Pushing your figures: Leading OR Head Shoulders Knees and Toes...

We discussed leading the other day, and by that I mean using a part of the body to be the main part or start of the action. There are lots of ways to lead and all these ways say something more or push the character but NOT doing so leaves your figures feeling stiff.  So I drew these in class requiring some class participation below:

Seeing as the head is at the top of the body (usually) we started with that.

 

All poses may not be as active so here is 'leading with the head' a little more naturally.

 

Just like the song, "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes", shoulders are next.  Shoulders tend to be pretty aggressive if you think of breaking a tackle in football or body checking in hockey or a space warrior babe alien thing. 

 

But shoulders also act as shields to try to protect feelings or the spirit inside as in the case of a shy person as suggested.

Next most logical body part to lead with is the chest.  This may be considered the "being on display" pose, the look-at-me walk etc.  Leading with the chest can express confidence, superiority, heroism, confrontation etc.

Working our way down, we get to the stomach. I going to digress for just a moment and say, I had a room mate, a well fed room mate, back in college who lead with his tummy.  If you were having a conversation (or doing any sort of activity) The tummy would arrive first, leading the 'mouth' which would drop whatever opinion the room mate had at the time. Below are just two examples of stomach lead.

 

Which brings us to the pelvis. All of us, at some time place our weight on one foot shifting our bodies into a contrapposto position.  This is a form or leading with the pelvis and there are lots of methods to this type of leading, four are below:

"What about twerking?" "Ahem...yes that is form of leading with the pelvis...but I'm not going to draw that." "Ahh." "...Um try this."

Leading with the knees tends to push the body backward awkwardly, this is great for describing a lanky or under-exercised figure.  But, if you look at people taking a photo on their cell phones, they tend to lead with the knees to try to angle the body back to get more into the shot.  If you look at "the Lovers" from Commedia del'arte, you will find that these characters (who usually lead with the chest) may fall back to lead with their knees when they stand still and let the warm emotions of love and happiness wash over them.  Same is true of people who are experiencing a true emotion.

Leading with the toes lightens the character's movements.  A sneak, sashay, or sexy walk (though a sexy walk also is a lead with the chest and shoulders as well) are examples of leading with the toes.

"Can you lead with your arms?" they ask.  Of course!  Leading with the arms of hands gives purpose to the intended action of the appendages and they really to have a reason to up.  It's very hard to sneak with the arms up as it places you off balance, in this case, arms are better positioned near the core of the body to act as ballast.  A high dive is an obvious lead with the arms/hands, entering a dark or smokey room would be cause to lead with the arms/hands to prevent collisions with unseen objects is also a good use of the arms leading.

More on leading later, for now think about what your character would lead with and continue to push your posing and animation. Thanks for stopping by!

Animal Drawing: Gorilla

Skeleton, keep it simple.  The shape of the ribcage is of more interest (at this point) than drawing each actual rib.  It's a huge barrel, just be sure to follow the form of it. Study the skeleton of your animal, measure the skull and compare it it to the lengths of the other bones in the body.  This will help you make more accurate drawings.  Students of animal drawing tend to draw the gorilla's arms a little short at first.

 (The cervical vertebrae are much longer than a human's for more surface area for the muscles of the neck to attach. Scapula come forward more than humans, cross your arms in front of you - that's how gorillas' scapula sit naturally as shown below.

Gorilla surface anatomy is very similar to human anatomy.

The muscles labeled below.

 ...And all of that stuff underneath fur

 See?

To keep you going, I have added some gorilla models sheets from Walt Disney's Tarzan (1999) (Hehe:)

 Or if Tarzan isn't your style, here's a fun one from "Superman; Terror on the Midway" (1943 Fleischer)

Gesture Stays The Same!

