Figure Drawing Block-ins

1. Introduction: Hey, everyone. So in this class, we'll be discussing figure block-ins. Now, this is essentially the beginning stage of any figure drawing, where we're going to just take the subject matter and break it down into a handful of simple steps so that by the end of it, we have hopefully a nice clean proportional line drawing. Now, with this approach, we'll be doing this with a few different poses so you can see how I take different poses that the model may take and approach each one slightly differently, but again, with the same end result. Now, this is something that you can use, whether it's from reference, like we'll have here in the class, or you can also use, if you take any life drawing classes, all the same principles apply. Now, throughout the class, I'll walk you through a handful of different poses from the model, and I'll show you how I break down the figure from a blank page to a completed block in. In this class, you don't need to have any previous anatomical knowledge. I'll walk you through step by step how to break the figure down using simple shapes, comparative measurement, and landmarks throughout the body that we can use to help deconstruct the figure. The goal of the class is really to take a complicated subject matter and break it down to its simplest elements so that anyone who's just starting to draw or drawing the figure in general has a clear and specific way to tackle the problem. Now, for all of these drawings, we will not be doing any shading or modeling of form because we're just going to focus on the initial stages of creating a solid block in. Oftentimes, when I taught classes in the past, students would sometimes rush through this portion of the drawing, only to later on, have to go back and fix things or take things out. And so you'll hear me throughout this class, just mention and reiterate that the block in stage is arguably the most important aspect of beginning a drawing as it sets the stage for everything else to happen afterwards. Now, whether you're working from reference like we are in this class or you're working from life in an actual classroom setting, all of these principles are transferable. So regardless of how you're working, everything that we discuss in this class, you can use right away and apply it to your own drawings. Just like any other drawing, a lot of repetition is involved in order to get these principles fully ingrained. However, because we're really just working in a step by step approach, there's not a whole lot that you have to memorize. It simply is just a matter of putting in the time and getting in the practice. So I hope by the end of this class, you'll have a very distinct approach so that regardless of how you're working, you always have a way forward when you start drawing the figure. 2. What to Expect & Materials: So I wanted to spend a few minutes just discussing what this class is and what it is not. And the reason I say that is that with these figure block-ins, these are typically drawings that we would spend probably at minimum, an hour to 2 hours, sometimes maybe longer depending on your skill level. So a lot of the things that I discuss in this class are geared towards that, and it's not geared towards gesture drawing. So if you like to do quick sketch or a gesture drawing, whatever you want to call it, where, you know, you're doing poses that could be anywhere from a minute to 2 minutes, 3 minutes or so on, maybe up to ten to 20 minutes, I love that kind of drawing, but it's an entirely different process than what I would be teaching here. When you're working in those shorter formats, those kinds of drawings are almost an entirely different skill set, and there's an entirely different approach to those. And that's, again, I want to just separate the two because I know sometimes when people just think figure drawing, it can mean a lot of things to different people depending on any previous training you've had or any schools you attended. So I like to separate the two because what I mostly go over is predominantly about doing longer drawings in general. And that's kind of mostly what I gear a lot of the style of drawing that I do. So everything that I talk about in this class is going to be geared towards doing these longer style drawings where, again, the block in itself could easily be a few hours. And when I was in school, really the greater context of all of this is that oftentimes figure drawings could be anywhere 40-80 hours depending on how much time we had with the model. So when you think about it, a two to four hour block in is actually fairly small in the total time spent on the drawing itself. So Again, if you're used to doing gesture drawing, this is going to be an entirely new approach for you, which hopefully you'll be interested to learn about. Now, at some point, maybe I will talk about doing or do a class that is completely separate on gesture drawing. But just wanted to mention this beforehand and before we get started, is that, again, that style of drawing is very different. And a lot of the rules that I discuss in this class sort of go out the window overall because again, when you're dealing with a compressed amount of time, you don't have as much time to sit there and measure, and it's kind of more of an instinctual type of drawing. So I just wanted to mention that as an aside because, again, with this class, we're just going to be focused on this one aspect of drawing. So before we get started, I wanted to just spend a few minutes talking about materials. Now, for this particular class, you don't actually need a ton of stuff, and realistically, you shouldn't have to go out and buy anything, but if you're starting from scratch and want some recommendations, this is kind of what I would suggest. Now, more importantly, for this class, I would recommend working a little bit larger. So this isn't the kind of class where I would be doing these sorts of exercises in a sketchbook, as the scale itself is a little bit too small overall. These kinds of drawings are typically done over the course of at least maybe one to two, 3 hours depending on your skill level. So I'd recommend actually working a little bit larger than maybe what you're used to. Now, the reason for this is just to be able for things like, let's say, hands or feet or drawing the head on top of a figure, if you're working in a really small scale, it's actually much more difficult to draw that small. So by working a little bit larger, those things become proportionately bigger and easier to draw at a larger scale. So if you're drawing a head and, you know, your paper is this big, then your head is going to be this small, right? And so by working a little bit larger, it kind of just expands everything, and I think it's actually a little bit easier to work larger in this particular instance. Now, that said, I would still recommend something along the lines of maybe you know, probably ideally an 18 by 24, is that gives you, like, a full scale. You know, if you're drawing a standing figure, you have a lot of room to work with. Now, if that's too big for you, then, like, a 14 by 17 or 16 by 20 size, I think is a good option as well. I would not recommend anything smaller than 11 by 14, as I find, again, that you're going to be working almost too small to sort of get into any details of the figures. Now, in terms of paper, I don't really have any personal recommendations. You know, if you already have, you know, something, go ahead and just use the materials you have. But if you're again, starting from scratch, I do like the Strath more 400 series pads because I find it's a good balance of quality paper at a decent price, and you can kind of find these in general art stores or craft stores. These are very common kinds of sketch pads, and I think it actually is a very good paper to kind of do these block in sort of drawings. So that's just something to keep in mind, again, if you're starting from scratch and you need to get some sort of supplies. Now, I wouldn't recommend anything, you know, super fancy, you know, like a Bristol paper or, like, a watercolor paper or anything like that. It's just, you know, those kinds of materials are maybe a little bit too expensive to just kind of do, you know, block in type of sketches. So I'd always recommend just kind of getting a less expensive option for these kinds of exercises. And the reason I like this paper as well is that even though it's inexpensive, it's a good enough surface that if you wanted to continue to work on a drawing and finish it, this is a great over paper that I find that I've done finishes on these kind of papers before, and they work out great. So long as you don't have to take out massive areas and do a ton of erasing, you know, for a finished drawing, it's totally fine. But, you know, if you're just doing a block in and you just want to do general erasing, I find that these are really solid papers for the money. Now, outside of that, in terms of pencils, the only thing I would really recommend for these kinds of drawings is I'd recommend something along the lines of an H or a two H leb. Now, you can use anything else if you have it, you know, like an HB. I don't recommend actually using anything softer than an HB. So like a B grade or a two B, those types of leads are a little bit too soft, in my opinion, for the block in stage of the drawing. Those kinds of leads might be useful down the road for filling in shadows and things like that. But for starting the initial block in, I do recommend harder lead because it will basically not let you draw as dark as you would with an HB or a B or above. So an I think, overall, is probably my favorite lead to do these kinds of drawings because it's soft enough that I can still erase it and not have any issues, but it's hard enough that I won't necessarily draw too dark or heavy handed with. And again, the two H is also kind of nice later on to kind of clean up once you kind of get the initial lines in. The two H being a slightly harder lead is very useful to kind of sort of finish the block in before we move on to other things. So those are my recommendations. Obviously, wood case pencils, easy to find, very inexpensive. I'm also a fan of these kinds of, you know, lead lead type holders, where you have basically, you know, a pencil that you can extend the lead out and make it much longer. These are also nice to have if you have anything like this, just because they're easier to sharpen because you can take a sanding block and just kind of sharpen the lead really fast. A woodcase pencil takes a little bit more effort, I think, to just sharpen, but not the end of the world. Outside of that, again, standard erasers. I always have a needed eraser on hand. I always have some sort of plastic eraser that's really good if I need to take out something, you know, that is maybe too dark or I need to get a really clean surface back. These plastic erasers are really good for that. And then realistically, I do you don't necessarily need to have these. I just find they are convenient when these kind of click type pencil erasers are really great to have just because you can kind of get into some details to clean things out, or if you're working in a small area like the head or the hands or feet, these are really handy. You can still do it with a needed eraser or the plastic eraser, but these are convenient if you have one. The only last thing I recommend to have is either some sort of measuring tool, and this just would be like a knitting needle that I use if I'm going to hold it out and kind of try to plot angles or pull plumb lines in the figure. You could also use, if you have, like, the wood case pencil, use an unsharpened one. Ideally what we need is we just need something that is sort of completely straight. You know, you wouldn't want to use something that can be bent or anything like that. So a knitting needle is like an ideal choice, but if not just an unsharpened wood case pencil, it's great to just hold out and measure so that you can plot angles as you're working. But outside of those, that is really it for the materials. You know, you don't need to have a ton to do this. Use what you have if you already have materials that you've already owned, so you don't have to go out and buy stuff. But outside of that, these would be kind of just some general guidelines or recommendations. But otherwise, you know, you don't need to have much at all to get started. 