How to draw everything: difficulty with contour drawing
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Hello im currently doing the "how to draw everything" basics course.
ive gone through the drawing exercises section and tried the upside down drawinghttps://gyazo.com/c745dcf082c16ccbffef44aeba232ec4 (i drew the shoe on the bottom right, just turned it upwards so its easier to look at)
i think it looks decent?but when i try contour drawing/drawing upright, I'm much more slower and its really difficult to create the correct lines and it just looks off always when i draw, and i end up spending a long time trying to do just one or even a few parts of the drawing over and over again.
https://gyazo.com/a6a6587907f39253db2732c0c096b967
not sure if i havent practiced enough or is there something else wrong with how im approaching this? any help would be much appriciated!
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Hello! Disclaimer: I'm pretty darn new to SVS and haven't received any formal training but...
From your second image, my guess would be that you're drawing with your brain more than your eyes. The solution that I've found works best is to look up at the image a whole lot more and make sure that you are drawing the lines and shapes that you actually see instead of a symbol of the object that you're looking at. The lesson on drawing Skullchaser helps with that a lot I think as you learn to dissociate the character and view it more as lines, spacing, and proportions. I hope that is succinct and clear enough, let me know if you need more clarification.
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@Tristan-Lapetz sorry i dunno if i replied correctly to your post (still new to this website so ill post it again) but hey thanks for the reply! yeah i did do that exercise of drawing skullchaser (upside down one) I just didnt save it unfortunely so i didnt have it as an example, but i tried it out with different pictures i found online instead. you think i probably just need to practice that a bit more?
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I’m in the middle of that course, too. More doing it as a completist and wanting to have all SVS courses under my belt. IMO, The drawing is not supposed to be perfect. Even in Jake’s demo he screws up vent on side. It’s more about looking and making strong line choices, not a photo realistic drawing. Just draw it best you can and move on.
Specifically, look at shapes, don’t think about object design. Your ellipses/ovals are turning to circles for one example. Good luck!
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@bob-smith I don't think that you need to practice the Skullchaser demo more but I do think that applying the concept of that lesson to the lesson you are currently asking about would help a lot. In particular, I mean drawing what you see instead of what you think you see. For instance, when you see the circular front end on that item at an angle, it looks like an ellipse so make sure to draw that ellipse. A mistake a lot of people make is that they see what they know is a circle in real life and draw it as a circle on the page instead of how it appears (in this case, as an ellipse.) Sorry if I over explained that... Anyways, like Nico said, these aren't meant to be perfect, they're meant to teach you the concept so that you can apply it in your other works and practices.
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One thing that could help with the second picture you posted is to make your drawing space the same format as the reference photo - so if the reference is square then make your drawing space square.
Then it can be easier to treat what you're seeing as shapes and lines instead of the 3D objects your brain thinks it knows how to draw without looking.
Use the edge of the page/drawing space as a guide when you're drawing a line - e.g. the wire comes into the scene about a 1/3 along the top edge then goes across the top left corner and gets closest to the left edge about 1/4 of the way down.
Then once you have part of the wire drawn in you can use that to guide where some other parts go and build it up like that. You can start wherever seems to make the most sense or is easiest to place.
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@Tristan-Lapetz its no problem you explained it pretty well! I do try and get my mind to think more about shapes and lines but my hand wont listen to me if that makes sense? mabye im not taking the "draw what you see instead of what you think you see" literally enough? i can see and look at a shape and think "yes im currently looking at an ellipse" but my hand will keep drawing a circle over and over again so its pretty frustrating to erase and redo it untill it looks right.
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@NicolaSchofield hey thanks for the reply! i'll try to do that next time instead of referencing it off to the side and hopefully it helps
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@Nico-Ecenarro hey nico thanks for the reply! I do try my best to think about the shapes but i always end up drawing what my brain says instead, i guess i just need to focus a bit more?
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@bob-smith What helps me is to look at the reference photo way more than I think I need to and to only make small strokes before I look back at the reference. That should help some?
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@Tristan-Lapetz sorry for the late reply but thanks I'll try that and hopefully it helps
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@Tristan-Lapetz @bob-smith this is what I was going to say. Keep in mind that the brain wants to simply and break things down into recognizable shapes. Observational drawing is all about learning to push against those instinctual urges and seeing the shapes for how they truly appear to the eye.