Anthony Becker - Sketchbook

Very nice. Are you drawing a model / looking at a skeleton when you did these?

Thanks! Yup all of these so far were done with a reference. The horse skeleton is from a book called "An Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists" that I study from time to time.

Couple more, did this male figure this morning as part of my daily drawings.

Not bad.  It does look like your proportions are a little squashed, but it's hard to see the detail, especially with the woman reference included, and compare.  Feel free to leave it the default image size; it'll resize automatically when you submit.

What's your process?  How do you draw, break down the model, etc?

Thanks, my process is pretty much straight from Glenn vilppu videos if you know him. A gesture to basic shapes and forms then add detail. When you say the proportions are squashed are you just referring to the one with the reference photo or all of them? 

Also thanks for the tip on images I’ll keep that in mind from now on. 

No, sorry, I don't know him.  I'll definitely take a look now!  Always looking for different viewpoints.

I think all of them are squashed proportionally.  For something in a fairly neutral pose like the woman standing, she should be about 7 heads tall, and she's roughly 6 heads.  I think the torso is alright, just the legs are missing a head length.  Men are about 7.5 heads tall.  Again, it's hard to tell on those sized images.  But yeah, looks like torso up you have decent proportions, but the legs are missing some length.  Take a look at yourself, find the general proportional relationship.  Your legs are about twice the length of your torso, same with your arms from shoulder to fingertip.  In fact, from shoulder to wrist might be similar in length from hip to ankle.  Make some rough comparisons; find the relationships.  You are your best reference.

when you speak of 7.5 heads to 8 heads tall you are talking stylized super hero types not normal everyday people who are normally 6 to 6.5 heads tall...

I'm sure it really varies based on the model and style. But I have heard and read 7-7.5 being about average. Maybe I really distorted the images without knowing? I took your advice to heart and examined my figures with some digital overlays of head lengths. From what I can tell these are give or take right about 7 heads. I was a bit short, maybe a quarter head length by using the same ellipses over the reference image. The male figures were 7 for the first one, and 4 for the second (only down to the waist). I'd have to dig to find their ref pics again to compare to the real life figure. So I should probably just elongate my figures a little more. Thanks I really started thinking harder about proportions and how to make sure I'm hitting the mark in my process more.

Edit: Hope these pics arent too huge, I was just trying to not distort them. Still a bit of a noob around these parts lol.

Edit 2: But the circles do show that the second womans hand is crazy small....which I already knew cus it drove me crazy and I fixed it on the physical drawing. Gotta love sharing your mistakes with the internet.

Yes, I'm aware of this.

Hmm, well then maybe I'm mistaken.  It helps to double check, though.  And of course, it will greatly vary from person to person.  Using head length is a good estimate to start with, so just find the head length and then find the body length with heads.  Chibi style is much different than super hero style.

As for reducing distortion when taking photos, a scanner would be the most optimal way to go, but for photos there's software for that, or try having the camera farther away from the object and zoom in.  I think that'll work.  You want to look for straight lines in the image to help reduce the fisheye distortion.  Give it a try and see if it helps.

Looking forward to more!

Fashion figures are usually 10 heads tall. While 7 is generally the norm, using reference is key or all your figures end up looking like the same body type. 

My 2 cents on hands is to avoid having them too flat with every finger equally visible, curled fingers will seem like a more natural pose. 

@silentheart00 Yea that's generally what I do, start with a arbitrary head shape and eye the figure from there based on a line of gesture. Of course refining it based on how long I actually put into the drawing. As for the photos, yea I should probably just stick to scanning things from now on. Also thanks, I hope to add more soon. 

resin213 Yea and I've seen some interesting proportions, up to like 12 heads. Guess it all comes down to what you're trying to portray. As for these they're all done from model references so they should be landing right around that average 7-7.5 range. But yea, I really needed to remember that the hand is about the size of the face. But definitley learning so thats good.

Alright, cool.  Sounds like you have a good flow on things.  Keep on chugging!

Male sketch I did today, probably 30 ish mins. not sure didn't keep track of time. 8 heads tall. 

Yeah, this one looks better than the others.  Hand is a little more relaxed, shading's pretty good, understanding of underlying muscles is there.  Maybe the legs are still a bit short, but that's my taste.  Maybe all the references I've been using were tall legged people and I just haven't thought about it until now lol.

Good stuff.  Keep going!

Part of my daily drawing exercise I try and hold myself to (I don't post them necessarily). They are figure drawing videos that give you a series of poses starting at 1min then 2, 5, etc. So the focus is mainly gestural and trying to develop a simple process to get the basic forms down. Defintley made mistakes but I've learned a lot and have a lifetime to keep doing so. They are also meant to be very rough, I kinda draw overlapping figures in some places to cram more reps onto the page within the time.

Edit: Also I hope its chill to just keep posting stuff. It kinda helps me keep consistent because I can visually see a progession of drawings.

By all means, keep posting!  If it helps to keep you going, then do it.  I'm enjoying seeing different studies you do, and it's piquing my curiosity to watch those videos more so.

silentheart00 Thanks! If you're interested look up New Masters Academy. Its kinda like a CGC for traditional art. I've learned so much from there. 

Also did this one today. I accidentally went a day without drawing and regressed a little but I'm trying to keep the reps up. 

I'll check them out!

Not bad!  Got some good muscle definition.  I think you should split your focus between hands and bodies, as your hands are the weakest point right now.  Hands are hard, but you'll get there.  Head might be a touch small, but that's just me.

You're right on all accounts. Head is too small and I dont even take my hands past a block in. I need to focus on hands, feet, and heads really.