Moth's Random Art Lessons

[ladymoth7]

ladymoth7The lower down the eyes are on a character the cuter it is, it all has to do with big foreheads. Baby's got big foreheads, ergo we find them baby like and cute. For more information on cute characters and other characters look at the template sheets made by Preston Blair www.animationarchive.org/pics/pbanimation17-big.jpg

[ladymoth7]

ladymoth7Please draw through and not around your characters, or I will hurt you. Drawing around is tracing, not drawing. Drawing through is seeing that the head can be made out of a circle and a few angles, that the fore arm is a foot ball shape that ends in a rectangle. When you simplify what you're drawing into basic shapes you can start to turn those shapes around and draw said character from any angle. The more you draw through the easier it is to place things like eyes and mouths, and draw relationships between different body parts.

[ladymoth7]

ladymoth7FORM! His is how I draw animals and people.
0. not shown, draw a thumb nail sized sketch of what you want to draw big, this should take less than a minute. no details, just the vague idea of the pose
1. Start with one line, this is your action line, it helps give your pose energy and force! Some poses have boring action lines. If a person is standing straight their action line will be a straight line. But if the pose is something like, say, a lion jumping out of the grass to bite the ass of a zebra that kicks it in the face, that action line's going to be a helluvalot more interesting and curvy wurvy. Artistically speaking the prettiest line is the S curve. Which is just a lazy S
2. The gesture drawing. Still keeping the form loosy goosy you want to get the idea of the drawing here are some more great examples, a gesture drawing should take no more than 30 seconds
3. primary form: here I make the land mark shapes, the rib cage, the head, the pelvis, the hands, the feet. I also mark the joints just to remind myself to make the form WIDER there. Wider. WYD-ER.
4. Secondary form: now we get into the muscles and all that good stuff. I don't always outline the muscles like that though, sometimes the best thing to do is to scribble in the shape. My figure drawing teacher taught me this. If no one knows you scribble, it's okay to scribble
5. tertiary form: drawing the details, the line. You can shade at this stage. Some people say don't but I say if you want to then have fun. Drawing is meant to be fun.

[ladymoth7]

ladymoth7A sphere with a modified football on it is the universal shape for a head. Its a shape that is easy to turn. Once you learn how to turn that basic shape you can turn a head to any angle. There are universal shapes for every part of the body, but everyone loves to draw the head most right?