Ooh la la!

I’ve always had a difficult time drawing the human body (who hasn’t), so I’m aiming my focus on that.  I want to spend time (weeks, even, if I feel so inclined) focusing on nothing but a hand, or just the fingers, or ears, or boobs (tee-hee), and really dissect the entire body into small, manageable parts for practice.

This week, I started with a general study of the more difficult of the two human sexes – the female.  I grew up drawing cartoon characters, but even still… they were pretty much always male.  Big muscle men with guns and explosions.  I was a young boy, alright .  As I grew older, I started drawing more “average” guys, but still… the male shape is more rugged and square, which lent itself well to my rough, sharp sketching technique.  Basically, guys don’t have to be pretty.  Even in cartoon-form, though, the female shape is softer, with curves galore.

I don’t naturally do curves too well.

You may or may not recognize the picture I based today’s sketch on, but it’s definitely a female body.  I liked this shot, because even though the breast is mostly hidden by the arm, the figure is noticeably feminine.  I was originally going to do a couple of gals, but I got a bit distracted working on a site’s design (that I wasn’t planning on touching today) and the day escaped me a bit.

There is also a male in this shot, and I know his sketch would have gone much quicker.  She took me QUITE awhile, because I had to be soft with my pencil strokes (this is another pencil/paper work, by the way).  I decided to not concern myself with the face, even though I did do the hands, simply because that wasn’t the focus of this practice… and I know if I had worried about the face, I would have distracted myself from paying attention to the rounded lines of her shape.

The two sexiest parts of the original shot are the shoulder and the butt.  I think I nailed the shoulder, but I had problems on the proper curve and size of her derriere.  Likewise, I also originally drew her torso too thin, but got it perfect on the second try.. which made me happy.  I was left unsure about her butt and why I couldn’t find the same appeal of the original shot in my line drawing, here.  It may be that the coloring and texture of the photo reveals the tightness and shortness of the shorts better, but I still think I could have better defined that with the lines… I just wasn’t able to.

Overall, though, I really like how this turned out… and it definitely captures the sensual nature of the original picture.  Obviously, I wouldn’t stand a chance to create something this feminine (haha, or human) without being able to eyeball a photograph… but baby steps.  Simple and silly baby steps .

P.S. – I didn’t include my reference photo, because I wanted the sketch to stand on it’s own, but if you haven’t seen the original picture, and really want to, you can just keep refreshing the page with an eye on Random Beauty.  It’s in there SOMEwhere .

I’ve been working on another project lately (a friend’s website), which is why I haven’t written much here over the last couple of weeks.  Between that and the fact that I’m really not in the drawing-practice mood today, all I have today is the sketch that I did last week when I was almost under the weather.

It IS the first of these that was drawn on physical paper, and it’s what came about when I was almost sick, so hey.. not bad .  I was actually watching Mad Men on Netflix at the time, and at first I was contemplating a gal with an hourglass figure, but this is what happened instead.  The hands are crappy, as usual, but I didn’t shy away from drawing them how they would appear in this pose; I didn’t hide them or make them holding something I could more easily draw.  This, along with a big digital painting I want to do, actually gave me an idea of something to work on in these weekly sketch presentations, so hopefully I’ll have the start of that next week.

Half of my family’s been sick, and I’ve felt increasingly tired and worn out the last couple of days, so I’m resting hard today.. giving myself the best chance to avoid anything too bad.  I’m sketching out on some scratch paper I have here at my desk, so I’ll have that online next week.

Today’s just going to consist of TV, movies, and Red Dead Redemption.

I tend to draw flat things.  Like a little kid draws people with their arms and legs sticking out in the shape of a gingerbread man, perspective is something I’ve often avoided if I could.  Why?  It’s not easy .

One of my favorite assignments in my high school art class was structural perspective drawing.  I remember doing two… one in my sketchbook as a simple homework practice (I did the corner of the kitchen in my house), and one larger drawing that we spent much longer on (a wide view of some buildings on campus).  It was a concept I had grasped well when I was even younger, that all lines aim toward the same horizon point, so I really enjoyed making those come to life.

Lines and precision are easy, though.  Organic perspective has always been something I’ve kept from, so today was a bit of a quick dabble into that.  I’m working on another project, and these were just quick sketches, so it’s not amazing.. but I think there’s a noticeable difference between the two described below.  I first took time looking at how turning a box around its center axis would look, and then I tried with a really simple face.  As you can see by the last face, it’s much more difficult for me to remain accurate with smooth organic lines than with the straight edges of the box.  Not uncommon, I’m sure, but something I want to work on .  The rest are just some of the other things I was doodling out.  Last week’s Baby Plainview was pretty much just a flat, straight-on drawing, and my goal is to avoid those from here on out.

Wish me luck… and be prepared for things to get ugly .

This one’s a bit more polished than I had originally planned it to be, but the drawing took off, so I went with it.  I’m happy to present, in case you don’t recognize him, Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood… as a baby.

I had this idea yesterday while out on a walk, and the true success is that I even did it.  I thought it was a fun idea, and I began to convince myself that I should wait to do it later… “when I’m better.”  I stood my ground, though, and regardless of whether or not my skill-level on this little picture matches what I saw in my head (of course it doesn’t), I went through with it, and I’m glad to be able to share it.

I went light on the shading and coloring detail, because I didn’t want to turn this into a massive project, but maybe I’ll return to it in the future and really spruce it up.  It works for me, though, and the point of this whole endeavor is just pushing myself to practice.

In the original sketch and line-drawing, the bowling pin had a band across the neck, to color in red, but when I did a reference check, I realized the pins in the movie are non-descript, so that’s why it is here, too.

P.S. – After the original sketch (all I’d planned to do, at first) I did a quick search online for tips on line-art in Photoshop (just to stir up some ideas), and I found the doubling-in-size idea from HERE useful.  My lines aren’t anywhere near as graceful as theirs, but it’s something to aim for .

P.P.S – While searching for my reference shots, I came across this, and thought it was fantastic… as is the rest of this fella’s work.