Proko - Project - Gestural Torso Boxes

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Project - Gestural Torso Boxes

by Stan Prokopenko in Drawing Basics

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Drawing BasicsFull course (178 lessons)

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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.

assignments 153 submissions

Blobs to boxes really helped with this exercise!

DOWNLOADS

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reference-images.zip

45 MB

mp4

project-gestural-torso-boxes.mp4

748 MB

txt

project-gestural-torso-boxes-transcription-english.txt

19 kB

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project-gestural-torso-boxes-transcription-spanish.txt

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project-gestural-torso-boxes-captions-english.vtt

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project-gestural-torso-boxes-captions-spanish.vtt

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ASSIGNMENTS

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!

Nancy Larson

•

Level 1 gestural torso boxes attached. Some boxes are more torso-like than others; and those others are distorted boxes which are also good to practice. The cross contours may be a bit weak. And, I welcome input on that, or anything else.

@alexate

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Elijah R

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Definitely not as good or clean as proko’s but hey I tried. Some of them were really either hard or annoying to draw out. It feels really annoying to have a gestural torso box in mind and not being able to draw it.

@osrour

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@yoyoy12

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10d

Andrew Kovachik

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12d

I'm uploading all the past projects I never submitted. Here are some of the torso boxes I could find.

Daniel Divinus

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21d

This would be agood warmup.

@doodleibu

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29d

Level 2 first attempt, I was pretty messy. I found it easier sketching in the rough contours first and then building the twisty box from there. These kinds of boxes always give me trouble haha. Gonna watch demos and critiques 👀

@doodleibu

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27d

A few more after watching demos and critiques, focused more on cleaner lines this time around.

Alison Shelton

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29d

Pre demo attempt

Alison Shelton

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29d

I forgot the center lines. Did a little doodle for Inktober because today’s prompt was lesson. People are challenging for me.

@bezet

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1mo

It was difficult for me to come up with interesting boxes from imagination, so I did most of them from photos.

Christopher Corbell

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2mo

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

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2mo

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

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2mo

@jackb

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2mo

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

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2mo

@gothamdemon

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2mo

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

Michael Yoila

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3mo

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

Melanie Scearce

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3mo

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

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3mo

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

Luis

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3mo

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

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4mo

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

Melanie Scearce

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4mo

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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4mo

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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4mo

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