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#39 watched all of the face lecture yesterday and now Im doing the assignments today. Im just going to take it to this level of finish because I dont want to spend too long on these.
This looks great, Alex! I’m still working on skull construction, so I’m impressed with your progress. I feel like I’m spending too much time finishing the drawings when I could benefit more from quick studies right now. I also felt like I was assimilating the information reasonably well until I hit a wall trying to memorize the cephalometric points. My husband, a dentist, told me cephalometric analysis is used in treatment planning and orthodontic diagnosis and takes time to learn. That did help me feel a little less frustrated! Iliya’s explanations of the reasoning behind the names has helped give some meaning, too, instead of it being just rote memorization. Also, I’ve been combining the Loomis Head Method with Steve Huston’s method (as you had suggested previously) when drawing portraits and have found that works well for me. I thought I would use it when drawing the six skulls from imagination, so I’ll see if it gets too complicated combined with Iliya’s method. The drawabox method sounds like it might be helpful to me as well since I need to revisit perspective in understanding the planes of the head. I really have appreciated all your insights!
@janstannard Hi Jan, always a pleasure to have helped someone else. Please, don’t give me too much credit though, I’m sure you would have had the same insights without my input considering your sustained efforts! also, I wouldnt pay much attention to the speed of my progress, everyone has different pace and different hours available after all, never know, I might be going too fast and have to backtrack :’D (I hope not though)
As for the cephalometric points, I haven’t really bothered learning the names (although I have tried), I just remember where they are, I’ve drawn the diagram out perhaps four times and I can only remember a handful of the names. I’ll probably learn them at some point but I just cant see the benefit considering they all lie on fairly easy to remember specific areas of the bones. as long as you have the bones, processes, eminences, tuberosities, and protuberances he pointed out prior memorised you’ll be fine. just move on and keep going back to it if you feel like that is one of your goals. I completely agree that theyre a bit much, I didnt even have to write any of the names of the other things up until this point, its just information saturation when he drops like 18 latin and greek words in the space of 20 minutes after having just learned 22 bones plus sticky-out-bits. It’s telling that my partner who is a med student has started stealing my drawings and notes because theyre so thorough, it leads me to suspect its all a bit over the top. However, monkey see monkey do. If a master does it Im gonna try it.
Regarding Drawabox, yeah Ive found it helpful, Ive only completed the first lesson and the 250 box challenge though, its been somewhat beneficial coupled with my prior knowledge of perspective drawing. Drawing the skull from imagination is extremely difficult without knowledge of perspective so you might want to come back to that exercise if you’re struggling. Theres no sense in grinding if youre missing a component of the pre-requisite knowledge
It’s good to hear youre having success with the huston/loomis combo, I tried it for the skull also, its tricky to implement when you account the cephalo-blaa-blaa points though (in the specific context of drawing a skull), because it plots a more specific contour and volume. If youre interested Ill explain in a paragraph below, if not just skip to the CAPS.
I basically just use knowlege from the other methods to put the proportion back into the construction and add extra lines and rhythms to help consolidate and relate everything. What I ended up doing was drawing a cube, and then drawing lines around the sagital and coronal plane. Then inside these planes indicate points of the temporal process of the zygomatic and the external auditory meatus wich is at about half depth and a little tucked in from the first points (like loomis ball), then I cut the box alonf the frankfurt plane and tapered sides in, then I marked the glabella and the vertex and opisthocranion. Then plot euryon/ parietal prominence and prosthion. after that you just need bregma, rhinion, gnathion, gonion and mastoidiale. I try and split the facial angle into two part that are equal in distance to that of glabella to the top of the frontal eminence (to give thirds). after all this I clean stuff up using info from Huston/ vilpu. another good tip from vilpu is that the area halfway between prosthion and nasospninale lines up with the foramen magnum and will give you the line to start the curve of the occipital bone to the occipital protuberance/ opisthocranion (and then follow up to lombda). (I had to look up quite a few of the names of the points when writing this). this worked quite well but I didnt do more attempts than Illya asked for as I need to work on my perspective also. I just did enough for proof of concept. feel free to try it this way, when you do it think of it like you are outlining a skull in the sagital and coronal planes and then filling in the rest of the information. if you look at my drawings you can see that Im just thinking in terms of a sagital and coronal plane and plotting one line at a time like drawing a curve on a window pane then connecting the remaining transverse contours based on the other two planes of information.
HAVING SAID ALL THIS, its not actually that important to be this bloody accurate considering Huston/vilpu/loomis got on just fine with their simplified methods, plus their approach is much more practical and useful for western quicksketch style for in-situ application. If I was to draw a portrait and not a skull I would probably follow the usual Huston/Loomis procedure and then add in the points Illya has taught in order to get extra proportions and measurements where absolutely needed (like if I was struggling). I would honestly treat drawing the skull from imagination in this manner as purely academic. after a long time maybe it will be integrated into the tool kit but I cant be certain, that might be a question for Joshua Jocobo, because that seems to be his mode of thinking.
