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Little Sketches
Submitted by Tavlo on January 9, 2010 - 5:23pm.
I've been wanting to do more "quick sketches" (usually my stuff takes months for me to finish) and I thought making a topic here would encourage me. Basically I'm trying to experiment with drawing techniques, shading, painting, and getting an idea together with a minimal amount of time and effort. This isn't at all how I usually work, so it's a bit of a challenge for me. I'm going to be messing around a lot and there's going to probably be a lot of cruddy stuff, but what the heck. I thought I might as well share. =)
To start with, here is Tavlo about to tank something much larger than she is. I looked up a photo of a tubby guy in a medieval reinactment fight for the stance, as holding a sword (or axe) and sheild probably isn't something we naturally know how to do. The "lowness" of her stance was something I had to get used to, and I kept thinking her lower half was too short. Maybe it's okay.
The actual coloring is total fail - I made my background too dark and was too dependent on it. Alas.
To paint it I did basic lights and shadows under the drawing, a "colorize" layer on top of that (still under the drawing) for basic color, then painted more details and such on top of all that and the drawing. The background was painted in underneath it all, then everything was balanced a bit in Photoshop. Still a bit darker than I wanted. =/
I like this, it has a
I like this, it has a nice combat feel to it. Sword and board combat stances tend to be somewhat low since most of your power generates from your hips and abdomen.
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And for anie displeasure, that they apprehend to be done unto them by their neighbours, they tak up a plaine feid against him,
and (without respect to God, King or commonweale) bang it out bravely, hee and all his kinne, against him and all his.
- Basilikon Doron, James VI
Just a couple things about
Just a couple things about the way she is holding herself.
Her center of balance is way off. Her body is behind her feet it looks like. Ideally her stance should be probably around shoulder width with her body centered and its point of gravity low. So in making her low, that is definately a good thing. Her center of gravity just looks off.
Second if she is preparing to fight something, let alone something very dangerous, I'd expect her stance to be more defensive in nature. The shield leading the way or atl east that side of her leading the way as she prepares to make use of the shield.
A reference I'd make is a martial arts 'fighting stance' in which the feet are roughly shoulder width apart. You lead with one side of your body and that is the foot that is forward, pointing at what you face. The other is where probably 70% or more of your weight is. This leg has its foot pointed to the 'side' of where you face. So one foot points north, one east. Or roughly that, in essence. A low center of gravity and slightly bent knees allows for quick movement as well as bracing against a blow that strikes the shield.
One of the issues in
One of the issues in drawing from action-based photo references is that sometimes the figures are in movement and so are, indeed, moving. Tavlo's near foot is off the ground - she's stepping one way or another, I'm not sure which - and yes, her weight is "back" farther than could be held or balanced. I didn't, however, want her in a static fighting stance.
So the challenge lies in drawing action in such a way that it's natural and has movement, and so convinces *your* eyes that it's not a matter of having her in a more static, sensible stance. Your feedback goes to show I need to work on showing movement. =)
Thank you for your thoughts.
____________________
Just call me Artie, dear.
If you want to start
If you want to start drawing action poses that aren't static, I would highly suggest grabbing $10 and hitting the comic book store. I know comics arent really your thing, but you will find TONS of great 'action but not static' poses and get a really awesome, quick, cheap library of references to pick from. The other great thing is that there are so many comics out there, you can be picky about what styles you want (i.e. I doubt you'd want the MUSCLESONMYMUSCLES! style of DC comic heros, but a "thinner" model like Spiderman or Supergirl would be good for reference to WoW characters).
I'm also suggesting this because although there are lots of unpaid and paid model references on the web, even in "Action" poses, they are all usually very static/posed or, as in your photo reference above, it can throw off the drawing by being a static moment in the middle of an action sequence that doesn't work as well in conveying what you're trying to express.
Anyway. Hope that helps!
