Lavender’s 100 Day Dance Figure/Costume Drawing Project

[Lavender]

I will fill 4 pages (two 2-page spreads) with figure drawings of various times, every day.
I will do this to improve my understanding of anatomy, specifically, my understanding of how certain poses work, and also to explore my personal taste in poses. I also want to let my verbal mind relax and wander while I engage my visual mind, as preparation for the second half of my daily art practice time, which is writing.
I will draw the poses from both the NMA figure galleries and from other similar photo collections (…. Koh Hideki) as well as doing quick drawings from dance videos ( 2.5D Dance Live blurays, and probably some ballet, too). The dance video poses are usually quick gesture things, but sometimes if I really like a pose, I’ll pause on it and draw it more carefully.
No time limit for the moment, but for the first few weeks, I’ll time it and see how long it takes to fill the two pages, and then maybe round it off (to like 30 or 45 minutes) and use the time block as a guide, rather than the pages.
Anatomy focus and costume focus both work for this.
Paper size… these big Maruman Croquis books that are a little more than F4 and a little less than B4, it seems.

[Lavender]

 

Okay, day 1…

[Joshua Jacobo]

The site does resizing for you. Great challenge. I look forward to your progress!

[Lavender]

 

Ahh some pages from today…

 

 

I like to sometimes add random designs to the pages in a sketchbook by just putting alcohol ink on one page and letting it bleed through and blend around, etc… in this one watercolor course I took (on a different site, a lot more casual than this), one of the exercises was to put random watercolor blobs onto a page, and then just draw something from the shapes you find in them, so I kind of started from that. Today, I was watching the lesson about the “Florentine Method” on here, and it said to use toned paper, so I thought I’d… use W5 and E04 ink to try to tone the paper, and… yeah, that didn’t exactly work, it didn’t make an even tone, but I still sort of like it. So I did a bit of that kind of thing, with the toned base and white highlights…

This other course I took on a different other site was pretty much what that “Florentine method” was talking about, a) black and white on toned paper, and b) focusing on making 3D forms, and defining them with cross strokes, etc., and hearing about that again made me think of another exercise that that course had us do, which is those lines and circles… that course said to use marker pens for everything, they said Faber Castell Pitt, but I used Copic Multiliner SP because you can replace the nibs and ink without buying a whole new pen, so I like those, especially for just practice.

I did some of the head construction lessons today. The first few pages are the first Daily Drawing series video, some of the rest are from the head construction course. Then I just did more drawing from the bluray I’ve been watching, which… I tried to draw their faces and I don’t think I did well. The oe in the top corner just looked so bad, under that I tried to draw the pose/expression like I usually would, stylized, just to sort of figure out what I wasn’t getting with trying to follow the methods, why it didn’t look like the screenshot, but I don’t think I found anything…

 

Random extra but I just have this 3x3cm-ish marker paper pad thing, and I just… thought I’d use it, since I’m sitting here drawing anyway (… at 2am but). It’s a character from a video game… I always want to draw fanart because I know it’s a way to connect with people online, but I just… never do, I guess I get nervous. So I just decided to do a quick one before I chicken out…

 

ahhh sorry for talking so much.

[Tomleyboo]

Love your work so far! Keep it up, the added extra is brill 😁

[Lavender]

Ahhh I tried to post days 3-6 in one post and it didn’t go through… I was waiting to post the rest since then but I guess it isn’t ever going to work… if the number of pictures was the issue, then posting 3-11 in one post would be even worse. I’ve looked in other people’s threads and I don’t see a lot of crit or anything, just “good work, keep it up” impersonal sort of things, so I don’t know if I want to keep posting…

 

I did these on day… 8, I think? Drew from reference photos and then added costume. I made them into characters from the novels/comics I’m working on…

[Lavender]

 

 

 

Days 3-6

Ahhh haven’t been as on it as I should have been.

Excuse my hand shadow.

