Methods To Your Madness: An Artist's Thread - 07/17/03 04:41 PM
How do you go about drawing a picture? Do you follow a certain list of steps, or do you just wing it?
For me, I have a certain set of steps that I follow, but I have two ways of getting there.
DOODLES
For me, doodles are anything I do on 8 1/2 X 11 paper or smaller, and are usually done on the spur of the moment and without much conscious thought. The majority of my artwork are doodles, and are pretty much born by my putting pencil to paper and seeing what comes out. I often don't truly know where I'm going with a doodle until the picture is done.
I almost always start by drawing the eyes, then the nose and mouth, and finally the jawline and hairline. If drawing men, I can usually finish off the hair at this point, but if drawing a woman then I wait because my women tend to have longish hair, and therefore how it's drawn will be determined by the upper body I draw.
From there, I extend down to neck and shoulders, then chest and torso. Last are arms and legs. Now, with doodles, the clothes are being drawn as I go along, which is probably harder, because I inevitably end up retouching them once the figures have some form of musculature drawn. Much of my retouching will occur as I'm inking (if I ink the drawing at all), which is probably dangerous since if I don't get it right the first time, there's no going back. Many a pic has been tossed out at this stage, since I can't seem to learn from experience and adjust my artistic procedure to accommodate
FINISHED PIECES
For me, finished pieces are anything I draw on paper larger than 8 1/2 x 11. There is sometimes a thumbnail done first to give me a guideline of where I'm going with it, and a small to large amount of thought and planning occur before I get started.
After the planning is done, I then do a general pencil outline: oval shaped head, perhaps with guide lines drawn for eyes, nose and mouth. The rest of the general body shape is drawn at this time, with muscles and whatnot added in. Once the figure is finished, I then go back to my usual steps: eyes, nose, mouth, then finish off the shape of the head. Then I work my way done the body to add in the clothes. Sometimes, if the figure is wearing a cape, I will actually draw the clothes beneath the cape first... even in areas that the cape will cover, just to make sure that anything that will show is going to be in the appropriate places. Then I will go back and add the cape, making the fabric flow as best I can over the figure that I've already drawn.
From there, I do all my inking, again stupidly doing my touch ups in ink, and then once that's all done, all pencil lines get erased.
And that's about it, folks. The methods to my personal madness.
Anyone else care to share?
For me, I have a certain set of steps that I follow, but I have two ways of getting there.
DOODLES
For me, doodles are anything I do on 8 1/2 X 11 paper or smaller, and are usually done on the spur of the moment and without much conscious thought. The majority of my artwork are doodles, and are pretty much born by my putting pencil to paper and seeing what comes out. I often don't truly know where I'm going with a doodle until the picture is done.
I almost always start by drawing the eyes, then the nose and mouth, and finally the jawline and hairline. If drawing men, I can usually finish off the hair at this point, but if drawing a woman then I wait because my women tend to have longish hair, and therefore how it's drawn will be determined by the upper body I draw.
From there, I extend down to neck and shoulders, then chest and torso. Last are arms and legs. Now, with doodles, the clothes are being drawn as I go along, which is probably harder, because I inevitably end up retouching them once the figures have some form of musculature drawn. Much of my retouching will occur as I'm inking (if I ink the drawing at all), which is probably dangerous since if I don't get it right the first time, there's no going back. Many a pic has been tossed out at this stage, since I can't seem to learn from experience and adjust my artistic procedure to accommodate
FINISHED PIECES
For me, finished pieces are anything I draw on paper larger than 8 1/2 x 11. There is sometimes a thumbnail done first to give me a guideline of where I'm going with it, and a small to large amount of thought and planning occur before I get started.
After the planning is done, I then do a general pencil outline: oval shaped head, perhaps with guide lines drawn for eyes, nose and mouth. The rest of the general body shape is drawn at this time, with muscles and whatnot added in. Once the figure is finished, I then go back to my usual steps: eyes, nose, mouth, then finish off the shape of the head. Then I work my way done the body to add in the clothes. Sometimes, if the figure is wearing a cape, I will actually draw the clothes beneath the cape first... even in areas that the cape will cover, just to make sure that anything that will show is going to be in the appropriate places. Then I will go back and add the cape, making the fabric flow as best I can over the figure that I've already drawn.
From there, I do all my inking, again stupidly doing my touch ups in ink, and then once that's all done, all pencil lines get erased.
And that's about it, folks. The methods to my personal madness.
Anyone else care to share?