This is so important to get right that if you're failing to get these concepts,
every skill down the line is gonna suffer.
This is the Drawing Basics course and right now we're learning about gestural
shapes.
It's hard but it's one of the most important things to learn if you're
drawing people or animals, anything that moves.
The course is at proko.com slash drawing.
So, we're drawing gestures but not of people.
And if you saw the thumbnail, you know it's seals.
No.
Seals.
When you're starting out learning how to draw gestural shapes, all the anatomy,
all the muscular bumps can be a big distraction.
And so, I found that starting with seals allows us to focus on all those same
important concepts that we need to draw dynamic people.
So, as I do this, I'm gonna make sure I'm focusing on the gesture, I'm not focusing
on the outlines.
That's a big, big issue here is when you start outlining, you are no longer
focused on the flow, the energy through the pose.
Instead, you're looking and you're copying lines and that's not good.
Using my whole arm, starting with the head.
I just want to make sure I have a good foundation before I start darkening it.
There's a lot of pinching going on in here.
Essentially, we have something like this where the head is pointing up and then a
very sudden
curve like that.
That's kind of the action line.
Having this gesture, I'm gonna look at the shapes and try to make them dynamic.
It's already kind of dynamic here but what else can I do?
One thing I'm noticing is that with this chest in here, he's kind of pushing his
chest up and forward, like the momentum's going upward and so it would definitely
help if I make sure that the apex here is pretty high up.
I might even exaggerate that.
Okay, so this section to me looks like an interesting shape.
And I'm thinking of I think one, two, three, four, five sections going down
throughout the body plus the flipper.
What I mean is like the head is one shape, right?
One little section.
Then you have the top of the body as another section.
Then you have this part as another section.
Then you got the tail.
And then you could even consider this hind flipper as another little section,
right?
So, I'm trying to now figure out how can I have, how can I design these shapes so
they're not boring, right?
Like I don't want this
section to just be like this bloated snowman.
That's what I'm trying to avoid as I design those specific contours of the
outside.
So, I want to make sure that there's tension in this corner.
I want to make sure that I'm preventing symmetry through these sections.
So, I have this part, this apex really high up.
So, let's make this one a little bit lower, right?
Like right in here, this is already kind of nice.
Like I have the head and then from there, let's keep this gesture flowing this way
and then have this poke out a little bit lower.
So, right here.
So, now I have this to this to this, okay?
Moving on to this section down here, that's where the apex is.
So, like here.
So, down to here and then probably something here and then that goes out to
the tail.
So, somewhere in here we're gonna have another one or we don't really need to
have another bump.
We could say that this section is actually more
Kind of straight.
We want the energy to flow pretty fast through there.
Okay, and then in here, to add a little bit of tension...
Add that fold and I think I don't usually add details but when it adds so much to
the gesture, it's not a detail.
It's an important part of the gesture.
I don't want to just create a little triangle, that's not very dynamic.
What I do see is the motion, the energy flowing right back in this way.
So, there's several ways I could have designed this shape but this feels nice.
And then this front flipper, not much of a difference from my original design.
Maybe just I do see a lot of tension in here from the wrinkles and I kind of like
that.
I added a tiny detail in here as well.
Do you notice how I'm pushing a really strong turn in here and then
transitioning out through the rest of this?
It's kind of acting like what the chest is doing here where this is pushing the
chest this way, there's energy flowing that way.
Same thing is happening here where this little thing is like an arrow that points
this way.
And then occasionally, I'll add a few little details in the head and usually, I
try to add details that help with the gesture.
Like the whiskers help to keep this flow going this way, right?
And then the eye also helps with the gesture.
Okay, so I feel like this is good enough of a little gesture study.
I like that shape, it's dynamic, clearly showing stretching here, tension here.
Not flowing back this way, there's some tension here and I didn't do any
exaggeration in this one.
I've tried to stay pretty close to what I'm seeing.
For the next several, I'm going to try to push things.
I generally, when I'm doing gesture drawings, I try to push the gesture by
letting go of accuracy.
And looking for exaggerated motion, it helps me identify the gesture more.
It helps me focus on the gesture versus the contour.
Because it's like if you're not going for accuracy, then you're not copying the
shapes anymore and so your brain just kind of gets out of that zone of just
trying to follow the contours.
I'm going to do another real crazy intense one and then in the next one,
I'll do one that's much more subtle.
By the way, you can grab all the reference photos from the Downloads tab
of this project, watch the other lessons from the course and you'll get a really
good foundation for your drawing fundamentals.
So, with this one, the flow that I'm feeling is like the head's going this way
and it rounds out and kind of goes like this.
This is a very sudden turn and so there's going to be the most tension back on the
other side, right?
Super lots of pinch going on here.
Crazy turn means the stuff that's being pinched in between these two masses that
are coming together, the stuff in between needs to be crunched together and so
you're getting a lot of that pinching kind of creasing going on.
Let's get the head shaped flowing this way.
The neck flowing this way, then real sudden, see how that shape is pointing
that way?
It makes it look like his chest is going... It's like...
Moving in this direction.
So, even though his head is pointing this way, it totally feels like his body is
going that way.
And that a lot of that is happening because of this shape of the chest in
here.
It's also supported by the flipper kind of pushing against the ground in the
opposite direction, pushing his body this way.
So, a lot of these shapes are part of the same story and this is what I mean by
like feeling the energy.
It's like pushing against something here which pushes his body here and then
there's twisting going on and bending and all sorts of stuff that where energy is
kind of flowing through.
So, being able to just feel these and execute them with the way you design your
shapes, that's what we're practicing and it's not easy.