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Thanks Loamy, one of things
Thanks Loamy, one of things I find comic artists are so good at is extending gestures, exaggerating them from what we're used to in daily life to the action and motion translated into those little frames. It's definitely on my list of Things to Study. I keep thinking about my chubby medieval reinactor photo and wondering what I should have twisted or extended, etc. to make it look more like natural motion and less like oop Tavlo is fallin' down lol.
____________________
Just call me Artie, dear.
Exactly! I think for some
Exactly! I think for some reason that exaggerated effect that we know is happening as we draw it then converts somehow to "looking right" as a viewer. I can't explain it, but I've definitely noticed it when I try and draw action poses specifically. You're thinking 'this is way overdone!' but somehow... just looks cool and right when its done.
So I went looking for you, trying to pick my brain what you might want to use, and if you're gonna be drawin hot girlies weilding swords and shields, why not go with a classic?
This cover even has a vaguely "speed painter" vibe to it if you really look at some of the coloring job, especially in the "straps of leather" in her skirt. Good luck, Artie! Looking forward to seeing what you do! You're grasp of coloring/painting is fantastic.
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Mmm, Xena... ... wait,
Mmm, Xena...
... wait, what were we talking about?
Oh, thanks for the compliments. =3
____________________
Just call me Artie, dear.
"Mmm, Xena..." -ditto.
"Mmm, Xena..."
-ditto. She was my first tv female role-model growing up.
As for your art...if that's what you call a quickie then way to go cause it looks great imo. When I first saw it, I got the impression she had just seen a big bad (just as Theryl suggested) or was perhaps recovering from an attack. Looking at the photo of the reinactment, it looks like the guy is doing a sidestep kind of move like he is feighing one way to throw his opponent off.
Thanks for sharing your art.
"The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say." -G. Maguire (Mirror, Mirror)
Trying to figure out what you did wrong?
Oh, also, when trying to figure out why a pose didn't work - reinact it yourself.
Go stand somewhere (with padding on the floor!) and bend one knee with your foot flat. Now do the same thing with your opposite leg and lift your foot off the ground. Everything is fine right? Now stick your butt waaaaaaaaaaaaay out behind yourself.
Did you just fall over backwards? ;-)
Bingo!
In this position, Tavlo would instinctively want to balance herself by (likely) putting the foot she has off the ground right now behind her, so that she doesn't fall back.
2nd piece of advice: Every artist does it! Reinact your poses yourself with a full length mirror or timed camera. Or, better yet, subject your friends and family to looking like idiots while you take incriminating photos! :) I will admit I'm really bad with arms. I just don't get arm and wrist/hand anatomy that well. I'm constantly twisting my arm around like a moron to try and figure out how it looks before I draw it.
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That's interesting. I
That's interesting. I look at the picture and think that she's just seen something, (something big and ugly, judging by her expression). Her next move will be to plant her right foot behind her and swing slightly to the right to bring her shield up, putting her in a defensive stance. In other words, I'm seeing this as a mid-action shot.
But half the fun of art is seeing different things in a piece and discussing it ;)
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And for anie displeasure, that they apprehend to be done unto them by their neighbours, they tak up a plaine feid against him,
and (without respect to God, King or commonweale) bang it out bravely, hee and all his kinne, against him and all his.
- Basilikon Doron, James VI
Yeah, Theryl has the
Yeah, Theryl has the point here - it's supposed to be in-action, so she's *supposed* to look like she's falling back and better be doing something to stabilize herself with her other leg. In other words, unless I had a video camera or my camera was taking batches of quick shots, I couldn't reinact it at home. For static poses, yeah, it's fantastic to take photos of yourself (I do it all the time) but for action shots it's a bit more difficult, hence why I looked up an actual photo of people fighting.
If it helps, this is the reference photo I used:
As you can see, both men are in motion. Both men, if interpreted as being "static" would appear to be falling over. But I know that there's a way to translate that into something that makes sense in a piece of artwork and doesn't look like it "should" be a static pose that's perfectly balanced and unmoving. That's where my challenge lies!
____________________
Just call me Artie, dear.
