Mint space chick

I set aside most of today for drawing, but ended up outside running multiple errands and inside doing other stuff. Spent maybe two hours drawing, tops.
I think I'm having some trouble bringing myself to just draw random practice stuff right now. Feels like I ought to try doing something more sensible, like posing and finishing off a drawing or painting rather than just copying photos for no particular reason. When I'm working on a "piece", I can easily go on for hours without stopping, but when I do random meaningless stuff I lose focus after just 15 minutes and start looking for a way out. It's fun while actually drawing, but as soon as one sketch nears its rough completion I have no desire to start another.

This one here is the last I did today - it was a head loosely based on an image I found, which I drew quickly and lightly. Decided I wouldn't risk ruining it by going over it with darker lines and more definition. Made the "mistake" of trying to add a body which went all kinds of bad places. Eventually salvaged it (more or less) and added a gun and colors to distract the viewer from spotting bad anatomy. Actually tricking her out with a suit and accessories was fun. It reminded me of a short period I had a few years ago when I drew cheesy old-school sci-fi women. I might take that up again, make a little series.

White bodysuit

...with a curious black dot sewn into the stomach area.
I spent the longest time today not really wanting to start sketching for some reason... millions of reasons why I had to do this or that first, and wasn't feeling up to it. Then I forced myself to grab a pencil and hammer one out before I went to play some games, and it ended up being pretty enjoyable. Go figure - you have to actually try before you can tell if it'll be uncomfortable or not.

Reachess

Sketched for a couple of minutes in CherryBrush, just something random. I've been working on a game for the last week and haven't really had much drawing practice besides game graphics. Will hopefully finish the game in a couple of days and then get back to doing some painting.

Coil

Just a couple of random sketches today. After doing a few, I noticed a trend in dynamic poses that there's often a curve or line of tension reaching through the body like a wound spring or coil, waiting to be released when the action is performed (be it a running step or a kick/punch etc). It probably has something to do with building up leverage in the opposite end of the body, in the form of mass that can drive and balance the motion to deliver maximum force in whatever is the key element (fist or foot for instance).

I imagine that a football player arches backwards, extending his abdominal muscles and moving the arm opposite his kicking leg back, before moments later compressing all his frontal muscles leading to an opposing contraction of the body, with the leg being thrust forward forcefully and balanced by the arm and upper torso bending forward at the same time.

Seen like that, most such "coil" action seems to happen diagonally through the body, across an arm and a leg. It makes for nice poses anyway (not really put to use in the larger sketches on this page, as they were drawn before I thought of this).
You have to play the action back and forth in your head to figure out what should happen before and after the imaged moment and thereby how the figure should be posed to appear most sensible. It's no doubt a healthy mental exercise, and stick figures are quick and painless to draw so I guess this should be a more common element in my sketch routine...

Definitely not a sketch

Well, it started with a sketch, or several actually. The first image shows all the preliminary sketching that took place before I scanned and started painting.
Watch the digital process on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDkyqQ2uVHQ

Elvgren stuff 2

Some more from the book. Actually I'm still in the first section of it where his influences are presented, along with pictures drawn and painted by other artists. None of these images represent Elvgren's own work.
I'm particularly happy with the little boy in the bottom right pouring water. I was really in the zone while sketching out his chubby little arms and hands, making them very organic and believable, imho. I almost ruined them by trying to go over some parts one more time, but forced myself to leave most of it alone in the early rough state.

Elvgren stuff 1

As I mentioned before, I got a great book on the life and work of Gil Elvgren. A few days ago I set out on a crazy path to drawing every single picture from that book, including various historical photos and whatever else came up. Mainly though it's full of amazing women stylized and exaggerated just enough to make them look "super perfect" (in the words of K.R.)

I'm not trying to be 100% accurate with everything here, just using the images as inspiration and guide for what to draw. Sometimes I attempt to match the exact lines seen in the original, while at other times I draw something very different that's just based on the same angle or scene shown in the book, or a particular detail thereof (like a face or a piece of cloth).

So far I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'm not worrying about completing the whole book, I'll just keep going for as long as it feels worthwhile. The whole point of course is to learn, and to be influenced by some of the best art I've seen.

Scribbly figures

Sat out in the shade one day and drew some 16 pages (tiny A5). Most of it was crap, but I had a random flash of inspiration where I made a bunch of small loose figures with very little definition to them. Some had discernible legs and/or arms, while others were more like a vague draped figure. I didn't really know where I was going with them, but it was fun and some ended up rather dynamic.
The two lingerie-clad women are from a different session with photo reference.

