FanArt: Taking too much time.

[Sagasu]

Simply put, I'm taking too much time to draw the human body. And yes, time is an issue when it comes to what I wish to do with my art.

So I'd like to ask my fellow fan workers suggestions as to how to improve on the time factor. I know, I know, its best if you know exactly what I'm doing before you can lend your aid, so thats why I've come prepared.



=From left to right you can see that I first sketch a quick wireframe, takes under a minute, depending on the pose.
=Upon these wires I hang some bones which give me a general idea of how the body is shaped. Takes a couple minutes.
=Next, taking muscle into consideration, skin is wrapped around a slightly revised skeleton. Takes a few more minutes.

I often try to go without a skeleton to start with, but all my best work has included this process. >.o


=Clean up the inside and revise a lot of the badly off anatomy, its easy to make a limb too lengthy with just the bones in place. This can take anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes.

=Design the clothes, if I dont have a costume in mind, making something satisfactory can take a _long_ time.

Having previously drawn a character before helps a lot, but after porportions and clothes design I will have allready spent anywhere from an hour and a half to two and a half fine tuning things to my liking.



=So then I detail it, design the hair, fix some lines and try to make things as symmetrical as possible. Which is annoying with armor, grawr.

So after all this I'm usually looking at some three to four hours of work, and I havent even begun to color. The detailed image may seem a bit all over the place, but I've gotten into the mode where I'm drawing lineart, since I usually color everything I draw. Colors and shading bring everything together and clarifies the details.

Point being, I'd like to be able to prepare such an image in an hours time. Half of that will be practice, half of that will be revision of the process.

So, suggestions would be awesome.

[Skuda]

try taking a life drawing class.

doing the 30 second gestures helps. having 30 seconds to do a pose really helps with the basics. it will improve the quality of your figures over shorter periods.

seem like something that could help.

[Dre_o]

Damn....that is a problem. (Good picture by the way) I too, as you know, am trying to improve my abilities so I don't know EXACTLY how I could help but, I'll try.

Perhaps you can do the first step in your mind, if not, it would probably help if you merged the first step and the second step. Otherwise, most of the other steps are pretty much essential. All you could do at that point is practice on improving you time usage but from the way you make it sound, not much more could be done.

This might help, it probably won't, OH WELL.

Dre

[Sagasu]

mm, I'd love to take a couple of courses. But I'm afraid it is a bit difficult for someone my age to take college classes. I could be entirely wrong about that, its something I do intend to look into. ^_^

30 seconds sounds fun, I'll have to try it.

Dre, I'm sure that with practice I will no longer have need for so many steps.

Obviously much exploring is in order, thank you for your suggestions. I wish to retain and improve the quality of my work, not just be able to spit it out faster. It'll be interesting to see if both can be done together.

[Zarode]

Sagasu, if this is your first time drawing this character, it will talk you a while. It's just a thing for you to get adjusted to. I know when I draw new characters or same characters in different armor/clothing/etc, it takes me a little while longer then characters I'm used to drawing.

Hope that helps j00 some.