I'm going through the basics first before I really do anything too big. I want to really get the skeleton/mannequin/muscles/proportions ingrained into my skull first, so a lot of my drawings are going to just be repetitions. I experimented with different sized figures, but it was mostly female today.
Here's a question for you veterans. Is there a proper way to grip a pencil? I usually rest the pen on my thumb and put pressure on it with my index and middle finger, sometimes using the ring finger as support too.
I heard that the tripod grip, pictured above, is the correct method, and the way I've done it is incorrect. I've been experimenting with both my old school claw grip and the tripod, and my wrist muscles are just not used to holding a pen in the tripod grip. When using the tablet pen though, I find the tripod grip gives me much more control. What kind of grip do you use?
I prefer having my index finger on top, slightly to the right, my middle finger supporting from bottom and thumb closing in from the left. My index finger since to have the most dexterity of any other finger from my hand so I prefer to use it as the dominant finger to guide my pen/pencil/brush. It also allows me to have a wider range of movement and flexibility than having the pen supported by my ring finger with the index and middle finger on top.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of your anatomy, I would suggest looking at anatomy books like ones by Villpu and force drawings to give your sketches more motion. Right now the characters all seem very stiff because they are all standing in a full frontal pose. A 3/4 pose gives more depth. Study the skeletal structures to see how the muscles are laid out across a frame, understand proportions based on gender, personality types, profession, etc. Stick figure drawings are very very basic. Once you get the idea of underlying structures, you need to start looking at the forces flowing through a character's pose to create more sweeping gestures that are more graceful than what can be achieved with stick figure lines. Look at 2D animations books such as the Animation Survival Guide. Animators are very skilled at finding movement even in still poses.
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