Final Post

Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/63070158@N08/

Whew, the semester is over. It has been an intense last few weeks but I am pretty happy with where I ended up. Life drawing has been a great class. Admittedly, much better than I had originally thought. I mentioned in my midterm post that I am not very confident in my drawing ability.  This semester has really helped me become more confident and I think my work has really made many improvements. I did a self-portrait in Drawing 2 and the one I did for this class is so much better. I have been blown away at the depth and form I can create by effectively using contours.  Moreover, it is exciting to see how much movement gestures can take on. I am thrilled by the energy that some of my gestures expel (namely gesture 4). That said, I am very slow drawer. I am not entirely sure why, but I tend to be very slow and timid. While gestures have required me to shed that a little bit, I still feel it is my biggest problem. I am leaving with a number of drawings that I am extremely proud to have done. My lateral drawing of the skull turned out really well I think. With an angle that doesn’t show depth all that well, I learned a lot about exaggerating it to give it some physicality. I am also very happy with long drawing 7. While it isn’t without its problems, I think it was one of my first really successful use of contours.

I honestly didn’t think that the manikin would help my drawings. Or at least, wouldn’t influence them as profoundly as it did. I initially thought that the manikin was simply academic rather than utilitarian. And in fact, it is both. It was really cool to be able to build the muscle in clay, see it on myself, and see it on the model while drawing. I had a lot of trouble with the arm muscles on my manikin. But I think doing them over and over really helped me understand the form.

I am taking digital characters next semester so what I learned in life drawing will undoubtedly be instrumental in that class. But as I mentioned above, I am coming away with a bit more confidence in my drawings as well as a renewed interest in the traditional arts.

Whole Body

Wow, I really cannot believe the semester is done. But as it is, it comes as no surprise that we are now combining everything we have learned. The past couple classes have been all about the entire body. I did a few drawings on Tuesday but we mainly focused on drawing on Thursday. I was pretty disappointed with my work, but hopefully that changes on Tuesday (the last day of class!). I don’t really think it was bad because we are combining everything, but rather because it was a bad day. Well, at least I think that’s what it was.

My manikin is in rough shape. I need to redo about 8 of my arm muscles and tweak some of the leg muscles. Thankfully, I think it should make my manikin look a lot better. But, it kind of sucks to see him torn up.

I have begun my self-portrait and it is going all right. I really struggle with facial features, which I will probably start tomorrow. I hope that my ability to draw the structure will kind of hide the fact that I suck with everything else. I am hoping to really work on it over the summer though. In addition, with digital characters next semester, I hope that I can really get better. I think I am going to have to hold myself back from using shading. I just need to use my contours effectively.

http://drawsketch.about.com/od/figuredrawing/ss/drawingnoses_5.htm

I tried to find an image of the face that used contour lines to describe form. I think I found a pretty good one. Not only that, but the nose is really great. And the eyelids feel like they wrap around the eyeball. Overall, I think it is a nice portrait. Hopefully, I can apply the same technique in my self portrait!

Eyes, Ears, and Mouth

This week we learned about eyes, ears, and the mouth. Out of all of them, I have found the eyes to be the most challenging. There is so much information you have to pack into such a small place. I think what was the hardest part was giving the eye lids some depth. It was also hard to make them wrap around the eye and go back in space. The ears aren't too bad. They were a little complicated, but not difficult. I think they will be much harder if I try to draw them without any reference. And finally, we drew the mouth. The mouth was probably the easiest part of the face to draw. The only thing that tripped me up was getting the lips to pop out and feel "solid". Otherwise I think it was quite successful. 

I am not looking forward to starting my self portrait. Despite not having too many big problems with the ears or the mouth, I did have a really hard time drawing the face as a whole. I am not sure what it is, but when I try to put all of the pieces together it just doesn’t go very well. I am hoping to put enough time into the self portrait to help get over this problem. We will see I suppose. 

