Todd Sumamno
As an artist, be you a budding one or a long-in-the-tooth professional, you always need drawing material. Not only that, but you need hours of practice in terms of constant drawing. Action lines, fluidity of movement, character design and technique improvement all need time and effort. The best way to improve is to keep drawing different subjects.
One of the most common options when it comes to drawing and practicing the human figure specifically, is life drawing. In contrast to still life (bowls of fruit and so on), life drawing is all about drawing people in the nude. Now, of course, you can go and people-watch in a café or a park bench if you want inspiration for character design. But to improve your actual drawing technique, life drawing is the best option.
However, finding life drawing classes is not always easy. And, it can be a bit expensive, especially if you plan on going regularly. Luckily, the internet is a great source of help, so let’s see how you can get your life drawing practice without spending too much.
Using websites
Of course, there are many websites offering a range of resources. Many of these sites have plenty of images you can look through if you want to practice drawing the human figure. You can find images of people in all sorts of positions, which can help you get to grips with the body as a whole.
You can also use different websites to influence your drawing style. Many sites will have images of other artists and the styles and techniques they use when drawing the human body. While it may seem like copying, this is actually a great way to break out of a rut. Try consistently drawing the human body in someone else’s style using their specific medium to challenge yourself, and look at the human body in a wholly different way.
Movement is key
However, using pictures as reference points for practicing drawing the human body doesn’t help entirely. This is because you miss out on the crucial element of movement. One of the best things about a life drawing class is that you’ve got a living, breathing person who can adjust their position. Especially if you’re trying to create more dynamic poses, videos are the best option as it will encourage speedier drawing, better eye-to-hand processing and more fluid lines and drawing poses.
As with static images, there are many places to find videos that can help you to do this. YouTube, for instance, is a really great place to find a lot of videos of people in strong action poses. You can practice drawing speed poses. While not the conventional way, you can also opt to look in other places for nude figures. For instance, Babestation cams is full of naked men and women, all on camera. Not only that, but the positions are constantly changing so that you have to have some skill to keep up.
Back to basics
In some instances, you may simply want to find something that can help you get started with life drawing. There are many tutorials available online to help you do just that. Look at places like Proko or Sycra for tutorials.
At the end of the day, bettering your drawing skills is all about patience and practice. You can go a long way life drawing online, but nothing really beats drawing people in person. If you want to get started, but aren’t sure about life drawing, start out by drawing those around you at home, or go to your local café to people-watch.
Brittany
