Should I use gesture drawings?

[TheBryceKrispy]

Do you need to use gesture drawings? Part of what I-guess-you-could-call-it-analyse for art is Matt Groening drawing his characters from his comic strip "Life in Hell", which he doesn't use gesture drawings. His drawings/comics come out good. But I know that alot of artist use gesture drawings. Should you use them? Do you use them?

[punkarsenic]

i tend to carve out a vague gesture for a figure before drawing it, but its not necessary for every method of drawing. its useful to make sure you have figures with good, expressive gesture - it helps things be clear and enjoyable to look at, and its likely groening did consider gesture in his drawings, even if he didnt lay out gesture lines before drawing.

[Jenny-Toons]

It's not really a necessary, so whether you use gesture drawing or not constantly isn't a big deal.

However, it works like a charm when you wanna warm up before getting down to business. My gesture drawings are loose, quick, and really get me in the zone for drawing.

They also help me improve me dynamic poses and expressions!

[kytri]

Thing about a comic like Life in Hell and this sort of documentary is the kinds of drawings you see tend not to use gesture drawings or much underdrawing at all. You're watching a guy who draws in a very particular abstracted way draw characters he's drawn a million times in neutral poses. Of course he doesn't need a gesture for that. He can do that in his sleep.

Personally I mostly use gestures to plan out difficult poses and camera angles. I use other sorts of underdrawing for most drawings though.

[shazzbaa]

For every "hey this really helps and you should try it" tip you find, you're going to see an artist somewhere who doesn't do that thing. For every "never do this" advice you get, you're going to see at least one artist who does that thing and swears by it.

So if someone says "use gesture drawings," then why not try it for a little while and see if they improve your art? If someone says "don't shade with black," try shading without black and see if you like the results better! It's not like you're picking skills on a skill tree in a video game and you can never back out once you've picked the "gesture drawing" branch. You can try a thing for a while and see if it works for you.

It's not rules, it's just advice.

[Jenny-Toons]

It's not rules, it's just advice.

This right here XD

There really aren't any concrete rules. Just advice on how to improve and how to open up your abilities to improve or find a method you like. What works for some won't work for others.

You're not bound by advice-- so feel free to try everything and anything when making your art!

[lunaartemisasama]

I think it depends of the style you are aiming for, if it's more realistic you will probably use it,

I kind of use it sometimes, as much as I kind of draw XD,

[TheFalseVyper]

I think it depends of the style you are aiming for, if it's more realistic you will probably use it,

I highly recommend this! It's time consuming, but the end result will be more worth it.

For more simple art styles, I can understand how artists might bypass gesture drawing. Mistakes are more easily overlooked and can be chalked up as part of the art style.