Structure Basics – Making Things Look 3D
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Figure Drawing Fundamentals

Structure

Structure Basics – Making Things Look 3D

1.3M
Mark as Completed

Structure Basics – Making Things Look 3D

1.3M
Mark as Completed

Start by practicing cylinders and boxes of the things around you. Here you’re using observation and what you know about structure to draw the forms. Then move on to drawing them from your imagination. Can you imagine a box in your mind and draw it exactly how you imagined it?

When you’re ready, get some reference of animals and try to simplify them into balls, cylinders, and boxes. Avoid flat angles. Try to find dynamic angles of the animals in motion. That will be a much more valuable exercise.

Post your work and participate.

Newest
Dave S
25d
i need to work more on cubes and cylinders but this was great practice.
Robert
23d
Good stuff my man. I would have used an cylinder for the torso of the rhino. Would show more of its form
Soul
2mo
So many things I'm struggling with lol, like how exactly to draw from observation. I look, observe the subject for a solid like 30 sec to a minute, looking at the edges, curves, how many planes are showing, etc. Then look at the page and still struggle a bit to draw what I remember, but when I look at the subject again and bounce back and forth, I get a bit tripped out since the perspective slightly changed so deciding between being faithful to the drawing or to the subject is kinda rough. I haven't really thought of tapering yet, since I'm drawing from observation, but I do want to try adding varying degrees of tapering/foreshortening once I draw from imagination (all of this was from observation). Line quality, how to actually draw an elipse, and other stuff are a bit frustrating too lol, but I'm honestly not stressing over it, so far this exercise has been pretty fun despite me complaining so much 💀
Melanie Scearce
It sounds like you're doing the right things. Visual memory is a muscle that needs to be exercised, so as long as you are enjoying the process all there is to do is practice :) You can check out this visual memory game to help you with the reps: https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/project-visual-memory-games/assignments.
Nick Quason
Good work! My suggestion for your trouble is to do one after the other, accuracy from observation then imagination (that may start from observation, but you fill out the rest yourself from the theory). Then you can draw over and compare with the original and takes notes for what to do and look out for and repeat!
Soul
2mo
How do you guys draw from observation when each time you look back at the sketchbook and again at the subject the perspective changes slighty? 💀
@elyusium
2mo
When you’re drawing a subject from observation, don’t try to look at it at the same time as when you’re looking at your sketchbook. Look directly at your subject, take a mental snapshot of a part you want to draw, like an edge or a curve, then try to capture it. Look back and compare. It doesn't need to match perfectly, it just needs to get the right idea across. If you captured it accurately, great, move on to then next part. If not, adjust it until what you have on the paper captures what’s in front of you. Don’t stress out about the tiniest of details. It takes a lot of practice to develop an eye for accuracy, so just keep going and you’ll improve. Hope this helps :)
Nicole Guz
3mo
Did I do it right? I did the 3 assignments. But I am not sure if I did right or well.
Rachel Dawn Owens
Looks like you’re off to a great start! Keep it up
John Torres
I found this subject to be an opportune moment to revisit form intersections. Personally, my goal when focusing on construction is to make it as clear the occupied space the subject is within. I find the visual more useful and appealing unless all the volumes merge into one larger, more complex volume. This of course quite hard and still these days involves me having to stop and study how a particular form of intersection would present itself. I struggled the most with solving heads as they seem to turn out quite complex if you try to be specific at all about their form. I was trying to avoid just turning them into a box or cylinder, while still keeping the construction overall simple and readable. I was correcting a lot of errors while working on this, so I apologize if certain sections seem smudged, as a pastel pencil doesn't erase as easily as graphite. Overall, I'm happy with my breakdowns, and looking forward to applying this approach more often in the future. I will include my references just so it is a bit easier if any happens to feel the inclination to offer a critique.
@maximilienle2d
dis 3 of those, the dogs were constructed with yellow pencil but I decide to continue the drawing since i liked the gesture a lot
@maximilienle2d
Thank you so much
maciek szczech
Extraordinary dog sketches, like from the best ever illustration book I was looking for and finally found ❤️
Stephen Clark
Cool to see the process here! Great choices on the simplification of colors on the corgis.
Nou Nou
4mo
I think i 've got it. However, if you have any critics don' t hesitate!
Giorgi Karkuzashvili
Those were pretty fun indeed! Doing light gesture first and then lightly deforming the shapes to apply to the gesture also brought more live to animals!
Rachel Dawn Owens
Nice!
Phil
5mo
A bear and a… different kind of bear haha. the bear’s head and muzzle is in an extreme angle in the reference, I ended up rotating it a small bit. could have better described the cat’s body with a flat top plane but a bloated side plane - which would have allowed me to wrap some contour lines around it.
Sumit Gupta
I like how you bent the box in the middle for cat.
Filippo Galli
Yesterday and Today's practice. Next up is animal simplification.
Soul
2mo
Nice shape manipulation dude 👍
Chee Rei Tan
These are some of my drawing attempts. The first picture contains some of the cylinders and boxes I practised drawing, the second picture is a toucan simplified to boxes, spheres, and cylinders. Drawing the cylinders and boxes was very hard at first because I didn’t really have much knowledge on perspective. I struggled the most with the feet and body of the toucan as they were very hard to visualise. Would be open to any feedback, thanks!
Melanie Scearce
Great practice! And good simplification on the toucan. There are some areas where the cross contours don't match the shape of the body, for example where they converge underneath his beak. Check out this lesson - How to Draw Cross Contour on 3D Forms (https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/how-to-draw-cross-contour-on-3d-forms/comments).
Kasey Omar
6mo
My attempt at some animals, I'm finding it hard to not make the shapes look flat in some places. The Rhino demo really helped me start.
Emma X
6mo
Any advice for my Giraffe would be greatly appreciated! It feels really wobbly and wonky... (Ignore my terrible snail I did prior to seeing Stan demo how to actually do the assignment)
@jensdawg
7mo
Here’s my attempt at a few animals. I think I could’ve focused more on the 3D shapes instead of forcing them to create the contour of the animal. Any feedback is appreciated.
@kcarnival
7mo
Here is my attempt at a dog
Siv Nilsen
7mo
I should probably simplify even more into geometric shapes on these...
Gannon Beck
These are fantastic. Great job!
Art Stark
7mo
These are great! I'd have a hard time picking a favorite. The shapes are dynamic on their own while still contributing to the overall gesture. At this point, each drawing can either help with a realistic pose… or be a great jumping off point for manga/mech design of robots!
Gannon Beck
Structure assignment. A semi-feral cat has been brining her new kitten by my house a bit, so I thought I'd bone up on kitten structure.
Jonatan
7mo
This was really fun to do! I feel I learned a lot from doing this exercise, my first one with the bunny might be the worst one lol, but I could feel getting better with each one as I understood better what I was looking for, attached the reference picture for each, I did this before watching the critique video, I saw it now and I think my next ones will be much better even, any feedback is appreciated!
@creaturebloom
These look really good! It reminds me of a lesson in draw a box that I've never reached, If you've never used DaB it might help you get more insight! Good luck, excited to see more of your work.
Melanie Scearce
These are awesome! I'm glad you had fun and learned a lot. I particularly like the cat because of the gesture that you were able to capture. Keep it up!
@yoyoy12
8mo
Gannon Beck
Nicely done!
@egusisoup
8mo
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