Like you're gonna
Be confused and you're gonna have to try things and you might have to do some of
these poses multiple times and try out, you know, pushing the shapes in a
different way and see what feels better, what feels more dynamic.
If you have to redo a drawing because it just feels kind of stiff or you just want
to try a different way of doing it, like
Go for it, like don't feel like you have to do the right drawing every single
time.
You know, you're practicing getting to the point where you could do your
masterpieces.
These are just seals, like mess them up.
And then there's just so much tension going on.
The more you push these, the more of this rippling you're gonna have to create.
Well, not rippling, the creasing you'll have to create.
Okay, now the danger here is just to like draw a ball.
I mean, I guess it's not dangerous, like cool, like that's still fine, like a
circle.
But I could try to look for where that energy is going in the back and I'm
feeling like a corner here would show motion that way.
I mean, you see how like how three-dimensional it starts to look when
you add all these creases?
Because
These creases are also overlaps.
It also says this is in front of this, is in front of this, is in front of this.
And when you say three things in a row are receding towards the back, naturally
you're creating depth.
So, this gesture which shows tension is also
Creating three-dimensionality.
We're going to be doing a lot more stuff like this when we get into like intuitive
perspective and we're creating three-dimensional blobs.
Right now, we're going for more of a dynamic shape mindset where
It's okay if they don't look three-dimensional but it just kind of
happens anyway.
And again, we just created a very organic shape.
Like if you just forget that this is a seal slash sea lion, it's like what is
that blob?
Like it's so weird looking but you cannot deny that it looks like it's moving,
right?
Like it's a totally a blob that's like doing this sort of thing.
It's moving, it's got tension, it's got energy, it's got motion.
So, that's good.
That's what we're going for here.
Okay, the next thing in here is I cannot forget about this flipper because like I
said, it's pushing against the ground in the opposite way and I think it totally
supports this forward motion in this chest.
And so, I got to make sure that the shapes
And I also think that this very sudden turn here is important because it kind of
implies like it's touching the ground, that like this flipper is going in and
then it suddenly has to change because it like is pushing against the ground.
And then on the other side, you kind of have the same thing and what I like to do
when I have two things
on opposite sides of a body.
So, I like to first look for a rhythm between the two and I'm totally seeing it
here, right?
Like from here, you could imagine a rhythm, right?
A rhythm is just a thing that connects two different things.
A line or a curve or whatever that connects two different things in the
space of your drawing and it totally connects in here.
And it's kind of hard to see but I'm gonna just design it to support this idea
of a sudden turn as it hits the ground.
I'm gonna just create this shape.
All right, a few details just to say this is animal.
It's time to bring it up a notch and draw seals from imagination or memory.
You don't have to draw it exactly like what you remember.
You can just kind of start it off and then start pushing the shapes a little
bit more towards just looking interesting because you're not going to remember it
perfectly.
The things that you do that are a little bit wrong from the previous one or from
the photo will change things up a little bit and so you will need to make some
other decisions about how to design things in order to make your new thing
look better.
And while you're doing this, just try to exaggerate a little bit more, like have
some fun with it.
Since you're not trying to be accurate, just push it, see how far you can go.
Okay, so I'm gonna try to remember that first one that I did.
It was a side view, his chest was pushing out, lots of tension in the back because
of the pinch.
It was like this, there's definitely like an S curve through the tail, this sort of
thing going on.
And I'm gonna actually, instead of pushing the head up, I'm gonna try to
make him a little bit more like a little solid where the chest is going out more.
Kind of like a little confidence seal.
Yeah, look at that.
That looks pretty cool.
So this, continuing the motion of this, S curve and then from here, another S
curve.
Also, do I like this shape?
I'm not really sure.
It kind of steals some attention from this.
There's something better that we could do here.
Maybe instead of coming in this way, we could go this way.
I don't know if I like it better but let's just go with it.
There's definitely a very strong pinch in here.
Yeah, by kind of lifting this up or sending this towards the back away from
us, it also kind of makes it feel like he's kind of falling this way, so this
supporting him is very useful.
Maybe even another one.
So, I haven't really talked about the idea of a complicated side and a more
simple side or at least in the level one video or demo, I didn't really mention it
at all.
Mainly because I felt like it didn't matter as much as trying to funnel the
energy in the right way.
But now, when we're inventing and designing, you do have to think about
that a little bit.
Like I totally want to make this a little bit more simple than this front side
where the face is going to be, the chest is pushing forward.
This should be more interesting.
This popping out adds more interest, adds more activity and just detail in this
area.
Now I'm thinking that three overlaps, so many pinch points all throughout.
Maybe not the best idea.
Maybe make it a little bit more subtle.
I could have a little overlap but just not so dramatic.
Just that alone tames this area, makes it a lot more of an area of rest.
It's just kind of like a little box.
I like that flat line, it supports this flat horizontal.
This makes him very stern, very serious.
It's like he's on guard.
And then last time, I remember using the whiskers to kind of send them down but
the energy was a little very different.
It was much more curvy and up flowy.
Now, it's like boom, boom.
So, that energy is totally different in here.
If I have them just going, it kind of relaxes that area a little bit.
I like that.
This shape is bothering me.
It's the same overlap repeating twice.
Kind of boring.
So, it's a more subtle approach.
It works.
If you want to see the extended edition of all my lessons from the Drawing Basics
course, head over to proko.com slash drawing and get the full course.
I have premium only lessons, warm-ups, demonstrations, projects and critique
videos.
A lot of my students from this course are saying that they are improving faster
than they have ever before.
Again, that's over at proko.com slash drawing.
See ya!
I'll see you next time!