Let's do How to Draw Gesture together (nudity)
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Hello @SketchyArtish @Annemieke @Kat @therealcpg @fertyn @Coley @yeungtina @JennyJones @Buddy-Skelton @cbrocke @QTariq
and any others that would like to join in.The idea is take a class “together” (roughly at the same time), post your goals and your progress here. Inspire yourself, inspire others.
The class is “How to Draw Gesture”—the included-with-subscription portion of the Figure Drawing Class by Stan Prokopenko.I’m going to start watching the class this weekend (March 16th) with goal of finishing the first section by Monday. (your schedule can vary)
For me-I get much more pleasure and feel like I “level up” (thanks @Jake-Parker ) by thinking ahead with how I might use my own work or personal projects to apply the new concepts to.
I’ve got a very preliminary start on a 6 page comic story. I have 4 characters, 2 settings and a thin plot that needs lots of work.
Gestures that I need for my characters include:
- Woman standing with her arms folded, really annoyed
- Tormenting “jock” joking with his buds, looking snide
- Little fine hand movements (it’s a character tell)
- The hero imagining that he’s rescuing the woman
- Grandfather sweet-talking the woman to make him more things
Are these gestures or “expressions”? Hmm, good question. I think they’ll help me think about the course content and how I can apply it.
I’ll be curious to hear how others are approaching the class.
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Oh goodie. I am in and will start this weekend too. I will think about and post goals later this evening. Just wanted to chime in and say I’m taking the plunge.
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I've already done a bunch of Stan's courses, but I'm in! Will be nice to have feedback.
If it's not included here, you can get some figure models (warning: contains nude models) by registering for a free account on Proko.com. I also use a site that displays random figure poses on a timer: https://line-of-action.com/
Really good for practicing.
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Perfect timing, I’m just wrapping up watching another class. Need to come up with a goal for gesture drawing class now. I don’t have a project, though, so maybe it will be a simple goal like “draw 50” something. Or maybe y’all will spark a goal in me, watching what you do!
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i will join in. I don't have as organized of a plan as @Susan-Marks!
that's awesome.. Has me thinking and jotting down a few ideas. I am new to illustration and am fumbling around a little in my approach, ideas, style etc so I think coming up with some written goals would be good.
i started the gesture course a few weeks ago but will start the video over from the beginning, write a few goals/objectives and get a sketchbook/binder for my work. It will be fun to do it with some others at the same time -
I'm in too. I've seen some of Proko's gesture videos on YouTube but will take the course from the start. I'm also pretty new with drawing and tend to struggle with figure in some cases.
Will this be the official thread for all updates and progress?
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@Coley believe me, I’m not usually this organized!
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@therealcpg Yes, let’s use this thread to post ideas, progress and feedback.
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@Susan-Marks lol! I have brief moments of organization in one or two things several times a year and that's it, ha ha! I actually did go out and buy a little sketchbook today for this class so things are looking good
I think I'll write a daily goal of how many gestures to do or something like that...... -
@coley that sounds like a good goal! I think maybe I'll have a more clear idea of what I want to accomplish once I start watching the class, but at the least I think I might make mine like yours. Maybe not per day, but maybe a total.
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I'm in! I don't have a specific goal, other than that I want to cut loose from my photorealistic style of drawing (which means drawing square-inch by square-inch). I hope this class will help me get a more quick, sketchy basis to start illustrations. Mind you, I'm an absolute beginner, I'm just finishing up " how to draw everything" from Jake Parker (great class by the way!).
I'll start this weekend as wel. -
@Kat @Susan-Marks @Annemieke and anyone else
today my goal is minumum of 30 minutes spent on practicing after watching the first video. 2-3 minutes on each sketch. starting now in a few minutes! He had emphasized taking time to practice a bunch of sketches after watching the first video before going on. So I will do maybe 3 days of taking 30 minutes each day just doing this before going on. Will post later today on how it went! -
@Annemieke I have the same goal. I'm painfully slow and tied to reference and have let my drawing skills slide the last few years while I figured out my painting skills. This class should be a big help!