3. Marking the Page/Enveloping: I so as I'm beginning the block in, the first thing I want to do is I want to mark off my page. I want to find roughly about the top and the bottom of where I want the figure to sit ideally. Now, this is just a placeholder because I'm not quite sure if this is going to more or less end up where I want the figure to be, but I need to put something on the paper just as a visual guide. I'm also going to mark the halfway point in the figure so that I can roughly try to find where that's going to potentially line up as I'm establishing the pose. Now, as I'm beginning, I really just want to find a large envelope shape, meaning I'm trying to contain the entire pose within some sort of parameter. Now, this doesn't mean this is going to change, but I want to at least establish something on the page to work into. A lot of the times, starting a block in really is about getting something just on the paper so that you're not just staring down a blank sheet. And once we have a few things on the page, we can start breaking them down a little bit farther into smaller pieces. Now, you'll notice I established a axes line for the shoulder as well as the hips, along with the center line. Now, this is important, particularly in a standing pose because more often than not, the model is going to be shifting their weight in some way where there might be a leg that is supporting the majority of the weight. There's going to be a pitch in the shoulder. Unless the model is standing just completely static, we want to try and find those axis lines and see how the body is balancing itself. I would say for standing poses, this is particularly important because if the model is seated, we have really less to go off of, because if they're sitting in a chair or sitting on a platform, we don't necessarily have to think about the axes of the hip so much as the shoulders. But when the model is standing, whether it's a front or back pose, we pretty much have to think about where those axes are sitting in space and how they're supporting one another. Whether the model is slightly bent over or twisting or turning in any sort of way, we want to pay attention to those axis lines. Now you can see once I've established the shoulder axes, the center line, and the hip axes, I get back up to the head, and I want to establish a very simple head shape and get the head, neck and shoulders working together as one unit. From there, I can sort of start to build out the rest of the torso. And I really want to establish that first because the torso is the largest mass that we have to deal with in the body. When we think about the rib cage and the pelvis and how much space they occupy, they are pretty much the entirety of the body, but also, too, is that the torso itself has less flexibility than the arms and shoulders. So I really want to establish this large mass, and that really kind of sets up the rest of the drawing as I move forward. And you'll see as I work my way down, I'm looking for more axis lines or any sort of way I can measure off of one bit of information that I've already put in the drawing. So as I'm looking at the angle of the shoulders, as I'm looking at the point of the crotch or looking at the nipple line in the chest, you can see me constantly measure, you know, kind of extending my arm out, using a sort of any sort of tool to measure, whether it's my pencil or like a knitting needle. And I want to just work my way down the figure and gradually plot in the rest of the information. Now, how you go about doing that can vary from pose to pose. So I don't want to say I always do it a certain way. But in a lot of instances, I'm looking for, you know, very specific angles. I'm looking to look at joints like the knees or the elbows to be able to just find different points on the body that I can sort of use and hold out an angle to and compare them to other bits of information as I continue down the rest of the drawing. And really, for the most part, as I'm beginning the drawing, I'm not thinking about any sort of anatomy or anything like that. You can see as I'm plotting things in, I'm just keeping very simple straight lines. I'm not overly thinking about contour, but I am looking for major angle breaks or changes so that I can try and follow some of those forms a little bit more accurately. But in regards to anatomy or making any sort of indications to anatomy, I try and avoid that early on so that I can just focus on the overall proportions and getting the entire pose established. Initially, I want to try and keep everything as simplified as possible, and a lot of that is due to the fact that I know that I am probably going to have to make adjustments or take things out, and it doesn't make sense to make things super complicated or spend a ton of time trying to draw in details at this point yet. So I want to keep all of the drawing fairly simplified so that if corrections have to be made, it's not very difficult for me to go ahead and take them out this early on. So with the torso and the legs flushed out, I can start working on the arms. Now, in this particular instance, you know, he has very kind of longer arms, and I think you know, they're not necessarily in the best sort of placement or sort of position because they're kind of fairly even. So I still have to put them in. But what I want to do is I want to just sort of ignore a lot of the undulations, like in the shoulders and the bicep and the forearm because he's very lean and kind of muscular, so it could be easy to get caught up in some of those sort of nuances in the contours, but I want to try and keep them fairly simple and subdued and not try to look for every sort of undulation that I see in the arm when I'm first blocking them in. So with this particular arm in the back, I'm kind of just treating it in sections where I have the shoulder as a piece, the actual bicep as a piece, and then the forearm as its own sort of separate pieces so that I can just easily attach them. And part of that is that I can't see the entire arm, so I'm just kind of building it in sections that way. With the arm that's in front of us, I think it could be a little bit more straightforward, and I can kind of use larger lines to establish the general flow of that arm. But in this rear arm sense, a lot of it is kind of tucked behind the torso. I just can kind of say it's easier to build that in sections. So again, that's very sort of pose specific. And so I'm always making these kinds of choices depending on the pose that I'm dealing with. So now I just kind of have to get the rest of this arm in, and then we'll kind of have a rough sort of blocking that we have established. So it's by no means perfect at this point or anything, but we have enough on the paper that I can feel a little bit better about going back in and starting to be a little bit more accurate with some of my measurements, start comparing things a little bit deeper in relationship to one another. But, again, we have something on the page that we can now sort of assess a little bit better. And so at this point, what I'd start to do is I'd start just going back from the top of the head and just start working my way down looking for smaller bits of information that I can start making more accurate comparisons. But it would be harder for me to do that if I didn't have the entirety of the figure established first. So, again, we kind of established everything on the page, and now I have sort of a rough template that I can work from and start breaking it down into smaller sections. I can start thinking about individual portions of the body and start plotting extra points so that I can hopefully get this looking a little bit more accurate to what I'm seeing. So now, as I start back up at the top of the drawing, I'm essentially just going to systematically work my way down from the head and just start adding more information to the rest of the figure. Now, how much I decide to add, again, can sometimes vary pose to pose depending on what my goal is for the drawing. But in this particular case, for a block in, I want to try and establish as much information as I can as if I were approaching it as a long drawing. So I would start at the head and start working my way down, finding various points. And then now we can start flushing out the anatomy. I can start being a little bit more descriptive with some of the lines that I'm putting in. But that would have been much harder to do from the beginning because I was essentially starting from scratch. So what ends up happening is that as we kind of make a pass through the drawing, I just make an additional pass adding more information until we ultimately end up with a finished block in. Now, again, this can mean different things, depending on the goal of the drawing or how much detail we decide to get into or what you feel comfortable with adding, you know, in terms of just a personal preference. So in this particular instance, I'm going to flush out a little bit more throughout the rest of the body, so like the chest, the rib cage. And as we work our way down to the rest of the figure, you'll see me start adding more information. But it ultimately becomes making several passes until I sort of account for everything in the body, and then we can kind of decide where we go from there. 4. Building the Large forms: As we continue along, again, I'm always going to start each new pass going back to the top of the head and slowly start working my way down. Now, for the time being, I'm going to leave the head shape sort of as is. And it's just a very sort of simplistic block shape for now. And ultimately, I'll put some information in, but I really want to just focus on the figure and kind of start to solve that a little bit better. Now, because he's fairly lean and muscular, there's a lot of little things that are very obvious on him that, depending on the person's body type, may not stand out as much, but, you know, things like the sort of shape of the rib cage and the sort of oblique muscles as it kind of cuts down into the lower torso. I can find little landmarks like that, I want to go ahead and put them in because it's going to give me a clear separation of what's happening in the torso here. Now, again, this is going to vary from person to person and their body type, but anytime you have those kinds of landmarks, it's kind of a good idea to just go ahead and put them in as placeholders until you start moving the block in further along. Now, I'm certainly not thinking overly much about anatomy. I'm just looking at what is visible to me in the figure, and what can I use that's going to actually explain what's happening in the body. So anytime I see little things like that, I'm going to go ahead and put them in, and it doesn't mean they're going to necessarily stay in the final block in. But in terms of getting started, the more information that I see on the actual figure that can be beneficial to me, whether it's to help me measure something or to find the sort of symmetry from one side to the other, I want to go ahead and use that just as a tool to help move the drawing forward. And so as I'm working across the figure, especially in the torso is, I want to just connect things from side to side, because, again, this is the largest mass in the body that I have to work with. And so I want to make sure that the overall feeling of the rib cage and pelvis feel relatively solid. So a lot of the times I'll be going from side to side and putting information and just trying to find the relative symmetry of each side to each other. So granted, we always have to think about perspective or there's any sort of twist in the body. I want to just make sure that I'm locked in on the torso for a good amount of time because, again, it's the majority of the pose. And then once I feel good about the torso itself, it's going to be much easier for me to add the arms and legs or to flesh them out in greater detail. You can see for the information that I have established so far, there's more detail in the actual reference than I have in my drawing at the moment. That's because I'm just thinking purely linear and thinking about shapes. So a lot of the shadows or half tones that I see, I'm not going to be putting those in just yet. I want to solve as much of the drawing and simple lines first before I start adding some of that secondary information like shadow mapping or half tones. So as I continue to add information to the drawing, I like to go back in and check myself and re compare measurements as I'm adding new bits of information. So a lot of times you'll see me as I'm adding another piece of information to the drawing, I'll go back and compare that to what I've already established. That way I'm constantly comparing each new piece of information that I add and seeing where it relates to the rest of the figure. Now, you can do this pretty much with any portion of the figure, but ideally what I like to do as I'm working down is I like to compare things that are much closer together first before looking at the relationships of things that are farther away. Meaning, as I'm working through the torso, I want to find the relationship of what I see in the arms, you know, or as I'm working through the legs, I want to see the relationship of the knees and the feet. Now, it doesn't mean I don't want to check the longer distances, let's say, like, from the foot to the shoulder or something like that, but it's a much harder measurement to make. So that would be something that I do later on as I'm flushing out more of the figure. But as I'm slowly developing what I have, I want to look for those closer relationships first, and then once I feel good about them, I can make those larger comparisons from top to bottom in the figure. As I'm kind of slowly adding information to the legs, I don't want to get caught up in the contours, even though I see a lot going on. I mostly want to just be looking for plane changes or plain breaks where I see that something is shifting. So, for example, like the quad down to the knee and then from the knee down through the calf into the Achilles tendon, into the foot, there's lots of these subtle angle changes that I'm seeing. And so I want to find that first, but I don't want to necessarily be thinking about the contour just yet. I'm sticking to predominantly straight lines so that I sort of maintain the integrity and structure of what I'm seeing. And ultimately, we can always add some of those contours later on down the road. But for now, I just want to be thinking about how these things are connecting and looking for those plane changes or plane breaks in the forms as they're connecting to each other. This is also true for a lot of what I'm seeing in the arms. And as I mentioned before, since this guy is fairly lean and muscular, we see a lot of, you know, very active contours in the arm and the shoulder and the forearm. And so I want to try and ignore a lot of that at first, and I just want to look for very obvious plane changes or plain brakes that I see shifting as it goes from the shoulder all the way down to the hand. Now, sometimes there's instances where if the contour is really busy or if you're not familiar with the anatomy in a given area, it would be best to just simplify it down into the largest possible lines that you can. Really, in this particular instance, for the arm, I would want to find the general sweep of the arm and the general direction in which it's turning. And so any other subforms that I see I want to sort of ignore that at first because, again, we're still in the block in stage. A lot of those finer details I can ultimately get to as I develop the drawing into something that is a little bit more complete, but we're still so far away from that that I don't want to get caught up in any of those small details, and I just want to find the overall gesture of what the arm or the rest of the figure is doing. 