September 7, 2024
© 2024 ZayvieDone as part of a 30 minute class.
My current goal is: Improve at correctly capturing the overall proportions of the human form
Still working on proportions. At about 8 minutes in I realized the legs were way too small so I erased them and tried again. I think I got closer to the mark but did not quite hit it.
Also hands in general are a work in progress but not something I'm spending a ton of time focusing on right now.
Mushkrat
Hey there. Love your bold lines. Are you mannequinizing the subject with an under drawing beforehand? Like a fancy stick figure? It's a good quick way to figure out what size things should roughly be. Figure out where all the joints and masses are with dots, circles, and lines and then start draw over top of that with the contour lines.
Zaccrim
I actually think your proportions are fairly good! Nothing looks too long or too short!
I think the main thing you need to work on is form! It might appear that the proportions are off, but I think they appear that way because of the lack of form being protrayed in the example.
Doing exercises like drawing different 3d simple ojbects in perspective can really help with getting a sense for form when then trying to tackle anatomy!
Hey Zayvie,
Your proportions look really good for where you are in your art journey. Since you mentioned you'd like to improve, I have a few suggestions.
In my opinion, the reason you’re struggling with proportions is that your depiction of three-dimensional objects on the page is still somewhat vague. It’s like you’re trying to learn step two before mastering step one, if that makes sense.
Here are two aspects I’d focus on to help with this:
Line Quality: Your lines are quite scribbly, which is a common issue for beginners. It seems intuitive to incorporate all the little shapes of the human body while carefully inching toward the correct proportions. However, this approach often leads to something that’s close, but not clear, and it makes it harder to see what’s right or wrong (and also tends to look a little messy). Instead, try using simple, clean lines to define the larger shapes. Focus on C-curves, S-curves, and straight lines. This will help you better identify what’s working and what isn’t.
Construction: In addition to the unclear lines, the three-dimensional mass of the body parts isn’t properly defined in space. For example, it’s hard to tell whether the person you drew is touching their face with their left hand or if their hand is pressed against the wall. This makes it difficult to assess whether the proportions (or their foreshortening) are correct. I’ve done a quick sketch to illustrate this idea more clearly: https://imgur.com/lG6gJsd Once you have this down you can move on to round out these shapes again to make them look more natural. But you need to be comfortable with handling the primitives first.
A great crash course that could really help you is the website drawabox.com. If you’re serious about leveling up your skills, I’d recommend going through their lessons—they can be a challenge sometimes but worked wonders for me.
Hope this helps! Keep up the great work, and happy drawing!
Thank you so much for this comment. I definitely am gonna do the DrawaBox lessons, and I've actually (despite not having started them yet) recommended them to my fiancé as well. He's mentioned before that he wants to start drawing but he just doesn't know where to start and I figure DrawaBox is as good of a place as any.