Life Drawing

So every Monday for the last 3 weeks I’ve been going to the UWA campus to do some life drawing. The main reason I started was because I’ve been having all hell trying to design characters straight from my head, there have been rare occasions were I’ve had some success but in most instances my characters look deformed, quite generic or all together without character entirely. Study of proportions and a whole range of golden rules of the body did help in the early stages of my drawing but I do find them now to have less of an impact, perhaps because everything they’re telling me to do I’m already doing (with few exceptions).

2 of my very few successful characters from my head

I was aware that it was common practice for big studio’s like Disney to encourage life drawing, particular to study movement, and after further reading I discovered Richard Williams, in his book The Animators Survival Kit devoted an entire chapter ‘Time to draw’ to life drawing. In the opening to the chapter I read this

 

·       Epitaph of an Unfortunate Artist

 

He found a formula

For drawing rabbits:

This formula for

Drawing comic

Rabbits paid,

So in the end he

Could not

Change the

Tragic habits

This formula for

Drawing comic

Rabbits made.

-Robert Graves-

 

 

‘Life Drawing is the antidote to this’ – Richard Williams

‘Thank Lord!’ – Claire Pettigrew

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am glad to say that life drawing has brought something fresh to the table. I’m still quite far from where I need to be and even further from where I’d like to be, but I do feel some improvement, a new appreciation for weight and balance been a big one.

 

 

My life drawing will continue, I need to work on faces because despite knowing the ‘formulas’ I’m still struggling to create anything new.