Project - Gestural Torso Boxes

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

1.8K

Course In Progress

Assignments 277

Downloads 6

Project - Gestural Torso Boxes

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

1.8K

Course In Progress

Assignments 277

Downloads 6

Level 1

Imagine the body with the limbs, arms, legs, and neck removed, focusing on the boxy area from the shoulders down to the hips.

The goal is to turn, twist, and lean this box to mimic poses. You can also bloat certain areas to represent the rib cage or hips. This exercise helps to practice intuitively drawing dynamic forms in perspective. Draw these simplified torso boxes from your imagination. Believe it or not, doing this from photos can actually be more challenging because of the anatomy that can be distracting and hard to interpret.

Fill multiple pages with these simplified forms.
Aim for at least 20 different torso boxes.
Experiment with various angles, twists, and poses.
If you struggle with certain poses, try them again with slight variations.

Level 2

I've attached some photos for you to work with, that you could find in the downloads tab. You'll notice each photo is numbered. Please label your drawings with the corresponding photo you're drawing to help me and the community give you a critique. Otherwise it would be very difficult to know which box matches each photo.

Draw the same dynamic torso boxes from the photos. Focus on interpreting the overall shape and gesture rather than copying anatomical shapes. The goal is to capture the essence of the pose in a simplified form.

Exaggeration

If you'd like to make it even more challenging, you can exaggerate the pose. Exaggeration can make your poses more dynamic and interesting. To exaggerate effectively imagine a baseline or neutral pose, observe how the actual pose differs from it, and push those differences further. Be careful not to overdo it. Subtle exaggerations often work best, maintaining believability while enhancing the dynamism of the pose.

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Deadline - submit by July 9, 2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!

C. A. Corbell

•

I did 3 pages of warped boxes from imagination. Apart from approximate proportions I didn't really try to imagine an actual torso gesture, I think I just tried to think of arbitrary ways to warp the boxes, and sometimes made it weirder just to keep it interesting and see if I could then imagine a (possibly mutant) corresponding torso shape. I also did 2 pages of the level 2 drawings from reference, those are the numbered ones.

Melanie Scearce

•

Nice! Those arbitrary warp experiments are great prep for the gestural architecture project if you haven't done that one yet. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Emm Rdgz

•

12d

@jackb

•

18d

Lvl 1 was a bit difficult it’s hard for me to get my head around the boxes twisting going to give lvl 2 a go next

Artin A

•

19d

@gothamdemon

•

1mo

Did a page of warm ups and then level 1& 2 here. Any feedback is welcomed thank you!

Michael Yoila

•

1mo

Numbering isn't too visible, but simply, they're arranged/drawn in order

Melanie Scearce

•

1mo

Very nicely done @Michael Yoila 👍 I made a couple of notes on these two poses that are hopefully helpful to you. #4 I think because in order to balance the pose he needs to round his back a bit, the box will be a bit more horizontal and there will be a bit more of a curve downward in the spine. #13 is a great opportunity to practice emphasizing with that squash and stretch moment. You have the right idea in yours but I thought it could be pushed a little more. Great job with this project!

@wegneran

•

1mo

Those are some tough angels to do !!!!! Anyone agree?

Luis

•

1mo

Made way more than 20 torso boxes. Here's one of my pages. I think the hardest part is the twisting, as figuring out how the S curve should curve is very tricky. Also, the fact that the usual perspective distortions don't apply exactly the same as they do to boxes (since there are different rotations/positions at play) also makes things harder, so I ended up going for very orthogonal-ish projections. I might have to come back to this exercise again later.

Natasha Johnson

•

2mo

Enjoyed this one . Took a while as in the process got pneumonia ( thats a no joke sickness guys ) anyway really loved it .

Melanie Scearce

•

2mo

I hope you’re feeling a lot better! Pneumonia is definitely no joke. Congrats for getting back in the saddle. Your boxes look great 👍 For that twisty box you had concerns about, if you’re trying to turn the top plane 180 degrees, you want to make sure that the corners match up according to the translation. In my drawing below, the square corner would match the square, the triangle corner would match the triangle, etc. It’s a bit complicated, though doable; but the torso can’t twist in that way so not super necessary for this lesson :)

@solobo

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2mo

Not as easy as it looked, especially for some perspectives that hid a lot. Found that doing it more intuitively and less rigidly gave better results by the end.

Juan Andres Gonzalez Trejo

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2mo

I did level 1 of the project and I think I focused more on twisting and warping using only my imagination and it came up short. At some point I am going to try level 2 from photo reference. however very entertaining this project

Gloria Wickman

•

3mo

Oof this assignment kicked my butt a bit. I had a very hard time trying to visualize how a cube would twist/bend in my imagination so for me I think Level 2 was a bit easier because even though the torsos were sometimes obscured I still had a basic form to work off of. I'm going to keep practicing these because them being a challenge says that there's a lot left for me to learn from this exercise.

Brad Hewitt

•

3mo

good stuff

mike mcdonald

•

3mo

I enjoyed this one, there were a couple poses that were hard to conceptualize into boxes. A lot of them ended up being way different than in the demo, because some are just wrong, but some I feel like might be okay, #18 is a good example.

Melanie Scearce

•

3mo

I can definitely see the argument for the bottom plane not being visible, though I'm not sure it would be such a downward angle unless you changed the camera height. To my eyes it seems like it would be more parallel. It looks like you have the right idea, nice work!

@offworld

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3mo

L1: The first page from imagination felt too stiff. Going over the red pencil with graphite made it even stiffer. For the rest I used reference as a starting point and they look more interesting to me. Probably could have gone darker on the line work and there are definitely some wonky ones but I think I'm getting it. Let me know what you think. Thanks

Arthur Nesbitt

•

3mo

Took me a while to start getting the hang of it. I did the earlier boxes multiple times to try and hone in on it, towards the end I was doing them once and I think they turned out alright

@sosoph

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3mo

Hi :). I drew a few from imagination and a few using reference. I was wondering if I pushed things a bit too far in some cases. For example, I'm not sure it was accurate to show a bit of the top plane in number 3. What do you think? Thank you!

Melanie Scearce

•

3mo

The overall shape of #3 the way you have it looks great, but I think the other corner of the top plane would make more sense to show if at all. It's so close to being flat it could go either way in my opinion. Overall really good stuff @sosoph!

@deepanshu12

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4mo

Michae Suazo

•

4mo

@harrow

•

4mo

Level 1

Axel Gyllenstierna

•

4mo

Level 2 assignment. Drew a lot of lineweight-inspiration from the Youtube channel "Can I Learn To Draw?", I love his boxes and mannequins! From pose 12 and onwards I also drew inspiration from Patrick Bosworth's post below. More structural boxes for the pelvis and torso and a softer "inbetween".

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Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.