Bridgman studies 1

This is my new sketchbook shown on top of the book I used for (very loose) reference. Bridgman's figures are all very dynamic and lively, while not going crazy with realistic proportion and detail everywhere. It's refreshing to be inspired by his lines from time to time.

Random figures

Very nearly forgot to sketch something before heading to bed. Ended up doing some boring figure scribbles inspired by the last few days of pose reference. I wasn't very "into it" though, very tired. Will have a more serious go later. I like the kind of male back view seen on the right - there's something satisfying in blocking out the whole back ribcage/scapula region with just a few lines.

Posemaniacs 4

Let's keep doing this for a while... No effort or imagination required. 30 sec/pose, once again with my modified randomizer app, which I've concluded only works on my computer for some reason. I might port it to javascript or something for better compatibility.
I can feel myself getting a bit looser and more comfortable with these quick figures, which is great. They should probably be coupled with some more careful study though, as I find myself wondering about some specifics now and again, only to have the reference image disappear before I can really figure it out.

Posemaniacs 3

More, 45 seconds this time. I got a bit fed up with the weird poses that would sometimes show up on the official randomizer, so I wrote my own that only selects from a few hundred "normal" poses and angles.
You can try it here (but do as the instructions say and download the swf).

Posemaniacs 2

Some more of this.

Posemaniacs 1

30 seconds per figure. Really neat way of sketching. Try it @ posemaniacs.com

Male rear ... head

Simple little thing. No reference, sort of winging it. Worked out rather well I think. I don't think I've really studied ears from this angle, took a few tries to get something plausible.

He-Man recollection

Re-did the He-Man pic from a few weeks back, without reference. Comparing the two was interesting - most obviously I completely forgot about the shoes, but the overall pose and body shape is also much less dynamic and interesting... sort of falling back towards a stereotypical "anatomical" front view and smoothed-out shapes. Not very surprising, but clearly illustrated by this.
I think I'm going to try this kind of thing some more, since it wasn't particularly daunting to just go ahead and repeat stuff I had moderately clear in my memory - I didn't have to try anything "new".
I'll have to focus more on trying to "jazz up" my pose and shapes though, to avoid boring averageness. Refreshing a bit on anatomy for inspiration wouldn't hurt either. It's much easier to go wild with design and shape when you feel the confidence of knowing where everything should go (through reference or experience/knowledge).

Somewhat simplified anatomy

I was going to do a quick proposal for a simplified anatomical figure/framework, shaving off needless details and isolating characteristic keypoints. Main inspiration was my memory of what Loomis used for figure frames (which kind of looked like awesome Doom monsters). I more or less failed with this one though, ending up with a rather traditional layout which is a lot more fleshed-out than I had intended, and less suited for quick pose sketches. I'll try again tomorrow, perhaps digging out some Loomis stuff for closer study.

Arms

Trying to remind myself of the curviness and flow of human limbs. It's all too easy to just fall into the habit of doing random blobs or tubes vaguely based on some anatomical masses, without paying attention to overall coherence and "elegance". It's a lot easier to pull a focused and dynamic-looking pose if you have some natural curves to work with.

Constructing some heads

The topic of methodical head construction came up earlier today. Figured I might as well do some of that. I can't say it went very well... Started with some basic layouts for side and front view, then a reasonably successful 3D attempt (upper right). The next one after that (below) was really weird though - it started out pretty nice as a seen-from-below view, but the more I worked on it the more I gradually changed it into a level view... No doubt because that's what I'm used to drawing, and my eyes kept telling me that various details should approach that template to look good. I think I need to simplify this a lot more, and draw a very crude sphere+cylinder with a few lines on it before I start considering it as being a head. Weird perspective issues are best handled with an abstract model, while making it look like a natural face is something better left for later when all the keypoints have been established beyond doubt... Tricky.

He-Man

Quick and dirty again, but with some reference to help me along. It's the title pose and pretty much the only image of him that's easily found everywhere. I intended to spend more time trying out different poses and angles to work on the anatomy, but as usual I left things until way too late when I was dead tired, so there's only this one for now. Legs are kind of disproportionately large, but I like how it looks. This guy isn't meant to carry any kind of earthly physique.