I found a drawing of an eye that I thought did everything I was having trouble with. The artist did a nice job of giving depth to the eyelids. Moreover, the folds in the skin have a nice physicality to them. The brow also has a very nice presence. It definitely feels like it comes out further and sort of encompasses the eye. All in all, it is a fantastic drawing and it employs many of the ideas that Amy has taught us.

http://www.dueysdrawings.com/eye_tutorial.html

The Skull

This week in life drawing was a good one. We focused on the skull, and after an hour lecture, we actually got to drawing. I was pretty happy with how my drawings turned out. It was cool to break the skull down. I love all of the planes and it really makes sense why this was saved until the end. In order to really render it well, you need to employ many (if not all) of the techniques we have learned. This includes planes, contours, and varying line weight. It has really helped me with creating (relatively) realistic dimensionality. We were given the assignment to do three long (around 2 hours) drawings of the skull. We have to draw a ¾ view from the front, ¾ view from the back, and a profile view. I am really looking forward to doing my last one.

The manikin is done! Well, almost. All we have left are a few muscles on the neck and then clean up. But, we don’t have any more big assignments. This will be a huge help, because my other final projects are going to be big. All in all, I am pleased with how my manikin turned out. It will certainly benefit from some cleaning and smoothing, but for the most part, I think it came out nicely.

Skull 1

Skull 2

The first view I decided to draw was the ¾ view from the front. Because we had not covered the face at all, it is not quite as polished as I would like it to be. I really need to go back in and add some depth via planar information. I am, however, very happy with the second skull. Amy was able to help me really push and exaggerate the planes of the skull. I think that really helped it become more tangible.

Hands!

Well, the hands weren’t quite as bad as I thought. Were had to draw two hour-long drawings, one of a skeleton hand and the other a person’s hand. My skeleton hand turned out awful. I chose a really, really bad angle and all of the fingers were overlapping. On top of that, I generally have a really difficult time creating straight, clean lines (this is very clear in the drawings I posted last week). So it turned out to be an unrecognizable mess of charcoal lines. The other drawing was a bit more successful. It still has its problems. I think it is a bit elongated and the perspective is a bit off. Overall though, I think it was a great learning experience.

My manikin sits in my locker, untouched since last week. I am hoping to finish the muscle assignment tonight, but we will see. I have been hearing horror stories of this last muscle group. I fear that they will take me way longer than I would like them too. Ah well, what can you do. I do think the tendons look pretty cool once they are put on. And the arm as a whole really interests me. I am looking forward to polishing everything up this next weekend. As it stands my clay is very lumpy and unsightly.

I chose to include two of my drawings from last week. The first is an hour-long drawing of the whole body. It turned out pretty well, except that her knees changed position after the first half. So the knees look a little weird I think. I also decided to include my second hand drawing. I was having a hard time with the thumb. It kind stuck in, then the tip came back out at me and the whole thing twisted.

The Arm!

This past week was another short one. With advisement day on Tuesday, we were left with a single class for the week. It was a productive class though. We began with some gestures, which went alright. I was able to draw the entire body within 30 seconds (which is very, very new to me). However, I need to begin adding definition and volume to the limbs. Currently, I show an arm and a leg as a brief (and often ill-conceived) line going in an approximated direction. I hope to improve my gestures over the next month. Which reminds me, we only have a month left of the semester. This blows my mind! It seems to have flown by. Thankfully, I feel like I have accomplished much over the semester. I am relieved to feel this way, too often I feel like I haven’t improved nearly as much as I should have.

As the semester begins to come to a finish, so does my manikin. With only a few assignments left, the flaws in my muscles seem to have compounded. I have so much to fix and so much to do. I think my clay gun (thing) will help in the creation of the tendons that run from the forearm to the hand.

Ah yes, the hand. Oh God, the hand. I mentioned this in my last post, but I tend to skim over the hand (by skim I mean I don’t draw anything really). I am really, really dreading the day we cover the hands. From what I gather, most people find the hands to be challenging. While this is reassuring that I am not along, it also reinforces my apprehension.  They can be beautifully drawn though. I am particularly interested in the range of motion we can do with our forearm. So, I decided to show a few studies done by an artist named Colleen Barry. She shows a wide range of motion and each drawing is rendered immaculately.

http://grandcentralacademy.blogspot.com/2010/04/uninstructed-anatomy-drawing-group.html
http://www.colleenbarryart.com/colleenbarryart.com/WELCOME.html

Shoulders and Arms

This last week was kind of tough for me. I am not entirely sure why, but I just wasn’t drawing very well. We continued to work on the shoulders and collar bone then moved on to the arms. On Thursday we ended up doing an hour and half drawing. So it was a pretty drawing intensive week (which is great). I can’t believe how helpful the collar bone is when trying to define the shoulders. And, as I mentioned in the previous post, I was able to draw a back view. The left shoulder blade wasn’t very visible, but the right one was really obvious. I was having some trouble really showing how much farther it stuck out than the rest of the back. But as I mentioned in the first sentence, during the longer pose on Thursday, I just could not get anything right! And while it is usually true that the first half of a drawing is usually pretty bad, it didn’t seem to get any better. Hopefully next week proves to be a bit better.