Okay I see the problem. In
Okay I see the problem. In the photo his torso is directed in a different direction then your picture and yet your picture has the same orientation, roughly, of the feet. Or at least tahts how it looks to me. Overall I like the details, but its the positioning of the lower half that seems wrong to my eyes. Regardless.
Another problem from
Another problem from working from photo reference is that because it's not a drawing, it doesn't have the same considerations a drawing needs to have... like silhouette. My point being, one of the reasons this pose doesn't read as a step is the way the thighs are all overlapped. They disappear into one another's shapes, leaving us with a muddied sense of where the legs are and what they're doing. As for which way she's stepping, that's weight. Walking, running, hell any moving is just controlled falling. Her weight is shifted back, so she'd have to be stepping back. The foot that's planted is always the fulcrum of the movement, so as soon as she lifts the right left (image left leg), she's going to be tipping. Especially with all the weight of the armor to aid gravity in its work. What does that meaning for drawing convincing movement? Well, if you want her to go forward, you need to find her support first, then draw her line of action so that the majority of her mass is to one side or the other of that support.
And don't trash talk your stuff, hon. This is nice. It maybe darker than you wanted it, but it's loose, painterly, a refreshing change of pace for you. The darkness you might ascribe to lighting, this could be in shadow or at night afterall, when everything's not so clear. Something you might want to do when sketching is forget about the detailing until the pose is exactly what you want. You've a propensity for detail, because you're good at it. It's your natural thing to fall into doing armor and patterns on armor and all the little fiddly bits. More squinting at the pose, more seeing the overall thing (the silhouette) is what I think you need to get them reading right. Then dazzle us with your rendering skills. ;)
I knew you would tell me
I knew you would tell me it doesn't read right. ;)
The overlapping of the thighs in the photo I knew wouldn't translate well to the drawing. It actually took me some time while drawing it to figure out exactly where the other leg was and what it was doing. The guy's stance is actually quite wide, though the only indication is how his far foot is pointed outwards. I keep turning it over in my mind trying to figure a way to position both legs so that they are *readable*, in-motion, and headed somewhere.
Actually, now that I look at the photo and the drawing, a big thing I'm missing is the shift in body weight to the back and the left. The guy is moving to the left and his whole torso is leaning that way. I didn't get the lean on Tavlo, so that shift isn't apparent. Her head and shoulders (especially armor-heavy shoulders) should be weighting her forward and they're not. D=
ONE LESSON LEARNED.
Thanks also for the compliments and encouragement. I keep *trying* to do less detail. Really, I do. But... I CAN'T HELP MYSELF ARGHHH.
=)
____________________
Just call me Artie, dear.
(( Ah, now that I can see
((
Ah, now that I can see the photo, I can see what the movement was. Yes, this was going to be hard from that reference because he's almost moving in the perpendicular to the plane of the camera isn't he.
In animation we have a rule, "it's all in the pelvis." The pelvis is the root of everything, it's where the center of mass is, it's the root of all the pieces. All movement comes from it. If you goof the pelvis, everything else will be goofed. Now here's a hint, a cheat of a sort, the belt. The belt can tell us a lot about what the pelvis is doing, what it's angle is. Now, look at his belt. See how it arches up, with a sharp diagonal down and right as it curves around his belly. This tells us his spine is pointing away from us, because we know his spine is perpendicular to the pelvis. Now check out your painting, see how the belt curves down, exactly opposite. That leans her upper torso toward us, exactly what you don't want. In your painting, hips are opposing shoulders, which makes a nice contraposto, but this isn't that. In the reference, the spine is much less bent side to side. His pelvis and shoulders are a little twisted to one another along the axis of the spine itself, leading me to think he's throwing that up leg around and back to pivot his shield to face the attacker. I think he's throwing his weight to the side to counterweight himself as he does so. Can't be sure though from just this one picture. The point though is just that it's all in the pelvis, that tells what's happening with the rest of the body.