5. Establishing the Head and Upper Torso: So I'm going to as we move forward with the figure, I'm going to leave the hands in kind of a simple block shape because I don't really want to solve that much detail in the hand just yet. I want to just keep them in a very sort of simple state, and then we can always flush them out further as we get more information added in. But for the time being, I do want to flush out the head just a little bit because initially, I just had a large shape, and I need to get a little bit more information in there so I can establish a proper tilt and the general direction the head is facing. Now, for this particular demonstration, I'm not going to get too crazy involved with the head. I do want to just establish the relative placement of the features so that we get a sense of where the model is looking. But in terms of fleshing out the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and all of that stuff, I'm not going to get too involved with that because I mainly want to focus on the figure. Now, in your own drawings, it's totally up to you. But for the sake of a blocking, I would suggest keeping the head fairly simplified early on and more so worry about the proportion relative to the overall size of the body and making sure that the head feels in scale with the rest of the body. In terms of the other features and whatnot, I usually would just establish the eye sockets, the overall placement of the nose and the mouth. And then I would leave most of left undone until I was ready to make an additional pass, and I felt that the rest of the blocking of the figure was looking very good, and then I would start back up at the head again and then start adding in more information. Now, how much information you actually end up putting in, again, is totally up to you, and sometimes it's very dependent on the pose. In this particular instance, I would say about, you know, his head is turned at a three quarter downward sort of angle, and half of the face is in shadow. So a lot of that I wouldn't necessarily have to draw, and I would just have to focus on what I see in the light. But, you know, if you had a head that is straight on or if it's in a profile position, there's always going to be all these variables that you have to consider when you're blocking in this part of the drawing. Again, I would try and keep it fairly simplified and no detail, no shadow mapping at this particular stage. Just find the overall placement, make sure that it feels good with the neck and the shoulders, and then we can always develop it later. Now, with this model having a GT, I don't necessarily have to worry about the mouth as much. I can just draw the overall shape of the GT and know that the mouth is going to have to fit within that shape. But really, for the most part, this head is fairly straightforward. I don't have a lot to worry about. As long as I have everything looking in perspective, there is a distinction between the front and side plane of the head and the placement of the ear, and all of that is in perspective. I can feel good about the overall blocking and then move on to the figure. Now, if you feel like you need any more information, it's going to be totally up to you and personal preference. Again, at this stage of the drawing, I still want to avoid small details, but having the eye sockets in there, maybe suggesting the rough placement of the ball of the eye could be helpful to you. Again, it could very well be very pose specific and dependent depending on how the model has their head positioned. But again, still try and think large shapes overall and try not to get caught up in anything too small. So with the head blocked in, I can start working my way down the rest of the figure. And at this point, the overall block in is there in terms of the pose is established. I feel good about the proportions, but now I just need to start focusing on smaller shapes within what I've already established. Now, at this point, I'm basically going to be looking for smaller plane changes or plane breaks in the individual sections of anatomy that I see in the figure. Again, I'm not really thinking about the anatomy per se. I'm just kind of holding my pencil and comparing it against the model and what I'm seeing and looking for those small changes that I initially ignored in the beginning stages of the block in. But now that I have everything established, I can start focusing on those smaller transitions so that the drawing is a little bit more accurate. Now, as I'm working my way through the figure, I'm looking for obvious sort of separations in the body. So, for example, where I see the clavicle coming across the entire shoulder area, there's a little bit of the shoulder separation from the chest. There is the split down the sternum of the chest. And then as we get down to the rib cage, I see some very sort of prominent shapes in there that I want to go ahead and put in because they're very specific to this model. And so depending on the model that you're drawing from and their body type, sometimes the amount of information will be more or less. And so you kind of just have to make that judgment call as you go. So you can see here as I'm working in the upper body, I'm just looking for smaller refinements in a given area, and I'm gradually going to be doing that as I work my way down the figure. At this particular point, I'm not looking to make big adjustments or changes in the pose. Those should have been things I've caught early on already at this particular point before I even get to some of these smaller shapes or indications. Now, that's not to say that I won't be making small changes throughout some portions of the figure. I always want to leave myself some room for error because inevitably, I can't catch everything the first time. And so that's part of the reason why I also stay fairly light throughout the block-ins stage. None of the lines that I have right now are fully committed to. And so if I needed to take something out to adjust it or even just take out a portion of something to make a correction, I have the flexibility to do so. But at this point, I would want to have the majority of the pose solved at least from a proportional standpoint, and everything after now is going to be just refining that into smaller shapes so that the overall blocking is a little bit more accurate to what I'm seeing. 6. Constructing the Legs and Shadow Mapping: So at this point in the drawing, I'm really just adding smaller pieces of information now that the pose is pretty much established and I feel good about the proportions. As I continue working, I'm gradually just cleaning up any initial construction lines to try and just keep the overall cleanliness in the drawing as clear as possible. At this sort of stage, you know, we really shouldn't have any of the initial construction lines. Everything should feel solidified because we're kind of starting to get to some of these smaller aspects of the block in. So like putting in information for the knee, the feet, and we'll gradually establish the hands, that's pretty much getting down to what I would consider details in regards to the block in overall. So as I'm putting in this information, I want to just work my way through the rest of the drawing and try and clean it up so that by the time we're done, I can start mapping in the shadows on top of already clean drawing. Now, as I'm continuing to work, if for whatever reason I find myself catching any sort of error or mistake or adjustment that I need to make in the drawing, the lines are light enough that I have the flexibility to do so. So regardless of how far I get along in the block in stages, if I catch something, I want to go ahead and fix that right away because, again, this is all about setup for the finish. So even though we're still in the first few hours of doing a drawing, if something jumps out at me and I catch it, I want to go ahead and remove it or make the changes necessary to fix the drawing. And that's something that regardless of what skill level you're at currently, you always want to keep that mindset that if something is off, it's best to just go ahead and correct it right away because at this point in the drawing, we don't have any tone or shadows to deal with. So making those fixes are going to be much easier now than if I were to let it wait or just prolong the drawing without making those adjustments first. So as I'm making my way down the arm, I'm going to start blocking in the hand. And there's a couple of things that I would want to mention in this regard to hands and feet in general when you're doing a block in. And a lot of it has to do with either A, if you're working from reference or B, if you're working from life. Now, because I'm working for reference, I could realistically block in these hands at any time because I don't have to worry about the model moving or sort of adjusting or resetting the pose or anything like that. If it was a drawing from life, then typically what I would be looking to do is I would aim to find a pose in the hand that I really liked or I liked the aesthetic of the hand placement because oftentimes when working from life, the model is going to be shifting hand positions and feet positions, regardless of, you know, doing your best to try and reset the pose exactly how it started. It is very difficult to do, and it almost never seems to happen in my experience. So a lot of the times, you end up chasing hands and feet in certain positions. So typically, I would leave them at the very end to sort of do and then try and lock them down. In a position that I liked. So that is something to consider if you are using these as a way to draw from life. But, again, from reference, we can kind of have a little bit more leeway, and I can basically put them in at any time. But if working from life, I would have a tendency to wait till I found a specific pose that I liked and then go ahead and block in the hand from there. Now, realistically, I'm still not putting in details of the hand or the feet or anything like that. I'm still just looking for the simplified version of that feature. So, you know, I'd want to maybe just get a rough idea of the placement of the thumb, the general sort of gesture of the fingers. Same thing for the feet. I want to find the general sweep of the foot, find out where, you know, the most weight bearing foot and what that position looks like. And then once I felt good about the shapes that I've established, I would go ahead and flush it out further, but realistically, a lot of the detail aspects of those features would be more for the finish. I would want to get the rough shapes of them in the block in stage, but to finalize them in their sort of details and depth, I would wait till I get to the shadow stage and then ultimately the forum phase to really flush them out to what they need to be. So that's just something to keep in mind. And again, it also depends on how much time you're working from the model or working from reference. If it's from reference you have all the time in the world, you can kind of take it to whatever degree you feel good about. But if it's from life, you kind of have to pick and choose because you're working with a limited amount of time to get to those details like the hands and feet. So at this point of the drawing, I feel comfortable enough in the blocking that I can begin to map my shadows. Now, when I do this, I specifically don't draw any edges or anything like that. I'm simply looking for a clean separation of light and dark, but I'm still just using linear lines to establish that. So I can think about the form that I'm traversing in the sense of, you know, a shadow is wrapping around a rounded form or around a bony feature of the body. I'm still thinking in regards to that. But I'm not adding any sort of soft or firm edges or anything. That would happen later as we start adding shadows and modeling to the drawing. So at this point, I still want to air on keeping the drawing as clean as possible. So all of my shadow lines are going to remain linear just like the rest of the block in. Now, one thing to consider as you're mapping is you still want to squint down your eyes when you're looking at the shadows and really try and simplify them down. Don't get caught up in excessive detail in the shadow because, again, to