Amy also was able to point out some of the muscles we recently completed on out manikins. It was pretty cool to see how visible the shoulder muscles are. Sadly, I had a lot wrong with the last assignment. A lot of my muscles were either too big or too small. Thankfully, our latest assignment doesn’t seem to be that involved.

Since I haven’t posted any of my own work in a while, I decided to take some pictures of my more recent drawings. Both were hour long poses and all in all I am happy with how they turned out. On the first I think the foot is a little too small and on the second I made her hand a little too pointy (and a bit too generalized).  

Shoulders and Collar bone

The collarbone is a seemingly insignificant detail on the human body. Well, it actually does quite a bit. When I added it to my drawings last week it helped me visualize the top of the rib cage and aided in the creation of the shoulder plane. That plane was really, really important to my drawing. The model was on a slight angle, with her shoulder pointed right at me. I didn’t establish the plane right away; in fact, it wasn’t until Amy pointed it out. I wish that I had remembered to take a picture of it; I may upload it and edit this post. Anyway, we also took a look at the shoulder blades. I had a huge problem getting them to look right on my gesture drawings.  On Tuesday we are going to be doing another longer pose, I hope to be able to get a good view of them. I really need the work. I am not sure what it was, but I just wasn’t able to get them to look like they were shoulder blades (let alone they even belonged there).

We also began to work on the shoulders on our manikin. I am a little discouraged with my manikin at the moment. Last week it fell off the base and onto the floor, leaving many muscles smooched and deformed. So, I have to go back in and make them a little bit better. Aside from that, it is going well. The shoulders are pretty easy to do, a lot of large muscles.

For now, I chose to include an image I found that shows the divide and definition of the different planes via the collar bone. As I mentioned above, I think I will take a picture of my longer drawing and upload it tomorrow. But, you can see what I mean with the division of the shoulders to the chest and how it helps you identify were the top of the rib cage sits. 

http://www.portrait-artist.org/misc/neck-shoulders.html

Oi, feet.

Oh how I hate toes. Seriously.

If you couldn’t tell, we drew feet last week and I had an extremely difficult time with the toes. The final pose of class had me completely and utterly stumped. I couldn’t even figure out how to approach the toes. I feel like I am able to identify and render the different planes correctly, as well as get the perspective and dimensionality right. But I seem to only be able to do it for the bulk of the foot.

Other than that I suppose I am surprised at how weird and complicated a form the foot is. Putting all of the details aside, the basic flow of the foot is odd. This is especially due to the ball of the ankle. It makes my contour lines rather wavy and at time hard to follow. Take this, add in the details, account for the small size, and you have a ridiculously difficult body part to draw.

Ok, even though I think it is very challenging I am still having fun. I love that you start out with primitive shapes then deconstruct them and add the detail. In many ways it reminds me of 3D modeling. I know I said its small size made the foot difficult to draw, and I stand by that, however, it also makes it easier to measure and get the correct proportion. I think (to some extent) I am going to try to mirror this methodology in my larger drawings.

Jimmy Xu | 

http://ifthexufits.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html | http://ifthexufits.blogspot.com/

I was hoping to post some of my feet drawings but I left my sketch pad at school. So I did some research and found an amazing artist (Jimmy Xu) who did a series of feet and posted them on his blog. He has many drawings of feet, but I chose one that shows what I was talking about. He does a great job of showing all of the changes in the surface. It dips and rises over and over in a random, irregular way. I love the plane change of the right foot. The shaded line that runs the length of the foot does an amazing job of distinguishing the top plane from the bottom. His toes are also very, very well done.

