Character process

As I continue to muddle my way through learning to draw one of the things I'd like to keep track of is how my method for drawing people changes.  I've read about a few different approaches, but the one I like the most is the construction method from Andrew Loomis.

I like the concept of building up from a basic skeleton to the final image.  I don't follow it exactly as it's laid out in that book though.  Some of the steps seem to require a lot of work and don't seem to help me a lot so I pare them down quite a bit.  Essentially I've slowly been building my own process using the Loomis method as a base.

I've been doing a few drawings of a character named Lawrence Danforth for an upcoming adventure in the Hollow Earth Expedition RPG.  I had it in mind to do a drawing of him holding a machete and have a rifle slung over a shoulder as he walked.  Nothing too fancy, shows the character and lets me run through my current process for drawing people.

As Loomis suggests I start with a gesture sketch that shows the pose the character is in.  It lets me setup basic proportions and get a feel for where everything will be positioned in the final drawing.  I use a pencil with either 4H or 6H lead in it.  This makes it difficult for the lines to get too dark, and since these are just guides they shouldn't show up in the final.  Unfortunately this also makes the lines tough to see in the photos.

At this point Loomis suggests you start building up the major muscle groups.  This is one of the steps I either skip, or do far less detail than suggested.  It certainly can be useful in making the final drawing more realistic, but that's not really what I'm going for in my drawings.  I like the characters to be slightly cartoonish, particularly when I'm sketching an RPG character.

Skipping the muscles does mean that I don't get a good sense of volume for the figure.  The gesture sketch skeleton could fit just about any body, so I need some other guide to help give some bulk to the character.

To accomplish this I add a geometric frame that represents a broad chest connected to a smaller waist.  It won't really pass for a person but it gives me some sense of depth for the character.  I'll just carve some curves into this shape to build a more realistic torso.  I only do a shape for the torso, arms and legs are essentially cylindrical and this is something I'm comfortable doing without any more guide than the gesture sketch lines.

This seems to work well with male characters, but not so well on women.  Guys do well when drawn very angular, so building from a geometric shape does the job.  Girls need graceful curves, which are difficult for me to build out of these shapes.  I'm still working on a reliable method for creating the female form.

Once this is done I've got all the guides I need for the body.  I go over the whole thing with a kneaded eraser  to make the lines even more faint.  Leaving them just dark enough I can see them, this is faint enough that in the final drawing they'll be invisible.

Next I'll grab an HB pencil and start drawing in the major shapes.  Arms, legs, torso, shoes, and a few details go in.  I typically use a mechanical pencil for this just so I don't have to fuss with sharpening too much.  I try to remind my self that I'll likely need to correct these lines so keep them light.  Despite this I'll still make the lines a little too dark and end up smudging things when I have to erase portions later on.

The picture I have on here doesn't show it, but I draw all of both arms.  Even though a portion of the upper left arm will be hidden I'll still mark it in.  I'm never quite sure how much will be hidden or shown, so I just draw it all and erase whatever can't be seen.

At this point I'll take a look at the image and see how the proportions are holding up.  In this case, it's not too bad.  Though I have some concerns about where that left hand will be.  I had intended for the rifle to be on his back, and the strap was looped over his thumb.  Right now it looks like the hand will be too high for that strap.  I don't want to fix it, perhaps he'll be lifting the gun off his back to get it ready to fire instead.

More detail goes in.  Add a face, put in the hands, and clean up the lines from before.  You might notice that I moved that left arm to a new position.  I could not at all get the hand to look right, for some reason I hated all my attempts to get the thumb and fingers to look like a strap belonged in them.  Rather than struggle with it I lowered his arm and put a piece of paper in the hand, could be a map or directions to some treasure.

This shouldn't be the end of this picture.  There ought to be some creases in the shirt and pants, or at least some wrinkles in the elbow and knee joints.  The paper in his hand needs something on it to explain why he has it as well.  I had planned to attempt to color this and have another try at colored shading.  None of that happened.  I looked at the picture and decided it just wasn't working.  The arms looked to thin for the muscular guy I had in mind, the pants looked skin tight on him, and the shoes looked to be at the wrong angle, etc.

I could probably fix a few of those issues and salvage the image, but I just can't bring myself to do it.  I'm sure it's within my skill, but the interest I had in the drawing is fading rather quickly as I continue to spot more and more things I dislike in my drawing.  I know I won't ever make a drawing that I consider perfect, and have come to accept that I'll always see flaws in my work.  However, some pieces, like this one, reach a point where all I see are flaws.  Once it gets to this point I'll never be able to fix it.  I've tried on other sketches and even the fixes I'll find problems with.  I suppose the passion for the drawing has faded away, or something like that.  Regardless, I've learned that it's best to just turn to a clean sheet in my sketchbook and try again another night.