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Mike Mattesi is back with part two of his Force series.
He's gonna show you guys how to use the Force sculpting line to define form and volume in
a figure drawing.
Hey everyone, welcome back.
My name is Mike Mattesi and we're looking at the second video now in this three-part
series on Force.
Today we're going to talk about form.
The first thing I love starting form off with is a very old phrase which is that "form follows
Basically what we talked about in the first video was function, right?
Function is those rhythms and forces in the body and they're gonna create balance based
off of masses getting pushed around.
Today I'm gonna try and show you how function actually therefore develops form, right?
Again it comes before the idea of structure.
Let's start with the torso, okay?
And when I have students at drawingforce.com learning how to draw on the torso, they'll
really work on that essency idea, right?
So, here we are, here's like a C torso, okay?
There's a centerline.
So, that tells us right away, okay, well, the pectoralis is probably about here...
Not that the center isn't important, but this line is really crucial and I call this line
"the turning edge", okay?
So, the turning edge in this is about right here.
It's like saying I need to know where the corner of a box is, right?
So, this is the box, the vertical turning edge just to be clearer here, is this guy.
Now, the body is mostly vertical.
So, that's the turning edge that is typically most important.
When you're drawing the figure and you start really understanding force, I usually start
students with injecting some simple form into the body and I usually do it in the torso
when we find the center and the turning edge.
Anatomically, there are lots of ways of finding the center, right?
You got the notch of the clavicle up here, you've got the sternum, you have the center
of the ribcage, okay?
So, it's like this.
Then you have the naval or belly button, right?
And then you go all the way down to the crotch, right?
And then, when it comes to the turning edge, you have the box at the top, right?
So, here's like the corners of it now, and that - I find that by understanding where
the front of the shoulder is and where the back of it is because the arm has to fit in
here, almost like a doll, right?
It's got a socket that's got to fit in there.
It's where your pectoralis starts to leave the ribcage, right?
Because otherwise, on the bottom here, it's actually adhered to the ribcage and then there's
a corner of the ribcage before it turns around the side and then finally the corner of the
iliac crest over here, right?
It's right here and it's pointing out here as well, right?
So, these are all these like key moments of finding turning edge versus natural center.
This starts to really give me a clear front to side and most, most importantly, notice
what we did; form follows function.
So, first I understood the function of the torso and then I injected form into the function.
So, that's really, really, really crucial.
There's so much drawing methodology out there that's about drawing boxes and tubes.
And it is important to be aware of that, no doubt, right?
You should know perspective...
Like I tried getting around perspective for years and when I was in school, there was
no way to get around perspective, you need to know it, but you don't want to turn the
body into boxes and tubes.
So, otherwise, you'll kill its movement and energy and function, right?
So, you want to see if you can hold on to function first and then keep trying to get
the form in there.
But first step, dealing with the torso, right?
The back is much simpler, I'll do a quick little diagram here.
So, here's the back.
There, all you've got to really focus on is the spine.
On females especially you got this like sacrum, like triangle, right?
You've got the rear end, you got the pelvis, again, the turning edge of the pelvis and
you'll have the ribcage and it takes you up the back.
So, much simpler.
Here is much more complication on the front.
Just really, really key to understand this.
If you're someone who wants to become a traditional or digital painter, right, you could see how
important that turning edge is because that is what ends up affecting light and shadow.
So, there it is, we've got form in the torso.
So, let's talk about different ways of trying to now use the force line to actually sculpt
force and have form appear.
But here's an arm with its rhythms, right?
So, this is the shoulder, the elbow and here's the wrist.
Now, the arm, I might think of it as tubes and be aware of like this like this, right?
It might be like that and here it might be like this.
But remember, I don't want to just think of it as tubes, but I'm aware of it.
I'm aware of it in my mind as I'm drawing that.
I need to understand what direction and space the structure is, right?
Really crucial.
The thing you get out of tubes and boxes is you know, are the arms coming out?
With this angle, this degree or is it going back, right?
I'm aware of how its weaving in and out of space basically, right?
To what angle.
The beginning of creating form, a really simple fast approach is what I call "wrapping" all right?
So, you're using the line, right?
You got this force line going.
It's not creating force right now, but I'm thinking about it as a form idea.
I call this "wrapping" or "mummifying the figure", right?
So, we're doing this and I'm wrapping my way around.
Now, as simple as this may seem, there's actually some really crucial rules to understand here.
You want to make sure that the ellipses that you're creating that you actually draw through
the entire structure.
So, you can see the invisible other side.
I usually try to go dark or on the front, right?
And lighter in the back.
So, it really helps the illusion of back to front, back to front.
It's like I'm going into the piece of paper and coming out at the piece of paper.
The other key thing is that it becomes perpendicular to the angle of the structure you're drawing, right?
I can't put any ellipse on here like this...
You see all of a sudden I'm like bending space, right?
It needs to be perpendicular to the structure itself.
What I mean by perpendicular is if the arm is going this way and as I create these ellipses,
I need 90 degrees right here.
You see, I need this 90 degree angle.
If I start skewing that, I'm actually turning the form on the piece of paper, right?
And I want to keep it going the same direction.
