Learning the Proko Lessons in felt tip pen?
4yr
Jesse Yao
I'm a newbie around here, and have just started the Proko Figure Drawing Course (now on the bean). Before this I finished Drawabox's lesson 1, 250 box challenge, and lesson 2, and in those areas I was required to use a felt tip pen. And so just out of habit I started learning these Proko lessons with a felt tip pen as well.
I realized as I was doing the gestures that I should probably be doing it with the preferred materials (i.e. in pencil), but then after seeing the gesture critique video it seems a few examples were also done in pen.
I was just wondering if there was any significant difference between learning in pencil and pen beyond being able to handle the instrument. Being able to learn Proko in pen would streamline a lot of things, since both drawabox and Peter Han's Dynamic Sketching class (both of which I'm partaking in) require felt tip pen, and the way one holds a pen in digital art (which is my ultimate goal) is more like holding a felt tip pen than a pencil (at least to my knowledge).
Of course, I would gladly switch over to learning Proko in pencil and forgo these conveniences if it was deemed beneficial.
Apologies if this question was extremely basic; thank you for your time!
I did this!! I did 100 mannequins in pencil and I did another month in pen. It was MUCH harder, I found I was drawing the same mannequin three times, and it was so challenging to get into the mindset that I was EXERCIZING and the final drawings did NOT need to be beautiful. If I made a mistake, fine, whatever. And it's SO HARD to break away from trying to make beautiful boxes or mannequins, but I think there's so much value in recognizing you made a mistake and moving on. Especially because repeatedly doing that on a small scale, makes you less afraid of failure when you're facing more serious challenges.
As for how it changed the way I looked at the mannequins, I found that I did fewer gesture lines, and more perspective dots to better visualize the next steps. While the pencil / charcoal mannequins were much more beautiful, I found a lot of value in doing a month of mannequins in pen because it forced me to apply deliberation to a much more complicated exercise.
The reason Drawabox forces you to use a pen is because they want you to learn how to press lightly rather than jam the instrument with a death grip into the page. And they also want to prevent you from developing the habit of obsessing over one drawing erasing it over and over into infinity instead of cutting your losses and moving on.
A pencil allows you to erase and I think that is an advantage as opposed to a hinderance, if you don't have the above problems.
One thing I hated about Drawabox is that during the 250 box challenge sometimes I would make a mistake, immediately realize it, but be unable to change it. I'd try to avoid the mistake in the next iteration but often I'd repeat the same mistake over and over. I eventually stopped following Uncomfortable's rules exactly and started drawing the box in pencil and then lining it in ink. I immediately started improving again because I could re-draw lines to see what made the box sit better or worse in 3D space. Lots of valuable trial-and-error occurred. And oh man can I draw a box now!! :D
So if you don't have any problems working in pencil then to me it seems like you'd be limiting yourself. Especially since the exercises were designed to be done in pencil. Proko is a lot more fun and gentle than the Draconian approach taken by Drawabox.
Hope this helps.
Thanks you so much for the reply, and that makes sense! I totally know that feeling of knowing I made a mistake using ink but then just kinda looking at it and being :///
I already ordered a stack of newsprints and am planning to review the gesture lessons in pencil and ride with pencil the rest of my time with these Proko lessons. Rather cut the losses now early on than later.
Thank you again for your time!!
