Hey, guys. My name is Stan Prokopenko. Welcome to Proko. This is the second critique video
on the spine. If you haven't seen the spine lesson yet, go ahead and click the link in
the description, or just go to this link here. So all right, let's just go ahead and get
started on the critiques.
The first critique will be for Alejandro Ferrera Hernandez. He submitted these two, or two
images of four drawings, and they're actually pretty nice. I like that they are clean and
looks like the spine is generally correct. The biggest thing that stands out to me, the
first thing I noticed, was the distance between the rib cage and the pelvis. So you have this
distance in here, between the bottom of the rib cage and the top of the pelvis, that much.
I would say you can cut that in half. So this ribcage would start right there. Remember
that the only thing between the rib cage and the pelvis is the oblique muscle. You can
think of them as the love handles, the muffin tops or whatever. And you can grab that with
one hand. And the distance that you put in there is like that much on the body, and I
can't grab that, right? So let's cut this out and move it down, so it'd be right about
there. That would be about the distance I would put in. And then, of course, you would
clean up that lumbar spine.
Okay, so watch out because you did the same thing on this one and same thing on this one.
And actually, it looks like if the rib cage connects here, you're creating that lumbar
spine all the way. Yeah, that's too long as well. So all four of them, the lumbar section
is just too long. So watch out for that. So I suggest you go back to the spine video and
just review the proportions of each section, the lumbar versus the thoracic, versus the
cervical, what's the proportion between those three. And that'll help you.
Okay, the next critique is for Audie Eagleheart. Let's take a look at what she got. Very nice.
Let me see here. So in this first drawing, looks like you did the same one multiple times.
All of that looks like the same pose. It looks like all of them, though, have the wrong curvature
in the lumbar area. So I'm seeing most of the curvature happening at the top three lumbar
vertebrae. And in yours, it's a smooth curve all the way through. In fact, you can continue
that smooth curve through the whole spine. And that's not what I'm seeing on this, on
the reference. And it's actually not what will happen on a real person. There won't
be much lateral bending in this thoracic section. So from here, all the way over to here, there
won't be much bending.
There will be a lot of bending in the top three of the lumbar, and there's going to
be a lot of bending in all of the cervical. And so what you're going to see is a curve
pretty extreme in the lumbar, especially at the top portion, and then pretty straight
in the thoracic, and then curved again in the cervical. So you can see, it's not one
smooth curve like this; they're in sections. Each section moves in a different way. So
keep that in mind. The second drawing you did looks like there's too much curvature
in the thoracic section. Right here you can see all this curve. I would say it would curve
about that much. Remember, the thoracic section mostly does the twisting. It can bend side
the side, forward or back a little bit, but most of that is going to be in the lumbar.
So you're not going to curve the thoracic section forward as much as you did in this
one.
On the third one, the thing I want to point out is the sacrum. It looks to me like the
top plane is at this angle. So if I was to draw a center line from the back to the front,
that's what it would look like. However, your sacrum is kind of like this, right? I'm seeing
that from your side planes. It's at an angle like that, which is actually tilted back more
than the top plane of the bucket. However, on an anatomically correct model, the sacrum
would tilt forward more, like this, okay? So if the top plane is tilted like this, the
sacrum would tilt forward like that, okay? So make sure you're not trying to point the
sacrum up in the same way as you're tilting the bucket.
Looks like you did the same thing in this one. This line from top plane and this line
for the sacrum, it's tilting back. I would make it maybe not that much, something like
that. Okay? Another thing I'm noticing for the fourth drawing, is that you just went
too thin in the neck. It's not going to taper that much. You could see in this reference
drawing that it stays pretty thick in there. Obviously, not as thick as this lumbar section,
but I think you just tapered too much. Okay, let's move on.
These drawings were submitted by Hodge Podge. Doubt that's your real name but okay. Let's
see. Oh, right. So the thing I wanted to say with these is, first of all, it's too scratchy.
So it's too scratchy for my taste. You could have cleaned them up a little bit, but the
other thing I wanted to say is the cross contour lines you're putting on the spine could be
a little bit more clear and more accurate. So for example, with this one here at the
bottom, looking at this guy, the cross contour line right there that you put, suggests that
the spine is pointing directly at us. As if this cylinder... Actually I fixed it a little
bit, almost a full circle.
You're suggesting that this cylinder is pointing away from us, almost completely away. It's
almost a perfect circle. What it was really doing, is it's curving forward just a little
bit. And actually, in this section, it's transitioning from curving this way, and curving this way.
So it's probably going to be just a straight line, or if anything, maybe a very, very narrow
cylinder, or a very narrow ellipse like this. So if you're seeing a little bit of the bottom
plane, that cylinder would look like this, right? Very flattened ellipse at the bottom
suggests that we're looking at the rounded portion of the cylinder.
If you do a very round ellipse, it's suggesting that we're looking at the cap, and that it's
pointing away from us. So in here, basically instead of drawing a circle, you would do
something like this, right? In here, for these two guys, you have the right idea. The flatness
of the ellipse should be about that much. We're looking right at the caps; it's facing
away from us. However, it's the angle of the ellipse that's wrong in this one. This one
looks good, but this one is now angling this way for some reason. It should be just angling
this way. It should be perpendicular to the long axis of the spine.