Great line of action on these two just the same, how the attacker's leaning in and the defender's leaning away backing up. Though that attacker would be totally hosed. He's got one hand on the claymore, which is a heavy slow weapon. Plus it's pointed low. He'd be skewered by the defender before he got it up in a position to strike.
))
Yeah, I always draw the
Yeah, I always draw the pelvis first when doing anything that shows the pelvis, as it's such a good anchor point for everything else. I was struggling a little with the alignment of the shoulders and pelvis and totally missed the necessary tilt because of it. FAIL.
/excuses excuses
____________________
Just call me Artie, dear.
Among all the comments
Among all the comments about the pose, I won't mention that (although I agree the problem is the "lean" you mentioned. ARGH I DID IT ANYWAY), although I think it's decent. Also, I know nothing about lighting, or even anything about how to draw XD
But some artists enjoy having a layman's opinion every now and again, and assuming you are such, I'll give mine: What stood out to me, immediately, were her eyes. They're too white, and seem to flow out of the lines of her face.
What I *do* enjoy is the flow of the hair - I think you're really onto something there to show the rapidity of her movement. Although, as pointed out, there's some issues with the pose, I feel that the hair shows the intent of the pose. Maybe if you'd have the large axe (or whatever) she is dodging, show a little on the right? It would provide the viewer with the tension, and a sense of scale, where we go: "WHOA! Good thing she dodged THAT one."
I really do like seeing your sketches, as an aside. There's a good reason there's so many books with the sketches of the great masters - sometimes it's as interesting to see their studies (and their unsuccessful attempts) at things, and figure out what they felt was wrong, or see what you feel is right or wrong about them. Anyway, I'm rambling. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Aestan. Yeah I'm
Thanks, Aestan.
Yeah I'm lazy with the eyes when doing stuff like this, mostly because I'm lazy about making my brush smaller and zooming in. It's something I'm working on correcting, because my roots are in portraiture and I like faces to look "right." When I'm doing figures though I tend to just smush stuff over them and nelf eyes become lazer-white-dots. @_@
The hair and the cloak I intentionally wooshed about to try to bring some movement to the figure. I'm glad the hair at least kind of worked!
And I'm glad people are enjoying this! I honestly didn't expect so many comments. =)
____________________
Just call me Artie, dear.
(( I like the colors.
((
I like the colors. :)
And.... AMG Xena! *swoon* And let's not forget Gabrielle. :)
As a matter of fact, I just watched the entire series (all 6 seasons) last year. And...
http://lucylawless.info/ and http://www.reneeoconnor.info/
))
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"I want to hurt you just to hear you screaming my name..." - Tarja -
As someone who has used
As someone who has used them extensively in practical application, just a note on shields and defensive stances.
For a shield of the size being used here, Tavlo is holding it correctly. It's not large enough to form a stationary barrier or a wall, and it's too large to hold in a specific guard position. Instead, she's holding it ready to swing into position to intercept the next attack. A shield of medium size like that is best used almost as if it were a weapon itself, moved and repositioned as your opponent moves, and held loosely off to one side to relax and rest the arm in between engagements. Try it yourself sometime; it's easier to hold something large and heavy like that to one side than in front, even if danger is approaching rapidly from the front.
Personally, I wouldn't use an axe that short with a shield that size (though this is drawn from current gear, and so my personal comfort isn't an issue here) because the short haft of the axe would conflict with the mobility of the shield. A hand-axe like that would be best used with a smaller buckler, or no shield at all, simply because getting close enough to your enemy to use it requires the shield to be moved out of the way.
/ramblerambleramble
New sketch! NSFW due to
New sketch! NSFW due to nudity.
This exercise had a totally different purpose than the last, so is, um, totally different. Still Tavlo, though!
When she's got nothing better to do, Tavlo likes to take a weapon out into the woods, strip down, and practice killing things. Her preferred state of being is naked, so. I don't argue with Tavlo.