Midterm Portfolio

Photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60152151@N04/

The first half of this semester has been an exciting one. I have improved more than I thought I would. Not because I lack the ability to learn, but rather because I lack confidence in drawing. So, it is very exciting to see improvements (notably in my egg-like rib cage shape, which has become second nature.) I have also noticed that at the beginning of a drawing I immediately search for either the center line or the spine. I think this has greatly aided in my ability to draw proportionally.  I have noticed, however, that I tend to make the pelvis either too small or put it too low (sadly, this is showcased in drawing 8).

    But, my semester has been fairly positive, so I intend to keep this blog post positive as well. Coming into the class I wasn’t entirely sure of how to begin drawing a person. These past few weeks have laid (what seems to be) a great foundation. I feel this is especially true for contour lines. I was extremely happy with how well the contour lines worked in drawings 1 and 2. I really tried to define the different planes of the body and the changes in topology.

    I am also very happy with how much the manikin has helped me. I feel like it gives me a more tangible understanding of the muscles. I have a greater understanding of how they create the human form. It is especially exciting when I am able to identify a muscle or muscle group while drawing.

Done by David Giraud - http://mojette.deviantart.com/

    I thought long and hard about what image I want to be on this post. I was torn between a marvelous anatomical rendering done by a famous classical artist or yet another 3D model. As you can see, I ended up choosing an amazing anatomy study done by one of my favorite 3D artists, David Giraud. I really enjoy life drawing, and while this class focuses on 2D, it is exhilarating to see what we are learning so skillfully applied to my chosen discipline.

    I hope that I continue to push myself this next quarter. As we delve deeper into the human form I can only assume it will become more challenging. I look forward to the growing as a artist and as a person.

Hour Long Drawing!

This last week we focused primarily on drawing. It was pretty nice to get back to drawing for a couple of hours.  Also, we added the thighs to our gesture drawings. Finally, out gestures are beginning to actually look like a person. Not only that, but it also gives so much life to the gesture. With the legs I can create much more dynamic actions. I never would have thought that adding the legs would provide (what I consider to be) such a drastic improvement.

                We also worked on a longer drawing, which again, was a nice change of pace. We worked on it for an hour. And I have to say, I had so much trouble the first half. My perspective was off, my proportions were awful, and my foreshortening didn’t make any sense. We took a five minute break and I thought my drawing to be complete garbage. Once we came back, however, I was able to fix most of the issues. I think I even made it pretty good. Well, I definitely learned a lot by doing it.

                I am looking forward to the next long drawing we do. I am hoping we will have one that spans a few days even.  I feel like when I leave and come back I am able to look upon my drawing with new eyes (so to speak). Then I can find errors or inconsistencies. I noticed with our hour long drawing that for at least 20 minutes the model was floating half a foot off the ground.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=205565
Drawings done by Vertical

                I chose the image I did because I feel it really demonstrates what I was talking about earlier. It showcases how much character comes out of the arms and legs. This is especially true with the gesture in the top left corner. Her leg is jutting out to the right and you can feel her stretch her arm up into that position. It is a really, really dynamic gesture.

Trouble with the Pelvis

This week was a short one for life drawing. I am looking forward to next week so I can work on drawing the pelvis. Last Thursday we were introduced to the pelvis and how we should go about drawing it. Initially, I drew it far too low. Then, I drew it way too small. I just couldn’t seem to get it right. I glanced around the room in the hopes of seeing some instruction in the other student’s drawings. It helped a little but overall I was very disappointed in what I drew. Hopefully we work more on it this week.

Aside from that, we received our next muscle assignment. I am finding it easier and easier each time I do it. Maybe we have just been working on easier muscles, but I like to think I am getting better. It helped a lot when my professor gave individual advice a week ago. She was able to give me some pointers that made the last few assignments easier. It was also a huge help to have an example manikin in the room with me.  

I must say, I am really excited to start working on a longer drawing. I know it won’t be for a while.  But I am still looking forward to working and refining a drawing. It has been a year since I took drawing II so I haven’t really worked on a long drawing for quite some time. Consequently, I know that I have likely developed/reinforced some bad habits while drawing on my own. So, even more reason to get those hammered out.

