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Jan 2021

Hello, everyone. Today I entered the 1oth day of my drawing every day4 to improve at drawing. I'm slowly but surely getting better at it but my characters apparently look like robots/AIs. I think it's because I make them stiff and want to learn how to draw fluidly. Any advice?

By the way, this is the last male that I drew(just now):

While this is the last female that I drew(two days ago?):


Edit: I tried using line of action and references to draw these two below

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    Jan '21
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    Jan '21
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It looks like you're starting from a solid base :slight_smile:

Beyond trying out some figure drawing studies (if you're not already), I think the most straightforward thing to read about and try to apply to your drawings is the "Line of action' concept. If you google that (and especially look through some of the image results, there are many diagrams showing it off) you'll be able to find many sources talking about it.

Basically in any given pose, you can draw a line through the figure that guides and defines the shape of the pose. Typically when you look at a pose that feels very rigid, the corresponding line of action will either be more or less straight, or meet at sharp angles. Poses that have a curvier line of action tend to feel more dynamic.

I'm not at my drawing tablet at the moment so I can't sketch any examples (although if that would be helpful I can try to do some later after work) but just to show an example with these drawings, as you can see the line of action is either completely straight in both examples, or with the girl you could envision it taking a sharp turn down the legs. If you read some articles or watch videos on the subject, they may help to suggest ways to change pose composition to vary it up a bit and make them more dynamic :smiley:

Hey! It's really admirable that you're spending so much time working on your artwork. I seriously respect you for that!

I'm far from being perfect myself, but I would suggest practicing gesture drawing to help with learning to capture poses and movement.
There's a good video on it here which includes exercises and another website to practice from. (Actually, the website I'm linking has a LOT of useful resources and instructional videos. I highly recommend looking through it later.)

Best of luck!

I had heard of the line of action before but never thought that was the issue with my drawings. I Will definitely keep what you said in mind and study line of action. Thank you!

No worries! I also agree with Rhonder on the line of action thing. That'll help a LOT when you want to draw more dynamic poses and actions.

Yes, no worries! While I'm thinking about it as well, "contrapposto" is also an interesting technique to look into that can help make even more basic poses, such as "neutral standing", have a higher degree of visual interest. It has the potential to look really dramatic which won't always be appropriate for every illustration, but even just applying it a little bit helps to look things look less rigid.

edit: the post below describes better what this is, the opposing hips/shoulders :thumbsup:

Your progress in so few days is just amazing!!

You're showing beautifully in the lines in your art that you know there are no straight lines on the human body. What Rhonder and thel3tterm already mentioned are key. And this will happen naturally if you're following those gesture/line of action tips, but it could help to break it out to think about when starting a pose: people also almost never sit/stand symmetrically - a more relaxed figure will be leaning to one side or the other, or have a leg tucked differently if they're sitting, etc. Visualize the volumes of rib cage and pelvis as you start laying out your figure - they should usually be tilted slightly in opposite directions.

Thank you. :cry:

That's a good advice, I'll definitely keep it in mind.

On the figure drawing sites, try limiting yourself to 30 seconds or a minute to draw each figure, and focus on starting with the spine, marking the ribs and shoulders, and building up from there. You look like you have a pretty good grasp on proportion, so just focus on getting the movement down.

The BEST thing I ever did for improving my anatomy and flow when drawing characters was to draw from life and from photographs. With COVID still raging across most of the world, actual life drawing classes are off the table... (And I don't know how old you are, but they likely won't let you in if you're a minor, at least without a parent.) BUT, you can still use photographs!

If you're under 18, all but one of the websites I've linked below have clothed options you can select. But if you're over 18, I highly, highly recommend drawing unclothed figures. It teaches you a LOT more about how the human figure is put together. (It's awkward for all of 10 seconds before you start seeing the person as nothing more than a collection of shapes and shadows.)

Try using long, sweeping lines for a week, and keep each figure sketch to under 3 minutes. Strict accuracy is less important than the flow and dynamism of the figure. Instead of a pencil, get a stick of charcoal. Ink and brush are also great for this! Just stuff you can't erase. Don't do the whole ball-and-cylinder thing, just draw an impression of what is in front of you.

