Oct '23
2

Hello,

I've been practicing drawing for just about 3 years but I think I might be practicing too aimlessly because I really feel like I'm not improving that much. Although I've been satisfied with how some of my drawings have turned out this year, I have noticed some imperfection with them.

Things like center of gravity, misaligned limbs, proportions look distorted, dirty, messy lines that just don't look like what the pros do, lines look too angular, etc... they just don't turn out like how I see other people sketch, nice flowy smooth lines and the messiness looks good and not... like how mine do.

And I am trying to follow the examples in all these books I buy, I draw and construct something that I think will work but then when it comes to adding the flesh it falls apart and I end up improvising and trying to copy the guide with modified contour drawing (looking at the reference, copying it, no replacement skeleton or construction to replace the wrong one)

Looks good at first but then I take a picture and realize it's not good in many areas.

EDIT: Here is an imgur link for more images. I was only allowed to upload 5.

https://imgur.com/a/YfWSLzH

Here's a character from Another Eden I was trying to draw a unique pose. Got it completely wrong at first and had to use a Clip Studio Paint model to fix those areas.

Of course even the final wasn't free of problems. A friend of mine pointed out things like arm looks stiff, eyelids should face same direction, eyebrows are too close to the eyes, humerus taking up too much space, leg not aligned with center of gravity etc

And now we have the drawings from the book I'm trying to learn from

I can't seem to get it right even after 3 attempts. So there's something I don't understand about drafting the face and using guidelines properly.

Also this next drawing has a bit of nudity so I posted to Imgur instead... But this one was critiqued to have problems such as the breasts are not parallel, the center of gravity is wrong and the height of the knees are off.

https://imgur.com/a/ZoIzBAb

Where am I going wrong when trying to draw the figure?

Oct '23
2

Well Mrsun I hope you come back and update us with some more work.
Here are some notes on gesture, and contrapposto, and abstraction of your invented figures.

Open in new tab for your full viewing.

mrsun1.gif1946x5519 1.85 MB

And here are some notes on inking.
Note that your drawing is the blue one underneath the black lines.

Start with light lines everywhere, and then add your weight of darker lines for points of interest, and to emphasize the shape of the figure.

In the first picture below, if you open image in new tab, you will see your blue lines were not the shapes that I thought would make better or more accurate shapes. Or clean perspective.

Since this style is based on animation, its these historic qualities of line that you are chasing. The line thickness only has to be in places that infer that there is overlap of one object over another. Or opposite of the light source. You can see in the example below, that you can add points of interest just by adding line weight to focal point areas. But they dont have to be arbitrary. They can have purpose and be occlusion shadows.

mrsuninkfinal.gif3300x4858 1.29 MB

I wish you the best of luck. I think the main thing you need to work on is consistent perspective. Objects have a major and minor axis. And they need to be looking like their lines might hit a vanishing point one day in the far off back ground. Try to draw one hundred perfect cubes in your sketchbook. Do 5 in a sitting. Turn it all around and see how you messed up. You will train your eye to see better perspective. And learn to make cleaner lines.

Oct '23

Wow! That was a lot more helpful and thorough than I expected! Thank you so much for your feedback! There's a lot information... I wanted to address each while I was at work but it got busy today. So I'll try to write one later.

For now I have a question. I am still a little confused on what makes a gesture look static. Mostly the lines because on the left side the drawing have lines that are countering each other, and then the Good! example has lines parallel and then the bad example has lines that are countering each other and that lines that cancel each other out make a static gesture, so I just wanted to understand what lines should be parallel and what lines can counter each other.