If you get stuck with stuff or want an opinion, drop me a message on here and Ill be likely to answer (unless ive gone visiting my partner as Im not allowed to art much when I’m staying at hers, in which case Ill probably reply on one of your topics a week later). I will have to point out though that Im no master so take anything I think or say with a pinch of salt and feel free to disagree, or better yet tell me if you think of an easier way to mix and match the toolbag, I’ve always got an appetite for good tips. Thanks again for getting in touch Jan, its always a pleasure conversing with you and nice to hear of others successes, Good luck with the course/progress 🙂
Work in progress. feel like maybe the proportions could be a little off but Im just going to finish the rendering and move onto the next one. Ill try to fix the mouth area I guess. Ill see how I feel tomorrow coming back to it. hopefully I will have more energy for it.
@elizabethhone thanks, think its getting better, I messed the previous one up because I changed to this strathmore heavyweight medium surface paper and it takes the lead funny when I do my usual hard strokes compared to the stuff I have been using previously. So, basically, I think I drew the last one way too dark. anyway the lighter application of pencil seems to be benefiting my hatching so I guess Ill stick with it for a bit.
Wow! I’m honored and extremely appreciative of the time you took to go into such detail in your reply to my post. Once again, you have offered invaluable advice. You’re enormously talented, and you convey information well! You should consider teaching in the future. Thank you, too, for the encouragement. I’m on information overload at this point. I like the Drawabox 50% rule and think I need to mix in more drawing for fun.
I plan to go through the specific information in your post as I revisit perspective concepts and work on more skull studies. As you pointed out, the Huston/Loomis simplified method may be enough, but I do want to try your approach of thinking in terms of the sagittal and coronal plane and plotting lines. I think it will make sense once I actually start to draw it. I agree with you that memorizing ALL the names isn’t necessary for now and to concentrate instead on the basic framework so to speak. I just found a website called Anatomy Standard that I started using to view individual bones which has been useful. You might find it interesting. I also have Netter’s Anatomy Coloring Book in my Amazon cart right now as well. I will definitely touch base if I have questions or discover something worth sharing. Thanks again for all of your help!
I just started NMA and this challenge, and am just scrolling through to see what’s what. I know you mentioned that you have a degree in art, but you wanted to work on free hand accuracy. I looked at the first page, then I skipped to the end (pressed for time). I would say your freehand has improved quite a bit, I can see improvement compared to those earlier sketches you posted where you said you weren’t happy, needed to work on eyes, etc. I really like these last couple posts. Which course is this based on, or is are you working from several? I have looked at Huston’s free course in the past, I’m planning to start the Russian Drawing programs (I find when I use Loomis my drawings all look the same) and then on to portraiture painting.
Hi Alex,
The profile view is the most difficult because it is the easiest to draw in terms of likeness, but considerably harder to turn the forms than a 3/4 view. I know the left-facing view of the ecorche face isn’t finished yet, but I did a draw-over to help differentiate the big planes of the face, which should always take precedence over any of the little anatomical details. On the left are the plane demarcations in red, some bone demarcations in blue, and then on the right are the planes marked with tone.
Also, as for the cephalometric points, I’m with you. I have to sort of re-learn their names every time I teach a class on them, but the idea is to remember the points themselves, and how else do you teach them, if not refer to them by name. I think they’re too important not to include, as they give a much more complex and nuanced head schematic than I’ve regularly encountered in other drawing systems.
Keep up the great work!
Iliya
@jonathancriner Hi Jon, yes I completed these courses in this order:
I completed 40% of head drawing for beginners, I wasnt really enjoying the approach from that one but got some value in some of the information from what I did of that course.
Then I moved on to constructive head drawing from Steve Huston – This course is brilliant and I completed it right up until he started showing how to apply charcoal (my tracker says 92.3%) and do long sittings. I left it at this point as I felt there was still more to learn about constructing and observing the head, feel free to do it or not do it.
I then completed all of constructive figure drawing with steve huston
and completed 1/3rd of renaissance head drawing. I didnt complete all of it as Glenn vilpu’s lessons seem to just be a compilation of similar footage over and over for most of it. Also, his technique is really hard and quite advanced really coming off the back of steves course which is a bit friendlier.
after that Ive completed most of Dynamic gesture drawing from Glenn vilpu, I stopped when he started teaching anatomy because the way he teaches it is too fast and quite generic, I feel like you need to have already started learning anatomy to comprehend what he is teaching, so I will be going back into that course when Im ready.
right now I am completing the Russian Academic course and also Rey Bustos’s anatomy for artists, together these are giving me a more solid understanding of anatomy and form of the body.
