How do I improve my ability to turn form?
2yr
Elias Lemus
Hi, I'm looking for some advice and excercises to improve my construction drawing and ability to turn those drawings(form) in space. I can draw from reference, live or from pictures, but I struggle with construction drawing sometimes. Mannequinization specifically. It's hard for me to simplify. Even harder is drawing the mannequin from a different angle without having the reference of it in front of me. How can I improve this and what are some good excercises? Thank you all so much!
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Liandro
Hi, @Elias Lemus! Mainly, what you need is to strengthen your spatial imagination and constructional drawing skills. Inevitably, this means getting acquainted with basic perspective and 3D forms. As a general “rule of thumb”, practice envisioning anything you might draw as made of nothing but simple 3D forms (spheres, cylinders and boxes). Often times you can also think of combinations of these forms (for example, an object can be made of a sphere + a cylinder), or forceful derivations of one of these simple forms (for example, a sphere that has been stretched, a bent or tapering cylinder, a squished or twisted box…) Make sure to check Stan’s video on Structure Basics – Making Things Look 3D for a general overview of this concept! As @James Paris already mentioned, I can’t recommend enough that you spend a bit of time studying from http://www.drawabox.com Two great things about it is that it’s free and beginner-friendly. Some exercises might feel a bit “drilling”, but a little repetition can be worth the while since it will help you develop more line confidence and mileage. Maybe you don’t have to take its “strict approach” so literally (unless you want to, of course) - but just make sure you get familiar with the core ideas that will lead you to 3D thinking, spatial reasoning and form construction in drawing. A few extra resources you might find helpful are: . CtrlPaint’s Perspective Sketching series - https://ctrlpaint.myshopify.com/collections/foundation-skills/products/perspective-sketching-1-the-basics . Marshall’s 1994 perspective class recordings - http://marshallart.com/SHOP/all-products/all-videos/1994-perspective-drawing-series/ . Phil Metzger’s book “Perspective without pain” . Ernest Norling’s book “Perspective made easy” . Scott Robertson’s book “How to draw” Make sure to save enough time for practice! Hope this helps. Best of luck!
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Elias Lemus
Wow! Thank you so much for all of this. I am deeply grateful for everything and I will get on it! I've been looking at a few of these resources actually. I'll dig deeper and check the others as well. Thank you so much!
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James Paris
I can relate, one thing i started a while ago is the Drawabox programm. It is pretty " grindy ", the beginning of the programm starts with line control/quality exercises, but after that , you get introduced to perspective and simple forms ( Boxes, cylinders etc.. ) If you ever heard about the " 250 box challenge", well, it came from Drawabox I took a little break from it, but i will definitely go back to it, I think it can be really usefull in general, but most certainly with mannequinization Some exercises really put a focus on understand form, rotating boxes and stuff, maybe it could benefit you Edit : I added pictures of some of the exercices who made me understand form better Edit 2 : I'm obviously a student too, you are free to take or leave this advice :D Anyway i hope this can help you !
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Elias Lemus
Thank you! This is very helpful
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Izak van Langevelde
Learn to construct your vanishing points for the various angles. Or, drawing from intuition, create an animation of a rotating object, which will make you 'feel' where things go wrong...
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Elias Lemus
Thank you!
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