Peechiz magical posedump

Sir Peechizworth

"Tell us what your goals as an artist are."

To learn to draw so that I don't fail my computer animation class.

"Are you a hobbyist looking to learn to draw landscapes for fun?"

No, I'm a filmmaker/photographer/MFA student tired of not being able to draw for beans.

"How long have you been practicing this form of art?"

A week?

"Who are some artists or styles that you admire who you strive to be like in your own work?"

idk, people better than me (everyone)



I've been trying to hit up Posemaniacs.com and do 30sec gestures everyday, with an occasional no-time-limit sketch. Here are my results. Feel free to tell me to DIAF.

Scosglen

Personally, I think posemaniacs is a poor resources for beginners, and maybe even a poor resource in general. The gestures are too wooden and unnatural, the muscle attachments and the way they stretch and compress are not accurate.

You are interested in the figure, which is good. If you can proficiently learn the figure, you will have learned a great deal about drawing along the way.

If you're a student, there's a good chance you have access to a regular "open" figure drawing session at your school, my suggestion is to investigate it, or other opportunities to study from life, while supplementing yourself with other observational studies and books.

Sir Peechizworth

Any posey sorts of books you could recommend for me to check out from the Library? I'm in Grad Skool, so I'm not sure how easy it would be for me to sign up for an undergrad drawing class.

Scosglen

I do not mean a drawing class, I mean there is a good chance your school has an open to the public figure drawing co-op run by the Arts department, and if not, I'm sure you would be able to find other opportunities around a city like Boston. The way most of those work is they are run weekly and you pay a few dollars to sit in while the model poses for a few hours. Generally they are completely self-directed and the model poses based on consensus of the attendees.

Books are for theory, not so much actual study. They lay out general rules for the canon of the human body, which is important to know for helping you identify mistakes in your drawings when you do not yet posses an intuitive sense for what looks correct. It's important to marry study from books with study from life, or the book information will never sink in or make sense.

Two of the better books to start with are Figure Drawing for all it's Worth by Andrew Loomis, and Bridgman's Complete Guide to Drawing from Life.

The way to study these books is to read the text and then try to reproduce as best you can the relevant illustrations as you go. The text in Loomis is worth reading and is mostly relevant despite being 50 years old. The text in Bridgman was cobbled together from his personal notes posthumously and most people consider it largely indecipherable, but you can still copy the plates. Bridgman is good to study for understanding structure, while Loomis is good for a more holistic approach as he goes from basic figure framework through finished value renderings.

These books are not easy to find. You're welcome to try to hunt them down, but I suggest just downloading PDFs of them.

Loomis can be found here, along with 3 of his other books which are also worth reading, http://iseenothing.com/files/artbooks/, you may have to do some googling to find a mirror of Bridgman.

Sir Peechizworth

cool, thanks