{"id":1218,"date":"2024-03-05T12:06:07","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T12:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/?p=1218"},"modified":"2024-03-07T06:35:53","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T06:35:53","slug":"learning-to-draw-people-challenge-day-14-2024-03-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/2024\/03\/05\/learning-to-draw-people-challenge-day-14-2024-03-04\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Draw People Challenge \u2013 Day 14 (2024\/03\/04)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nThis was drawn March 04 (I started right before midnight, so it counts!), but written March 05, 2024 as part of the 2024 Learning to Draw People Challenge<\/a><\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nCredits: 1<\/b><\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Introduction<\/h2>\r\n

\r\nHello there, and thanks for coming along. To start with, I once again ended up drawing and writing on different days (thus, I technically only save up half a credit, haha), due to classes resuming, and having fairly busy day (it also looks like it’ll be a busy week). But here I am writing this article in a coffee shop, while listening to music with a tea pot next to me. Without further ado, here’s how my 14th day went.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Exercises<\/h2>\r\n

\r\nAs always, we start with the exercises. Once again, those went fairly quickly, clocking at just under 7 minutes, seemingly the new norm. For a normal session, that’s pretty good (although for a shorter session of around 30 minutes, it would consume a good chunk of the available time).\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nThis once, I struggled a bit more than usual with my strokes. I’m left to wonder if there might be a correlation with my alertness, since I was rather exhausted at this point. In particular, the wavy lines were rough, some of them looking less like sinusoidal waves and more like cycloids<\/a>. I’m left wondering if I should track how tired I am each session to see its impact, possibly by recording the time at which I start and an estimate from 1-10 of how tired I feel. But definitely not a priority.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nGenerally, I had a “global alignment” issue. For example, in the lines exercise, individual strokes might be generally fine, but the rows themselves are definitely slanted. Regardless, here are the results:\r\n\r\n

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Day 14 – Lines exercise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n
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Day 14 – Wavy Lines exercise (Vertical)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n
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Day 14 – Wavy Lines exercise (Horizontal)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n
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Day 14 – Circles exercise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Drawing<\/h2>\r\n

\r\nAs promised, I opted to try to draw the full-body male reference model. As on the previous day, this started with a wire-frame. To avoid confusion between guidelines and drawing, I opted for a different guideline color. But while it looked reasonable on my tablet… I think it looks a bit aggressive on the computer. \r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nThe first thing I did was to draw 8 equally spaced horizontal line. Then I added a rough head shape, along with hips. Remember the warning I gave the previous day<\/a> about errors doubling if you count each side separately? Well, I almost fell for a similar issue, where the hips would have been twice as long as intended (Counting the required distance on each side, as opposed to total). Luckily, I noticed it and fixed it right away.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nI then added the shoulders and connected them to the hips to complete the torso. I did mention yesterday<\/a> I would get back to this: the male and female torsos differ noticeably. The female torso is rectangular, with hips the same length as the shoulder. Meanwhile, the male torso is a trapezoid, with shoulders slightly wider than the hips. Here is the wire-frame at this stage:\r\n

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Day 14 – Wire-Frame with torso<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nNext came the arms and legs. For the arms, I tried to make their angle the same as that of the torso (i.e.: incrementing the horizontal distance by the same amount). Meanwhile, the knees are slightly closer to the center, with the feet directly below them.\r\n

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Day 14 – Wire-Frame with limbs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nNext up were the finishing touches for the wire-frame, mainly adding guidelines for the chest and hips. For some reasons, I struggled with the chest guidelines. First, my two lines were initially noticeably asymmetric, messing up the proportions and alignments. But even once that was fixed, I had difficulties with the semi-circle portion. I both struggled with properly placing its apex, and drawing a proper circular shape, often drawing shaky lines (Likely due to how late I drew).\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nHere’s the completed wire-frame. Overall, the full wire-frame took me about 13 minutes. Not bad at all.\r\n

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Day 14 – Completed Wire-Frame<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nAt this point, it was time to start the actual drawing. The first step was to draw the outline by adding limbs around the nodes and guidelines: A head and neck, two arms, two legs, and a torso (including a crotch outline). But I didn’t simply draw them out-of-order and disconnected. Instead, I “continuously” drew the outline counter-clockwise, starting top-left, continuing in the bottom, and finishing top-right.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nOnce again, I really struggled with legs, redrawing them multiple times. Moreover, the hips are a little off at this point. However, I did end up fixing some issues later on. Meanwhile, while it might be a bit silly (especially when following reference drawings), I was really happy and almost proud with how part of the arm on the left came out. In particular, I’m really happy with the section between the bicep and the shoulder, where it looks like the outline of the muscle is present.\r\n

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Day 14 – Drawing Outline (With Guidelines)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n
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Day 14 – Drawing Outline (No Guidelines)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nNow, to add some initial details. I started with the face and the hair, before moving on to muscles and other strokes on the skin. I also took this opportunity to readjust a few things I was unhappy with, generally from top to bottom. Thus, I reworked the neck and shoulders a bit before adding strokes in the chest area.\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\nSpeaking of the chest, I struggled a bit with the pectoral muscles, sometimes making them look more like breasts. There are two culprits here:\r\n