Proko - Project - Gestural Torso Boxes

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Project - Gestural Torso Boxes

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

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Drawing BasicsFull course (185 lessons)

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You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.

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About instructor

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 183 submissions

Blobs to boxes really helped with this exercise!

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reference-images.zip

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mp4

project-gestural-torso-boxes.mp4

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txt

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

19 kB

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

22 kB

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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!

Travis Rossi

•

Level 2 gestural torso boxes

Rich Acosta

•

These actually did start to flow a little easier once I got warmed up. I did some yesterday and finished today, and even when I started today, I had to warm up a bit.

Art Stark

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Gestural Torso Boxes Level 1 — 2nd Try

Ash

•

Nice! I like these

@na_talie

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Here are my torso boxes. The red ones are my level 1 attempts, the blue ones are level 2.

Caden Y

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A couple of level 1 boxes

Melanie Scearce

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Very nice! These are super dynamic. I particularly like the bottom right one on the second page. Great work!

Art Stark

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11d

Gestural Torso Boxes Level 1

@notapirate

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12d

I did level 1 and level 2, and level two was actually hard, TwT. For the life of me, I just couldn't figure out how the Torsos translated into Boxes for the level 2 (without bending a mono eraser I had at my desk). I'm probably going to get better at figuring that out (hopefully TwT), but for now ... I think boxes have defeated me ༼ つ ಥ_ಥ ༽つ

João Rudge

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17d

Here it goes the first 12 poses. Any feedback is more than welcome.

Melanie Scearce

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16d

Fantastic job, João! You did a great job with the perspective in these boxes. I just have a couple of notes for you. For #5, I totally see where you're coming from by showing his left side, but showing both sides of the box flattens the perspective and therefore takes away from the illusion of depth, so we have to come up with a solution. I would make the argument that even though he is slightly twisting that way, it's not really the side of his ribcage that is beginning to show, it's his lats as his scapula is protracting towards the front of his body. I attached my attempts below. The solution I came up with is to push the S curve of the torso to emphasize that subtle twist. For #11, I like the idea because she has a very serpentine pose here. I saw an inverted C curve to the one you have here, my attempt is below! Hope this is helpful to you, very nice work overall!

João Rudge

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16d

And now the six that was left...

Tim

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18d

Melanie Scearce

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18d

These look great, Tim! Awesome work. Are there any that you struggled with or have questions about?

William Montalvo

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20d

@notapirate

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20d

How do you make boxes look so good, TwT

@chrisdzy

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23d

Not the greatest lighting sorry, finished up in the evening.

Laika

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24d

I tried level 2 even though I usually go for level 1 assignments. It was definitely challenging, but I felt pretty good about some of them. I think I'm struggling with bending the torsos and adding folds to them the most.

Maren

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1mo

Level 2 Submission. The one I couldn’t figure out was #17-it looks like her centerline twists towards the floor but her pelvis stays facing toward the camera.

J M

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1mo

level 1 felt harder since it's hard to imagine a box for the rib cage and torso that make sense with one another. Level 2 was easier BUT I couldn't twist some of the boxes as much as I wanted to.

Wieke Pierhagen

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2mo

Level 1 and 2 torso boxes. The twist was pretty hard, that's why I drew quite a lot of them. I think being subtle and making small adjustments can really have a major impact and feel very natural. But to become so good at it means drawing a lot more of these. I do wonder (especially since the last assignment of the gestural architecture) how to rotate a box completely, 360 degrees or more. A torso couldn't do that of course, but I tried it with my fantasy house, but got toally lost in which corner connects to where and how does it rotate. If someone can teach me how to draw these kind of rotations, I'd love that!

@yearly7777

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2mo

I have done it. Had a bit of trouble with reading & simplifying torsos into boxes.

Melanie Scearce

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2mo

Nice! Your second attempt of #6 looks much more dynamic. I think if you did another pass on #16 and #17 you could get to the next level on those too. Think about the pinch and stretch points of the pose, this will help give your boxes a bit more tension. Overall, excellent work!

Aura

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2mo

level 2. i need to work on simplifying and going off vibes instead of trying to copy what im seeing.

Lorena Faria

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2mo

i tried both levels in this one

Aura

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2mo

i’m baaaaack! torso boxes level one. pls help with the ? ones, i couldn’t figure them out. (feat my toddler’s art on the side)

Carmen Ciumber

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2mo

I find gestural torso from picture much easier than from imagination. I am not sure about 6, 9, 19, 15. Would you have a look at these? I used the models from rythms - the 24 pictures. Thanks

Melanie Scearce

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2mo

These look really nice overall, Carmen! There are different ways to solve these; I did my own versions of the first two you mentioned. For #6, since the model's arms are pulling to her right, there is a bit of a twist to her ribcage in that direction, which is why I chose to show that side of her torso in my box. I also chose to show a bit less of the bottom plane of the box, since I didn't observe her pelvis tilting back so much. #9 is really tricky. In my version, I chose to omit that bit of his back that shows for the sake of clarity, mainly focusing on the very dramatic twist and pinch of the left side of his torso. #15 looks pretty good to me, I don't have notes on that one. For #19, if I'm reading your drawing correctly, the top plane of the box should be showing instead of the bottom plane. Her torso is coming towards us in space since she is leaning forward. Hopefully this answers your questions! Let me know if you need help with anything else :)