Thursday, May 26, 2011

I can draw stick figures...

A lot of crafters like to say that they've been creating since before they can remember. A few might have wielded paint brushes or safety scissors immediately after vacating their mother's womb. That's not the way it was for me. In fact, my mom told me once that when I drew when I was little my drawings were so bad that she didn't think I'd ever draw decently. Truth be told, I still can't. Well, I've improved but most of that improvement has been just in the last couple of years out of necessity. I was taking costume design 101, basically, and in order to design you have to render and in order to render you have to draw human figures with clothes on them. The amount of clothes are subjective but proper proportions are best shown by realistically proportionate human figures. Real people wear costumes and bodies come in all shapes and sizes. I had to learn how to draw fast. My first rendering took me, oh, six hours and ended up looking...erh, scary. I still have it though, it reminds me how far I've come...in two years of rendering. The proportions aren't the worst of it but the figure is a blocky 2D (if that) thing. Poor Viola, she doesn't look too well. Shakespeare might have made her dress as a man but I made clothing the least of her problems.

I just took some pictures for your viewing enjoyment and possible ridicule.

Here's poor Viola in her man-garb:
Okay, so I'd forgotten how disproportionate her hands were. Either way, we can agree it's not that great.

But, there is hope. Here's a rendering I did in advanced last year that has another Shakespeare character in a similar ensemble.
Still not that great but much better, no? It probably helped that I went for a straight on view instead of 3/4 though I can do that too now and have the same result. Sort of. I haven't been practicing as much as I should be.

Luckily, crafting and creating isn't totally dependent on drawing ability, if it were I'd be doomed. Being able to draw definitely helps though...I'm still working on it.

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