Need advice on form

[Lil_Slime]

Hey guys, so I need advice on learning form. My question is pretty much just this: “how do you force yourself to grasp 3D objects well enough to draw things as such?”
I’ve been really struggling in this aspect and advice would be very much appreciated, thanks!

[forg]

Check out proko's youtube channel and maybe classes about perspective. There are also many great perspective and form resources on youtube (moderndayjames is also good)

My own basic advice and what helped me when I was just starting out was simplifying 3D objects into simple shapes like circles, cylinders and rectangles, etc. while also referencing from real life examples

Perspective can be intimidating but so important when it comes to environments. If you combine drawing simple shapes with perspective, you will eventually understand how to represent objects in a way they appear 3D on a canvas/paper.

Also practice lots, get out of your comfort zone and don't be afraid of less than satisfactory results! I hope this helped.

[darthmongoose]

My first piece of advice is a book recommendation: "Perspective! For Comic Book Artists" by David Chelsea. It's really good and easy to follow because it's in comic form like Scott McCloud's books.

My second piece of advice is... try learning a bit of 3D modelling. It actually really helped me a lot. Blender is a free program with good online tutorials. I don't have a good natural sense of space and depth (in fact I bump into things... and drop things... a lot... aaaghhh) so learning to rotate things and visualise the space and how light will interact really helped me develop.
On a related note, learning to paint without linework can also help, because you HAVE to paint using the volumes of the objects and figures and can't rely on lines.

[doomerC]

My advice (closely related to my personal style though) would be to try and grasp the dynamic aspect of 3-d form, especially when tackling more complex and organic forms.

Think of it this way: when you're drawing, there aren't going to be any actual 3-d objects appearing on your 2-d flat plane; instead, what you're doing is creating a visual text that describes the form. To properly apply this concept, you need to understand the 'grammatical' structure of your work and what information exactly you are conveying with the individual lines and patches of tone, or the 'letters and phonemes' of your drawing.

In the case of 3-d objects (once again, through the prism of my personal style), the line describes how the object acts, passively or actively (through inert existence or captured motion), on the space surrounding it: it expands through that space with curved lines, intersects it with straight lines receding along the perspective, locks and stabilizes itself in the flat viewing plane with every straight horizontal line, etcetera. The internal structure of an object can also provide various kinetic hints: for examples, a muscle that you know to be stretched between two attachment points naturally asks for you to stretch your own lines along its tension vector.

Shading is the other instrument of describing 3-d form and it characterizes the interaction of the object not so much with abstract space as with concrete lighting: tonal gradient can be simplified as a representation of the various angled surfaces light reflects off of, the intensity of the reflected light that reaches the viewer correlating to the particular angle of the surface it bounced off of.

Last, but not least, it is important to remember that the concept of a line does not exist in reality; it is always an effect of contrast in lighting or color. In this regard, the 'kinetic' nature of a line as an abstract motion vector stands out; as well as its additional function of being a different way of representing interaction with light through contours and divisions.

This is but a very particular way to try understand 3-d form and it always helps to have multiple systems of understanding it; but i find this to be a very instinctive and organic way of learning and memorizing forms, visualizing them not as an object, but a particular set of interactions and solidified motions in space.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

If what you're looking for is to be able to hold an intuitive understanding of 3D objects, I think experience is the best teacher. Look closely at the world around you, take time to understand the objects in your midst. Turn them over in your hands, or watch them move. Learn about the parts and features that contribute to their forms.

Like, you know how if you have a familiar handbag or backpack, you can just reach into it, feel around, and pull out what you want without even looking? That's the kind of memorization you have to employ; to be able to understand the form of an object and see it in your mind's eye, even though you're not actually seeing it in real life. I think that's essential for basic 3D shapes like cylinders, cubes/prisms, and spheroids.

For more complex 3D forms, though, I think you can afford to cheat a little...you can always break them down into groups of simple 3D shapes, like people always suggest, but you may be better off just learning how they are drawn, depending on how your mind works.

