Log

2021-07-13 11:09

Started drawing a female figure from a magazine as a reference (Last Sunday).
Intended to do a quick croquis and move on, but the simple sillouette and gesture made me want to add more details
- Normally people advise you to move on after a quick capture of the gesture and motion of a figure.
- Not sure how I feel about this advice.
  - Sure, if you want to internalize drawing human figure fast, I think this makes sense. You are deliberately decoupling what outline of the image you are seeing and capturing the essential part of the reference.
  - But I am approaching human figure drawing from a different perspective:
    - I do want to get better at drawing human figures BUT my primary interest is to find something out there, develop a skill to replicate that in a believable manner, and then adding my own spin to it.
- At some point I would need to grind out the deliberate practices to go past a plateauing progression, but for now I want this to be a fun thing to do, something that I want to wake up for.

Progress as of 2021-07-11

Didn't have much time yesterday, but I managed to refine the lines and fix some of the parts that I wasn't happy with.
- The shoe was drawn a bit out of perspective and wonky. the bottom of the left shoe was a bit crooked so that was fixed. surprisingly hard.
  - I should do a study of drawing various style of shoes later.
  - I wanted the line work to be cleaner, but with a tiny bit of bleed. Adjusted the brush to be slightly more jagged than the typical hard round brush and went over the clean pass once again.
  - Shirt detail and the obstructed part of the torso (right arm) is somewhere I want to make visible than right now.

Progress as of 2021-07-12, fixed shoe.

2021-07-13 22:25

Starting to feel like I'm getting too analytic about my drawing, but as long as I keep this constructive it should be fine.
Today I wanted to adjust the proportions and perspectives on the torso

Notes on torso adjustment

I wanted to draw the shirt (blousse?) to be loosly fit and tucked in. The front part of the sillouette was making it look "puffy" like someone was blowing air into it rather than loose, so I decided it would be better to draw in more exaggerated creases in the fabric
It's there, but the creases where the shirt is tucked into the pants should be more promenant. Also adjusting the lines to be closer to the body so as to not make it look too boxy.
Given the length of the forearm and the upper arm, there should be a pronounced bump where the elbow is. Otherwise it looks like she has a very long upper arm or very short forearm.
- This is the part where I think it becomes important to have a working knowledge and baseline understanding of the human anatomy. Definitely not a primary goal for me to internalize this, but definitely a means to get what I want.
- First thing I should fix on my next session.
Need to develop some shorthand ways to express creases, bunches in fabric. Maybe this deserves some resource gathering and it's own hierarchy (maybe cerebrarium.art.topics.clothing. .techniques? .tips? I need more notes to find a pattern.)
The right arm being obstructed by the body was throwing off the perceived perspective of the figure. I got some room to actually draw in the sleeves after tightening up the lines for the front of the shirt, so I went ahead.
What scares me right now is how do I make the shirt look appealing?
- I currently don't have enough information to judge how it will look in the end, so I won't worry about it until I put in some shadow and light. In the reference I used it was a dark colored plaid.

Progress as of 2021-07-13

2021-07-14 22:44

HANDS, an idea.
- take pictures of my own hand. with every combination of finger fold-iage(?) x (palm up / down / three-fourth view)
- draw all of it and make note along the way.
Generalizing this and conjecturing:
- Would picking a subject and brute-forcing it pedantically be a good way to improve?
- May relate to the concept of deliberate practice.

2021-07-18 23:42

I think pedantically trying to fix what looks bad lead to making my lines less organic and awkward.
- After I'm happy with the proportions I should go over the entire line work and simplify the lines that shouldn't have too much detail.
Left sleeve looks like it should be placed a bit to the back so that the torso doesn't look too tilted towards the viewer. It should also obstruct part of the back so that with the current tilt it doesn't look like the trapezius is overly developed.
The opening of the shirt should be shifted a bit towards the left arm so that it is centered with the pants.
Drawing a box for the torso was helpful in figuring out what elements of it was misplaced.

Illustration of points mentioned above

2021-07-19 00:04

I think the proportions are good for now.
The next step is to decide if I want to place this in a scene or keep it as a pin up and start blocking in the basic colors.
I can always make it a pin up and then later start here and branch out to a full scene.
I think it's good to think about what's gonna go into the basket and then figure out what scene it should become.

After adjustment vs. overlap vs. before adjustment

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2021-07-20 (Private)