me, it's all about readability in the drawing. And if I were to break up the shadow into too many small pieces because my eyes are just seeing too much information, I want to at least avoid that initially in this particular stage. Once we get to modeling and everything like that, we can inject more details into the drawing itself. But for now, I really just want to focus on the overall light and dark effect and to keep that as simplified as possible. Now, occasionally, you may find yourself running into areas where there's things that are not quite shadow, but they're really dark half tones because they're obviously not part of the overall light structure that we're seeing. And so in those instances, like on him, I see in the stomach and rib cage area that there's some portions that are really dark half tones, but they're not quite part of the shadow. I might put some of that information in there, but a lot of the times it could very well be just a case by case scenario. So ultimately, it's up to you if you want to put in some of those darker half tones or make distinct shapes out of them. But that's just something to consider in the back of your mind as you're flushing out your own drawing. Ultimately, I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong. It's really up to the individual and what helps you figure out the drawing for yourself, and everyone is going to maybe require different levels of information to help them. So initially, I would say, try to simplify everything as best you can. And if there's other things that you feel like you need to add or you think like they're going to be a benefit to you in moving the drawing forward, there's no harm in putting them in there so that it at least gives you something to latch onto as you push the drawing into filling out the shadows and then ultimately modeling form. 7. Refining and Finishing Block-In: Oh Alright, so as we're getting towards the end of this block in, you can see that we've mapped out the shadows. There's a clear delineation of light and shadow. Again, just purely in line. I'm not there's no edges or anything like that in the shadow maps themselves. And this, to me, is enough of a description about where the drawing is headed. And ultimately, again, at this stage, how much information is in the block in is kind of up to you. Some poses or some models may require more information than others, and it's really just dependent on what you're dealing with. So again, if it's from reference, you have a little bit more control in what is going on, but if you're drawing from life, you kind of don't know what model is going to show up and you're kind of at mercy of the classroom. So, there's a lot of variables that are out of your hands when you're working in a classroom environment and you're not quite sure of the model. But nonetheless, for me, regardless of working from life or working from reference, I treat the approaches the exact same way. So really, you can see here, we have everything accounted for. I feel good about the proportions, the shadows are in place. Now, what realistically needs to happen now is that we would sort of move on to an isolated shadow stage where I start to fill in the shadows with some relative value so that I can gradually move towards modeling form. Now, at this stage of the block in, again, everything should be very legible and clear. There should be no ambiguity about what is going on in the pose, the proportions. You want to have all of these things solved because, again, having to go back and make those kinds of corrections later once we introduce tone into the drawing is going to be that much more difficult to do. And so a lot of what I'm doing at this stage is really just cleaning up the drawing. If some of my lines got too thick, then I want to go ahead and just trim those up so I have a nice clean, definitive line. If there's any sort of excess lines from my original construction, I want to take those out and leave only the essential information that I need to move forward. Now, again, this is going to highly depend on what you're comfortable with and it's going to vary from person to person. And sometimes, you know, in this particular instance, with this model and his body type, I think sometimes having a little bit more information can be beneficial. Now, if it was a different model, different body type, then the scenario changes slightly. But again, it's one of those things where you're just kind of making a judgment call for yourself and every person is going to interpret things differently. So in this particular instance, you know, I feel like I have the essential information for this particular pose and for this model. And, you know, maybe the same model, but in a different pose would require different information. So there's all of these factors that come into play, and it's different every time. So I don't want to say that it's always going to be this way or there's, like, a formula to this. You know, there really isn't you can see from the drawing itself, it's fairly simplified relative to what I'm seeing in the reference. And obviously, later on, if I were to complete this further, we would start adding more details. But for the time being, the drawing feels like it's in a good place that I can gradually start introducing the next stages. One thing I will mention, and this again, is kind of personal preference. But sometimes on a given model or a given pose, when you introduce the shadows, a lot of the lines can start to appear busy. And if you find yourself in that situation, it's totally okay to just very lightly put in a soft tone in the shadow area just so that you get a much clearer delineation of what is light and what is shadow. Now, again, it should be fairly obvious based off the reference. But also, too, like I said, sometimes you end up with a ton of lines in the drawing. You know, for some people, that could get a little confusing because there's just a lot going on. So if it helps you, you can always just put in a light little tone just to make that separation that much more distinct. And so if you decide to go ahead and put in a light value in your shadows, do it all over the figure so that you have a uniformity across the drawing. But really, at this stage, I would say, this is our completed block in. And so where you decide to go from here in terms of finishing the drawing is another topic that we won't get into for this particular class. But this would be sort of an ideal scenario where we have the figure established from head to toe portions are feeling pretty good. We've separated light and dark just a little bit. And then it's just again, a matter of A, how much time do we have to spend on the drawing? Where do we want to take this drawing in terms of a stylistic choice or anything like that? So throughout the rest of the course, we'll be going over this process again, but just from different poses and different angles. 8. Marking the Page and Large Forms: So starting off, I'm still going to mark the top and bottom about where I want the figure to sit, and I'll find a halfway point as well so that I can build my initial envelope. Now, a back pose is more or less similar to a front facing pose. The only difference is that maybe the head is a little bit obscured in this particular instance, and I don't have some of the same landmarks that I do as I have on the front of the body. So things will change a little bit. But the overall approach is fundamentally the same, especially when getting started. I want to just find those initial marks of top and bottom and a middle, build out my envelope. And then, again, it just gives me a rough guide and shape to kind of build into. A lot of the times I'm going to be adjusting from this, but I just need to get something on the page so that I'm not staring at a blank sheet of paper, and I'm just going to gradually start carving into it. Now, you can see in my envelope, I've accounted for the arm that's slightly extended holding the pole. And realistically, if you have any of the appendages like the arms or the legs protruding in a sort of separate direction away from the body, you want to include that in the envelope. Again, it's really just about establishing the large overall shape. And if you need to make changes as you go, you have the flexibility to do that, but I want to just think about the largest shape possible that I can make and then move on from there. Now, after establishing a rough shape for the head, I want to go ahead and establish the axes for the shoulders and the hips so that I can then build a center line to establish the overall flow of the body. Now, because I don't have a pit of the neck to connect to, I'm essentially just building from the back of the head and neck down to about where the glutes are in the lower half of the body to establish the overall center line. And realistically, you can kind of just follow what the spine is doing and build your center line off of that. With those axes and the spine established, we kind of have a rough sense of what the torso is doing, and then we can start building out from there. From roughly the top of the head, I'm finding the angle down to the shoulders, and I can still kind of see the outer edges of the shoulders, which would kind of be the achromium process of the scapula. And so I want to establish those points so I can make sure that I'm not getting too far spread out with my shoulders. And what I'm thinking with that is I want the head, neck and shoulders to be this really sort of strong contained unit. And when I have that established, then I can feel a little bit more comfortable about establishing the rest of the torso. Now, again, because I don't have, like, the pit of the neck as a landmark and I'm not really seeing the front part of the face, I don't have as much information to use, but I can still use the sort of triangular shape of the head neck shoulders to sort of lock into. And for now, that will be enough. Now, with the head neck and shoulders established, I can start to build out the rest of the torso. And so what I'm looking for, for the most part, initially, is just finding these sort of outer edges, and I'm following the flow of the spine for the most part. When I look a little bit deeper, I can see the overall shape of the rib cage and the boxiness of the pelvis. So I want to keep those in the back of my mind. But for just getting the initial thing established, I can just focus on the outer sort of silhouette of the torso itself and then start implementing some of those shapes as I build out farther. Now, one thing I almost always look for in a back pose is if we follow the spine all the way down to the gluteal cleft, just above that, we see two little dimples in the lower back, and that is the sacrum of the pelvis. And the reason I like this landmark is because it gives me the overall tilt and orientation of the pelvis, but it also gives me a kind of central point to lock in the torso itself. Because from there, realistically, I know that there's lower back muscles that are going to go up into the spine. That's also going to help me connect the rib cage. And by just having that one element or landmark in the drawing, in my opinion, it makes it a lot easier to create a better sense of solidity overall in the torso itself before we start adding some of the arms and legs. Now, for this front leg itself, I don't really have to indicate too much. I just want to find the general flow and get the feet placed so that I at least have everything accounted for. Now, there's obviously a lot more information going on, but in terms of the gesture of the pose, I just want to get those quickly established so that I can build out the rest of the arms. And then with everything in place, I can start refining and making comparisons and if need be, make adjustments to the pose. Now, the arms in this pose are, you know, fairly straightforward. I'm not going to overcomplicate them with a lot of the curvature and the anatomy that I see at this point. I really just want to find the sort of rough gesture. And so I'm just thinking about the overall flow of that arm and kind of just the upper arm and lower arm being kind of really simple cylinders. And the one thing I'll say about the arm that is on the left hand side is that it's actually not relaxed. He's sort of flaring out his shoulder a little bit. So it's kind of there is some tension in that arm, and it maybe looks a little unnatural in the pose itself, but it is what it is. And so this other arm has a lot more going on because it's kind of vent. There's a little bit of foreshortening as the forearm and hand are going away from us. But for the most part, again, we can just think about the overlapping forms of cylinders kind of coming together and construct the arm that way. And again, at this point, we don't want to be thinking about anatomy or curvature. We just want to be thinking along the lines of simple shapes, and that will do most of the work to get us started. Now, with the arms and legs sort of roughly filled in, I want to get back into the torso and start flushing out more information in there, and I want to lock in this area because, again, with the standing pose, the torso is just going to occupy so much space that I really want to make sure that part is feeling as solid as I can make it. And then if I need to make adjustments in the arms or legs, there's just much less to do in terms of fixing those at this point. But to me, the torso is kind of the focal point in this particular pose and kind of the gesture of the pose