Introduction to Gesture - working through the assignments
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I'm halfway through the first assignment for the Introduction to Gesture now. I know I'm spending too much time on each one, but hopefully I'll get quicker. I guess I need to exaggerate more too.
Initially, I started by using a website to randomly generate 20 verbs and 20 emotions, then tried to think of a situation where I'd find that, and looked for a pose in the references or elsewhere. But that takes ages, scrolling through pictures. Maybe I should look at the poses and try to identify an emotion from that? I find that hard as well.
A few I just drew when I saw something interesting on TV.
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I had a look at what other people did, and realized these were meant to be sketchier and quicker. I am way more comfortable doing that on paper (I was doing it in Procreate, where I tend to second-guess and erase everything). So I did the rest just quickly
on paper. -
@lucy_gow these are really good. I am also doing the gesture pose course. I had the same problem too, trying to work out the emotion. In the the end I would use 3 emotions happy, scared or sad to do the assignment.
I like the drawings on paper, a lot more, they look a lot looser than the ones on procreate. I have the same problem too, where i will second guess myself when using an art app. -
I think you’re on the right track, but I would try to push your curves more, so that there’s move movement to your gestures. Like waiting in exhausted sadness, I could slump his shoulders forward, curve his back forwards and drop his head, and really relax his arms, exhaustion would come with less muscle support.
I love your girl who is daring blissfully, but I don’t get the daring. I get more of a running, or dancing, or skipping… shes full of movement and joy though.
Keep at it!
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@robbery Thank you! I like the paper ones better too. I'm up to the Bean and Noodle exercise now, which is really fun, and I think this course will really help me make things simpler and looser, even in Procreate.
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@AngelinaKizz Thank you. Yes, I can see that the exhausted sadness is too stiff and I will try to curve things more.
With the "daring", it was probably too tricky a verb (I randomly generated them). I didn't know what to draw and then I was watching a show We Are the Champions on Netflix about Flo Early running down a hill chasing cheese and I thought that was daring, so I paused it and tried to copy her pose. -
@lucy_gow
A good alternative, is to find a pose you like, and then figure out how you could push the pose in at least 3 ways. Have you taken the gesture class? She explains pushing the gestures from the first reference image into new gestures capturing more emotion and dynamism. -
@AngelinaKizz I'm doing it now (not that far in yet).
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Assignment 2: People as Shapes.
I've always struggled to simplify people into shapes. But hopefully I'm getting better at it with this class. I really liked the "bean and noodle" exercise, so when I was stuck I just made a kind of bean of the shape. Thank you!
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@lucy_gow One thing to look at is shapes where the body is bigger or rounder. What I see is you give one girl a ball body, but the limbs are the same size, and thin, as on your other bodies. Look at Luisa from Encanto. She’s big, rounded squares. Very sculptural. Her limbs have girth from her muscles. Her neck is thick,but she has narrow waist and hips.
Félix has a big barrel chest. Look at the size of the neck and limbs. Bruno is a narrow rectangle with limbs to match.
Study people, their shapes. You know how they break people down into pear shapes, weight mainly below the waist. Apples can have huge round bellies, but smaller, flat butts. hourglasses are a double triangle, or overlapping circles where they’re big on top and bottom, but have the same narrow, hourglass waist. Some people are long or short waisted.
This will help you see what to start with and then have fun and exaggerate them.
Edit: thought I’d add - it doesn’t mean larger shapes can’t have thin limbs. It was more that I wasn’t seeing any variation in what you were doing. have fun and try again. Practice shapes every day.
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@crispalomino Thanks so much for your advice! I was a bit confused about whether the shapes were meant to be based on the actual shapes of people or not.
I tried drawing some more round figures. They're still a work in progress, but I'll keep practicing.
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Looking through the work you've posted, something I think you may benefit from is playing more with the placement of the shoulders as well placement of the neck and head. Shoulder placement in relation to the head/neck can really say a lot about a pose. Shoulders down, pushed back, head and neck forward can really show aggressiveness. If you keep the head and neck the same, but then pull the shoulders forward, it can say an entirely different message. Shoulders pulled forward, then raise either up and down, could further change to mood of the pose. What about one shoulder up, with a head looking over it, chin obscured? I think you successfully played with placement of the shoulders on the first image you posted with the kid on the bike. I think you could explore even further and see how it can effect some of your poses.
Website: www.tessawrathall.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/tessawrathall_art/
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@TessaW That's a really interesting point. I hadn't been thinking about shoulders at all. But now I'm paying more attention to them and will try playing with that and the neck/head more. Thank you!
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I'm just posting the rest of my "Assignment 2". I think I'm getting more confident at gesture drawing now, so I tried using my iPad again – then I could just draw the shape in color and then go over it.
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@lucy_gow Great job! It definitely shows that you are getting more confident. This latest batch is looking more expressive and natural.
Website: www.tessawrathall.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/tessawrathall_art/
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@TessaW Thank you.
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Assignment 3: wait and weighting (half). This is an interesting assignment, but it's hard to do all at once. I'm kind of halfway through it. I'll keep observing when I see people waiting and come back to finish it. So far all I've noticed is that people try to take the weight off their feet if they have to stand waiting for ages. I've maybe gone backwards a bit because there's always so much to think about.
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Just keeping on with the course.
I'm up to the hands and feet now. 
I work as a substitute teacher, and also drew some hands of students while they were doing a math test this week.
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Lots of heads.
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Finished (sort of). This is my attempt for the last assignment on interactions. I struggled a bit and didn't do that great a job. Also, I tried out lots of Procreate pens trying to find one that was good for expressive sketching. I found Inka was pretty good.
I hope you don't mind me sharing all my assignments here. It helps me make sure I actually do them. Thank you! I'll keep sketching.ETA: actually, I just saw there's one more assignment.
