while tilting toward your right." For reinforcement, add contour lines along areas of the gesture (e.g. near the joints). This helps build up experience with thinking in 3D without the time requirement of having to draw out the torso, limbs, etc.
When doing this (and longer drawings), it's important to get an idea of the perspective of the scene first (eye line, camera angle, etc.), as perspective influences how 3D forms act. Drawabox should have covered this well in lesson 1, but I've found Thomas Romain's lessons on this are also very helpful.
2. Practice Proko's bean, robo-bean, and mannequinization (3d blockouts, all iterations of the same concept). They build on the structural elements that are necessarily to consider for a completed figure drawing, and abbreviated versions of them participate in pretty much any figure drawing. Right now, instead of including finer details and shading in your longer drawings, spend that time building up the structure of the body with cross-contours. Having a proper understanding of the figure is much more important than having it look pretty.
3. Exaggerate foreshortening, and look for images with high foreshortening. Although suddenly increasing the difficulty may seem counterintuitive, I've found that cases of high foreshortening actually make things easier, as they clearly lay out how that foreshortening is accomplished.
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Getting a grasp of 3D form will likely take a while, so don't be worried if you end up struggling with it. Learning to draw isn't just about improving line quality, learning anatomical details, etc., but also about re-learning how to observe and think (although it's more "feeling" rather than "thinking"). Just keep practicing, and you'll get there.
Also, I greatly recommend using the full page for your longer drawings. Making your drawings larger really helps with line quality.
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CarbonCopyCat
edited this post on April 19, 2021 12:13am.