is really nice. It's kind of a very sort of powerful stance, but I really want to focus in on that torso area and making sure that the rib cage and pelvis feel very well connected. And the more solid I can get that feeling like those two forms are interlocking very well together. I think it's going to strengthen the overall pose, and then building the arms and legs off of that, in my opinion, is going to be a lot easier. C. Now, again, with the back pose, we don't have the same kind of landmarks we do as a front pose. And I think there's maybe less landmarks to sort of work off of. So things like the sacrum of the pelvis I mentioned earlier, again, are huge for me because it kind of really helps me lock in the pelvis and how that connects to the rib cage. Now, the other thing I can also think of is the shoulder blades themselves can sometimes be a useful landmark because, again, we have all of those muscles that are attached and nearby the scapula themselves. And so I don't necessarily want to think about the anatomy, but if I think about the general shape of the shoulder blades, then, you know, I can really help align the rest of the shoulders because I know that there has to be some degree of symmetry in the positions of the shoulder blades themselves. Once I have a rough shape for the shoulder blades, I can start to think about how the anatomy is connecting to it. But in this particular instance, just having the shoulder blades and the spine and the sacrum in there gives me enough to lock into that I can start to then see how all of these things are coming together to help form the rest of the torso. A. Building out more of the arms. I still don't want to get caught up in anatomy, but I just want to reestablish that cylindrical shape that I'm seeing, especially on this arm because there is some degree of foreshortening involved. I want to think about how the elbow is kind of facing us more, and then I want to attach the forearm as it's receding away from us. When I establish the forearm, I can find an endpoint at the wrist and then attach the hand on top of it. Now, again, a lot of the times when dealing with any pose, the arms and appendages, you might have to deal with some sort of foreshortening depending on the pose and kind of the position the models in. But again, if you just think about the simple shapes involved overall and just the overlapping forms of the cylinders kind of connecting from the shoulder to the elbow to the wrist, it's much easier to construct the arms and then add anatomy afterwards if necessary. Just as with any other aspect of the drawing, I'd like to error on the side of keeping everything simple at first. And then as I feel comfortable about where the drawing is headed in terms of just placement, proportion and everything like that, then I can start adding more information on top of what I've already established. 9. Constructing the Legs and Back: Continuing down through the leg here, I don't want to put in too much of the contour just yet. I really just want to have the overall gesture and kind of have that thrust of the leg because this is the weight bearing leg of the pose. The far leg, I don't really see a whole lot. It's just, you know, a very small amount as it's kind of tucking in behind, and then I see a little bit of the foot in the background that's in shadow. So I don't have a whole lot to necessarily solve in this regard for the pose, but I do want to kind of account for some of the information later on. But for the most part, I really just want to find the overall silhouette of this leg before I start flushing out more information. S Now that I have the overall pose pretty much established, I feel good about the gesture and the proportions of it, so I can start getting back to just the torso and kind of the main focus, but I want to just clean up some of my lines. Any excess construction lines that I still have in the drawing from the beginning, I can take out and try to just clean the drawing overall so that I'm left with the final lines that I want to stick with. Now, looking at the torso itself, there is a lot of information in the back, especially because of how lean the model is. And well, I do want to get that information in there. I want to sort of simplify it as much as I can. And so I want to look at the sort of predominant shapes that I see. So if I squint down and look at the model, I want to just look at those shapes that still stick out to me, and I don't want to get caught up in the smaller details that are less obvious. So, you know, because I have some landmarks in the upper back like the shoulder blades and the spine, I kind of want to just look at those in between spaces, and I want to focus on just the large things that I see, and then anything that is not that, I want to leave out for now because I still want to maintain the overall simplicity of the pose and then Again, as the drawing sort of develops further, we can decide to add in more information. But at this stage of the drawing, because we're just starting, I still want to just think about the big picture and try and capture the simplest forms as I can. So a lot of really what I'm just doing now is just trying to clean up areas as I work my way back down the figure. And, you know, there's some smaller little plane changes that I see in the contour or there's some overlapping forms through the rib cage oblique and the pelvis that I see in this area that I want to try and capture because, you know, I think it's an important part for this particular pose, and it's very obvious on this model because he's so lean that I want to try and capture some of that information because I think it'll strengthen the drawing. Now, again, this will vary a lot from pose to pose, but, you know, it's something to keep in the back to your mind is that once you get a certain level of drawing established, a lot of it is just going back and refining. And sometimes that could be one pass, two passes, and it doesn't really matter how many times you have to do it. So long as it strengthens the drawing and it makes the blocking feel a little bit more solid to you and will help you move the drawing forward, then I would say, go ahead and take as much time as you need or as much time as possible. Working down the arm, again, I'm just thinking about simple cylinder shapes and sort of from the shoulder down through the upper arm, down to the elbow and then the forearm, just thinking about how those areas connect as simple shapes. When I get to the hand, like I said, in the previous drawing, is a lot of the times I will keep the hands fairly sort of simplified and like a block shape because if I were drawing from life, again, it would be one of those things where I would want to try and dial in the hand in one sitting so that, you know, in case the model moves or there's any adjustment, I don't have to be chasing a hand throughout the course of the drawing. Now, in this particular instance, again, working from reference, you know, I don't have to worry about that, but even in a block in stage, I still like to simplify the hand into just a few simple shapes. And then as I work further along, I will then slowly start to dial in some of the details in the hand. But typically, that won't happen until I get to the tonal stage of the drawing. Getting back down to the leg, again, I want to sort of treat it the same way as I did the arm just thinking about the cylinder shape of the upper quad as it kind of connects to the calf. And there's really not, you know, I think for the most part, a lot of the limbs, you can sort of simplify in that direction. The only thing I have to consider in this particular instance is I do see the knee as it's sort of coming from behind the quad and then attaching to the shin bone and the lower calf. So I have to make sure that I have that overlap in there. But otherwise, for the most part, I can keep this leg in a fairly sort of simple state and as long as it reads, there's no reason to sort of over emphasize any information at this point because we're still in the block in stage. So I think that as long as it has the overall thrust of the leg and the proportions look good, that's pretty much as far as I want to get to in this stage of the drawing. Now, the feet, I would treat exactly the same way as I did the hand, and I would kind of keep them in a very sort of simplified block shape. The foot being more of like a wedge that is sort of attaching from the ankle. And I want to just think about that shape first. And then, you know, there might be some small things that if they jump out, like the ankle bone being very prominent or, you know, the separation of the big toe from the rest of the little toes would be something I would look for. But otherwise, I would keep the foot in a fairly simple state for the block in, and then I would only start developing it further if, you know, as we take the drawing to further stages of, like, you know, shadow and, you know, modeling form, then we can flush out more information. But for the most part, at this early on in the drawing, I want to just keep as simple and sort of large of a shape as possible. 10. Refining and Shadow Mapping: So with the figure pretty well established, I can start focusing in on smaller sections of the figure and just start to refine it overall. So again, this really just entails, you know, cleaning up some of my lines that are maybe leftover from the original block in, start separating out some of the smaller shapes, especially in the arms and in the back area. There's a lot of detail in there that while I don't want to get caught up in too much of it, I do want to account for the larger shapes that I'm seeing, and then from there, I can start mapping out some of the shadows. Using this arm as an example, you know, I don't want to get caught up in some of the form or, like, the anatomy around the elbow. I really just want to make sure that the arm looks like it's foreshortened and that the necessary forms are overlapping correctly. And this is what I would say with any pose where you may have an arm or a leg that is foreshortened or out in perspective. And as long as you can get the forms to read in space correctly and they feel proportionate to the rest of the model, that's about as much as you'd want to do for the block in stage. And then later on, we can always add more detail as necessary. Getting back up to the head, I'm going to keep this relatively simple, but I want to just have some information in there so that I don't just stick with the basic shape that I started with from the beginning. Now, in this particular pose, the head is predominantly in shadow, so I would err on the side of keeping it fairly simple. And in the sort of overall context of this drawing, again, I think that the sort of focal point is pretty much the back and the rest of the figure itself. So I would have a tendency to simplify a lot of the shapes and information in the head in general because so much of it is in shadow that I wouldn't want it to take away from the back itself by trying to flush out every little detail that I see that's happening, even though it is buried in shadow. Now, decisions like that, I think, are artistic license, and they're ultimately up to you in terms of how much information you want to flush out in a given area. I have a tendency to want to keep my shadows fairly simple and uniform, so I try not to flush out too much detail, and maybe if I were to take this drawing to the finish, I would maybe have a few accents in the shadow. But beyond that, I wouldn't try and dig up too much information. Now, as I start mapping the shadows of the back, I really want to just squint down and look at the predominant shapes that I'm seeing and try to copy those as best I can. There's a lot of sort of middle value half tones that are happening that are not quite shadows, but as the form is kind of gradually turning into the light, you know, there's some kind of shapes that are just a little bit darker than the actual flesh tone or the most light facing areas. So I do want to have that information in there, ultimately, but for the most part, right now, I just want to map out the shadows and try to account for some of the information that I'm seeing. So there is a lot going on in the back in terms of I see, you know, obviously, the lat, the trapezius, the erector muscles coming from the lumbar area, and then down into the glutes. There's a lot of information going on in there. But in order to help myself, I just want to squint down a really good amount and just try and copy the shadow shapes as best I can. And then, you know, as I kind of get everything filled in, I can start looking for more nuance later on. Working down the leg, I want to just keep that shape fairly simple down through the foot. I know there's a lot going on in this calf muscle, and as it gets down to, like, the ankle and the lower foot, there's a lot of deviation in the shadow shape, but I want to try and ignore a lot of that right now because, again, it's not really going to help me. If I try to put in all this information, it's going to overcomplicate things. And I want to just keep the readability of the shadows as good and simple as I can. And that's the reason why squinting is so important in this stage of the drawing is because it's very easy to overcomplicate something. So by squinting down, we can eliminate a bunch of details and just think about the overall large effect of the light and dark the shadow is creating. So just keep that in mind as you're blocking in your drawing and establishing