A member of the CGTalk community recently posted a comment regarding my gesture studies and inquired, "What would you like to improve on?" After thinking about his question, I realized that I had lost sight of my initial goal. When I first began creating these gestures, I aimed to capture the essence of any given pose in a relatively short amount of time, so that if I were to come back to this gesture at a later date, I could more accurately render out the pose based on this information. My anatomical knowledge isn't yet adequate enough to do so, but those are studies for a later date. First and foremost, I need to be able to Gesture with a good degree of accuracy. This post is a reminder, as well as an affirmation, that I will keep that in mind.

update on the whimsical nature sketch. Still just having fun with it.

more 60 sec gestures. Took longer than usual to warm up...

:/

60 sec and 120 sec gestures. Seems like with double the time, I should be exhibiting better results than this, but who's to say...?

Dug up and old concept and decided to do some coloring--an area in which I'm still not particularly well versed or confident.

more 60 sec gestures

more 60 sec gestures. Tried the last 30% or so, I drew primarily from the bottom-up, instead of my usual top-down. Can't say I notice any particular difference in doing so, but it was an interesting experiment nonetheless and something I should try more often...if only to become more familiar with different brush strokes.

update on CHOW-341, which is due today before 10pm. Will do some more work before deadline, but this is nearing the final result. Still some readability issues, but I'm hoping that an additional, generalized, lighting pass, will mitigates this issue significantly, thus enhancing readability.

60 sec gestures. First in a couple days. sadface

update on the CHOW-341. Starting to render

more 60 sec gestures

while waiting for some critique on the CHOW-341, I decided to jump into the creature of the week (COW), which is also over on conceptart.org. The idea is a large beast living up in the great white north that resembles an evergreen pine tree. I've done a few thumbs and landed on this one, which I've made a very rough sketch of...No where to go but up, that's for sure.

more 60 sec gestures

Chow-341. Color comp. Not satisfied

Update on CHOW-341. Based on my own observations, as well as feedback from various participants in the challenge, I altered the pose to improve readability. Initial outlook seems successful.

60 sec gestures

60 sec gestures

Refinement of the sketch for the CHOW-341 challenge over on conceptart.org. Not 100% on the belly plates, but otherwise it's coming along nicely

60-120 sec gestures. Getting better for sure; although I've noticed that at times I draw automatically without fully digesting exactly what I'm drawing. I attribute this to the fact that the repetition of certain forms has become more natural for me to draw, which does make sense, and in its own way, provides a certain comfort and confidence to my sketching. However, I need to be mindful that this doesn't make me lazy and self entitled in my work, and also remember that it is my past (and current) hard work that has led me to where I am today.

In keeping with the philosophy to remain goal oriented, I'm participating in the CHOW-341 hosted by conceptart.org. I need something more substantial than the straight forward academic drills of sketching gestures; more specifically, I need to put this knowledge of gestures, poses, & motion to actual use. The challenge itself seemed to me, to be relatively narrow, but I'm using that as an excuse to think outside the back and actual draw something that excites me. First and foremost, I conducted some research on the subject--nothing extensive, just some basic information as well as some image reference. I then started sketching some thumbs.

Quickly enough, I started to sketch the same variation of a basic body type, which frustrated me more than I should have allowed it to. The following night (tonight), I sketched a few more thumbs, which although slightly more interesting, were still based around the same basic idea. I then took some time and thought about what would be interesting and started sketching some thumbs based around that idea. I then sketched one final thumb, which evolved into an actual solidified idea. Based on that idea, I enlarged the thumb and began to render more thoroughly.

Might have been beneficial to explore more thumbs based on this idea, but I liked what I had, so I ran with it.

60 second gestures. Oldest on top and newest on bottom. Changed things up a bit by painting much more zoomed out and with my wacom set to just my one monitor, instead of the usual 2. I find it easier to paint with the wrist, instead of the elbow and shoulder, so using both monitors simultaneously while I work gives me the freedom to do so; however, something about this seems counter intuitive so I decided to paint on one monitor as I imagine most people do. As a result however, I have to paint zoomed much further out than usual, which creates a bit of a learning curve.

more 60-120 sec gestures. 60 on top and 120 sec on bottom. Need more practice.

More 60 & 120 sec gestures--60 on top and 120 on bottom. Generally, I think I'm becoming more proficient and comfortable with curvaceous and expanded poses, where as more linear and contracted poses tend to give me more difficulty.

some 5-10 minute gestures. I think I'm getting to the point where I need to do more in-depth anatomy studies of various areas of the body.

Some gestures from the past 3 days. Oldest up top and newest on bottom. First ones are 60 sec and the remaining are 2 min.

First, some 5 minute gestures. Nothing critical here, just more practice. Used an airbrush exclusively and varied the flow between 3 and 10% depending.

Also started creating an abstract piece based on some shapes and colors I was envisioning last evening while falling asleep. Can't say I like it, but I'm posting for the sake of posting in an attempt to document my failures. Uncertain whether or not I'll take it any further. Regardless, I should make it a point to finish what I start on a more frequent basis.

