New to gesturing and would like advice

I feel like I don't understand how to even tackle gesturing. I watched Proko's video on gesturing and Alphonso Dunn's as well, but I still am at a loss. I've tried gesturing in the past and I got discouraged because of how bad I was, but I realize that getting discouraged because of my current skill is a bad mentality.

Sidenote: I could probably find those gestures as well if it would help with getting advice.

https://imgur.com/a/d8Tv7Fz

I think you have a good idea of it, gestures is about identifying the main movement of the figure, and how all the parts of the figure emphasize or play into this main movement. You are placing the action line in your figures which is key, just try focusing on how all the parts of the body flow into the action line you created.

Hi. I did proko, and my drawings looked liked yours. Since then, I moved on to drawingForce.com. They have a method on how to draw the gesture that is conected to the way the body distribute its force to reach a equilibrium. you should try.

I'll give these both a shot, thanks for the help!

I love those quick poses, HelpMeFriends, I think you've really gotten the message of that exercise. Quick sketching is not about how beautiful your sketch is, it's how fast you can put it out with as few lines as possible.

If I was to give you 2 suggestions, then they would be:

1- Work more from your shoulder and lesser from your wrist.

2- could you please do 30 minutes of 30 second life drawings from here and the rest of the Web?

The reasons why is because: a) you'll not be able to spend as much time on the details, still, you can get to be more faster and economic with your line quality. b) Your gestural poses will become even more funnier and most caricatured in motion.

I hope they've been completely and totally propitious.

Hi, i would recommend you to try out some other tools to work with. Try using charcoal and sharpen it correct way (doing it with sandpaper), you can achive better line quality. You should also try all sorts of grips, they will help you achieve a lot of diffrent line quality. Spend more time on realising what is comfortable for you, bigger format of paper or smaller. Also i would recommend that you work from your shoulder not from wrist that will help to get more action in to those drawings!

Have a nice day!

You are doing great, there is form there and the gestures show through. It just takes consistency over time and you will steadily feel more comfortable with the challenge gesture drawing brings and you will get the hunger to push through the suck.

I recommend the website drawabox.com, not as a replacement for here, but for good exercises and his comic series is great too, and how we can all relate to that feeling of "eurgh, this sucks!" but how it is all part of the journey.

Just think of it as getting the rough sludge out, the more you do. The way I see it, the more I make and notice my mistakes, the more I am improving. So you're right, don't be discouraged by your current mindset, just keep watching others, challenge yourself and you will consciously/subconsciously smooth out the rough edges sooner than you may think.

Keep up the good fight!

Something I noticed from all your replies was draw from my shoulder, and I'm definitely not doing that. Davidj XIII mentioned drawabox, which im currently doing the box challenge for (#106/250), but I didn't really apply what I was learning there to an exercise like gesture drawing. One of the main things drilled into you when doing DAB is about shoulder movement, but for some reason I was only applying that within DAB rather than using it as a resource outside of it.

I will make sure I implement it in my next session, thanks for helping me realize my mistake :)

so what I see you are struggling with the most my friend is that you are trying scratch out your lines rather drawing them in one stroke. I suggest try drawing your lines using your shoulder rather then your elbow or wrist. It will allow you to make longer strokes. Also if you are new at it. Just start by focusing on the motion of the legs, arms, and head. After you get that down add the rib cage and then start addin in some more detail.

So, I think you are being a bit too hard on yourself. You gestures are what I would expect from someone learning and they aren't that bad

frustration with your progress is something we all face and you will always have something you want to be better at.

I would say just keep trying, keep doing, your work isn't bad at all.

Also become better at controlling the pencil, do circles, lines, boxes all freehand and slow with an intention on being precise

hold the pencil loose and draw from the shoulder

also, I haven't seen proko's gesture videos but I learned from glen vilpu videos, they are kind of old but its a traditional old school class setting where you are watching glen draw. You can see the way he holds the pencil and how he draws from the shoulder which was really beneficial to me. His body mechanics of how he laid his lines down helped a lot!

One of his lessons was just focusing on a flower sack or a kind of oval water ballon type of scenario. Imagine you have a squishy oval typ sphere and imagine how it would look if you put a gentle twist in it. Then lay down a center line of action and then gently frame the shape with curves to fill out the volume; making sure you overlap where the forms are laying in front of each other.

Hope this helps and keep drawing