Week 10

I wanted to spend this week with a lot more focus on figures in perspective.

I drew out the scene of figures sitting on a bed in a bedroom. I tried to focus on keeping the environment elements in proportion to the size of the figures in the scene. One thing I've tired to think about during this project is how tall objects are in relation to me and using that to scale the objects in the scenes I draw. I've felt like taking this approach has really improved my sense of scale. I think of how the character will look standing next to the object in perspective and where it'd line up with them. I used the 3d model sharing website SketchFab in order to find 3d scans of people in various positions. I used these scans and rotated them into a similar perspective I was using in the sketched out scene. In this top down, 3 point perspective shot, this was a free and accessible solution to referencing my figures in the perspective I needed since it would be incredibly difficult to mock this angle in life. The figures aren't perfect but they are readable and I'm mostly happy with the result, some slight skewing in places could benefit the piece.

Before going into my next practice I quickly drew out a version of TB Choi's geometrically simplified anatomy in order to reference the shapes and think about them more in a 3d way during the next studies.

Using the SketchFab 3d scans idea I could take the figure and orient them in different rotations in order to reference. This is an idea that I will have to work on and expand more. Like the life drawing it might be more beneficial to do more to break the figures down further into geometric shapes and reference muscle diagrams when adding details and trying to apply more perspective lines. Or I could apply more contour lines while constructing the drawings in order to make sure the rounder shapes are reading as rounder.

I can't exactly remember from where I heard this advice since it's been a long time but I was told a good way to develop perspective is to take an object and draw it from many different angles.

I tried some different angles from imagination using the TB Choi simplified anatomy as a guide and using perspective measurements to keep the figure in proportion. The more extreme angle on the left feels oddly flat to me, I could do more to apply more curves to the figure to make the body feel more natural and organic, maybe using a cylinder instead of a cube could do more to help this?

I attempted to redraw this scene of a woman sitting at a table. With this piece, I was finding it difficult to maintain a similar perspective between each thumbnail and drawing. Looking back, while I did like the perspective on the character in the last thumbnail it is completely different to where I've placed the horizon line and that probably why I evidently had so much problem with getting the perspective of the table right. In the final piece I think some of the angles look pretty off and could have benefited from more construction lines to reference their perspective.

I went back to trying to draw figures in life. These are some people playing a boardgame at a table. Due to the distance to me and the subjects there's less extreme difference to the size of the figures but it's still noticeable enough. I opted to use a pencil to see I I could get along better in a medium I can alter. I don't want to give up practicing in pen all together but I can't lie, this did take the pressure off a lot.

I wanted to get some figures in perspective that were standing since all the studies I've done from life so far were sitting. The problem with this is the people are moving. It would have been good if I had tried to approach the life drawing classes in a perspective way of thinking earlier however no more were scheduled. I tried the best I could to gather the perspective of the scene and take not of a persons proportions when passing by blocked out objects in the scene. It was somewhat helpful sitting in a restaurant where people were passing by in a similar route. I have noticed that I seem to be drawing the figures quite flatly as mentioned earlier. Perhaps this is something I can focus on trying to improve with contour lines when doing any figure related study in the future.