Sitting in class, discussing with students their characters' turnarounds.  I am amazed that so many of them have changed the dynamic poses they came up with because, "the pose was too hard to draw".  The gesture is the soul of the drawing!  Everything else; construction, anatomy and technique just get added to or built off the gesture. One word: Blah! If you redraw the pose into something "easier", you are actually dulling it down, like striping out the melody of a song, the flavor out of a sauce, or the personality out of a good friend.  A new "less complicated" version is just noise, tasteless glop or detestably uninteresting.  There is way too much of this watering down going on now-a-days so the challenge is to CHALLENGE yourself by coming up with gestures that are not only lively but but push the essence of the pose you are trying to draw. Doing so will push the limits of drawing ability as well. If the character/figure you are hoping to convey has a solid gesture, The specific shapes you use in construction should "fit" the gesture.  If the character's legs are very long, then those leg cylinders should be drawn long, but still reflect the gesture they are trying to express.  There may be a need to draw a new line or elongate the gesture but this new "complimentary" gesture line needs to be at the same angle(s) and expressiveness as the original gesture.  Think of starting any pose a character who has unusual proportions by drawing the gesture of 'typical' human.  Do not get caught up in the length of the legs or thickness of the chest etc.  Just draw an expressive gesture and add the components of construction to it.  If it helps, draw the pose using standard human expression and proportions first to give you an idea of what the pose looks like before you try to draw the character's actual proportions. This will free you from over-thinking your character's pose.  After drawing some poses of your character this way, you will get to the point where you can draw out your character with good gestures according to to its unique proportions.  Here is a quick GCA breakdown in three steps.  A lot of compression is happening in the abdominals as well as a twist through to the shoulders.

 I have taken three characters from my students (I don't really remember how they look but made some estimates) one has very long limbs -the character not the student-, one is very thick through the neck with long ears and the last is um, well fed. I used the same gesture (shown in red) from the above drawing to pose each one.

In each case I have had to 'push' the construction off the original gesture but those shapes follow the original gesture.  You can add just any constructed form on an expressive gesture, don't cheapen the work you do because it's hard to draw.  As always, you can click on the images for a larger version. Now go draw difficult poses, thanks for stopping by.

I don't know why...

...But I was sitting in front of the computer, my son walked over and asked me what I was doing and all of a sudden these images opened in Photoshop.  I don't remember clicking or selecting these old drawings, but I figured there must be some sort of voodoo thing going on here causing drawings from long ago to suddenly open and I decided to post them here. If redundant, sorry.

Gesture: Staying Loose

Recently a group of students called Austin Kleon's link to my attention. He has written "How to Steal Like an Artist" and he posted this image 'stolen' from Peter Jenny's "Figure Drawing" book.While I agree with with both Messrs Kleon and Jenny, that drawing from photos is pretty handy assuming you can't get out in the world because you're very busy writing books and can't draw from life. But know that any drawing you do from a photo is going to just appear flat due to the source. But drawing the way regrettably shown above is, in a word, 'yawn'. At the risk of alienating the two writers above, maybe I should clarify with 'dull', 'dead', 'stiff', 'uninteresting', or just 'LAME'. At least for you animator types or folks who think drawings should be dynamic and alive. Drawing from an inside wire frame, especially as in the regrettable stolen photo above automatically stiffens up a drawing. I think perhaps Mr. Kleon and Mr. Jenny are really busy writing books and when you're busy writing books you tend to overlook important stuff (I mean, heck, just writing this post made me forget to feed my kids) but as an artist, you need to present images especially figures that are ALIVE.

Let's take a look at a photo and see where I'm going with this. Google Sports illustrated and then go to the images search and....uh...okay, don't do that because you won't find many sports photos because they have that Swimsuit issue thing which can get pretty distracting. So just go to Sports Illustrated and look at their photos link. I found this photo of Connie Mack giving the what's what to a rookie back in 1920. ( I love old sports photos) And then we'll just drop in the implied shoulder to medial line to hip connections and link up the arms and legs and viola instant totally awesome drawing, right?I know you're saying, "Golly, it's hard to see that much awesomeness with the actual photo behind it." so I removed the photo to really highlight the lines. It looks like a 3D rig now, so it must be right, right? Well let's use that to get a drawing.
Above is a quick drawing with said 'interior lines' and added construction. Something has gone amiss with this. Perhaps it the overall stiffness of simplified lines on organic forms.Using an 'interior line' setup such as this really only enables you to get an very simple idea of whatever action is taking place. There is little to no hint of weight or suggested action and therefore the drawing becomes nothing more than just a set of mannequins. Which will in turn, do not lend an essence of life to the drawing which will make the viewer linger. So unless you have a writing contract and you're in a hurry, how about taking a step back and looking at the photo again.