Some 5 (top) and 10 (bottom) min gestures. Outside of requiring more practice, there is nothing I would consider worth noting, save the image in the bottom right. In addition to having more of a fine art aesthetic, this image came together much, much quicker; in fact, the last 2 minutes or so I wasn't even making much progress. I'm attributing this to the method I used to render; namely my brush settings. I used an airbrush (softness 100% & flow ~3%) to generate the rough block out of the form, and afterward generated a more clean silhouette using the same brush settings as the past few nights (softness 0% & flow 10%). From then on, I alternated between the two settings as I saw fit. Will most definitely experiment more with this technique in the near future. Also should be noted that the relatively simplicity of the pose may also be a factor. 

More 60 sec and 120 sec gestures. 60 sec on top and 120 sec on bottom. Moving on to 5 minute gestures

120 sec gestures. Still difficult, trying not to get frustrated. Tried sketching the gestures based on the "Get to Grips with Gestures," article found in issue 102 of Imagine FX Magazine. I suppose that would constitute progress in itself--the application of new, learned material.

Out of touch, but still sketching here and there over the past week. Here are the newest sets of figure drawings. 60 seconds, newest to oldest, top to bottom.

More gestures. 60 seconds on the top half and 2 minutes on the bottom half. Took a while to warm up tonight, and I didn't really get into a groove until the last 10 gestures. Hard to say if there was any noticeable progress, but at least it's practice.

Spent maybe 30 or 40 minutes on this. Built from a gesture, as with the 60 second and 2 minute drawings. Did this one mainly for fun. Reference used.

60 second gestures on top 2 min gestures on bottom. More practice is needed, but I'm feeling more confident as I go. When attempting to accurately render the entire skeletal structure of the gesture with just a handful of lines, it is important to note that the bones/lines adhere correctly to the anatomical structure of the body, which is to say, that the lines don't necessarily occupy the center of mass 100% of the time. For example, when viewing the body from a frontal, orthographic view, the spine would in fact occupy the center of mass; however, when viewing the body from a lateral point of view, the spine would NOT occupy the center of mass. Often enough, I have noticed that although a 60 second gesture initially seems sound, problems begin to manifest once I move on to rendering out the actual bodily forms, and I know that part of this is due to the aforementioned mistake(s) in my gesture drawing. More patience, practice, & focus are definitely in order.

2 min gestures. More practice is obviously in order, but I started to feel more comfortable and more proficient towards the end. Drawings at the top were the first and drawings towards the bottom were the last. The vast majority were rendered in the same manner as the 60 sec gestures, with the forms filled in after.

More 60 second gestures. Noticeable progress between last night and tonight, which I'm measuring based on pose legibility and consistency.

Legibility -- After approaching the gesture in several different ways, I've found it best (for the time being) to draw a single line through any given body mass (eg. forearm, thigh, foot, head, etc), and with this line, do my best to encapsulate the position, proportion, & even motion of said body mass. Always, I found it easier to work top down, rather than bottom up...even on an inverted pose. Also note, that line breaks at the joints and/or whenever there's a change in the position/rotation of the body mass help with legibility as well

Consistency -- In the past, my ability to successfully generate a readable gesture in any given time frame was sporadic. The past 2 or 3 dozen gestures however, were very consistent both in terms of quality and quantity. I was able to not only produce the same quality of gesture throughout, but also able to produce a couple of lines, which would further detail the form of the body.

I'm now eager to see what I can produce in 2 minutes...will I be able to rough out the entire form of the body? Using the same method, if the 60 second gestures are the skeletal foundation (so to speak), then this would mean I'd have the same amount of time to render out double the amount of lines. For example, viewing the lateral side of the human body, the humerus (gesture) would be a single line and the bicep and the triceps (form) would each be a line of their own. As a side note, learning more anatomical terminology can't hurt

Back in the Saddle

Although both short and long term goals are in order, over the past week I'm settling for painting at least a little every day. The following images are the fruits of those labors; although, it should be noted that there are a handful of other paintings that never made it past the scribble stages.

Initially, this image was more geared towards the "Environment of the week" challenge hosted by conceptart.org, but after numerous (what I would consider to be) failed sketches, I decided instead to let my imagination run with various values thrown down by an airbrush...in retrospect, I lost focus. Regardless, I painted with values only and later applied color. The color was added on a "color" blending layer. As is apparent, not nearly as much time was spent with the color as with the values. Should also be noted that I'm still struggling with this approach (value --> color), and it would do me well to research and practice this...perhaps as a future short and/or long term goal. Also, this painting was done almost exclusively with an airbrush set to an extremely low flow rate (3%-10% depending). Generally, I find it both immensely easier, and faster, to paint with soft brushes, and I hypothesize that the various gradations that occur when painting in such a fashion make it easier for my eyes, and imagination, to see various possibilities. Although, given the variety of methods used to paint, it would seem that others think, feel, and visualize differently, and thus, paint differently. I suspect this relates to and can probably be attributed to various artistic styles as well.

The next painting was started last week, and painted over a period of 5 nights. The inspiration came from a brief on conceptart.org, which I adhered to for the most part. The brief was stated as such, "aggressive green, orange, & black single-seat anit-grav ship," and although I'm not satisfied with the colors, I consider it a successful WIP considering my substantial hiatus from any painting at all. In short...it's a start.

Finally, below are some 60 sec gesture studies based off images found from the "Figure & Gesture Drawing" site. I had drawn some last night as well, but failed to keep a record. While rendering these, it occurred to me that there are numerous different methods of recording a gesture, and that perhaps depending on the pose, some methods are better than others. For now, observation and practice are paramount.