Figure Drawing Fundamentals
Gesture
The Bean
Structure
Landmarks
Robo Bean
Mannequinization
Balance
Exaggeration
Proportions
Measuring
Shading
Figure Drawing Demo
Closing Thoughts
Figure Drawing Critiques - Gesture
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Mark as Completed
Marshall Vandruff joins Stan Prokopenko to critique student gesture drawings.
Newest
Makoto Yasumasa
3d
The first picture is one before I took a drawing course. My drawing speed is also getting quite faster! Thank you so much.
Maxwell Yang
18d
Here're some gesture drawings I did recently. Feels like I can grasp the gesture in some extreme poses but have a hard time for some normal standing poses. I also want to ask about how to control my lines. The lines will get wobbly if I draw it too slow, especially for curvy lines. But if I draw too fast, I often cannot make it the curve or shape I want in my head(this is why you see me doing multiple lines in some of these). Any critiques or suggestions are welcome!
Samuel Sanjaya
3mo
Gestures drawing, tried to variating the duration instead of just regular 1 minute pose. Any feedback/critiques will be greatly appreciated.
Lin
4mo
I've never had a critique as I've been too shy to post anything but I would be so grateful for one for my gestures. Am I getting worse or better, am I making cardinal mistakes? I'm a complete beginner. Posting them in chronological order (oldest first) here:
4mo
These look awesome, @linlikesviolins! It’s actually hard to believe that you’re a complete beginner. Loose strokes, great sense of flow. Even though 3 days is a short span of data, I’d say the most recent ones do show improvement compared to the earlier ones. Image 4 has a lot of nice sketches, but I think my favorite is the one right below the words “Day 3” in Image 5 - it clearly shows a nice design of alternating curves that let our eyes flow through the figure, and that’s pretty much what gesture is about. It’s good that you’ve decided to get your work critiqued, as it can be very helpful to your learning progress. In case you have any other questions, feel free to let me know. Keep up the good work!
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Samuel Sanjaya
5mo
Doing some gestures today. I increased the time to a minute and half, I still habitualy rush on 1 minute drawings. I hope I can get some feedbacks/critiques. Maybe on how not to rush too, since It's so annoying
Krish Nathan
5mo
Several 2 minute gestures and 30 second gestures. Would love to get some feedback/critique on these!

@cesarcarlos
6mo
Hi, been working on gesture trying to get many drawings down over the last couple days. These are a few I made. Tried to find the stretch and pinch in all poses, but not sure if I'm doing it right or if there are any things I should work on particularly. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks! @Jesper Axelsson
6mo
Hi @cesarcarlos, nice drawings! Good feeling of movement. I like the shape design. It has nice rhythm (each line flows into the next). I made a paintover with some notes.
Some things to take with you:
-Enclose your shapes, so that you're clear about what you're trying to say.
- Keep on exploring how you can simplify the design
- Practice your linework, maybe as a daily warm-up. The Drawing Basics course has a lot of info about that. There is also this video How to Hold and Control Your Pencil.
Pencil technique in short:
Draw from your shoulder
Be relaxed
You could ghost the line you want to attempt, first (If you want to draw a curve, you can move the pen in a circular motion, where one part of the circle is the actual line)
then put down the line with confidence (It's easy to panic and tense up here, but stay relaxed as if you were a line master)
But don't expect accuracy; that comes with practice
But I think the correct relaxed technique should be there from the start
Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!
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Samuel Sanjaya
8mo
Doing some 2minute gesture for warm ups. I can do this somewhat more easily after watching a video about "tempo" and doing some automatic drawing excersise.
i hope i can get some critiques and feedbacks on my gesture.
Eveline Rupenko
8mo
here are some gestures after the critiques video
Gregory Comey
6mo
I still can't quite get used to doing these on a drawing tablet

@nusso
9mo
More two minute sketches. I seriously think these are much worse than my 30 second sketches. It feels like the more time Ive got to think the worse I get. Should I study more proportions?

nima elmi
8mo
hello friend your drawing is great, i bellive by just practicing you can achieve great success, but if i could give you a few advise it would be
1-try to first draw the model pose in vid stan draws, your self ,then try to draw it again following stan step by step, then do small criticization on your drawing and then draw pose again in 2 mints if you dont like stan s gesture you can search for people that you like and study them as well
2-dont do that always to try to put 70-90% 0f your time just drawing.
lastly you can start to change the gesture style ,you draw after 1000hours of learning anatomy and character design and ... so dont be so cautious about if its copying other people or that you want to be original later on, you will find you tempo and style for now just try to study.