So, that's wrapping.
Oh, and last but not least, the other thing to be aware of with the ellipses is the width
of the ellipse.
So, if it's really narrow, that means that the object you're drawing is perpendicular to your eye.
It gets bigger and wider, right?
You can see the circle at the tip of the Caran d'Ache here and it gets wider, right?
Like this as it comes towards me, right?
So, all of a sudden, it starts looking more like this, you see?
So, this width gets bigger.
So, you've got perpendicularity, you've got darker in the front, lighter in the back and
you also have how wide it is.
That's wrapping, that's like the first step.
Now, what we want to do is go beyond that.
I want to try to get to this force line.
I use Charles Dana Gibson actually as an example of this.
Gibson was amazing at using the force line but it wasn't for the sake of force.
So, ironically, he was using the line but he was sculpting with it not in a forceful
way but in a structural way.
So, I'll take the top of this arm and if I were to sculpt it out, let's say here's the deltoid, right?
He would do something like this, see?
So, he's drawing the force line, notice I'm moving.
I'm actually doing little microcosms of the airplane coming in and taking off.
I'm actually coming in in motion and I'm leaving in motion.
So, this is what he would do, and he was a master at it.
Masterful, masterful.
And he would include light and shadow which I'm not doing right now, I'm just sculpting
structure, all right?
But you could see how form starts to emerge.
You can start getting a sense of this.
If it was a tube, he would do what I call "faceting".
He would take like let's say a tube and turn it into three surfaces.
So, he would say, yeah, I think this is a surface, this is a surface, this is a surface, right?
And he would sculpt along each one of those three surfaces, right?
He would say, it's going like this, it's going like this, right?
And it's going like this.
So, now we're getting a step closer; we've gone from wrapping, we're using the force
line, we're sculpting but we're not sculpting with force, right?
So, it's not really emerging from a forceful space yet.
So, let's see if we can get there.
I'm gonna sketch out our arm again very quickly here.
When we talked about the torso, we talked about turning edge.
So, turning edge would mean it's about right here.
I always think of the wrist as like two-by-four, right?
Like a piece of wood.
So, turning edge would be right there.
So, now we have top and side and they're meeting up like this.
But I want to try to start sculpting with force.
So, I have this thing that I came out with just a few years ago, I call it the "rowboat".
Imagine if you were sitting here like this now, right?
Here's a boat and you're in the boat and this is the river of force, right?
This river of movement and fluidity in the body that we're calling rhythm, and I'm sitting
here on the beach and all this force is going this way.
Well, there's a couple things I can do here; so, I can allow force to emerge by me doing
something I call "crawling in".
So, I've got the contour and I can come up and in and now I bring in with the force line,
I sculpt that surface up to the turning edge.
So, in essence, it helps say there's a division between the two surfaces, but I've created
it through movement.
Another method is with the rowboat, I want some wrapping because I want some roundness up here.
But if I were to keep pushing this boat into the river, right?
You'll see it starts to get pulled along with the water, right?
With a stream of water.
So, I'm getting some roundness out of this and I'm starting to flow into the river, right?
Let's say we have the torso...
Applied force itself is a tool for creating sculpted form because applied force usually
goes across the body; it could be the arm, the leg or the torso, but in the torso, if
I need to get from here to here, right?
That's my rhythm that I'm after, I can use applied force to come up over and around this form.
Now, in my mind, I know that I want this form to be doing this, okay?
That's like its roundness okay?
So, there's like this tubularity, there'd be a turning edge in here, right?
So, if I want to get over here, I'm gonna actually come up this side, this is a little
crawling in and I want to sculpt my way over the turning edge...
Notice the directional change, right?
And push that way, now I'm kind of pushing up because I want to talk about the roundness
of it and then that - now all pushes me into this other edge of the abdomen, the pelvis
would be like here and I can sculpt my way down like so.
So, I actually start sculpting the roundness and form of the body through force, right?
Through function and it's getting me from one place to another in the figure.
So, those are the different ways of getting form, all the way from perspective, tubes
and boxes, but you want them to bend.
You never want those tubes and boxes just to literally be tubes and boxes or you will
kill the drawing, function will be gone, okay?
You want to keep flowing and then you can use wrapping, turning edges and center lines,
make sure those boxes/tubes bend or you can go in there and sculpt with the force line,
you could do it through crawling in or the rowboat or using applied force itself alright.
So, I grab some drawings that I had done...
First of all, the best places to find form are where there's foreshortening.
If you're starting out with drawing, those are usually the trickier places and the places
everyone wants to dodge or flatten out but before shortening is your friend, right?
Foreshortening is awesome because it gives you depth and we want to try to get some roundness
out of that, right?
So, like this leg is coming out, right?
It's further away over here and closer to me in the knee, and you have to use your imagination
in this, right?
We're always drawing on these flat surfaces but you want to be aware that this is going
away and this is coming out and at what angle is it, right?
And I think of this Caran d'Ache here, I'm coming out with the leg, right?
I'm not flat, I'm not going in, I'm not parallel to my eye, I'm actually trying to come out
with a leg like this, okay?
You can see I already insinuated wrapping, I did it with the wrinkles of the skin, right?