                The image I chose was an anatomy study done in a 3D sculpting program called ZBrush. I felt it would be good to upload because of how much emphasis the artist put on the pelvis. You can clearly make out where everything is. It is extremely well done. And it makes it really easy to visualize the bones since he has shown us multiple angles.

http://zclay.com/3dcg.html

Longer Drawings

We got to do a lot of drawing this week! In both classes we did longer drawings, which I think I learned a lot from by recognizing a few bad habits. I tend to look at my paper more than the model and I get hung up on the details far too early in the drawing. Aside from the longer drawings we worked on more the spine and drawing the egg shapes for the rib cage. Doing these exercises really makes it clear that I need to work on line economy. I tend to have to look for the correct shape and thus make a ton of overlapping lines on the paper. I am really beginning to notice just how distracting and ugly this can be. I have started to draw a line or shape above the paper a few times until I really know what I want to put down. I don’t think it is really doing anything yet but hopefully I will get better as I practice.

While doing our longer drawings I noticed I was able to distinguish the different planes on the body much more easily that before. I think using contours has really helped. It is exciting to see a drawing evolve and really take shape in (what looks like) three dimensions. I feel like am also noticing differences in form more adeptly. That said, my drawings are still full of errors but I feel like am noticing them quickly. Ah well, I look forward to when I can look back and really notice an improvement.

The image below is the second drawing we did on Tuesday. Obviously it isn’t finished but I like where it was headed. This drawing took 25 minutes and went through quite a few revisions. I am really looking forward to when we do even longer drawings!

Difficulties and and Amazement

Life drawing this past week proved to be more difficult than I thought. I found the drawing of the spine to be a little harder than I thought it would be. I also found the clay muscles to be extremely difficult to make. To be honest, I thought that was going to be my strength in the class but I think I may be mistaken. I can visualize how it should look from the pictures provided, but when it comes to actually molding the muscles I simply fumble around. I can only hope that this improves over time. I have a feeling that I will be revisiting the muscles that are due for Tuesday.

Aside from the manikin, I was a little disappointed that we couldn’t draw on Thursday. That said I found the lecture to be quite interesting. The technical terms were a little difficult to grasp but I could definitely see the logic in each. I also found myself gaining a better understanding of how muscles work. It is pretty cool to hear/see a breakdown of what muscle does what. Then to go on and construct those muscles makes for a great learning experience.

This upcoming week I hope to draw a little more. My gestures need to improve greatly. Last semester I borrowed a book from my 2D Digital Imaging professor, Andy Ducett, on animation. The book contained many small thumbnail gesture drawings that were breath taking. The amount of movement and the story contained in each was astounding. All of the drawings done with as a few lines as possible. Even the inanimate objects were full of life. I hope that this course takes me in that direction.

The image I chose to attach to this post is a series of gesture drawings done for animation. You can see what I talked about above. The amount of motion and character given to them is phenomenal.

Introduction Post!

Hello! I am Keith Catalano. I am a Game Design Major and I find myself becoming more and more interested in 3D Modeling and Animation. I am also really interested in 3D Sculpting with tools like ZBrush. It is because of this interest that I am extremely excited to learn human anatomy. I am not the strongest artist when it comes to drawing, but never the less, I understand the importance of understanding anatomy. And while I may not employ what I learn on a 2D medium (as per the focus of the class) as often as a 3D one, I realize that it is still crucial to my development as an artist.

This past Thursday I received my first taste of gesture and contour drawing. It was a terrifying and eye opening experience. I found the time to go by too quickly and I knew right away I would need to change how I was going about each drawing. Time management was, without a doubt, my biggest challenge. Then to move on to half an hour contour drawing was brutal.  Not only was a long period of time, but we could only draw a single appendage. 

I finished the arm within seven minutes. Realizing it was far too generalized and done far too quickly; I flipped my paper over and began again. This time I slowly moved over the subject’s upper arm. Meticulously matching the topology of the skin, I began to notice just how uneven the arm is. Our time was up just as I began the fingers. This was probably a good thing as I had no idea how to go about drawing them.

Proportionally, my finished product was an absolute nightmare. However, I was able to (relatively) render the topology with what I thought was a fair degree of accuracy. At the end of the semester my standards will likely change, and I will probably view this drawing as complete mess. But for my first attempt at contour drawing, I was pleased with myself.

The image below is by one of my favorite 3D artists and showcases the importance of human anatomy across mediums. 

Done by Marek Denko

Done by Marek Denko