Basically with this I wanted to see if I could take the stuff I learned drawing with charcoal and apply it to working on the computer. Charcoal makes beautiful value drawings - possibly the best black and white you can get without using paint. It's an incredibly smooth, workable medium and something I'm definitely going to keep working with. Now, I've tried drawing in Painter/Photoshop before to get the same effects as a traditional drawing, but it hasn't been the greatest. Painters new "real" tools have helped a lot - I do love the Real Pencil. In fact, even though I planned to do this in the charcoal brushes, I ended up using the real pencil more than anything else.
This was drawn directly from a photo reference, since I was mostly just trying to do a value drawing. Of Tavlo (add elf ears and tattoos lol). I'm not real super happy with it - I still find the tablet/stylus clumsy for this sort of thing. Might try putting a piece of paper under the pen or using a different tip.
More than anything, the paper texture really helped make it look "okay". I guess it looks okay without it, but the paper is so integral to charcoal drawings, and a hint of it made a big difference here. I did it on a bluish background because I absolutely adore charcoal/chalk on toned paper.
I also enjoyed planning out some of Tavlo's tattoos.
The reference of Isinbayeva:
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And I wrap my fear around me like a blanket...
(( Nice! Love love love
((
Nice! Love love love the tats and piercings.
And... 'I sailed my ship of safety til I sank it, I'm crawling on your shores...'
Good song. :)
))
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"It's only gonna be about a matter of time before you get loose and start loose your mind..." - Mary J Blige -
(( *notes* Due to source
((
*notes*
Due to source it's a very manish, scary woman. In Soviet Russia, girlfriend bench presses you! That being said, I only see a couple areas that don't match your reference pretty well. You get a little vague in the throat. In your reference the sternomastoids where they connect to the cupid's bow are very distinct and delineated whereas Tavlo's feel a bit broader and mushy. Contour lines on the image right pectoral/bicep smush seems a bit short, losing the sense of the two masses pushing against one another an pinching skin between. That could be fixed with just a little more attention to how the curve of the bicep and the pectoral line comes together there. It looks like there's a crease that's missing at the trapezius to neck transition on the image left side. Also, that side's deltoid seems to be drifting higher and the connection of delt to shoulder there is getting a little vague. You've got the darker patch there, but it's shape needs a little refining, similar to the problem in the throat. Angle on the head feels off. The reference has a more defined tilt, matching the angle of her mouth to the line of the pole, whereas Tavlo's on the horizontal. Hair stands out as something that needs to be simplified by value. Look at the reference and how the model's hair is just a mass of dark really, with a couple hints of wisps. Also, watch your light source for inconsistencies. Example, have a look at the image left upper arm, note the rim light along it's top edge, which is totally lacking in the forearm, though quite apparent in the reference. Because she's lit from so many angles and there's so much spill, this reference is more subtle but keeping the light source consistent is one of the biggest hurdles in any drawing (as I know you're aware). Working down the body, you've a few landmarks shifting on you. Drop a vertical from the outside corner of the image left eye. This in the reference drops right into her image left nipple. However, Tavlo's is well left of this vertical. Finally, there seems to be a issue with the bulge of her belly and the placement of her navel. Navel is near the pelvis and therefore tracks with it pretty much (similar to a... belt... >.> ... <.< hint hint, nudge nudge, say no more ;). In the reference therefore, it's almost facing to her image right side, with the hips. In your image though, you've put too much of the twist low on the torso, turning that navel to us and making the "bulge" on it's image right side wider than the reference.
I'll mention silhouette as well, though because this is such a reference study it's not of central import. However, if you were drawing this from scratch (meaning creating the pose), the overlap on those arms would make this a very difficult read. This issues would be easily fixed by tweaking the pose to move the image right hand farther up on the shaft and the image left hand farther down, opening the forearm and the upper arm silo's in both cases.