I watched the first two lessons of the “Rey’s Anatomy” course, so I’ve been trying to focus on legs.

Tomorrow, I’ll do the daily drawing video + another few pages of legs.

Tried to add a warm-up, not quite sure what I’m doing with it, but I guess if I keep trying different things, eventually I’ll figure out what I need with that.

Ahhh one page is composition thoughts about a scene I thought about drawing… I just, was reading a book of essays and it had a painting of this scene, and I just had one of those, “…. but that’s not how I see it” moments, and I needed to work out how I would draw it. And some color practice for that, with the bluish stone column.

[Lavender]

 

Well, I did it for about 60 days, then I started a new job, lasted for ~2 1/2 months, which was better than my previous ones, aaand now I’m back to looking for something better than English teaching… and might as well work on this.

 

Now I’m in a Stillman and Birn Epsilon book. I missed a couple of days already but I did something for today. Still adding details, will post when done.

I’m going from the new (???) daily drawing videos, sort of putting a few poses together and making something of a composition, and trying to add some costumes… the one in the middle with the costume there might be my character Ruzha, might not, I’m not really that focused…

[Lavender]

 

So, I pushed myself to do two on the 6th, so I would do videos 5 and 6, so that the day number and video number are the same, just because I’m dumb that way, but… but then… the video numbers changed… because they’re adding videos in the beginning, not at the end… why? Ehehehe but I guess I’ll just… do #7 twice? Aaaand have the number listings be meaningless because they’re changing? I mean I could just put the models names, but since I’m changing a lot and making them into my characters, that feels weird. I dunno. I guess I can just put the original numbers, and ignore the new videos?

[Lavender]

Meant to add these to the previous post as well…

Also… since I’m currently studying 3-4 things, I’m just doing a sort of “bare minimum” for this, but I plan to go back and add accessories and hairstyles and more expression to these, and make them more finished…

[Jaylene]

Your drawings have wonderful gesture and rythem, very graceful.  I don’t know if you want critique in regards to realism but if you do you might want to work on structure so your figures seem more solid\3d.  You foreshorten well for the gesture but I think you could really push this by working on building structure into your figures.  I look forward to seeing more of your work.

[Lavender]

aaaa thank you ^_^ yeah, right now I’m just working on building habits, but I plan to go back to the Rey’s Anatomy course. I got a little better with it when I was doing that, but… life…

 

ehhh anyway

 

A few days… uploading pictures is such a struggle though, my computer is so slow and sometimes it tells me the files are too large, sometimes it tells me I don’t have permission to write to the file (???), I always have to wait overnight for the pictures to sync from my phone to my computer, and like… ehhh

but~

I found a really great figure drawing group offline, where the models are male ballet dancers~~ which is… exactly what I’ve been needing all my life.

So here’s some things from that.

I was using a 2mm lead holder, 2B but I think I want to get some 4B lead for that… I had been using a 4B pencil but then I noticed the lead holder in my bag and it actually was a lot better. So that was nice.

I also found a type of color pencil that has a triangular wood case, and in one corner, the lead goes from the center all the way to the outside, so you can use both the point, and the side to shade, more easily, but… a) the colors aren’t nice, I got a bright red one but the other colors… they didn’t have a nice sepia or anything. and b) you can just do that with a regular lead/lead holder…

I might get that thing that’s like… thicker than a lead holder, with pastels for lead, I think? hmmm, I dunno… I do this more, comic-like style so maybe using pencils is just something I should stick with…

 

[Lavender]

Hello~

Photo update

 

I dunno, these aren’t really exciting me enough to feel like I want to post them here. I guess i just need to use different photo resources. I plan to go through this video set a few more times, but I’m also planning on making a software program to give me a randomized slideshow for this purpose. Because I haven’t been able to find a program like that from the internet. Which seems… really bizarre. Because it seems like something a lot of people would want. So like… if you know of one, please let me know. But I want to code one myself anyway, for coding practice, but still.

[Author]

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