I also recommend you go on the NMA youtube and watch Joshua Jocobo draw, you can pick up a lot just from seeing him apply techniques that these other artists teach, you can see their methods in his thinking as he is drawing, its useful to see it done by someone who has a bit of a hyrbid technique of other methods because after all, youre not going to do it like steve huston or glenn vilpu, youre going to take their teachings and figure out how to do it in a way that is comfortable for you.
I think I am also going to do more anatomy, maybe something like Bammes if I feel at the end of the Russian course and Bustos’ course that I havent figured out how to simplify the forms for construction.
anyway I hope this helps man.
@iliyamirochnik Hi Illya! thank you so much for this draw over, yes I can see what you mean and Im lacking this also in the right facing drawing, I have become too involved in modelling individual parts and forgotten the fall of light effect across the whole. Thank you for pointing this out. Again, your draw-overs are invaluable. Also, yes, the cephalometric points are extremely useful and have transformed my understanding of the head as a volume, dont worry, I wouldnt tell anyone to skip learning the actual points. As you say, there is a lot of information to retain in terms of labelling though.
I will be sure to apply the critique you’ve given to these drawings. Again, thank you so much for taking the time.
I hope you are having a great day,
best,
Alex
@janstannard Jan! youre welcome, I will be sure to look up anatomy standard, it sounds useful. Also, my partner has that colouring book, it really helped her learn the information when she was cramming for exams so it must be worthwhile for learning name-terms.
good luck with it all, let me know how you get on 🙂
Alex, we are adding the Asaro head to our 3d library when we do the big launch (new version of viewer and finally mobile app version). So hopefully it just be a few days before you can get access. 👍🏼
Alex, I just caught up on your entire thread reading it from the beginning.
Thank you for taking so much time to share, explain, and converse with others. This kind of information is helpful for me as an educator but it’s also just fun to root for you.
You seem to have a burning desire to improve quickly which I know too well can be frustrating at times. Despite your seeming impatience with yourself your progress has been dramatic.
Since your accelerated learning approach seems to be working for you I won’t poke or prod too much but I will say that no matter how passionate, intelligent, “talented”, dedicated a person is—it will still take years to begin to internalize this information. Especially when it comes to anatomy. Success in the long run is about— and the quality that I see in all of the most skilled artists I have known—endurance. If you can keep that up I think you’ll go far. 🙏🏼
Just to hit on some points (no pun intended) in the thread.
1. Anatomical names are useful for discussing and words shape our understanding. If we assign a name to a thing we are more likely to remember it. But you’re right the purpose is to be able to recall morphology, so if you can get there another way, perfect.
2. How much anatomy do we really need? Iliya can confirm but I remember him telling me that the Russians spend an entire year focusing on the skull. Is that necessary or sadism? Isn’t what Steve or Loomis teach as effective with way less information?
I think it has to do with your taste. Loomis was an illustrator. He drew in a particularly simplified streamlined style, not dissimilar to comicbooks art. Steve also started as an illustrator/ comic artist before transitioning to fine art. If that style is appealing to you, then their approach may be a good fit. On the other hand the Reilly approach (also an Illustration approach) is more specific. Unlike Steve who points to this or that concept and offers different ways to conceive of the head with the Reilly approach there is a definitive rhythm guide. That lack of ambiguity is appealing to many artists but there is always a trade off of course. More of a specific approach means your work will look like others doing the approach. Since you didn’t design the rhythms you will have less flexibility in how the approach is applied. These trade offs exist everywhere in art education.
The Russian approach is more of a realist style and more concerned with the surface and as Iliya says, the nuances of the head. That extra realism is essentially extra information.
There’s no reason you need to settle on one approach. You can and should study multiple approaches but keep in mind you need to dedicate significant time towards them before understanding them well enough to determine their utility.
So the amount of “realism” or simplification you want to achieve is one consideration. So is the question of whether or not you’ll be working from imagination.
If you’re working from reference what you’ll tend to do is mix your knowledge of “the thing” with how the thing looks in front of you when you work. The more you know about the thing the more perceptive you will be while looking at the thing and the drawing of the thing will ring true and require less effort on your part. You will be able to design it more and make your drawing more compelling.
If you’re drawing from imagination all you have is your knowledge of the thing (unless you’re just redoing poses or shapes you’ve done before). So for me the more knowledge of anatomy I have the easier it is for me to conjure the elements I need. Also, you should know more anatomy than you use in any drawing. If you are reaching the very limits of your knowledge in a drawing then you should probably deepen your understanding. If you know the skull incredibly well you can simplify it as needed. Furthermore you can simplify the structures in a way that is unique to you rather than relying on the simplifications of others (Not to imply there’s anything wrong with that), which may be interesting to you.
Anyway, keep up the good work and please keep sharing your progress.
👍🏼
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