[imaxxedout]

I'm taking a 'figure drawing for animators' course.. and... wow.. we have to learn damn near everything about the human body. Sometimes I feel more like a doctor. :| Anyway, once you start to know some anatomy, its INCREDIBLE what it does to your drawings. If I can I'll post some pics of some of my work, its just crazy. I think I've gotten about 5000% better at drawing people in the past 2 weeks. :0

- Ca$h

[OwlBoy]

I will be taking it eventualy, where are you taking it ca$h?

-Owl

[anarkisst]

Originally posted by imaxxedout:
I'm taking a 'figure drawing for animators' course.. and... wow.. we have to learn damn near everything about the human body. Sometimes I feel more like a doctor. :| Anyway, once you start to know some anatomy, its INCREDIBLE what it does to your drawings. If I can I'll post some pics of some of my work, its just crazy. I think I've gotten about 5000% better at drawing people in the past 2 weeks. :0

- Ca$h

Gee Ca$h. Good for you. I mean it. When I was in art school and college it was mandatory for real-life drawing and such. I think that anyone who thinks they are an artist without applied/hands-on study is talking out their a$$.

I never took that next step with animation. That'll be a challenge Ca$h.

Keep it up...er, you know what I mean.

[Timo]

Figure drawing

[suhail]

Originally posted by imaxxedout:
I'm taking a 'figure drawing for animators' course.. and... wow.. we have to learn damn near everything about the human body. Sometimes I feel more like a doctor. :| Anyway, once you start to know some anatomy, its INCREDIBLE what it does to your drawings. If I can I'll post some pics of some of my work, its just crazy. I think I've gotten about 5000% better at drawing people in the past 2 weeks. :0

- Ca$h

It gets harder, and more demanding. But it is extreamly useful, I can quickly sketch scenes for clients and they are become very impressed.
Facial features are the best!

[OwlBoy]

I feel good with my facial drawing, did lots of that in high school, but not at all with figure .

-Owl

[The Godfather]

I wish I had the time to take that course!!! Probably next semester.

P.S. Yeah, your drawings were pretty crappy back then. Can you post 'before' and 'after' drawings?

I still advice you to buy that drawing tablet. Do it!

[OwlBoy]

Drawing tablets rock! I recomend it also cash.

-Owl

[Face Ache]

Two words: Burne Hogarth.

Look him up. Get his books if you can.

[:XI:]

yeah, i took it

they weren't naked

but i was!

[funkboy]

Originally posted by :XI::
yeah, i took it

they weren't naked

but i was!

This made me laugh for the day. Thank you

[IceEnclosure]

drawin' naked fat chicks sucks.. especially for a whole year..

but it is better than splackin' one

[sek929]

I took it last year, when I came into the class I was horrible.

Then we learned the proportions of the skeleton, in fact our first assignment was to draw a skeleton almost perfectly in proportion. That really helped out when drawing the models too, gave you a sense of the structure underneath.

I just remember get really stoned and just sitting for 3 hours drawing, I loved it, had a couple of nasty drawings too.

[Zimphire]

I took a class like that, Gal wasn't naked, had a blanket.

[fat mac moron]

This sounds retarded, but pick up an old "Gray's Anatomy" book that shows explicit pictures of humans being dissected.

My parents bought me one for school and it provides a good understanding of the underlying human muscle structure.

Though the pictures are a bit graphic. The human hands are the hardest things for me to draw and after seeing the structure of what a "naked" hand looks like helped me a lot.

[Face Ache]

Originally posted by fat mac moron:
This sounds retarded, but pick up an old "Gray's Anatomy" book that shows explicit pictures of humans being dissected.

Nah Burne Hogarth is the way to go.











and possibly: by Stan Lee.

Would I lie to you?

[imaxxedout]

Those are good suggestions if I were going to go into comics, but I'm not.

Thanks though.

- Ca$h

[Timo]

Draw with charcoal. Smear a lot.

I'm all for the anatomy study and all that, but sometimes you just gotta open it up, draw what you see, draw over your first attempts and gesture.

[Face Ache]

Originally posted by imaxxedout:
Those are good suggestions if I were going to go into comics, but I'm not.

Thanks though.

- Ca$h

"Figure Drawing for Animators". What is that then? Are you going to animate some fine art?

[The Ginger Rat]

Thanks for the suggested reading, Face Ache. Those books definitely look worth checking out. I would love to improve my drawing skills.

OT:

Why does Amazon keep recommending Clean Underwear? Do they also offer Clean But Secondhand Underwear? Really cheap Dirty Underwear? And, err, based on "customers who wear clothes"? I didn't know Amazon sent cookies sniffing out nudists, or making personal judgements

[imaxxedout]

We're doing animation. Not comic book style mad exxagerated animation.

- Ca$h

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Good that you're taking life drawing if you're pursuing animation.

I agree with Timo, don't get too lost in the most clinical aspects of anatomy, observe and learn enough about how it works so that your drawings flow more naturally.

When it comes down to doing actual animation though, knowlege of anatomy is critical and will serve you well.

In traditional 2D animation, even with characters that appear 'cartoony' you need to know how bodies are constructed and move naturally, in order to render a more adequate caricature of them.