The point of this is not to draw characters. They're not going to look like people, just the impression of a figure.

Once you've practised like this for a while, you can slow things down and start adding more detail over a longer drawing session. But for now, long flowy lines from figure reference, drawn quickly is your key.

Line of Action (This one is great.)
Sketch Daily2
Quickpose1 (You don't have control over whether the models are clothed in this one, just a heads-up.)

Thank you! I'm not a minor, actually so I'll try and draw them nude if that's what works best.

Freed up from work, so came back to take a swing at the examples to show a few examples of how I might approach these types of poses as an example for how to utilize the line of motion :tada:

The male pose is a little tricky, because a front-facing reclined seated pose like that is, by nature, a little limited with how much you can adjust the line of action a well as vary the angling of the body with out changing the pose up significantly. In some cases, rotating the camera like I did for the upper sketch might work. You can then use the line to figure out the character's posture and use that to influence the pose. In this case I drew him slouching a bit lol. Forgive the awkward foreshortening of the arm coming towards the viewer :sweat_smile:

The one below is the same pose, but from the front like the original drawing. I don't know that it's much different from yours, fundamentally, other than the character is leaning back further which promotes some additional foreshortening of the body (that's what the arrows were kinda conveying, I guess lol)

I found it a little easier to play around with the female pose in this case because I find it easier to breath life into my poses when they're not straight-on angles :sweat_smile:

Bottom left is most similar to the original drawing. I think when sitting like that it's a little more natural looking to lean back a bit rather than forward (unless you're reaching for your toes, maybe?)

Top right was a variation and more from a front-on side view.

Bottom right with the crossed legs is my attempt at a leaning forward seated pose. With that one the red line of action is still mostly vertical, so they don't always have to be crazy, but sometimes just working out creative ways to implement the limbs (arms/legs) can help spruce up an otherwise not super exciting pose :slight_smile:

Gesture drawing and sketches...if you nail the gesture/natural-ness of the pose, you can pretty much build a decent finish on top of it.

What do your parents say about your progress? I remember you mentioning them when you uploaded the
face with the big eyes? I think you are really doing good after only a few days.
You have to be aware that this part now takes a long time.
It´s a mix between knowing anatomy, muscles, skeletons (biggest part), how the ribcage and pelvis
are in different poses. You have to be able to imagine the pelvis/ribcage/spine in that sitting position for example,
which muscles are attached to it etc
Then there is gesture drawing like someone mentioned above. Start every day with 10 gesture drawing quick
sketches. 30 seconds and try to get the line of action. The Proko "How to draw gesture" is gold. You should
check that. He is a great teacher. I also recommend his full course on anatomy / figure drawing
The third part is studying reference pictures, building up your memory of different poses. Nobody
can just invent those poses before studying and learning them first

The figures you drew both look like you didn´t use a reference picture.
Especially the woman sitting on the floor, nobody sits like that and it would be very uncomfortable to
try to sit like that

Also important:
don't get frustrated if your drawing looks amazing on one day but garbage on the other. This means, you improved your "artists-eye" :slight_smile: ( someone had posted a nice grafic about that but I couldn't find it again).

And it's completly normal if you learned to draw a thing and then suddenly it seems like you forgott all of it... Happens to me still :,D but it get's better over time ^^

A very experienced comic and tattoo artist once said exactly the same to me when I asked her about it.
She also said "learn all the rules first, then draw and forget about all the rules"
I slowly understand what she meant

I'm not a good artist, professional or a master, so take what i say with a grain of salt, as anatomy and fluid drawing is something I also struggle with.

First, try drawing/copying photos or use life models (if you can afford them) because i think you can't never good at drawing something if you don't study the source: in this case, humans.

Another thing is to draw a certain pose from a photo, then draw it again, but this time with your characters.

They didn't say much but their criticisms are less now.

I'm fine with it taking a long time, I have a lot of time on my hands, after all.

I tried timing my drawings but it made me panic and lose the proportions that I usually calculate. I think it isn't for me :sweat_smile:

I will be sure to check him out! Thank you :blush: