Beginner Figure Drawing - Drawing The Torso

1. Trailer: in this next part of our our journey, we are going to be covering the torso. We've had a look at some basics of the torso in a previous lesson, but now it's time to take this a little bit further. We're going to look at its shapes and forms its gestural rhythms. It's perspective and look at the ways that we can go about constructing it'll. There's going to be a lecture for advice and demonstrations, and we're going to finish it all off with a 20 minute time during session. So if you're ready to tackle the tool, so let's get drawing. 2. Breaking Down the Torso: all the way back in. Listen three. We covered the basic shapes and forms for the torso. These concepts that we went over work perfectly fine as initial ideas. But they obviously lack the extra construction, all detail. We needed to really bring more believability to our figures design. So now it's time to start building on top of those foundations. The torso is the biggest individual part of our figures, construction and, as such is going to be the biggest gestural movement throughout out pose. It's going to be the area that's going to allow us to pose our characters in really dynamic , twisting wise. Without its curvature and range of motion. We would never be able to draw those awesome comic book or action poses. So it's important to understand not only its rough foundations but how we need to approach its construction as well. The concepts we looked over in less than three were really just crude interpretations of what's actually going on in this area, So we're going to evolve our understanding off the torso. We're going to break it down into its biggest individual areas of shape and look for the key landmarks to help ensure our positioning and construction is going to work in a three dimensional environment. So let's take a look at this now. 3. Basic Construction Parts: Let's go back to basics first and foremost. Before we start putting in any type of details, we have to first get the basic foundations for act also set up. The first thing we have to understand about the mechanics of the torso is that it's separated into two distinct independent areas and we have to ensure we simplify these two areas as much as we can before we can start putting in any type of muscle or body protrusions. It's not going to matter too much whether we put these details in unless we correctly developed out basic foundations first and foremost, when we start constructing out or so it's going to be vital to remember that we are dealing with two very unique and independent structures that are combined to look as one. These two structures are going to enable this part of the body to move in really dynamic ways, and in many instances it's going to be the structure that is going to dictate the overall position off the figure the most. We have the rib cage, which takes up about 2/3 of the length of the torso and of course, the pelvis. We also have this small gap in between the two parts, which is about the width of a fist. The head is usually going to be the first place we look at it figure, but the torso is usually the one that's generating the entire rhythm of the figure. So if the head is chapter number one in our book of construction than the torso is really chapter number two now there are two ways we can go about thinking off the torso. Each approach is going to have its own advantages and disadvantages. We can either think off the torso as being two separate shapes in their own right. Well, we can think about it in the form of one big bean bag shape. The advantage of separating these two parts independently is that we can get better control over the position off each area. When we start trying to do extreme poses, an extreme overlapping. This is going to be useful because it's easy to get lost. Sometimes when we try to do the same thing without being bag idea, the more rounded our structures are, the less information we have is two way in through the space. Our torso parts are going to be positioned. But the flip side to that is that out beanbag idea is going to be the more beneficial for ensuring our gesture. Rhythms remain intact. Gesture is the longest access line on the longest curved line in our torso. It's the line of action which tells the story of the torso, and we want to ensure that we have these nice fluid rhythms throughout our forms. As much as possible. When we break about torso into two parts, we might get a better understanding of its overall position. But the trade off is we might start losing some of that gestural rhythm. What was once this beautifully curved line of motion now has this yawning gap interrupting the flow. So there's going to be some choices will have to make. There's no rule right or wrong way to approach the construction. All foundations, and most of it will simply come down to personal preference when starting out, though it's probably best to begin with splitting al forms up. This is just going to help us envisioned the underlying structures a bit bed up and get used to the idea that we are dealing with two areas that work independently and then come in later on with trying out the beanbag idea. Ultimately, we want to be out to use both one. We need to. Some figures are going to be much more suited to the beanbag concept. Others will be better suited to the separate parts idea. What's important isn't so much which choice we make. It's that we have these options available to us. 4. Gesture and Connection Line: one of the most difficult things about the torso is because there are a lot of lumps and bumps that are happening due to the various layers of muscle, bone and fat. It sometimes becomes a bit hard to know exactly where to begin. We talked about the basic foundations we have to consider, but the more important thing we have to get right is that gesture. Unlike out basic construction pots, just it is something that we have to look out for. Just a at its most basic is the relationship or the movement the body parts are making together. These circles here are representative of our basic shape foundations and these arrows are representing our gesture movements. How these shapes relate to each other, the movement from one of these shapes into the next. That gestural rhythm isn't always easy to spot straight away. But we have a pretty fortunate landmark available for us on both the front and the back of the torso. On both sides, we have this implied lie of movement that is caused by the symmetrical nature off the body . This goes from the top of her head away. Dance well, pelvis. This is great because it's going to act as a default gesture line. They're going to be some poses where the figure will be twisting in ways that make it difficult for us to see this line. But more often than not, this is going to be out default place to look for the movement between our two parts the rib cage and pelvis. But this isn't the only place to look. We can consider gesture as not really being the movement the forms are making together. But we can also consider it as the longest curved line available to us or the longest access line. How long access line in this instance is on this far side. If we draw a parallel curved line on the other side of the torso, we'll see that this one is stretching a lot longer than the other. So if we run into trouble and we can't get a good view of that natural center line that's in out or so we simply have to look for the longest curved line that is available to us. That's where we look for a gesture. But the question you're probably asking yourself is, Well, where exactly do I begin this gesture line is that the shoulder is that the arms, the hip? We're on this figure. Should I stop putting more gesture lines down? The answer is, we want to look for the narrowest, points off the torso and build out just your markings from there. This is our connection, Lloyd the point where our construction, all foundation and how gesture line meat. This is going to simplify our entire torso foundation. If we try and build with all these lumps and bumps caused by the various muscles and bones , it can quickly become overwhelming trying to construct our torso shapes. Starting with ease. Pirlo gesture lines gives us a simplified foundation for the torso that we can then start to build outward from. This is going to ensure that all the construction parts that we create Edhi to that gestural rhythm. Whether it's our two part rib cage in pelvis or a single being bag shape, those initial gesture lines are going to be the most rhythmic and fluid lines that we create and the more construction, all parts we started at. In the less fluid and less dynamic those rhythm start to become building out torso parts around these gestural lines is going to go a long way in helping retain that dynamic form, no matter how we go about our construction, whether it's with the big bag method or the construction of method of rib, cage and pelvis separately, no matter how much detail we put in, whether it's muscle, bone or even clothing, all these individual parts that we construct have to work in service to our main gestural idea. 5. Positioning and Landmarks: one area in the torso that begin artists tending it. Lost with is actually how things have positioned. The first thing we have to be aware of is that the rib cage in the pelvis tilting opposite directions, the rib cage tilts away from us. Whilst the pelvis tilts towards us, the pelvis is going to be significantly more tilted forward on the female. Whilst the male pelvis is going to be a lot straighter in comparison, this is going to be a lot more noticeable on the profile and, to a lesser degree, the back of the torso. The front tends to be a little bit more problematic because it's noticeably flatter and shape, but we still have to draw it with these positions in mind. The other obvious difference between the two sexes is that the female pelvis is going to be wider than the mile. What's the mile route cage is going to be a lot wider than the female. The other thing we have to be aware of is the position off the neck in relation to the torso, where the back of the torso in the back of the neck meat is going to be higher than where is in the front. You can see this on yourself. If you take note of the shoot that you're wearing, you'll see your shirts. Call us. It's higher on the back. Then it doesn't front. It's a common mistake for beginner artists. They simply put the head and neck straight on top of the torso when, in actual fact, the neck leans forward. A simple show cup we can use to remember. This pattern is to think of this whole neck and torso area as being in an s shape. Now keeping all this in mind isn't the only thing we have to do to get our construction right. The other thing that is going to be of help for us is using landmarks on the torso. When we start twisting and turning the torso, we can start to easily lose control over where specific details of the torso should be placed. So we've got a Siris of features on the back in front of the torso that not only actors identifies for our major muscle and bone areas, but ago to double as position markers for when we start moving the torso around the front landmarks the color Barnes, the Nichols, the bottom of the rib cage, the belly button, the iliac crests, which are too bony protrusions and the bottom off the pelvis. The back landmarks is the bottom of the neck. The top of the shoulder blades, the bottom off the route cage, the top of the pelvis and the bottom off the gluteal muscles, another lame back that is sometimes usable. Other cycled imports, which are a little below the top of the purpose. Although this feature isn't visible on everybody, once we've gotten our big basic construction all shapes Stanford's also we could use these landmarks to start developing our secondary shapes and forms. We've got a lot of anatomy on either side of the torso that will eventually have to cover. Something will go over in a more advanced listen. However, all we really need to do for ourselves at this early stage is to get an idea as to where these more advanced structures are going to eventually be placed. So these landmarks are not only going to help with the positioning of our form in three D space, they're going to help without secondary constructions as well 6. Perspective and Connection Points: When we start trying to move the torso around in really dynamic ways, we're going to come across some challenges in getting things positioned correctly and more importantly, retaining that feeling off. Three dimensionality. The nature of the torso is such that we're going to get a lot of the instances where the root cage will be overlapping the pelvis and vice versa, which is going to start messing up our construction. So we're going to have to figure out some ideas to ensure that our forms remain true to whatever perspective that we put them in. When people hear perspective, what they usually think of our vanishing points horizon lines, etcetera, mathematics, disguising itself, it's art. The truth is, we don't really need that level of information right now. When we talk about perspective for this particular lesson, we're defining it as the overall shape of their forms in addition to their position in three D space. The thing we have to know when we start changing the perspective of our three D forms is that anything sitting along those surfaces are themselves going to shift in position relative to that change in perspective. So what we need to do when things start getting a little trickier for us when we start creating those dynamic positions for our torso is we need to relate our landmarks in our structures together in order to reinforce the correct perspective, as well as reinforce the three dimensionality of our forms. If we look at this example along with this cylinder, we can tell we're looking at both forms from above. If we draw on some cross contour lines and access lines, he weaken demonstrate. We are looking from above. But if we take these access lines away, how else do we know we are looking at this Trickle birds Our view. If our goal is to create the illusion of perspective, then take note of how our torso details are now relating to each other. Iliac crest and bottom Apophis landmarks are now creating the illusion of an OC similar to the bottom of our cylinder. You can see this is well with the belly button landmark in relation to where the ab muscles start turning away. How the Nichols relate to the start of that rib cage. They're all creating the illusion of curvature in the same way as air cylinder is. In other words, we need to find these relationships to help create contours over our forms. There are going to be instances where parts of our torso, how they're shaped, look as if they run counter to our perspective. But as long as they relate to another area, this isn't really going to be an issue. Take note. Off the bottom of the route cage. It looks as if our perspective has been broken is simply due to the nature off the rib cages shape. But if we relate these landmarks to the definition made by the abdominals there now perspective is going to be kept intact. This doesn't mean we have to put in heavy line work for all these relating parts. We only need enough information to fool the audience into thinking they're looking at a specific shape in a specific perspective. If we have to three areas that relate to the shape of the form and its perspective, more often than not, that's going to be enough information, any other detail that we start putting in. He's going to attach itself quite easily to that perspective surface, because we've got these other bigger ideas surrounding it. that are doing most of the heavy lifting and these ideas are going toe work from below as well. These details, thes structures in landmarks are combining to create that sense of former perspective. We've got these areas that are working together to create the illusion we are moving from one side of the torso to the other. They are fooling the eye into moving from one direction to the next. If we draw three points like this, our minds are naturally going to register this as a triangle. Despite the fact there is no actual triangle here we are doing the same thing Here we are getting the audience to move their eyes into a particular direction over and across out forms. We are creating connection points from one side of our form to the other. It's not going to matter which of our details look as if they run counter to our perspective. As long as we have a clear relationship somewhere that helps define the position of your torso and take note also off the position of our connection points, our view from the top is going to mean our set of most connection point sits below the points on the side and the view from below is going to cause the opposite to happen. So when we run into trouble, NL landmarks that we went over in the last video start to become more difficult toe workout we have to do is adjust their approach and look for areas that relate to the perspective that out torso is positioned in. 7. Demonstration 1: Let's get started with some demonstrations and we'll do a bit of a recap of what we've just learned. Now we are focusing on the torso, but it's going to be important, actually, to construct some sort of ahead for us in place. If we end up just focusing on the torso itself and not having ahead there in some way, shape or form. What will tend to happen is we'll get so used to draw the torso without the head that when we start trying to draw one with a head on it, the head will tend to look as if it's stuck on. And we don't really want that feeling that the head is stuck on. So always draw your torso with some type of head structure in place. Now I've got my foundation there. Now I've got my collarbone landmark in place, and this is going to provide us with the first landmark for the position of their torso, but also going to provide us with a place to start out. Just just I'm just going to put this in now now, we said earlier. That gesture is defined as being the longest access line available to us, and in this instance it's on the right hand side. This is because we've got this nice long stretch happening on this side. What's the opposite side is compressing. So we've developed these two parallel gesture lives. If you were to think of this in three dimensional terms, we've almost created for ourselves a curved cylinder. So we've got out collarbone marker, which is our first directional marker, which means now I can move on to the next directional market, which will be the nipples, because we've got this our commotion in the torso. That second landmark is going to point at a slightly lower direction than the one above it . These landmarks are going to follow along that gesture arc so that each one is going to be at a slightly different direction, pointing in a slightly different angle to the one above it. And once I'm happy with how these positional markets are sitting, I can start to refine these areas. So I'm just gonna build in some of this route cage. Now. We haven't gone over any anatomy. Really, In this lesson, that's going to be for him or advanced. Listen, we're still really only focusing at this stage at creating the simplest shapes and forms that are available to us. Whatever details that we start putting into our torso, we always have to think about simplifying things as much as possible. This is why those two gestural minds are such a great foundation for us because they not only simulate the position that the torso is in, they also give us a rough indication of what the overall shape is going to look like. And that's going to ring truthful. All about details all about anatomy if we're considering the torso is being a bean shaped that breasts can be easily described as being in egg shaped. The abdominals could be easily described as being box ear shapes. We can apply all these simple ideas to allow these complex areas. So I'm happy with how this top part is looking, so I'm just gonna put in our next couple of landmarks. Now we can see that I've started to build outwards from those initial gesture lives, and this is the benefit in simplifying our torso into these two parallel gesture lines. This gives us a much better starting point to build our more complex shapes So for this hip area, anchoring this shape to that gesture line is going to help, not just in terms of building an overall structure. It's going to make sure that that hip area is going to flow along with that gesture rhythm . If we don't have that point where our construction and our gesture intersects and linked together that everything is going to be thrown off, we have to get used to the idea of these two concepts working together. Even if you choose the method where you're separating the rib cage and pelvis and making them independent from each other, you still want some type of a gestural rhythm there underneath the surface, linking those two independent shapes together. So putting in my iliac crest landmarks, those landmarks are a little bit difficult to see on this figure. On a more Lena person, they become a lot more noticeable, but we'll cover that in more detail at a later date. No one's going to draw a portion of the legs in here because I generally don't like having what torso without any arms and legs. They just had to end up looking a little bit. We'd but again this comes back to the idea of drawing in some part of the surrounding body . We've got all these individual parts here head the torso, arms and legs. They are all combining to make a collective whole. So avoid decapitating your heads and chopping your limbs off. Always draw the mindset that there is more of the figure outside of the area that you're currently constructing. Now I think we forgot to mention without landmarks is that they're not just going to act. His positional markets there also goto actives corner markets construction at its most basic are the corners off figure. So these landmarks that we've got are also going to indicate a change in plain or a change in direction from one side of the figure to the next. So we've got all this really useful information available to us to help construct the three dimensionality of our drawings. All right, let's move on to the next image 8. Demonstration 2: All right, let's do an image from the back Now in general, the back of the torso. It tends to be a little tricky to draw, and this is because, more often than not, we are exposed to imagery off the front of the torso and more so than back. So we subconsciously have a better understanding of what the front of the torso it should look like and what the overall shapes should be. But the process remains the same, so I've got my landmark here. This is for the back of the neck. Now. If we want, we could use the spinal indentation here as the God Vera gesture. This is actually the most useful part off the back of the torso. It's the most natural place to look for a gesture on the back. But I'm going to use the same method we did in the last demonstration and again, looking for the narrowest points off the figure. If we start out gesture lines on the widest part of figure out, what that means is that we have to actually build in woods. It just ends up being a lot more difficult to work with requires a lot more measuring, and it's just a lot more time that ends up being wasted. So building outwards from out gesture Ryan's is going to be significantly easier than building in Woods. Now. The back of the rib cage tends to be an area that can give you a lot of problems, and that's because we've got a lot of movement going on with the shoulder blades. And then movement tends to make a lot of the muscles either compress or stretch, depending on where the arms are being positioned. We've also got this far more noticeable split in the body on the back as well. So put in the gesture line for a spine here just to indicate that. And if you look at the reference image, take note of how that spinal gesture almost makes this perfect split in the back. If we were to simplify this down, we could almost say that the back is made up of two cylinder shapes as its foundation. So we're not just bound to beanbag shapes, egg shapes or cylinders weaken, really just create whatever basic shape best represents what it is we're looking at. If we think of the figures being an original creation as something that we ourselves have come up with from scratch, then we are really not bound to any particular shapes or forms. It's really up to us how we interpret that. It's a complicated thing that we're building, but in actual fact, the process of how we build it is not super complicated. It's really just a case of practice and analyzing that gets us to the stage, were able to put something down on paper that resembles something from real life. So if we come at this from the perspective that we are not actually drawing a torso, we are drawing a representation of a torso. We are drawing our original idea of a torso. We're simplifying these shoulders, and the scapula is into the simplest forms possible that it will give you the confidence to save yourself. This is something that I can do. This is something I'm able to create, but it's all just really time in practice. It is going to be a challenge drawing the back, though there's no doubt about that. We've got a whole lot of muscles here that way, generally not used to seeing, and it moves and works in a completely different way from front. So this air is probably going to give you a lot more problems and is going to throw a lot more challenges your way. But when in doubt, just simple fight. If you look back on this video, I haven't actually done a lot of complicated construction work. All these lumps and bumps over the top is really just a case of figuring out where the secondary structures is sitting in what their shape is, figuring out the secondary gestural flows and then building those secondary structures on top of that. So it's the exact same process we are working from big to small. We're starting out with these big, massive gestures for our whole torso and gradually working smaller and smaller, without detailing. And when you start to break it down in that way, as we said, it starts to become a less daunting prospect for us all of a sudden. Figure drawing doesn't seem so difficult, even though it still requires a lot of practice and a lot of hard work. If we get ourselves into the mind set off simplifying all these really complex areas, then not only can we overcome any challenge that's presented to us? It means we can actually start to enjoy the process as well. I got let's move on to another image now. 9. Demonstration 3: okay onto a side profile view. This one's gonna give us an opportunity to use more of that being structure that we've gone over and get putting the head in place first and foremost and just keeping things very light as we move around these features and always remembering that the nick is tilting forward. We are at the fortunate position at this stage where we're only lightly sketching things in . And so there's going to be room for us to make all these adjustments if need be. We don't wanna put in all this rendering work, only to find out later on that we've made the neck to strike. The last thing you want to be doing is just diving head first into a sketch. You want to really feel you white through it. There's no point putting in all these details and shutting a tool. You have some idea of exactly where it is we're going, so if we need to make adjustments, this is the stage. In order for us to do it. Right now, my torso area is just a little too big in relation to the head that I've got down and there's very little value in furthering the detail ing and full rendering off this piece until I actually get those proportions correct. So if there's a good time to make mistakes, this is it. And again, a couple of simple shapes is all it's taken for us to develop, something that is representative oh, very dear of a torso, a couple of boxes and cylinders gives us out blueprint, which is then going to allow us not to start coming in over the top with their secondary forms and gestures, and take out from this perspective how the abdominals and if they curve over and down into the belly button and then rise back up and over and down into the pelvis. All of these secondary lumps and forms these secondary structures and gestures, we'll have to sit within this initial framework that we've put in. Take note of how the pectoral muscles are moving in the same direction as our initial gesture foundations. It's curving upwards into that shoulder, taking out of how I'm attaching the secondary structures, 12 primary structures that we put down. So we are working our way through this image with feeling our way through it. Now that I'm happy with this top part. I'm comfortable of how that structure I can move on to this gluteal area, all the while thinking to myself, Where, actually, are these two parts this route? Cabbage? And this pope was positioned in this three d environment. The rib cage is tilting slightly towards us, and her arm, it's furthest away from the camera, is positioned slightly higher than the arm closest to us. So it's not just the key landmarks that we have to take notice off when getting out. Positioning correct. We have to look at the structures surrounding our tour, so it's well, nipple and global landmarks are the only things that we have to consider when we start constructing out positioning taken out of the compression on the group cage on the side closest to its how its creating this crease, this folded skin and also it folds in clothing as well are additional positioning markets. They almost act as cross contour lights for a state and he to the shape of their form, and they also indicate where exactly that form is being positioned. So if we choose a cylinder as their simplified rib cage shape that creases going to Edhi to the position that we put that selling to rent. We also have to be aware of where these two parts the rib cage and the pelvis are in, where they're positioned in relation to each other. We've got quite a twisty pose here, so we're going to get a portion of each of these individual parts facing towards us. You can see in this beanbag shape of drawing one part of it. The top part is overlapping the bottom. We've got this big stretch reinforcing our overall gesture, and we've got these folds than compressions, which are hoping to reinforce the structure and positioning about forms. It also means that out to default center gesture lines on the front and back are going to be somewhat visible. And that's going to be great because it's going to help reinforce the twisting nature off pose. So we have to look out for not just out main landmarks, but the areas surrounding them as well to help reinforce out gestures, construction and positioning. Okay, let's do another dinner 10. Demonstration 4: I got ST Mawr Athletic figure. These other figures are actually really good to work with because we've got a lot of additional landmarks in order to get out positioning correct. And because of the athletic nature of the figure, a lot of the simple fight shapes and forms that we are looking for are far more easier to see due to how well defined the muscles up. I'm looking at this image, and what I'm seeing is essentially a long tube structure that stretches the length of the torso. So it's really just one big cylinder in my mind. And all of a sudden I'm just simplifying everything. I'm ignoring all of these large up muscle structures and just focusing on that main cylindrical idea. I'm not even thinking about breaking up the rib cage in the pelvis in this particular instance, and not even really considering the beanbag idea as well. They still in that that is tilting towards us is really, in my mind the best representation off where this torso is positioned and how it shaped. And with that in mind, I can start relating and positioning or the secondary structures to ensure that that adhering to that cylindrical for so different body types are going to require different approaches and different ways of thinking. It's going to help expand our idea of exactly how we go about constructing this idea off the torso. And once we have something like a cylinder shape and place for this, we can start to again expand on from these gestural foundations, expanded, start constructing all these additional muscles and bonior areas and making sure that they all relate to each other in relation to that rule shape. There are only focused on three positional landmarks in this particular instance, the Columbine, the nipple line and the belly button line. When okay, to need every landmark that we've gone over every illustration is going to have its own challenges. And not all of those landmarks are going to be super useful to us. And the more we get used to drawing the torso, the better and understanding will have us to where exactly those landmarks should be. So we'll start intuitively drawing things in. But the risk that we have when we start removing landmarks for ourselves is that our construction process starts to break down a little bit. We start guessing. We start losing accuracy, and essentially we just end up making more work for ourselves. So the trade off is going to be the less markets that we put down to get out positioning correct, the less likely we ought to get an accurate representation of the figure that withdrawing. We just need to slow down, take our time and just look at where parts aren't relating to each other, how they are fitting to the forms around them now. We talked about relating parts together with our connection points in the lecture, taking out here how the muscles are relating to the belly button. That relationship is moving our I from one part of the form around and across to the other . These other connection points that are hoping to reinforce not just the shape of the form but its position as well. We're seeing that relationship is well with pectorals. They are curving around as if they're all sitting on top off that cylindrical surface. These relationships of landmarks and structural pots, or helping to reinforce the three dimensionality about figure and those relationships are going to change depending on what position out torso is in their belly button in this particular image is relating to those lat muscles in the back. We change the position of the torso. We're going to have to change the relationship that the belly button has to something else . If the torso is leaning backwards, it might very well be a case where we are relating that Billy. But now to the iliac Crest landmarks or some other landmark in the vicinity toe hope, reinforce the shape and the position that torso is now in. It's not a case of us having to draw in contour lines to connect these points. It's more a case of feeling as if there is a connection there, as almost as if there is an invisible contour line that is connecting that belly button up to that muscle. So we don't have to be that literal with these connection points. Okay, let's do one more demonstration 11. Demonstration 5: all right, One more demonstration before we move on to our time during session. This one, we've got some real extreme overlapping happening. This is gonna be an instance where a lot of our landmarks that we went over in the lecture I'm going to become a lot less useful to us. And so it's gonna be vital, then to look for these connection points that we went over in the last video and like that last video analyzing and thinking about which of the best shapes to use for the structures . So I'm considering a sort of so into shape for our top part and probably more bait rounded shape for your pelvis. But first I want to pay special attention to out First landmark and like what's in the last video? Because we've got a torso directional change. Now our landmarks and our positioning markers are going to change accordingly. Because this torso is now pointing towards us that middle connection point is going to sit lower than the two side connection points and every relationship that we create for ourselves as we move out way down this torso is also going to reflect that this torso was talking in the opposite direction. That middle connection point would be sitting higher than the two on that side and all that is going to shift, depending on where things up positioned. When we start moving a body part in a particular perspective, we start moving it around. Those implied connection points are going to shift relative to that movement. So if we were to move her torso further and further upwards, that implied, curved movement will straighten. Eventually, we get to a point where we've positioned the torso and those landmarks in a certain way, where they start to flatten out until eventually they start curving in the opposite direction. If we would start moving this torso more and more away from us, making it look as if she's maybe stretching backwards for something, then all of a sudden that center point is going to start sitting higher than those two side points are implied. Movement is going to change from one direction to the next. So this is why we can't always rely entirely on the landmarks that we went over, because we've got all these body parts here that are going to be shifting depending on where things of being positioned when we start having elements that are crunching in on each other or stretching away from each other, this is going to shift everything that we've worked. The structures we create have surfaces. Three dimensionality, and anything we put on those surfaces has to remain true to that overall three dimensional idea. In this instance, I'm relating the belly button to the parts of the route cage that a connecting other structures. The last video I was connecting the belly button to the LAT muscles, so it's going to change for each image. Take note here off this lower crease. The most obvious relationship here is where our two main structures overlap. It curves around, as indicated by that crease before terminating right where the polar sticks out. So all these things exist here to not only hope with our structure without perspective, but without gesture as well. So now that we've covered a whole light, it's time for you to give this a shot yourself. They're going to be four images, each set with a time limit off five minute speech, so work on those and then we'll come back and do one final demonstration 12. Timed Drawing Session: - way , way, - way , - way . Oh, all right. Yeah. With what? - With way. Yeah. - Oh . 13. Timed Drawing Demonstration: All right, let's get going with our demo. Now we're going to construct some portion of the head for each of these images because, as we said in the lecture, if we only focus on the torso itself, we're not going to get used to the connection that the head makes to that torso. So we don't have to put a great deal of information in. We just need enough of an idea to help us understand how these two parts connect to each other. If we just focused entirely on the torso, then we're going to get really good at drawing the torso. The problem comes when we start putting these two parts together. So we have to unify these two ideas, even if we're just roughly lying, one of them out. It's also a good idea if you're drawing the head to include some of the neck and torso as well. It's just going to help us in the long run workout mechanics of these two areas. So I've got my rough Gestion place, and I'm gonna look to the narrowest parts of their figure, and you might end up asking yourself, as you're constructing in this man up. Well, where exactly am I supposed to put these Narrows parts? And how Why do I make them? And it's really just a little bit of guesswork at this stage. We can refine things as we go along. We can get mathematical, of course, and do proper measurements to get everything exactly right. But there's also gonna be a little bit of character and charm to your image. If the audience sees that you're sort of trying to feel your way with your strokes to get to the correct point, that's going to give you image a little bit more personality than would if you're just doing straight measurements. So there's gonna be times where we need to get proportions. Exactly correct, of course, but there's also going to be times available to us where we can sort of show the process as we're going along with the image, the light strokes, that sort of build up to the more definitive, darker strokes. So it's not going to be always about getting things exactly right. We do you want to put some feeling into our images, but we still need to have a process for ourselves, but it needs to be a flexible process is well, depending on what exactly it is we're trying to capture. At the moment, I've really only focused on the rib cage area off this torso. I'm just thinking about getting these ideas down before I'm even thinking about putting in that pelvis area so we don't have to get all of these individual basic shapes in first and foremost as we're designing this, we can just take our time and get one small piece right before moving on to the next area. And we're not even really bound to our first set of construction ally ideas that beanbag shape or whatever to shapes. We decide to make four out Pulis in that room cage. They're going to be instances where we come across poses that are bending or twisting or positioned in a really strange way that starts to throw everything that we know off. So sometimes it's going to be a case where we actually have to start looking at the smaller structures thes smaller, defined shapes earlier than what we would in other instances. I'm currently looking to the shadows side off the torso and looking at that as a point to try to relate to the belly buttons curvature. We talked about our connection points, and it's those type of markers that I'm also including in my decision making. Even though the shadowing in the rendering is something that we should be doing lighter on , it doesn't mean that we can't reference those areas to help us with our construction process. At this stage, I'm taking liberties with the order of our process for the sake of trying to get that round this correct in this form, I would rather do that and break that rule a little bit, then not have the belly buttons curvature. How it's positioned on, the form relates, and nothing so are processed. What's important in terms of generating a good work flight for ourselves needs to be flexible. It's work. So if that means you have to look for additional landmarks or even look for landmarks that work better for you, more so than the ones that we've covered in this tutorial, then that's perfectly fine. It's about whatever works for you as long as we're keeping in mind the ideas off gesture, the ideas of construction off proportion, off light and shadow, then We've really got all the tools that we need. And if we have all the tools and we know how to use them, then we can fix any problem that we come across. I've got a pretty bad habits off in my initial foundations of making the torso somewhat larger than my head foundations. But it's nothing that can't be fixed. All have to really do is just work my way through this image and make the adjustments as I go along. We don't have to get everything right straight away. It's too much pressure, too much to ask of yourself. So it feel your weight through the image. You'd be surprised just how many people actually enjoy seeing the instructional process that you've gone through actually there within the outwork itself. Okay, let's move on to our next image. All right, We've actually got a pretty challenging pose with this one. We've got a lot of movement that's happening here, and as a result, we've got a lot of compression and stretching happening with L limbs and muscles as a result, and so and so we're going to have to think a little bit more carefully with this one first thing we have to really establish is exactly where things are positioned roughly. So I'm looking at this overall trunk of the torso and thinking to myself. Well, a tubular structure is probably the best option for this rib cage. So it's always good sometimes if we get a little bit lost to actually put a little bit of a guide down. So I'm just gonna construct up rough cylinder shape in approximately the position the torso is in. So when these type of posts come around, we just need to slow down and analyze the situation. There's no point just putting in any old shape in any opposition in because ultimately it's just going to end up being a lot more work for us, because if we press forward with that, I d. That we haven't really thought through carefully. Things will start looking off when we start adding light and shadow color. Say, right now I'm looking at this pelvis and I'm trying to pay special attention to the direction that it's actually positioned in, cause my mind is having a little bit of trouble for whatever reason, figure at its perspective, and I'm also using the shadow as a bit of an indicator as well to help with the construction of this area due to hell. This torso is being twisted. How things that compressing. We've got a pretty shop corner which is being formed on the back here that normally wouldn't be seen if the back was that wrist. And so it's giving us additional information here, an additional corner landmark for us to work with him to help build our construction over. And I'm also looking to that shoulder blade on the right hand side for additional information. Take note of its shape, its roughly a triangular shape that makes up this area. We don't have to know all the anatomical names for these parts. We just have to break them down for our perps into the most characteristic full. We don't have to be an expert with all this stuff. We're not. Doctors were not performing surgery. The shape of this left shoulder blade looks a lot boxier compared to the one on the right, due to just how it's positioned, how things around it compressing. And so what works is a shape in one particular pose, and in one particular position that same anatomical structure might require a slightly different shape or a slightly different approach in another image. So it's at this stage where I'm reasonably happy with how everything's positioned. All these rough foundations are laid in, so now it's time to start bringing some life back into the image. Take note of how I went about doing this sketch compared to the last one was a more construction will approach. And now that those parts in place, I can't stop thinking about relating all these parts together these the's curved and fluid gesture lines. The gesture is really the glue that holds all this together. It's the element of our process, which takes all of these individual areas and combines them into a greater whole. It's almost in a strange way, like we're conducting an orchestra. It's sounds a bit odd, but if you think about it, what I conductor in an orchestra does is that they direct these individual sections. All that whole group the string section, the woodwinds, the percussion section, the conductor gets all these individual areas to harmoniously work together to create an even greater whole. It's perfectly fine listening to someone who's really good with a violin and someone who's really good with clarinet. But if you don't have someone telling each of those individual parts how they're supposed to work together to create something that sounds amazing, everything is just going to fall apart. So gesture is kind of the conductor off. This greater whole that we are creating is individual parts are instruments in a gestural rhythms telling these individual parts how they need to work together as a unit. It's a binary relationship between these two ideas. If something is got too much construction in it like we saw in this sketch a little earlier , it feels very stiff. And mechanical is not real life to it. And the opposite happens to If we make things to gestural, it starts to lose. Its believability becomes too elastic, so we're always juggling this balance between these two ideas. Let's consider this one done, and we'll move on to our next image. I kind of got a real stretchy, prayerful image for this sketch and take note of We've got the head tilting upwards. We've got the farm raised in the air. We got the torso in the leg. Almost combining is one they're all joining forces. They are all unifying in creating this big overall action, this bigger C shape gesture. So this action of forms is creating this overall story. Now Provo images are usually where out beanbag idea comes in very handy because it's the most obvious shape that represents the torso that being bag shaped, that beanbag idea becomes a lot less useful to us the more we start moving the torso around to the front. But when we start moving into the pro fall, it's the choice that is going to make. The most sense, as we talked about in the lecture out to approach, is that we can take with our torso construction. Either the beanbag shape or splitting out to individual areas up are going to have their own advantages and disadvantages. The beanbag is really going to be the better idea if we want a nice fluidity to our torso. That being shape is very much a gestural idea. But it's also construction all as well, if we can see that gesture as being at its most basic, the curves of the figure. And if we consider construction as being the corners of the figure when that being shaped inevitably starts toe overlap itself. It's going to create both a structural component in a gestural component. That big stretch that is happening in this pose is going to create an equal and opposite reaction. On the opposite side, the more it stretches on one side, the more compresses on the other, and the most something compresses, the more folds that we will get. We talked about how things like folds in skin clothing can act as additional landmarks for us. They helped to define and reinforce the overall shape and position about figure. And so this beanbag idea is inevitably going to be both. A construction will shape in a gestural shape. If we go with the method of breaking out rib cage now pelvis shapes up. We're going to get a very good idea off what their position is in three D space. But the downside to it is that we're going to lose that fluidity. That beautiful line of action that we're creating with