the shadow patterns. This would apply to, you know, whether it's a figure, a portrait or anything like that. The more you can simplify things down, the overall legibility of your drawing is going to look so much better and stronger of an impact than if we try and capture all of these details right from the jump. Working in this upper back area, there's a lot of information to account for because of the amount of compression that's happening within the shoulder, the scapular area in general, and then the trapezius and the sort of upper back. And so I want to just try and, again, simplify that out as best I can. But in this particular instance, even though it's not in shadow, some of the half tone shapes that I'm seeing, they stand out pretty sort of, I think, obvious because you know, because of how the muscles are sort of compressing into each other, they're kind of creating these more subtle shadow shapes. So in an instant like that, I would have a tendency to copy the half tones to try and flush out some information because I think if I just left that area blank and empty, it would get a little confusing, and there's so much information that's happening in that area that I need to account for it, because if I were to take the drawing farther, it's something that I'm going to have to resolve anyway as the drawing sort of pushes forward. For where we're at here right now in the block in, though, I think this is pretty much a good place to say, like, this is enough information. Now, certainly it could always add more if I wanted to, but I think sometimes putting too much information in the block in, especially on a model of this type, can sometimes lead to just too much sort of data, you know, and what I mean by that? It could be very easy to get lost in a drawing if there's too many lines every because we're trying to account for every little nuance in the figure that we're seeing. So a lot of that would later on sort of resolve itself when we get to the modeling stage of the drawing. But in terms of the overall effect and the large effect of this drawing, I would say that this is probably enough of a block in for us to start maybe thinking about filling in the shadows, getting a good value established, and then gradually starting to model form. So Again, a lot of this is very situation specific. It's very specific to the model, the lighting. But just kind of keep that in mind as you're working on your own drawings and error on the side of keeping the drawing simplified first, and then you can always add more detail as you go. So to kind of finish up the block in, I will go ahead and just use a ruler to establish the pole that he's holding. I'm not a huge fan of objects, you know, or props in figure drawings, but it does happen from time to time. So, you know, sometimes it could be a chair, a platform, whatever, you know, depending on if you are drawing from life, every setup will kind of be different so that's something to keep in mind. But in this case, because I don't really think I'm going to pull a perfectly straight line, just free hand. So I will break out a ruler or some sort of straight edge in these instances. So it's always handy to have on hand. But otherwise, you know, this is pretty much it for a back pose. As you can see, it was a little bit different than the front pose because the anatomical landmarks are a little bit different. But realistically, the process is the same in terms of starting the drawing from the beginning to where we are now with the finished blocking. 11. Evenlope and Large Forms: So when looking at a seated pose, there's a couple benefits, I think, doing a pose like this and largely it has to do with everything being a little bit more compressed because the model is seated. And we don't have to worry about a standing figure and measure long distances. In this particular instance, I can kind of draw the envelope of a pose in sort of a triangle shape to try and contain everything and then gradually build out within that triangle shape. Now, obviously, there's a variety of seated poses, so it's always going to vary to some degree. But the nice part is that we have everything relatively close together. So when I'm making initial measurements and sort of flushing out the figure, I just have a much shorter range to deal with, and I find that helps move the pose along a little bit faster than something like a standing pose where we have to be really sort of a little bit more measured and accurate with the proportions because we're dealing with the figure in its entirety. When we have limbs that are seated or legs that are cross and compressed, we just don't have as much to deal with. So we can kind of take those measurements a bit faster. So as I build into this envelope shape, I'm still starting with a rough head shape. But one thing I'm considering as I'm building it out is I want to find the shoulder line and axes as well as the bottom of where the figure is seated and then build out from there. So the one other thing I have to consider is that I don't necessarily have some of the same landmarks that I have in the front facing figure. So I don't have, like, a pit of the neck or the navel or anything like that. So I have to use other axis points to measure what I'm trying to convey. Again, in this instance, I would be looking at the pitch of the shoulder line, then I would use the spine as my center line down to where the model is seated, and I would basically use that to start to deconstruct the rest of the figure. Now, in this particular instance, I really going to mostly focus on the torso itself because that's the majority of the pose. And then from what I can see on the leg that is sort of flaring out, there's not a whole lot of information. And with the one arm that I see on the side that's fully extended, you know, I won't necessarily have to draw too much for that. So a lot of this pose is really just going to be consisting of the torso and then building off what appendages I do see. So building off the shoulder line, I'm essentially creating the neck from that. And then as I draw in the neck, I'm going to build down the center line and use the spine and follow that all the way down to where the model is seated. And that's going to kind of give me that center line that I would normally use from the pit of the neck to the crotch if I were looking at the front of the model. Then from that center line, I can kind of get a rough idea about where the rest of the torso is going to go. And for this particular pose, I don't necessarily need to draw a rib cage or a pelvis. I can kind of just see this torso being a very sort of simple block form, and I can connect that all the way down to the shoulders to the pelvis and then start breaking it down from there. If I can draw something with much larger and simpler shapes, I'll go ahead and do that first before breaking it down into smaller sections. So in this particular instance, again, just wanting to find the large mass of the torso so that I can build out the arm and the leg that I do see. And then from there, we can start looking for a little bit more smaller shapes to break down the rest of the figure. You can see with just a handful of lines, the pose really does come together rather quickly. Now, it's not to say that I don't have ways to go in terms of putting in information, but the overall gesture gets established fairly quickly because I don't have as many things to deal with as compared to, like, a standing pose or if I had, let's say, both legs to deal with and they were crossed and there's a lot of overlapping forms. But in this particular instance, you know, it's a fairly straightforward back pose that is seated. And so I can kind of get things established fairly quickly and then start breaking it down into smaller sections. Now, there's certainly a lot going on in the back because of the anatomy involved. But for now, I still want to keep it simplified for the most part and think about just the overall roundness of the rib cage. As it gets down to the pelvis, it looks a little bit more boxy, especially for his type. And so I want to think about those two components coming together to form the overall shape of the torso. M Now, with how he's seated and kind of where I see the leg inserting into the hip area where the pelvis would be, I kind of have this very sort of boxy shape, and so I'm kind of just thinking about that in terms of perspective as well, and how he's seated on the block. I'm not going to worry about the block so much for this particular pose. I will indicate it at some point so that he is seated and not floating on the page. But for the most part, again, I really just want to establish the pose and get the overall feeling of what's going on, and then we can start putting in some of the extra information. Now, establishing the arm, there's not a whole lot going on in terms of activity, so I can just focus on thinking about the cylinder shapes of the upper arm as it connects to the lower part of the forearm. From there, because the hand is actually on the surface of the block, I don't have to think about that too much and can simplify that down into a simple shape. The far arm on the left hand side, I don't even really need to think about because it's mostly in shadow and I just have to attach it from the shoulder. So realistically, again, from this particular angle, the pose is fairly simplified in terms of the basic construction, where I'm going to have to spend more time later on is thinking about some of the anatomy in the upper back and making sure that works relative to what I've established. Now, that's not to say that I want to overly focus on the anatomy per se, but I do need to think about what's happening in the back. There's the position of the scapulas in the shoulder areas that I want to focus on. And then from there, I'm really just thinking about some of the major lines that I'm seeing happen as the body's twisting and some of the muscles are compressing. The left hand side of the figure is mostly in shadow. So some of that area I can resolve when I get to the mapping stage of the draw. But for the most part, the overall construction is pretty much established already. Now I just need to refine it and make sure to check all my measurements and then flush out more information so that I can get this looking more accurate to the reference. As I start putting some information in the back, I don't want to get caught up in some of the anatomical nuances that I'm seeing. I really just want to focus on shapes and try to accurately portray them in my drawings. So even though I know there is a lot going on in this particular area, a muscles are getting compressed as he's twisting. And then, you know, on the left hand side, there is a bit of information that's in the shadow. You know, that's all well and good, but I really just want to focus on the shapes that I'm conveying and does everything feel cohesive? Do the shapes feel like they interlock with one another? You know, do they feel attached or they're inserting into one another? That's all I really want to focus on right now. And then as we start adding information to the drawing, we can always complicate things a little bit more, but realistically in these early stages, just focus on shape and proportion and then let the drawing sort of naturally evolve from there. A 12. Establishing the Head and Smaller Shapes: So at this point, we really have most of the figure established in terms of a overall general sense. Now, realistically what needs to happen at this point is I need to go ahead and put a little bit more information in the head and then start flushing out more of the figure itself. But in terms of an overall shape and the general placement, I feel pretty good about this so far. So this drawing might speed itself up a little bit faster than some of the other demonstrations, simply because, again, with a seated pose, I simply have less to deal with in terms of an overall figure because they're seated, things are compressed, and I don't have to worry about measuring long distances like I would with a standing figure. So getting back up to the head, with the perspective that I'm seeing, he's kind of in a slightly profile but slightly turned away. So realistically, what I'm going to be looking for is I'm looking for the overlap in the neck and how that kind of connects to the rest of the overall skull shape. Now, because it's closest to me, I can use the ear to kind of give myself a little bit of a guideline to place the rest of the eye and the nose. And then some of the chin is kind of tucked away behind the shoulder so I can't see all of it. And so with a pose like this, you know, the head is not really sort of the focal point in my opinion. I think realistically speaking, if I were to complete this drawing, a lot of the focus should be on the back itself. That's kind of the prominent sort of subject in my opinion for this particular pose, but the head still has to be there. So I do want to put some information just so that it is accounted for. Now, I'm still going to keep it in a relatively sort of simple state, so I'm just going to place the features overall, but I'm not going to flush out too much information and put in any sort of details. I really just want to have that head locked in, and as long as I make it feel like it has a sense of solidity in conjunction with the neck and the shoulders, that's going to be enough for me for the sake of the block in. A. With the head established and all of the figure, more or less feeling pretty good, I can start