When it comes to modern 3D animation, forget about it. Intimate knowledge of anatomy is an absolute MUST before you can build any kind of character, or even more so, apply bone structures realistically with the proper kinematics.

One lesson I learned taking life drawing classes- forget all about making beautiful finished drawings. Draw like a mo-fo even if you produce 1 'decent looking' drawing out of every 10. The most important thing when you're in an actual life drawing class is the study of the form itself. Think of it like taking visual notes- training your eyes and hand to recognize the forms of the bodies before you and sketch them.

The time for making beautifully detailed finished renderings comes later, after the 'study' phase.

[imaxxedout]

I'm not making 'pretty drawings', but some of them turn out beautiful. I'll snap a few pics of my best ones, I don't doubt that you guys will be impressed. They aren't perfect though.

- Ca$h

[MikeM33]

My dad (also a graphic artist, studied at Cooper Union in the early part of the last century) had this real old book of Da Vinci's study's on anatomy. I used it alot to learn how to draw the human figure, but it's always good to take a figure drawing course. I was also into animation at a very young age (13 yrs old) and had to learn how to draw the human figure. Then later on when I was about 16/17 I got into the notion of creating my own comic book, and that knowledge was still essential.

I taught myself from readin books about animation. I had "Disneys Big Book of Animation" when I was around 13/14-ish and read it cover to cover. I learned stuff like how many drawings per second of film and so forth. I drew my own cells and painted them. I even had a super-8 mm Camera with stop shutter which I rigged-up to a wooden support so it faced down and could shoot my cells.

Animation was too time consuming (to the point of sheer madness and social reclusiveness) for me so I eventually became enthralled with comic books after reading Frank Millers "The Dark Knight Returns" about Batman in his late 40's (highly recpommend this comic to anyone, heck I wasn't even a comic book fan until I read it). I also purchased the book mentionned above by Face Ache "How to Draw Marvel Comics". I had this whole story-line set-up and this hero also. I still have some of the art-boards I did. But I sucked at lettering, which is ironic since my father was excellent with calligraphy and lettering. I just never had that steady hand.

Mind-you I did all this with pen and ink, I didn't even own a computer. I did all this stuff the "old" way. I don't think the computers of that time (mid 80's) were really capable of those kinds of graphics anyway.

I spent some time over the summer breaks in High School at Rutgers University
as I was selected in my first HS year by my art teacher for attendance at a summer arts institute there for gifted and talented artists. Not just visual artists either, but musicians, actors, writers, and dancers. During those classes, we'd have life drawing from nude models. So I was around 15 or 16 when I was drwaing from a nude model (I still have the drawings somewhere, they're rough charcoal on newsprint drawings). One of the coolest excercises in Life Drawing or even still-life study was drawing without looking at the paper. You had to use a continuous line without lifting your charcoal from the paper. But you weren't allowed to look at the paper either. It could produce some very interresting and amazing results.

Also, if you're just taking life drawing/figure drawing in hopes of scoping hot nude women.....THINK AGAIN. You may have male models, and you may have female models who are more "Rubenesque".

But if you're serious about learning to draw the human form I highly recommend taking at least one Life Drawing or Figure Drawing class. Don't stop drawing what you see after the class though. Take as many opportunities as you can to draw people, places and things and you're skills will become better and better. Eventually you'll be able to draw those people places and things from memory and even toss your own imagination into the mix. Go find a local art store and get yourself a small, easy to carry sketchbook and just bring it everywhere with you. You never know when something/someone will catch your eye.

MikeM

[imaxxedout]

Actually, our nude model is pretty attractive. The downside is that she's hairy. Very hairy.

- Ca$h

[The Godfather]

Originally posted by imaxxedout:
I'm not making 'pretty drawings', but some of them turn out beautiful. I'll snap a few pics of my best ones, I don't doubt that you guys will be impressed. They aren't perfect though.

- Ca$h

SO?

[imaxxedout]

heh. I need some freetime at home. I'll try to on wed.

- Ca$h

[OwlBoy]

So where are you taking the lessons?

-Owl

[imaxxedout]

Downtown MATC, 'figure drawing for animators'.

The first is a drawing from mid last month... just notice how I get drastically better the more anatomy we study:









Cool eh?

- Ca$h

[anarkisst]

Originally posted by imaxxedout:
Those are good suggestions if I were going to go into comics, but I'm not.

Thanks though.

- Ca$h

No. Don't be ignorant. These books are not for comics. Hogarth was a trained classical artist. His books are bibles. Especially for animation. Go to a bookstore and look at them. They are worth it.

Also, one teacher I had reccomended muscle magazines...really. He said that examining the human body in such exagration and high definition is fantastic for artists. Then its the artist who benefit with the knowledge they get from these subjects.

By the way, the current work looks great. Keep on drawing!

[OwlBoy]

Awsome work Ca$h! I had a feeling it was MATC, I go to truax. if you ever see a guy with a HUGE pull behind bag, thats me. If you ever come to the Truax campus that is.

I'm serious, AWSOME.

-Owl

[The Godfather]

Ah cool maan!

It beats my doodles anyday.