Ask yourself, "What am I seeing and why am I drawing it, what's the story?" In the photo below there are two men, one who had a strong career and retired describing some finer point of pitching to a relative newcomer (who is youthfully confident) to the game. Then breakdown the poses; the one on the left is describing and pretending to throw what looks like a knuckle-ball. He is in mid pass/throw favoring the start of action. His right leg is planted and energy is traveling upward through his pelvis and being transferred through his ribcage. That energy is called Thrust or Force and the ribcage must Torque to transfer the energy. Ultimately this prepares the right shoulder to move across the chest dragging the arm and thus catapulting the "ball" from the hand. The guy on the right is watching in a polite, yet arrogantly distracted slouch."Okay, so what? I have more books to write." says Mr. Kleon and Mr. Jenny. Well, fellas, if you really stole like an artist you would know that as an organic form, force and torque would cause the right side of the upper body to stretch, in turn making the left compress slightly. Conversely the transfer would cause the left side of the pelvis and lower trunk to stretch. A slouch on the other figure pushes out the back and forces forward the anterior portion (that's the front for you busy writer types) of the pelvis. Below is an example of what is really going on as far as the gesture in the photo.
Which in turn allows for a more active drawing of the figures below.
I know you're asking...
And I'm glad you asked. because if you draw loosely and really employ the action you 'stole' from life you can create gestures and animate characters such as the ones below. I used the same gestures from above to get these two fellows. More story, more life.Here's is another example. And it's a doosey! Have a glance at this amazing photo also from SI by Eddie Keogh. I am not a fan of soccer (which puts me in the less than 1% of the human population) but this photo makes me want to be one. Well sorta. Look at the drama happening here; the guy on the right has leaped way up high to head in a ball past the defending guy on the left who has turned, or at least in this split second photo, is turning into a protective block to spare his body the collision with the ball. Dang!So let's go back to 'stealing' like Mr. Kleon or 'gesturing' like Mr. Jenny. Using this method we get this.And because we want to see that awesomeness again, we have taken out that pesky distracting photo and we get the lovely below.I know what you're going to say, but I haven't even put in the construction lines yet.
Okay there they are. Look at how...how...how positively 'UN-dynamic' those poses are. Bleah, I bet Eddie Keogh is face-palming right now. How insulting a drawing like this would be to such a magnificent photograph?! In fact really the only way to save the drawing is to make it into two toy robots from the fifties fighting like below.Ah, that is a tiny bit better. Insert your own laser sound effect here. Pew pew pew! Incidentally, if you want to see fantastic paintings of toy robots AND donuts check out my buddy Eric Joyner's work and you will not draw toy robots because his are more awesome then the awesome you can only pretend to be at drawing robots (with donuts).

So, what's really happening here, Mr. Kleon and Mr. Jenny? Sorry to bug you while you're busy writing. Well, the guy on the right has just launched himself off the field with his left foot while twisting his body around to blast the ball with his forehead. His left arm is in mid-pitch which will then paddle outward to give the chest and neck full thrust in the opposite direction. his entire right side is painfully compressed and his right arm is tucked just to get out of the way. The guy on the left is in mid-flinch. His head has whipped around to the right away from the ball as the left shoulder raises in preparation of impact.So really, the energy looks like this.That means that the gesture really looks like the image below. Draw to the areas of most torque, not through the center. Another post is coming on this subject but you'll have to wait until I feed my kids.Here are some quick notes I made while stealing from nature.
Which lead to this drawing below.
Mr. Jenny, you are probably asking,
Because (and again, I'm glad you asked) we are PUSHING what we've stolen. Pushing the force, the torque, the energy, the very essence to make a drawing live outside of realm of stillness and bad drawing-ness. Which allows for a drawing and then leading to animating drawings and poses that are alive and filled with energy. Speaking of stealing, I was drawing other poses for this post when my (unfed) daughter suggested I draw Princesses (because she loves them no matter how much food she has) so I drew these according to the gestures I already established. This was impacted by her saying every couple of seconds, "That doesn't look like her." or, "She wouldn't do that." or "Can we watch 'Tangled'?" But at least you get the idea.
Princesses locked in an epic battle of 'pretty'. Sound effects: Bliiiiing! Now go steal as Mr. Kleon suggests, but steal with the ability to push the poses and not draw stiff, dead, lame drawings. Steal to breathe life into your work, it will push push your characters, figures, and maybe even you book out of boring-ville to WONDERLAND! Thanks for stopping by.