looking at some of the smaller plane changes in the actual figure itself. And, you know, realistically, again, with certain areas like this particular arm, I don't really see a whole lot going on because it's in shadow, but I want to try and get some of that information out because it's very obvious on him. When I start looking across at the other arm that's in the light side of the figure, there's a lot more information for me to get involved with. So realistically, that whole light side, in my opinion, is going to be more of the area I spent a little bit more time because there's a lot more information for me to get involved with. Now, this arm is more or less relaxed. He's not really extending his arm out because I don't see any sort of flexion in the tricep area or anything like that. So I know that this arm is fairly relaxed because there's no contraction in the muscles. But nonetheless, I'm still thinking about the overall cylinder shape and how that is sort of injecting itself into the shoulder. And then as it connects to the lower part of the forearm, I want to keep most of these shapes fairly simple for now. And the contour on this side is going to be, you know, kind of, you know, more or less even. It's not overly active, but it does need to be in there to some extent. And I want to go ahead and inject some of that in there, but realistically, I think if you just stick with a simple cylinder shape to get started, it should be okay. As I start flushing out some information in this back area, again, I want to try and just copy what I see and not get overwhelmed by some of the anatomical nuances that are happening there. I think for the most part, just by focusing on the shapes and trying to accurately represent those, you can really solve the majority of the drawing. And, you know, while obviously anatomical knowledge does help, in this particular instance, I think there's enough in there shape wise that I can wrap my hand around that I don't need to overly inject information because I just feel like it would be unnecessary. Now, there's a lot of grouping, especially in this area where I see the scapula come in conjunction with the trapezius. And it's not quite a super deep shadow, but it's a very, very dark half tone that I'm going to sort of try and make one larger shape so that there's a sense of cohesion in that given area. And I feel like once I map out the other side of the back and look for the sort of relative symmetry in the scapular area down through the rib cage, I think that's going to help the drawing and kind of tie things together. Now, as I'm looking at this shadow side of the back, a lot of this area is grouped together in terms of the shoulder blade and the rest of the arm itself. It's all kind of grouped together. And so there's a lot going on in that shadow in terms of little pockets of light here and there. So I just need to take my time and slowly build out that area so that I can map everything accordingly. I'm still squinting down, trying not to get caught up in the details, but I do need to account for a lot of these shapes. So by just slowing down and gradually working my way down the shadow, I can just map that out as best I can. And, you know, for the most part, again, I think once this area is sort of figured out and resolved, it's going to help the back make more sense relative to the light side, as there's not as much information on the light side to really dig into outside of the shoulder area where I'm seeing it's being compressed and we're getting that compression in the shoulder blade. But for the most part, a lot of what's going on in this particular pose is happening in the back, so I do want to take extra time to account for some of these shapes and information because, in my opinion, again, this is the focal point of this particular pose. 13. Mapping Shadows and Final Details: Okay Now, as I continue along the back, when I get to the rib cage here, there's kind of a lot of repeating shapes. So I'm trying to account for some of that as best I can. And I think realistically, a lot of this area would resolve itself a lot better once we start introducing tone into the drawing. But regardless of that, again, because the back to me is the focal point, I would spend more time there really trying to articulate some of those shapes. And then once we get down to, like, the hip area and then the rest of the leg, there's not a whole lot of information to really latch onto. So that area could be a little bit more simplified. Now, one thing I'll mention again is that because we're dealing with a seded pose, we were able to kind of move through the drawing a little bit faster than some of the standing poses. And I would say, in general, there's a lot of variability with a seated pose, you know, whether the model is facing us or turned away from us, or if we have to work with, you know, arms or legs that are maybe crossed over one another, some seated poses can be more difficult than others, but the one thing I do like is that because the body is compressed, in my opinion, it's a lot easier to measure because the distances we have to measure itself are much shorter versus a standing pose where we have to measure from, you know, head all the way down to the foot and then everything in between. So it's a little bit of a trade off in terms of complexity, but realistically, you know, we're kind of tackling the problem the same way, but I find that seated poses in general are a little bit easier overall than a standing pose because of that shorter distance that we can make those relationships in proportions. And so with all the shadows mapped out, you can kind of see that we have the overall sort of gesture of the pose and all of the information is accounted for. So a lot of what I'd end up doing at this point is going over individual areas and just trying to clean them up so that everything looks as readable as I can possibly make it. Now, again, I didn't want to get too caught up in anatomy, even though in this particular instance, it would be very easy to try and resolve as much information as I see in there. But rather, I'd like to focus more on just flushing out shapes that I see. So again, kind of the information in the back could be a little bit overwhelming. But if I squint down and just look at the large shadow shapes, look at areas that are kind of dissipating when I squint my eyes down, I want to try and just get that overall large effect that what I'm seeing. Then if we were to take this drawing further into a modeling stage, that's where I would spend more time trying to resolve things a little bit more accurately as to what I'm seeing. But considering that this is just the beginning stages, I want to think about just the overall large effect first, and then from there, we can always add information and complexity. So at this point, I can say that we have the information I feel is necessary for a block in, and this is where we would start to move forward in the drawing. And so if you decided it was beneficial to you, you could at this point, maybe fill in a very light shadow in the shadow areas just so that you can see the shapes that you have established. Again, it's really more about just looking for any last minute changes that might need to take place. And sometimes by putting in a light shadow, things jump out a little bit more just because of that light degree of contrast. But overall, I think the pose is looking pretty accurate to what I'm seeing. I like the gesture and the proportions feel pretty good to me. So this would be sort of the point where I would say the block in is completed, and then if we were to take it farther, we would start establishing a shadow value range overall, and then that would ultimately lead to modeling. But for the sake of this class, I would say, this is a good practice drawing. It's a good block in, and I can be sort of content with what I've built here. And so, again, the whole point is just getting comfortable with this process. And then as you get better, you can move faster through these stages so that you can get to other aspects of drawing. But none of that can happen until the block in is sort of as ideal as we can possibly make it in terms of construction and proportion and having the necessary information that will allow us to move forward. 14. The Envelope and Gesture: So with this particular pose, I'm going to approach it a little bit differently because there's a lot of gesture involved. And so that's something that I want to try and capture. Now, I'm still going to be thinking about the overall large shape and sort of build in an envelope because I want to contain the figure in as simplified a shape as possible. But from there, because there's kind of a very severe sort of s curve in the pose itself, I really want to focus on trying to capture that. So I'm going to focus on building from, like, the shoulders and rib cage down into the pelvis first because that's the predominant shape that I'm seeing in this pose. And so because the head is really tucked down into the arm, that's not something I'm really going to account for at this point. I know it has to be there, but I really want to focus in on the body and look at that really nice curve of the spine and how the body is just sort of hunched over. And I think that's kind of the focal point of this pose is really it's just kind of that back and that kind of lean as he's leaning on that block. And it has, like, a cool look to it. And with him being as lean as he is, there's a lot of cool anatomy shapes involved. But really, I want to focus on just that spine and pelvis, as they're kind of just really hunched over, and then looking for the sweep of the leg kind of has a nice shape to it. And then, you know, the other elements, like I said, like the head and then the arm that is behind his head are kind of really not as important for this particular pose, at least in regards to establishing the overall proportions. And so with this particular pose, I don't necessarily have the same landmarks to work off of, like I did with the standing poses or the previous seated pose, but I can still use the spine as a way to sort of separate the sides of the body and start thinking more about the shapes of the rib cage and the pelvis and how they're coming together. I also look at this pose to the shoulder and scapular area, kind of create one large shape as it flows into the arm, and then the lat would flow into the rib cage. And then we would have the rest of the abdominal wall in the oblique that kind of will tie itself to the hips and the pelvis. So I start thinking about the pose in sort of sections in this way so that I don't get overwhelmed with all the information, but I'm just looking for the next largest shapes after I've established the overall large shape of the pose. Getting down to the leg and the pose, I want to keep it fairly simple. I mean, there's not a lot of information in there per se. We're really just getting mostly that lower part of the calf as it ties into the foot. And we are seeing a little bit of the compression in the hamstring and the hip flexor area. But, you know, for now, I want to just keep that fairly simple and just try to capture the overall flow of the leg because I think between the upper arm and how the body curves down into that leg and then flows down through the calf and the foot, that's sort of the nice appeal of this pose is we have these nice sort of curves that are happening throughout the body. So I really want to make sure I capture that first. And then, you know, later on, I can start adding information. But again, you know, in this particular part of the body, I don't think it's going to be any sort of area of emphasis compared to the sort of upper body with, like, the back and the scapula area and some of the information we're seeing in the rib cage. Now, with the majority of the pose established, I want to just start breaking it down into smaller sections that are a little bit more manageable. And I think by putting some smaller shapes in there, it's going to allow me to sort of remeasure areas that I'm unsure about. Again, because of the nature of the pose, I don't have as many landmarks physically on the body for me to check and to kind of help me construct the figure. So what I'm sort of doing is I'm putting in information and kind of eyeballing it to some degree. But then I'm following that up with measuring angles and making sure that things are aligning in my drawing relative to the reference. And so as I'm building out some of the information in the torso, again, I'm not trying to focus on anatomy per se, but I think on him in this particular pose with the lighting, some of these shapes are so obvious that I literally can just copy them as best I can, and it's going to look like the pose. So some of the information I'm seeing in the lower body as the sort of external oblique is wrapping around the pelvis, and then we see a little indication of the regular affront abdominal wall, it's so obvious on him because he's so lean and the shadows are sort of revealing that information that I just have to copy what I see. Now, ultimately, I still need to go back in and just double check as I add new information, I want to make comparisons to what I have established already. But for the most part, I'm essentially just working shape to shape on my existing block in that I have, and then I can start double checking myself from there and making sure that things are aligning and sitting where they need to be. 15. Smaller Shapes and Refining: So now that we have the