that beanbag idea is suddenly going . Teoh get interrupted. There's going to be this yawning gap between these two parts. Of course, we can come back over later on and adding those gestural rhythms. So it's not a wrong approach by any means. It just means that we're just going to lose that initial action a little bit. But the benefit is we get a better understanding off where in three D space these forms are supposed to be sitting. One of the challenges we are always going to have in our construction process as artists is that we have to fool the audience into thinking that these images that they're saying on this flat, two dimensional surface have depth to them. And the more rounded something is the less of an idea we have as to where in three D spice , that object is being positioned. If we have a round spherical object, like a basketball or tennis ball or something like that, if we have nothing else in relation to that spherical object, we're not going to know exactly where in that three d environment, it's sitting. So whilst our beanbag idea is a really good one in terms of capturing the overall essence of oppose capturing its movement, capturing its action because of its roundness, it starts to become a little bit more difficult to see where in three D space, this beanbag form is actually positioned. And so we've got tradeoffs for either of these approaches. New. The one is wrong. Neither one is the right way to go. It's going to always be about how you're feeling at that particular time. What opposes saying what position the model is in what position you might be in if you're doing it from a life drawing class, you got all of these factors that come into play in determining which direction you end up going. For that image, the next one, it will be completely different. I have a tendency to use mawr, a gestural approach with images of figures that a standing upwards. But when the figure is lying down, I tend to find that aim or construction. All method is the better option to go with. That's simply due to the nature of how the figure is positioned. Normally, we see people upright for most of our day, and so we developed a better understanding of how things roughly should be looking. So when we start to come across images and poses that look a bit foreign to what we used to , it's going to require us to slow down into carefully planned things out. The construction method really is about just taking out time and analyzing. Where are these shapes actually going? What direction are they in? What shapes today forming? But just try things out with different pose to see what's the best option for you is as we said, there's no right and wrong answer again. Hits too small on this one. I have any time to fix it up. Unfortunately, so we just have toe live with this choice, learned from it and move on to our final image. Okay, lucky loss. We've got a 3/4 view from the back and but our model in this instance the rib cage tilting towards us. And take note off where that shadow actually is on her rib cage. You can see how this shadow is actually helping to reinforced the position of where this rib cages this is the bottom of the group. Cage is causing this indentation to take place. Take note of how the shadow is being interrupted on her back here, the shadow is curving over her back and then getting interrupted by this indentation and take note of how that shadow is now making this C shape arc, which is moving upwards. This arc upwards is giving us an idea as to where exactly? In three dimensional spice this rib cages near sitting. So if we're not 100% certain about where something is currently leaning, tilting off icing, these are the extra details that can help us with our construction process. We can even look at something like hurts had to and say to ourselves, well, clearly positioned in a direction that is pointing upwards if you were to a line out pencil with the top of that tattoo, that's going to give us a pretty good indication as to where the overall pelvis is going to be positioned. We're going to know because of those two markets that the starting point for the back off the pelvis is going to be pointing upwards to the right. We can use that pencil for all these other positions we've talked about in previous lessons . How we can use our pencil as a directional guide for us. A lot of pencils and pens will have some type of painted strike that wraps around the surface, and we can use that stripe is a guard for us. Weaken. Use it as across contour line to align it with areas that we might be having difficulty with. If we have a line out pencil with that graphical stripe towards us in a similar way to where the rib cage is positioned, we'll find the curvature that graphical Strong is now making is now making the exact same C shape OC that that shadow indentation on the bottom of the rib cage is making. So the humble pencil to which many probably don't think of as having any more use than just drawing and writing suddenly has additional value for us in being able to hope. Locate what the perspective position of our forms are in very simple trick, and one that sort of blew my mind first was introduced to it. You never think of the pencils being anything other than being a tool for drawing and writing. It's a classic case of four. Why didn't I think of that earlier? It's such a simple thing, and yet it never could to meet you. Think of using it in that way, so I probably haven't gotten the foundations. 100% to my liking for this one. Been talking a little bit too much? No, really. Concentrating is I'm going alone. So I just got the person head with this one. I'm looking to worry too much about changing and just do the best I can with the time reminding you're always going to do bad drawings. It's just part of the process. Every single artist who's come before you, every single artist will come after you is going to go through the exact same frustrations and feelings that you're going to experience. So you're not alone in this process. Just remember that we're gonna be days where you just wake up. And for whatever reason, your mind just doesn't want work. You start putting pencil to paper and you realize that Oh, I just cannot function today. I cannot draw these forms correctly. Nothing is working. That's just part of the journey. We all go through those days of frustration. There are going to be days where just everything is working 100%. It's well, you will wake up. Just everything seems to work, so you're going to come across these peaks and troughs. The best thing you can do when you're feeling like nothing's working is just to go back to basics. Spend half an hour just doing simple shapes, simple forms, getting your mind back into the idea of three dimensionality of perspective, off gesture and just let it all sink in again. Sometimes you just need a little bit of a refresher, too. Get things going again. So with all that said, I have you enjoyed this tutorial there, go to the additional images available in the class notes. So feel free to download that and practice or what we've learned with those references as well. Or search for your own, of course. So until next time, keep practicing hard and I'll see you in the next lesson.