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Can't seem to get my figure drawings accurate enough (NSFW)
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Message
Posted
I'm practicing drawing some figure outlines but I never get them accurate :/ I try my best to verify the proportions in every place with sight measuring and even though my eyes seem to agree on all of them, as soon as I line up my drawings with the actual figures I notice many mistakes. I have no clue how to go about drawing more accurately if my own eyes seem to lie to me! lol.
Any help would be appreciated :]
An example:
Posted
You are pretty close. It takes a lot of practice - how long have you been doing life drawing? I don\t see anywhere on the drawing marks to show where you have measured. If you can take a photo of the model on a digital device, then you can get a grid on an app, which would be able to help you. Alternatively there are drawing proportional dividers which could help.
Posted
You are pretty close. It takes a lot of practice - how long have you been doing life drawing? I don\t see anywhere on the drawing marks to show where you have measured. If you can take a photo of the model on a digital device, then you can get a grid on an app, which would be able to help you. Alternatively there are drawing proportional dividers which could help. Thank you! I've only done it a handful of times so I don't expect to master it, I'm mainly just concerned with how to move forward when my assiduous measurments always prove to be faulty. You can't see marks because I took a photo of the drawing and then messed with the contrast a lot but I've done quite a few. A digital device might be a good idea! Maybe making it easier for my eye would train it more effectively. Either way, it's probably better than my current method because I can't think of many ways to further improve my accuracey without a grid. I used my pencil as a sort of proportional divider but perhaps a real one would be more reliable with the angles, I'll try that too!
Posted
Hope you asked the models permission before you put it on here....not your drawing but the photographic image of her. Life drawing is a wonderful exercise in observation and you look to be doing ok. Just don’t get uptight about it the more you do the better it will be. If you have a live model spend some time doing quick...very quick two minute poses for ten fifteen minutes...extend your time to five min poses ,then ten, work up to half an hour poses then and only then have a long pose . This way you get a lot of information instilled into your head. Try it . You won’t have time to measure but you should get your eye in. Plus hands and feet are always bigger than you think. Enjoy .
Posted
Life drawing is the most difficult of all the disciplines, it takes many years to achieve any degree of competence.
Clearly you need some guidance on how to work out proportions etc. Life drawing isn’t just about getting an accurate outline, you need to read and digest some information from professionals before you continue.
The Beginners Guide to Life Drawing by Eddie Armer will help. You can buy it on this website, go to menu and store.
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
Good advice above. As you have only done it a handful of times, I think you are doing brilliantly! Models do move as they are living beings, so don’t be amazed if your drawing is not the same as the photo. Also the artist moves. Both tend to slump as they become more relaxed over the session. The top part of the body and arms looks as though your eyes were very slightly higher than for the photo. The same is true for the legs. I learnt 2 main lessons. Firstly draw what you see, not what you think you see. Secondly, relate the nipples, to the bellybutton, to the pubic bone. If you get these 4 points in the right place then you have described how the torso is placed: the extremities will then fall into place.
I first learnt by doing it 3 hrs a day, Monday to Friday, for a whole academic year! The only exception to this was the first 2 weeks when we all drew cardboard boxes, to learn how to measure and then we had a skeleton for a week. Happy days, not!
Edited
by Linda Wilson
Posted
That answers a lot of questions, the fact it’s from a pic. I did wonder where you were doing a live life class. Try Croquis Cafe a web site with live models. If and when we ever get back to normality do go to a proper group , tutored or untutored . Doing it the way you are is just copying from a pic so a lot of the rules don’t apply . The Royal Academy at one stage did a life drawing class on tv which was quite good. They did a lot of different poses at differing speeds . Someone else did something similar which was a disaster they talked all the way through it and focussed the cameras on the artists easels... complete waste of time . You could...if your heating is good ,get a full length mirror ,strip off and go for it.
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