I said okay, I'm gonna do this and wrap around.
So, I can go and keep wrapping like this and show some roundness with the leg.
I can try and show turning edge.
I happen to love turning edge because it gives real clarity very quickly but it's easy to
kill force with it.
So, you gonna be careful.
But the turning edge is a little more boxy than roundness and it really helps understand,
oh, you know, the turning edges here.
So, what am I really looking at?
I'm looking at the side of the leg versus the bottom of the leg.
It's easy here to be confused as to like am I looking at the top, the side or the bottom,
and that really just clarifies it immediately.
Or, I can try and sculpt with force, right?
So, here's the edge of the leg and I want to just say, you know what?
Force is coming from here, right?
And I want force to go up this way.
So, I can try and sculpt my way up there and try to get roundness through the applied force, right?
So, it's down here, I want to try to sculpt my way up and then get it up here.
So, I'm using - this is like I said, this is the applied force approach.
This is I think honestly the most sophisticated one because you're trying to sculpt with motion, right?
Trying to sculpt with force.
I might even have some crawling in up here, I might say well, I want the leg here but
I want this force to just be on the edge and crawl my way in like this, you see, just to
give it some roundness but direction at the same time.
So, you can see how this is starting to emerge, right?
Look at - I'm getting some really solid mass out of this but with power, right?
With force and with rhythm without killing it.
Now, the knee, would be great to know where the turning edge is, right?
So, the turning edge on this knee is probably in here somewhere.
So, that would help me if I had something like that or again, I can literally sculpt
the front end to this and say well, I want to understand the force of this leg, I wanna
understand that it's pushing this way, all right?
You know you don't even have to cover the whole surface but just by me doing this, I'm
implying that it's not just contour, its edge and I'm coming into a location and I'm pushing
my way down and then here, you have the front of the shin, turning edge would be about here, right?
It comes down.
So, it's dictating for me the clarity of the front of the leg and then I'm able to sculpt
my way in like this.
So, that's not in a cross moment, right?
That's just that one space.
In a moment like this where I'm going from one side to the other, right?
I'm pushing the force of the calf into the heel, that's where I can come over and around
and start using applied force, right?
I'm like grabbing the edge of the ankle there, I can talk about the heel and try to sculpt
my way over there like that.
So, here you go, right?
You can see how I'm using force to sculpt the leg out and still hold on to rhythm and
I'm creating form.
Here you can see what I did with the front of the chin and how I took that over the ankle
and down into the heel.
So, I'm getting form but I'm getting form from movement, right?
And that’s really key.
So, what we're gonna do is I grab this one because it has a lot of foreshortening again.
If I want force here, I can come down this side, right?
And really feel that out.
Here's a great opportunity.
Now, I know the turning edge is probably in here somewhere.
So, I'm like coming up over the top of the rear end and the hip, right?
That's like the turning edge on the back and I'm coming down the side like this and I'm
basically saying hey, force is going this way, right?
I'm like sculpting the side out of it and out of that I'm pushing the boat into the
river and then I'm coming down this side.
Here, because of what I drew over here I'm guessing that I must have said that this is
coming out slightly.
So, I'll usually grab the back of the knee, those two or three lines there are basically
me rapping just in shorter distances, right?
So, I'm gonna come in here with the knee, I think I'm just gonna crawl in here a little
bit to talk about that force and then maybe here I'm gonna try to get a little bit across
the form, right?
So, I'm thinking of the roundness, right?
There's roundness in here it's like this.
So, I want these force lines to feel like they're actually curving around the bulbousness of the calf.
And now, suddenly we have more structure and which was not as defined over here, right?
It was done more through shape.
Here you can see I've got some tubularness, some wrapping going on here.
I want this to maybe come up and over and around, right?
So, I'm like sculpting my way around.
I haven't mentioned this earlier, but notice I'm working with the Caran d'Ache now not
the German wax I was in the other video.
And the reason for that is because we're sculpting, right?
And now that I'm getting to a more refined idea, I need a smaller tool.
I can use the German wax we were using if the drawing were bigger but it's not, and
so I'm in this place of using a sharper instrument.
So, here I am, I've gone from here, I'm coming up over and around, right?
I want to sculpt the movement, I'm getting the roundness out of it, right?
I've got that roundness into the knee; the head of the knee is here.
I also need to get myself back to the calf, right?
Now, the turning edge of the calf is about right here.
Here's like the box of it.
I want to be aware of that, maybe here I'll push into a crawl in and sculpt my way down the back.
It's usually a great way, crawling in is like very, very direct way of driving force to
like the next place.
So, it's something like this.
So, here it is, right?
Here's a drawing with much more sculpting and force in it, it's still alive, we didn't kill it, right?
So, your job while sculpting is to act like a doctor; you want to keep the drawing alive
and make sure that you don't kill the drawing while you're doing all this sculpting.
That was great!
Thank you very much Mike.
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If you enjoyed this video, go ahead and check out Mike's YouTube channel or pick up his
books on the force method in the links below.
We still have part three of this series coming soon.
So, Subscribe and hit that Bell icon so you don't miss it when it comes out.
Peace!