#25 - Pose study 7 (yeah my titles are original, huh)

Today I flitted through several of these artbooks I have until I happened upon a proportion model I could work with. The book in question, should you wonder, is Gary Lippincott's Illustration Techniques for Artists. Page 60-61, Movement. There I found a simple stick figure that is actually quite more than just that, because within it I could see certain proportions, and a straightforward way to try and reproduce these proportions accurately.

Better yet, to try and understand them. So I experimented with that stick figure to try and find a proportion model, and to create for myself a methodical process to finding the correct proportions for my little figures. The result:

I numbered the figures for chronology's sake.

1. The main realization here, which I know about but somehow never applied, is that the chest area is about as long as the character's head (hence the head copy). Elbows come to the waist, with both arm parts of similar length. Hand-circles I made too small, so I daresay it's not so much a matter of arms too long but legs too short. This threw off my calculations for the legs, and makes them feel off.

2. A retry. I'd say the head's a bit too small, but I rounded it, so. I do think the waist is too short (I'll be taking a ruler to that book to have exact measurements <<), but globally I started to understand things there.

3. Four arms due to CSP deciding to create a new arm through rotation rather than just rotate the existing one << so I ran with it. Good test of arm proportions, too. Though I think the legs are too long, I can live with it << Basic proportions seem pretty right. Forearm to thigh proportion: elbow to fingertips = upper thigh to knee (at least on my body). I think it's the case there, though I'll admit I didn't pay attention to this specific proportion << (and elbow to fingertips = knee to ankle).

4, 5, 6. Experiments of proportion and movement. I realized I didn't have to have the chest area turned in such a way to fit the movement: I can just draw it in a frontal manner for proportion's sake, and alter this during linearting. It removes an unnecesary process from the working method that makes it easier for me to (try and) get working proportions.

All in all, definitely gonna have to work further this way, at least for the time being. I do need to practice proportions for a while, until correct proportions become an automatism. At least now I know I have a good book to refer to <<