large sort of established figure there, I need to just start looking at smaller sections and just start to refine the shapes, maybe resize some proportional things, but very much like the previous seated figure, because we don't have to deal with the standing figure and we don't have to measure long distances, oftentimes these compressed poses can sort of resolve fairly quickly. And once the large shape is established, it's very easy to just start working in smaller sections and just gradually build up the figure that way. And so for this particular figure, like I said, the focal point, in my opinion, being the torso and kind of that really nice hunched over look, I really just want to make sure that I have that same sort of connectivity in the pelvis and rib cage, especially as it's bending there in the mid section, and I like the way the shoulders and sort of some of the back muscles are kind of coming together. And I just want to make sure that those have a nice sense of being interlocked and kind of connected. So that's kind of where I would spend the majority of my time in a pose like this. And again, it's very situational depending on other poses you might work from. But in this particular instance, again, because the head is sort of tucked in, and then the arms are kind of, you know, fairly straightforward and the leg itself is very simple, too, I would spend more time really working on that back and sort of pelvis area for this particular pose. Now, working down through the leg here, I would probably opt to keep this fairly simplified because there's going to be more attention on the torso. So I want to have sort of an area of rest. So I would have a tendency to sort of simplify the forms through the legs. And realistically, I don't see a lot of information there for me to latch onto except for the foot as there's going to be a lot more detail present in that area. But around sort of knee and kind of where the calf is bunching up into the back of the hamstring, there's not a lot of information there. So I would have a tendency to simplify the leg overall and just worry more about getting the foot in there eventually so that there could be more attention paid to on the torso. And so, again, even down through the calf through here, I want to keep the silhouette overall fairly simplified. And, you know, when you think about the leg as sort of working in sort of two sections, we have the upper and lower leg. And realistically, all I'm thinking about is the overall cylindrical shape of the calf is it kind of tapers down toward the foot. And then when we get to the foot, again, like in the previous drawings where I talked about the foot being more of like a wedge shape that is sort of sitting in between the two ankle bones. And that's kind of the sort of simplified effect that I want to go for for this kind of pose. And again, I don't want to get caught up drawing the details of the foot in a block in just yet because I want to just have the large shape established. And if there was more time down, you know, towards the end of the block in, we could establish more information. But initially just putting that shape in, we want to simplify it down. Now, as well as the head being in this position, I don't have a whole lot to work with, which is totally fine. So because I'm looking at the relative distance of the head in relationship to where the shoulder and the arm is sitting, I know that I can't see any sort of information of the front plane of the face, like, you know, any of the features of the face, like the eyes or nose. I just have the ear on the side here, and then I can use the hairline to sort of construct the rest of the head. Now, sometimes when you have a head obscure like this, it can be a little difficult. So if necessary, sometimes it's helpful to just draw lines through whatever's covering the head, as if you were actually going to draw the head so that it helps you with placement. Ultimately, you would have to take out those construction lines, but sometimes just visualizing them through another form that is sort of coming in front of them can help you construct the head so that it feels well connected to the rest of the body. In this particular instance, so much is covered that it's easier for me to just measure the distance of the back of the head to everything else and then sort of build the hairline around that. So that's kind of what I'm going to do in this particular situation. And the other thing I'll do for this drawing is I'll add in some of the ponytail because I feel like in this pose, because there's not a lot of information for the head, it just kind of helps to maybe have the ponytail in it's sort of like a graphic element for the pose. And so I'd go ahead and just add in a little bit more information in here than I did in some of the previous block-ins we've done. But otherwise, you know, again, I would keep the head fairly simplified because it's not really a very large area of importance for this particular drawing, but it obviously has to be there because it's obviously part of the body. But, you know, again, if I were to take this drawing further, I would still probably keep the head fairly simplified overall so that more of the detail and finish could be pushed throughout the torso. And now, lastly, getting back over to this far hand in the background, I'll keep it in a fairly simplified state, you know, because it is a block in. So like I mentioned previously, I think a lot of the times with hands and feet is you want to just try and establish the large shapes as best you can early on in the block in. And then, you know, I treat it like if I was drawing it from life in a sense where I wouldn't want to chase a hand or a certain pose if I was drawing from life because odds are it is going to change. Now, because this is referenced, we don't have to worry about that. Even for the block in, I would still keep the large shapes established for the hand. So I'm going to indicate some of the thumb and the forefinger and then keep some of the fingers that are in shadow kind of simplified. And then that's pretty much all I would do for a hand like this in this particular drawing. And then, you know, later on, if we were to take it to a finish, then we could explore more detail. 16. Finishing Details: So basically, at this point, we have everything in place for the block in. And so now I'm really just going to go around the whole drawing and more or less just clean up areas and then maybe look for a few small little shapes or details throughout the figure that I feel like could benefit the blocking. But I would say, even if you got to this point where you have all of the large shapes established, the pose is reading like what you see in the reference or what you're looking at at a model, then that's really what we want to establish in the block in. And then everything after that is going to basically help push the drawing towards a finish. So again, in this instance, we could start mapping out the shadows, and then from there, we could start adding a slight value and then gradually building up the forms. But in terms of starting from a blank page to the large shape to where we are now in the block in stage, this is really about the kind of information I would expect in order to move on to the next stage in the drawing. And hopefully, you can see in my drawing compared to the references that I've omitted a lot of details, and the pose still reads like what the model is doing. And that's really all I want to aim for at this stage. Now, I know sometimes it's easy to get caught up in some of those smaller shapes and details, and it's not that I don't think that they're important. It's just that at this stage of the drawing, they're not important. And so I wouldn't want to necessarily add too much of that information just yet. And it's something that I would want to work towards as I put in more, let's say, again, value and form into the drawing. And so although it is tempting to add some of that stuff in there initially, I would recommend, you know, even if you're on a more intermediate to advanced level, is to try and keep everything as simplified as possible for as long as you can until you move on to the tonal stage of the drawing. And so you can see a lot of what I'm doing is just adding a few lines here and there, trying to think about how things are interlocking, and then just removing excess lines or any of the initial construction lines that I started with or anything that is unnecessary at this point in terms of just lines in general, I want to go ahead and just remove and get the drawing as clean as possible so that by the time I get to adding, you know, like mapping the shadows and start adding more information is that I'm always working on top of a clean drawing. And I think just in general, that is sort of a good sort of thought process as you're working, is that you always want to try and maintain a clean drawing, a clean painting, and then make each stage of the drawing or whatever you're working on as neat as you possibly can so that it feels much easier to start adding additional information, and you don't get confused with what you've previously put down as you were working earlier. And so I think for this drawing, I'm going to leave it at this particular stage and not map out any of the shadows because I kind of like the way the drawing looks as it is right now. More importantly, I hope that you saw how we approached the pose from the beginning where we started with a large shape and then just looked for those sort of initial gesture in the sort of the bending of the torso and how we simplified that down first and then gradually broke it up into smaller shapes to reach the pose that we are now. So, now there's obviously a lot of variety of these types of poses. And now, we're not tackling anything with extreme foreshortening or anything like a lying down pose, but I would treat it the same way we did this one. And regardless of how the model is bending or twisting, when you have these sort of compressed poses, just start with a larger shape and gradually break it down into smaller and smaller chunks, and then start to measure and compare everything else in relationship from the appendages and however they're looking in relationship to the torso, and then you'll gradually arrive at your block in. But hopefully that made sense and how we approach that and kind of the other seded pose as well, because, again, we're kind of treating all the drawings very similarly, but there's maybe slight variances in how we deal with them because of what the model may or may not do. But again, we're kind of arriving at a nice simple block in that pose reads, and, you know, that's all we can really ask for in those initial few hours in the drawing. 17. Closing: So I just wanted to end this class with a few closing thoughts on the block in sort of process that we've been going over. And more importantly, again, this is, to me, sort of an overall approach to drawing for me. And regardless of whether or not it's a figure or a portrait, still life, it doesn't really matter because the approach for me is fundamentally the same. Now, this is certainly not to say that this is the only approach, as there's basically any number of approaches you can do to create a piece of art. However, what I like about this approach is that it's very sort of consistent in the results that I can get because I'm following a very procedural sort of method of drawing. So in terms of starting from the largest possible shapes, working down to smaller shapes, comparative measurement, and plotting angles and axes and things like that. To me, in the years that I've been doing this, this is the most consistent approach that I've done for doing these kinds of drawings. Now, understandably, everyone is going to have different goals that they want with their art and their drawing and maybe the different kinds of ways to finish a drawing are basically, you know, it's kind of up to the individual. But a lot of the times where I think a lot of students struggle is the beginning stages of the drawing where they have to just place something on the page and to try and figure out the proportions and get everything working as a line drawing before they can introduce any sort of shadows or tone or form. And that's why I ultimately put so much emphasis on the block in stage because I just think it's so vitally important. And once you get a good handle on that, you can really decide to choose any direction in terms of finish, and that's something that you can spend more time on. Now, I wanted to just show you a couple of drawings that I have finished here. And while, I understand that not everyone is going to want to do this kind of form modeling or this kind of a finish, I wanted to just say that these drawings also underwent the exact same process that I went over in the class from the initial block in stage to mapping out shadows, to filling those in, and then ultimately modeling form. And so the nice part is, is that once you get a handle on those initial stages of drawing, you can freely decide whatever you want to do and however you want to finish. And, you know, if you only have a certain amount of time to work on a drawing or what have you, the choice is ultimately up to you. But I hope that all of this helps so that you can reach your own kind of potential finishes with your drawing and that you have a good understanding of the block in stages so that you never feel lost or know where to go when you work on your own drawings. Thanks for watching.