CJ
9mo
Loved the video. Good banter, good advice :)
Jeanie Sriphiromrak
9mo
Hi here are my drawings, please let me know what you think and how I can improve. :) I really enjoyed the lesson! Thanks Proko!
@7ag
10mo
I did a session using these poses: https://youtu.be/NSvq8FaU7vA
The longer 5 minute poses left me a bit lost cause I'm so used to doing shorter ones like 30 to 2 minute poses.
Any feedback is welcomed. :)

Mark McNaughton
10mo
Wow that's a great resource. Thanks.
@pillo
11mo
This is my practice for this session. Constructive feedback is welcome.
@colesdawg
3mo
Some of these are nice. I especially like the pose in the 7th picture. With your 30 second ones, I think the lines are too messy, perhaps try to be more confident/chill when you're drawing (I had/have the same problem and this helps me).
Patrick Kelley
11mo
2 minute gestures. Any thoughts?
Neil Gude
11mo
enjoying gesture drawing as a warm up before other studio work at the moment - keen on any comments

@hidethosehands
11mo
These are really great! I love the long lines present throughout the forms, they're really flowing nicely, which is something lots of people seem to have trouble with. Keep up the awesome work!! :)
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@slidbibi
11mo
I have started practising gesture drawing as I want to apply for art school at the end of 2023. I am just *slightly* desperate because I think my drawings don't look as good as they need to, and I don't have a lot of time before I have to come up with my portfolio. So, I am here to ask for advice on what to improve on my gestures. All of these were drawn in 30s and I never seem to be able to draw the whole thing before the timer stops, always ending up rushing and making mistakes. The main thing I realize is that I tend to pay too much attention to detail. Concluding, any advice/tips/critique is very welcome, but also, how do I better manage my time and stop looking so much into detail?

Brett
11mo
30s drawings are really fast. From the drawing you posted it seems like you are getting stuck in the details. Stan’s videos on gesture drawing are great. There are however other approaches, you might want to explore some of the other discussions or examples of gesture drawing on YouTube, sometimes hearing it explained in a different way can help you get over focusing on detail and get a better idea of the purpose of the exercise to capture motion. Something that can help is to intentionally limit the number of lines that you use or to start with a big gesture line that captures the motion of the whole form. Another approach is “scribble drawing “ that was used in Nicolaides book “the natural way to draw” -probably YouTube or other resources where you can see this. Hope this helps.
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Zoungy Kligge
1yr
Here are some of my two-minute gestures.
@kotka
1yr
This is an excellent mix of various issues that helped me to identify my own. I went back after this video and tried to apply the "medicine" to my gesture drawings. The second time, I did air drawing before putting down the curves and tried using simpler longer ones. I feel like my gestures became more healthy (less busy somehow?) and less detailed for the 2 minute poses.
Jack
11mo
Hey sorry this isn't a critique but are you using the quickposes website for your poses? I use that and i recognize some of the poses from your sketches lol
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@fuzzhead93
1yr
These are great! I like how you are using line weight to emphasize certain parts of the body. I need to learn how to do this!

@jvuozzo
1yr
The drawing is not great but after hundreds of attempts at gesture, I think I am finally getting away from contour.
Anna Sch
1yr
Hi there :) i think you should try to use more s-shaped lines. For this one try to make the curve of the hip and the upper leg as 2 curves flowing into each other. And for the knees try to give a little hint for the patella and dont lose the curve of the calves. I hope that will help a bit. Keep up !
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About instructors
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
I Write, I Draw, I Teach