Like, when it comes to hands...I spent a long time during my younger years trying to understand the form of a hand, and developing logical rules for foreshortening and posing and whatnot.
But now that I look back on all that, I really think I was just wasting my time. It's good to have stuff like that in mind, but you should be aware that, the more your art style diverges from photorealism, the less realistic 3D manipulation actually matters.

Drawing a cartoon is not the same as simply rendering a 3D model of that cartoon into 2D. That's why it's very easy to tell whether someone's manga was hand drawn or simply traced over models from MMD, for instance: the techniques that 2D artists usually use disappear completely, in favor of "accuracy" that often diminishes the effect of the finished product.

The effect I'm talking about may not be totally clear yet...but as always, experience is the best teacher. If you know any animated series or video games that have both 2D and 3D incarnations, I advise you to look at them and compare them. Ask yourself how the characters are designed in 3D vs 2D, which features are accentuated and which are simply left alone (for example, highlights in the eyes are usually drawn explicitly in 2D, whereas in more detailed 3D they're taken care of by ambient lighting).

Most importantly, ask yourself which you like better, and what you can learn from both. I think this is a good beginning exercise for understanding how to recreate 3D objects in 2D media.

[Iris-Grimoire]

One thing my teacher used when he noticed I struggle with 3D poses and objects is to think in meshes! Draw the shapes as if it's a 3D wireframe, using the curves and lines you think it'd have, and later worry about translating that into a stylized drawing.

[Lil_Slime]

Thanks! I’ll look up proko’s youtube channel!

[Lil_Slime]

Thanks! XD I CAN TOTALLY RELATE TO THE BUMPING INTO THINGS AND STUFF AHAHAHAHA. Anyways, I’ll try out 3D modeling, though since I don’t exactly have a good computer I can’t say I’d be able to practice that as much. Also, I’m not too comfortable with painting as I am a tad too line-dependent, but I’ll try to work on that!

[Lil_Slime]

Thanks! I really love how you interpreted this! Although I cannot say that as of the moment, I have the cognitive capability to process 3D objects the way you do, but I’ll get there sometime.

By the way, how can lines be used to represent these interactions? Like, what kind of techniques should be used?

[Lil_Slime]

Thanks! I suppose I do prefer 2D more, but perhaps that’s just because of my inability to process 3D objects as effectively. Anyways, so drawing stylistically wouldn’t require as much 3D rendering?

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Anyways, so drawing stylistically wouldn’t require as much 3D rendering?

Yeah, pretty much. Taking full advantage of stylistic 2D is basically realizing that making things look good and making things look realistic are two different things that don't always go together.

Here's some examples from artists I like:

Notice the hyper-simplified shadows/highlights, irregular shapes, and more dependence on dramatic color choices than on precise lineart to define the features of the characters.
And speaking of the lineart, a lot of it is very organic and/or stylized, introducing corners where they technically shouldn't be, or warping features of the characters for dramatic effect.

These are all techniques that are almost exclusive to 2D artists, and knowledge of 3D shapes isn't actually necessary to learn how to achieve them. It does help, but it's not essential.

For more (and I guess, simpler) examples of these kinds of styles, I'd recommend looking at Cartoon Network shows from the early 2000's; a lot of them used very stylized 2D art.

Credits (in order, from DeviantArt): k-szk, catscr123, jfsouzatoons, Rurushich, Yatsunote

[Lil_Slime]

I see, thanks! Say, how do you translate it into stylized drawing?

[Lil_Slime]

I see! Thanks! You helped out a lot!

[Iris-Grimoire]

I wish I had pictures on hand to explain more neatly but it's all in a drawer somewhere and Google turns up nothing;;;

Basically, let's say you want to do a fantasy tree made out of bent cones. By making the mesh pattern of those cones, you can add indents, curves at the tips, parts where it fell off, all that kind of interesting detail without having to commit to light, shadow, anything. Then, when you make the final version of the drawing, you don't have to draw the mesh again or make every cluster of leaves follow those lines - but with it in mind, you can make a few leaves in the tips curve to show that it's cone-like, and have the tree trunk have a bark pattern that snakes downward to keep the feel of its shapes. You can discard a lot of extra work when you stylize, making the details that stay create the illusion of form very strongly.

