I've been reading Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators. I'm still on chapter 1.. cause that's how distracted by absolutely nothing I am. It's a really nice book.. and I think it certainly has helped me even when I've only read the first chapter. It doesn't hurt that the Author, Michael D. Mattesi, has a youtube channel where he uploads free videos like once a week. http://www.youtube.com/drawingforce
The first chapter tells you what you should be thinking about while drawing these figures.. and I may or may not be actually thinking about these things as I go. lol
FORCE POINTERS
- Skate the page. Close your eyes and imagine the paper as ice and you as the world’s best figure skater. You are performing your best routine. As you skate, feel the fluidity and speed of your movement. Notice how the blades cut into the ice as you move through tight and open curves. Your marks should indicate the change in force and pressure that your body would feel on the ice.
- Find the ribcage to hip relationship first. Keep seeing how their relationship is asymmetrical and falls into one of the four previously discussed scenarios.
- Stand and mimic the model’s pose. Start with the biggest ideas of the pose and work down to the small detail. Close your eyes and feel your body in that pose. Notice the stretches, torques, pressures, and gravity on yourself. Then push the pose and feel where it wants to go. Put those experiences into your drawing.
- Watch the model move into a pose. Look at the directions their body swept into to take the pose. There lies answers to force.
- Draw with a clear directional force for each part of the figure.
- Be passionate about the aliveness of the model and the pose. Draw your excitement.
- Write what you are achieving in a drawing. Bring a thesaurus to increase your vocabulary about your ideas. Write verb first then noun it affects.
- Pay attention to your internal dialog. Don’t be self defeating.
- Explain what you see, don’t just copy it.
- Get out of your own way. Don’t worry about the drawing.
- Always have something to say.
- Draw to feel what the model is feeling.
Other than that, I've been horribly distracted by Steam's recent sale/giftpile objectives. I really shouldn't be so easily coerced into playing numerous games.. Why do I have to play games to win games anyway? Where is this objective set? lol
