Basic Principles of Drawing People from Imagination

Basic Principles of Drawing People from Imagination

“Thanks for taking this course, I’ve had a great time teaching and I’m looking forward to seeing what you all create for your final projects. Don't forget to work methodically, taking the stress out of drawing. I’d love to see the steps you took, so ideally you can share the thumbnails, the stages of the mannequin you drew, the clothing and finally the background additions. By showing everyone the steps you took, you can help others to give you better feedback. Plus it’s always nice to see how someone is working and thinking. I find the process more interesting than the final result usually!

Remember, the objective is to create your own piece of art, and draw your own people from imagination, so you don’t have to copy exactly my process. Try to create something unique and interesting to you by varying the clothing, time period, setting or movement of your scene! A great way to add variety across a scene is to vary the level of intensity in the expressions and poses. For example, with three characters, perhaps one is showing an extreme emotion and pose and therefore the other two might be more subdued. “Variety is the spice of life” as they say, so try to keep some contrasts in your image around what each character is doing. Finally, don't forget to encourage each other! One of the most powerful tools in your journey to learn to draw is working together. Sometimes a helpful thought from someone else will save you months of trying to figure things out yourself! Distil your thoughts into a simple comment that helps and can be applied easily. Something like “great job! Maybe you could increase the variety in the size of the figures next time” is helpful because it gives a clear goal for the artist to work towards. Remember when giving yourself feedback that you should speak to yourself as you would to someone else who’s trying hard! Many people are unkind to themselves with frustrated thoughts like “this is terrible, why did I do that!” - ask yourself if you’d give another person the same comments you’re giving yourself about your own work. Encouragement and self-compassion are a lot more effective than harsh criticism. I’ll be reviewing what you submit as often as I have time, but I’m also working on several other projects as a professional artist, so please be patient with me if I don’t respond immediately! Also, if in addition to the Domestika community, you want to share your creation with the whole world, you can upload photos of your work and process to Instagram with the hashtag #TomFoxDrawsDomestika See you soon in the forum! ”

Partial transcription of the video

“Final Project Now, I'll explain how to take all these techniques and combine them into a final project using your imagination. Thanks for taking the course. I hope it's given you an insight into how to approach drawing from imagination with a little bit less stress. We started on paper and we covered form and thinking in 3D. We moved on to the simple box mannequin. Then, the advanced mannequin. We talked a little bit about silhouettes and contour lines. Finally, simple folds. We moved on to the iPad and we combined those skills and techniques to begin our final project. We began by planning...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Basic Principles of Drawing People from Imagination

• Level: Beginner
• 97% positive reviews (1225)
• 49162 students
• 4 units
• 14 lessons (2h 35m)
• 4 downloads

• Category

  Illustration

• Areas

  Artistic Drawing, Drawing, Figure Drawing, Fine Arts, Pencil Drawing, Sketching, Traditional illustration