So let's say we have... I'll just draw it bigger on the side. Let's say this is the
spine in that cervical section. So that's this entire area. You've got this one correct,
but then in here, you did this, curving this way. Since the long axis is this angle, the
perpendicular oval would be this, okay? So just watch the angle and the flatness. Really,
when you're doing a cylinder, there's only a few things you need to make sure you get
right: the ellipse of the caps, make sure that the angle is correct, and make sure that
the flatness or roundness is correct. The other thing, is that you just make sure that
you connect the top and bottom with straight lines. And there you go, you've got a cylinder.
Not many things to look for in a cylinder, so make sure when you draw a cylinder, that
all those things are correct. Okay, let's move on to Juan Pablo Lopez Arenas.
So what I wanted to say on these, is actually something I see a lot of people doing, and
that's the connection of the lumbar section to the pelvis, or to the sacrum, really. It
should connect to the sacrum, but you're connecting it to the pelvis, to the bucket of the pelvis.
And what I mean by that is, let's say in this one for example, the middle one, the center
line is right about there, I guess. And so you're putting the connection of the spine
right in the middle, which tells me that you're connecting the lumbar spine to the top plane.
You're ending it right there. Let's say if we're just looking directly at the pelvis
from the front, it'd just looks like this, right? It's a bucket. We're looking right
at it.
You are connecting the spine right there. You're ending it right at the plane. That's
not the case. The spine actually goes about one third of the way down. So if you divide
into three parts, it's going to go all the way down here. And it's not going to face
up; it's going to tilt forward. Because remember, the sacrum tilts towards the front plane a
little bit. Maybe I'm tilting it too much in this angle. And so the spine, we will see
an ellipse for the bottom cap, because from the side, we're seeing this for the lumbar
section. So always make sure that when you're drawing it through, you go past the top plane.
It might look like the spine is no longer in the middle. It'll look like it's off set
to the left, but that's just going to be an illusion. You can draw a line if you want,
to indicate that you're just extending it a little bit farther. So I'm seeing that being
true for all of yours, all six of these.
The other thing I want to point out is in this one, you lost the foreshortening effect.
You gave it too much distance between the rib cage and the pelvis. And I don't see that
as a reoccurring issue with yours. So I think you understand the distance between them,
you just messed up because of foreshortening. So let's say, back to the bean lesson from
the figure drawing course, you've got the rib cage and the pelvis, and they're just
stacked right on top of the other. If we were all of a sudden to jump up and look down at
the bean and the pelvis, they would overlap. You would get the rib cage here and the pelvis
behind it, because now we're looking up and this is the top. Let's say this is the North
Pole of the rib cage. And we would see this sort of thing. So that's what you lost in
this one. There should be an overlap between the bucket and the rib cage, okay?
The next one is for Nick. Okay, I apologize. Nick Kulynycz, Kulynycz. The only thing I
actually wanted to point out with Nick's, is how he posted this on Facebook, this image.
And then in the comments, I told him what to correct. He said, "Okay, I'll fix it."
And then he posted the same thing with the corrections. So he went back and he actually
fixed it. He worked on the mistakes. I just wanted to point that out as an example of
somebody that's practicing in the right way.
If you watched my video on Deliberate Practice, The Secret to Getting Good Fast, I talk about
how important it is not just to do a lot of drawings, but to do drawings, analyze them,
find the mistakes, and then redo them correctly. If you just keep doing the same things wrong,
you're not really going to get better. You're just going to reinforce the same mistakes.
So it's very important to correct the mistakes, especially when somebody in the community
points it out, and somebody that is trustworthy, somebody you think is giving you good advice.
Go and fix it. It'll show that you're serious about it, and it'll help you improve. So thank
you, Nick, for setting a very good example.
Raphael Ventura, very nice, very nice drawings. I think you can push the gesture more. I think,
very noticeable on this one, you can see how it really pushes back in here. You can see
a straight forcing the upper back this way, and then this really curving back this way.
And so this curve, this really extreme curving in here is important for the gesture. What
I feel you did was straighten things out a little bit. You see how this goes up and then
this goes over? So this one, I guess the top portion of yours is fine, because it's very
horizontal. But then I feel like you needed to push the spine out more so that it's out
like this, and then it can go back in to the pelvis to really show the roundness of that
spine.
With this one, the same thing; it's the gesture. Your spine looks almost like a straight line,
right? This is a straight line from the top to the bottom, and it almost matches your
spine. When I look at this, the gesture I'm seeing is like that. Now, the thoracic section
doesn't curve out like that; it curves the other way. But the gesture, the motion throughout
the entire spine is like this. This points that way, this points that way, whereas your
gesture indicates more of just this. So what I would do is make the cervical section more
horizontal up to here, and then the thoracic will obviously curve a little bit more this
way. And then the lumbar will really curve like this. And so that will show more of that
curve, more dynamic gesture. All right, guys, thank you very much for joining
me. Thank you for all who submitted your assignments. And thank you for all of you participating
in the course. I am really enjoying this course so far. It's very difficult, there's so much
stuff to cover, but it's a challenge I'm really enjoying. And it's great to have such a good
community of students to teach this to. So thank you very much for being there for me.
I'll see you next time. Bye, bye.
That's it. Thanks for watching, If you're enjoying the course, don't be all selfish.
Tell your friends. And if you want to subscribe to the Proko Newsletter, go to proko.com/subscribe.
Bye, bye.