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OK, my first goal is 20-30 very quick sketches per practice session, trying to capture the movement and not make such stiff poses. I need to learn to be OK drawing rough and messy.
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Note to anyone in charge: It would be nice if we had a spoiler tag because figure drawing does typically involve a lot of nudity, which I've never seen on this forum. I noticed there is a plugin available for this forum software here: https://community.nodebb.org/topic/7078/nodebb-plugin-ns-spoiler-ns-spoiler
If this is deemed inappropriate please feel free to delete my post and let us know what to do.
With that out of the way: I know it can be hard to post these types of things since they will be far from perfect. I'll be happy to get the ball rolling because this allows me a chance to live up to the username!
I did an hour today. Broke it into three 20 minute sessions at 1 , 2 , and 5 minutes per drawing. I used photos from Proko (you can join the mailing list at Proko.com for a free pack) and the ones included on line-of-action.com. With Line of Action you can have the photos auto load at the desired interval, and if you have membership (I was a backer of LOA awhile back and have membership for a year) can upload your own photos, so I've got Proko's pack in there too.
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@SketchyArtish The are great! I especially like the 1 minute drawings. Unbelievable what you can do in just one minute... I'll be doing mine later this morning. My goal is to do two sessions today.
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@SketchyArtish wow, good job! I only did three minute sketches. I didn't know about line of action, a good resource to check out, thanks '
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@SketchyArtish Good question on the nudity issue. I've retitled the thread to include "nudity" in the subject.
And on that note, I edited the image I'm about to submit. I had included the reference photo, but I hope for my sketch to convey the gesture. This would make the reference photo (it's nudity and copyright issues aside) not be necessary. We'll see.I'm impressed with how many of you are recording the time you're taking for the gesture drawings.
I did the following 4 in maybe about 20 minutes. I'm inspired by @Annemieke goals of being less photorealistic. I hide there, too!
I like your daily goals-I'll copy you and go for 3 gestures/day. (See-I told you that YOU would inspire ME!)
@Kat you're going for 20-30 per session-I'll be curious to see my stamina! I can see that @SketchyArtish drawings are much simpler (good) perhaps because of the time limit. Maybe the skill improves with quicker sketches. I'll see.I'm curious to watch the 2nd video-targeting tomorrow (Monday) for that.
Thanks for playing along.
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Thanks for the kind words! I should note that gesture drawings are something I've practiced a bit. IMO, the time limit is key to learning good gesture. What's important is the movement and feel of the pose, not the likeness to an individual. The faster speed forces you to give up the details up front. You can add those later.
When starting I would highly recommend 2 types of sessions:
- 30 seconds per pose. Use lines, but like Proko mentioned in the first lesson they should be flowing, not stick figures. It's all about capturing that feel. I had to work my way up to getting contours in with a 1 minute session.
- 2 minutes per pose, with a twist. Take 2 minutes to capture the pose, but use as few lines as possible. Spend 80%+ of your time just looking and thinking about the absolute most simple way to convey the message. Can you capture a pose in 3 lines or fewer?
Definitely give the shorter sessions a shot. Doing those 2 exercises really helped me start putting the gesture before the details.
Also note that I did these larger and resized them to present them here. I set up enough layers to do about 2 - 4 per page and label the times before starting. Then when finished I merge them into the smaller versions for posting. If you're using paper try not to be cheap. The bigger the drawing the better your flow will be generally.
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Here's all that I was able to accomplish today. Not much because of constant interruptions, so hopefully I can do more later. I watched only the first video, then set quickposes.com to 60-second poses. I tend to focus too much on details right away, so I was using a pencil on it's side, trying to get just a thick line. Second page I quit doing that because I didn't like how things were looking like just a big smudge.