[doomerC]

Ah, well, in essence, that is a question that doesn't have any concrete answer. Any line you put down is a kinetic modulation - the whole idea itself stems from the fact that every line is imprint of your own hand's motion. The concept of kinetic drawing tries to makes sense of this by tying together the physical act of putting a line down with the sensation of motion you may feel from a 3-d form.

Using the idea, you might want to start 'feeling' out the proportions of an object, rather than calculating them; feeling them in your hand as a line 'this long' versus a line you move your hand half as much to draw. The idea of perceiving the motion energy of an object or one of its planes, the edges or contour of said planes, it helps impart proportionally different amounts of energy into the lines you draw, making them longer, shorter, thicker, lighter, with varying curve and either solid or with a feathered tip.

Additionally, it simply helps determine the placement of the lines: draw the line as if you're drawing it not over a flat piece of paper, but over the surface of the very object you're drawing, hidden inside the paper's flat plane. Seems like a stretch, but if you once again try imagine the internal motion of surfaces and planes you're drawing, you'll feel your hand automatically stick to them.

Also, simply observing the 'kinetic' map of an object allows to extract enticing and cohesive rhythms out of it; it is very closely related and conducive to gesture drawing, where through placement of motion in your lines you create motion in the mass and form you're depicting. Synergy or clashing of various motions inside an object helps a lot in creating volume: when you draw a leg, for example, you might first start with it's distinctly vertical gesture and draw a vertical contour line to match - but as you approach the bulge of the quads, the kneecap, the frontal protrusion of the tibia, you might start to use horizontal or diagonal lines and hatching to bring out their bulging form via juxtaposition with the overall vertical gesture.

That's about it for what helpful and structured information i can help with right now; as a cherry on top, i advise you check out Michelangelo's (especially ink) and Tintoretto's drawings/sketches. They are both masters with incredibly well pronounced form, volume and intensely kinetic internal gesture.

Michelangelo: https://www.michelangelo-gallery.com/userfiles/com.michelangelo/image/Michelangelo_Sistine-sketchbook-7___Source.jpg

Tintoretto: https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/jacopo-tintoretto-italian-1518-1594-quint-lox.jpg

[Lil_Slime]

Oh! I think I can kinda get it now! Thanks!

[Lil_Slime]

Thanks! I think I get it. So I should try to imagine the feeling of the subject, right?

[doomerC]

Yes, but it's always important to understand that art is a transformative process. When trying to find the 'feel' of a subject, what you're really doing is trying to bridge the gap between physical form and the lines you put down - and the idea here is that there's more than just the visual processing involved in it.

Personally, i often find myself squirming around and making weird faces as i draw poses and expressions for my comic - not assuming the actual pose or making the actual expression, but trying to understand what muscles are involved or how the joints move. This isn't exactly the same, but it's a good example of how the invisible can be translated into an image.

And a small bit of practical advice:

With a bit of experience in correlating line and form, this can rather quickly become a precise and flexible way of composing the mental image: as with simplifying objects down into variations and transformations of simple geometric forms, so is the dynamism and kinetic feel of an object simplified into a web of distinct gesture lines and angled surfaces that are simply varied in direction and size. So one method to work with this is figure out the overall gesture of the subject by putting down a few lines and sectioning off large planes of paper white - and then, start working on the 'gesture' of its individual details.

[monotone_ink]

Only advice I can think of is to just draw literally everything you see. Do it repeatedly, and it's something you'll get intuitively. Even better if it's a small object you can hold--study it carefully and feel the form with your fingertips.

It would also do you well to look into studying perspective, and draw cubes as drills to get a better sense of it.