*praise*
As a study, it's very on. Specifically in the gestures of the hands and arms as well as their anatomy. You can definitely feel the shape and overlap of the muscles under the skin in her forearms. Additionally, though the effect is more subtle, there is a feel for the massive muscles of the thighs as well. As far as capturing a charcoal technique (or in this case charcoal and chalk from the looks of it), I think you're accomplishing your goal. You've clearly lifted the form out of the neutral ground and shaped her in shadows and highlights with a sense of simplicity. My notes are really the nitpicks.
))
Thanks Eri, I like
Thanks Eri, I like nitpicks. =)
I'm very unhappy with her head, it's one thing I knew I'd gotten "off". I also knew there was something wrong in her belly area. Ah well. I hadn't thought of drawing vertical plumb lines to help line things up. One of the other things I was working with on this one was trying to sight a figure while drawing on the computer. Comfort aside, Wacom really needs to make a long, thin, straight stylus (like a pencil, or I'll just keep a pencil by the computer) but even disregarding that it seems so much harder to sight from a 3"x5" picture up on the screen next to an 8"x10" digital canvas beside it. I have a 21" monitor and that's the best I can do, and it's frustratingly unlike an 18"x24" piece of paper on an easel with either a model on the desk or an 8"x10" photo up beside.
If that makes any sense..
At any rate I forgot to draw my plumb lines to help line things up. I need to practice head tilts as they always confuse the heck out of me. I draw the sphere, I work with the basic lines of proportion, etc. but I never get what I want when the head is tilted to any degree.
Btw, next class I take is figure drawing. ;) Sculpting, too!
____________________
Just call me Artie, dear.
(( Hum. Well, here's a link
((
Hum. Well, here's a link to a method I want to try out again. I think it's derived from Loomis's methods. Not sure it will help, but there it is. As for the drawing from a reference thing on the computer, besides printing out the piece and taping it to the side of your monitor, there's always the putting it in the document as a layer and flickering it on and off. Don't fight the fact that you're on a computer, basically. It's not a desktop, you don't have to look back and forth. You can just turn your reference on and off. In fact, having them together like that and flickering them will point out differences better than shifting your attention back and forth, I think. And yes, wacom pens are too fat and heavy. That's why I like that artpen I got, it's very light. However, it also doesn't have a right clicker, so it's a trade off.
))
So yesterday evening
So yesterday evening Tavlo and Cassie ran about a bajillion heroics together, and I couldn't help but wonder what they did to unwind afterwards. The usual answer: mm, baths. It was decided that the DeWynter house does indeed have a large room devoted to bathing which includes a nice sunken tub, so I decided I'd draw Cassie and Tavlo enjoying it.
I decided not to use references, as a challenge to myself, and I'm ambivalent about the results - it captures the poses and the characters decently, but not as well as I'd hoped. One thing that always ticks me off is trying to get likeness in tiny 1" tall heads (this was done in my sketchbook, so I was limited by paper size). I always blame it on paper size, but always wonder if I'd do any better if the heads were larger. I have been working with Eri's link to drawing heads up above, and it's a great method.
There's lots of inaccuracies. SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT THEM ALL. =O
_________________________
And I wrap my fear around me like a blanket...
This was yesterday's
This was yesterday's little sketch, that got not quite so little because I really wanted to paint it well:
Click for larger if you like.
Bangaal is one of those characters I don't find served well by a WoW avatar - we accept undead in-game, but I don't know if we see them as really *human*, or once human. More like they're just this seperate race that is accepted like the gangly blue trolls and the big furry tauren and the space goats. So I wanted to try to capture the dead girl as a "living" thing, and capture some of the creepiness of that.
At the same time, I didn't use any references for her, outside of looking at some anatomical drawings for her nose and cheek, a photo for her fungus, and looked up her armory for her gear (love the new 3D armory!). I'm actually really proud of drawing a portrait that looks unique and pretty "correct" without a photo to work from. All the head-drawing practice of the last week or two really paid off here.
I'm also working with doing armor and bodies and such by suggesting instead of detailing. Didn't quite get it as I wanted it here, but eh. It carries Bangaal, at least as I see her. =)
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And I wrap my fear around me like a blanket...