"Let's Get Better"- Drawing & Painting Fundamentals - Lesson 4 - Figures & Gestures

READ TIME: 5 MINS
VIDEO TIME: 5 MINS
STUDY TIME: LIFETIME!! ;)

Hello and welcome to another blog 'lesson 4' in the 'Let's Get Better' series.

The previous blog posts (lesson 1,2,3) can be found here
Lesson 1: https://steemit.com/art/@beekart/let-s-get-better-drawing-and-painting-fundamentals-lesson-1-negative-space

Lesson 2: https://steemit.com/art/@beekart/let-s-get-better-drawing-and-painting-fundamentals-lesson-2-perspective

Lesson 3: https://steemit.com/art/@beekart/let-s-get-better-drawing-and-painting-fundamentals-lesson-3-still-life

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So today I'd like to share with you a lesson and some exercises on how to improve you figure drawing and gestures.

What makes a great character design/painting/drawing.. Most of the time it is a combination of a few things.

• Gesture, is the movement of the character lifely or dynamic
• Anatomy, are the proportions believable or done in a way where it doesn't look silly? This is also important in stylized characters!
• Design, is the design of the character interesting or does it add to the character you want to portray?
• Execution, this is subjective and has a lot to do with the 'taste' of the viewer. But if the drawing or painting is executed well it contributes to the overall character.

In this blog and video we will mostly just focus on the gesture part and the exercises that you can to improve them.

Simplified Anatomy:
I bet everyone knows the 'stickman' drawings. The stickmen fighting flash movies in the 90's/00's where huge! :)
For a lot of us this is how we start drawing anyway.. At least I did! Even as close as 9 year ago that was pretty much the only way I could draw a 'human'... or something that resembles it.
Only when I started to seriously pursue a career in art I learned that having knowledge of anatomy would help you draw people better.. And as my goal was to be an artist for games.. and games were filled with people and monsters.. it seemed only logical to start practicing my anatomy! :)

Okay so where do you start!? Well.. I recommend downloading a pdf-book by Andrew Loomis. His books are from the 50's / 60's as far as I know and they can be downloaded or read for FREE online!(not illegal!.. copyrights expired or something like that.) .. Though these books (especially: figure drawing for all it's worth) are GOLD! and I eventually just bought the books.

One of the famous drawings in the book is the 8-head man
Learn this drawing.. copy it.. atleast 8 times! :) And make sure your reproductions are ACCURATE! :)
This will help your understanding of anatomy so much! Which will make all your characters from here on out,, much much better!
Another advice I can give is: Read the book, because not only in his drawings, but especially with his words did Andrew Loomis explain so much that will make you go 'Aha!!'..

Besides that, practice and learn the simplified human drawing:

The movement line:

When I start a gesture I usually start with the movement line. This is the main movement of the body that I'm going to be drawing.
It is attached to the head.. sort of like the spine.. Although the spine doesn't always have to follow that movement line.
What I do next is to find where the torso and pelvis/hips are going to be at.. Doing these kind of drawings will give you more of a lifely and dynamic feel for poses/gestures. Which will eventually really help you character designs.

As a last thing I'd like you to practice these simplified characters in all different poses and actions.
This will be fairly challenging to keep the right proportions while drawing them running, sitting, jumping, fighting.. or from above or underneath etc etc..

But as with everything, practice makes perfect!
You will notice so much improvement in a matter of a few pages in your sketchbook.. it will probably motivate you to do more!

Check out the video lesson on this in my Let's Get Better Youtube episode!

Thank you for reading, watching and potentially resteeming or upvoting! :)

Cheers
Rogier / @beekart