Words, Art & Science by Anthony Francis
So apparently fingers look longer from the back of the hand (dorsal side), where the webbing between the fingers is lower than the joins of the fingers themselves, and the palm looks longer from the front of the hand (palmar side), because the webbing obscures the roots of the fingers. Who knew?
Mr. Goldman, that's who. Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Quick sketch of a young woman with GREAT hair - I'd say almost Cinnamon-style hair, if there hadn't been a woman with almost EXACTLY Cinnamon's bi-colored hairstyle at the same Barnes and Noble about a week ago - whom I decided to sketch after finishing my last drawing.
She moved too fast through the store to get a really good picture, and from where I was sitting it was hard to see what she was looking at, but I think you've got to go beyond just drawing from practice books and start drawing from life, or you're just regurgitating other people's drawings, like an AI.
And I like AI, but regurgitating other people's drawings is NOT why I am drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Thank you, Mr. Goldman, for sharing this mnemonic for understanding the lengths of the parts of the hand. This has helped me more than anything I can think of to understand how the hand works and how to draw it. Knowing that the length of the fingers is half the length of the hand - and that the knuckles of the middle finger are half that, and half that again - has taught me more about the hand than anything I can think of.
Also, and not explicitly said in your breakdown - but something anyone can confirm, by placing one hand over the other at a 90 degree angle, or placing the middle finger over the back of the opposite palm - your diagram taught me that the WIDTH of the hand is half the LENGTH of the hand. This has been equally useful in setting proportions so, again, Mr. Goldman ... thank you.
-the Centaur
Me drawing from yet another Midjourney character sheet for Porsche. Misproportioned, and I am still having trouble on the eye placement and face proportions, something I've seen on a fair number of old drawings; once I finish the hands and feet book I think it's probably time to go back to practicing faces.
This certainly is rendered better, but if you look closely at the edges of the hair, especially where it meets the armor, it doesn't make too much sense. Oh well, it's still inspirational.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Ya know, I actually am starting to get a little bit of what's up with the anatomy of the arm. Huh.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Which is not actually true at all. What I am ACTUALLY doing in "drawing every day" is drawing several day's worth of drawings all at once, then posting them one at a time, trying to keep a large enough buffer that I am always drawing when I have time to sit down and really draw, and am not scrambling to sketch at 2AM.
More Goldman studies. Drawing sort of every day, at least rate-wise.
-the Centaur
More drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Again after Goldman. Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Moar moar arm anatomy, after Goldman.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Again from Goldman. You know, I've noticed that in a sense I've become less ambitious this year: when I look back at the early DED posts, I see things like the following - Dad drawn on toned paper:
Or this, done on my Wacom Cintiq and Photoshop:
But the more methodical approach I'm taking this time seems to be having more effect on my drawing skill: I feel more confident about some of the things that I'm drawing, even if they are less ambitious.
So, I think I'm going to keep up the methodical approach and hope it goes somewhere! Wish me luck.
Drawing Every Day.
-the Centaur
More Goldman studies.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Still more Goldman studies. Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Another Goldman study. Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Even more Goldman studies.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
As it says on the tin. More when the Internet is back up.
-the Centaur
This time, I'm using one of my own drawings as a reference, the old "Stand Your Ground" t-shirt image, for which I recently found a scan of the original art from WAY back in the day (the scan was a BMP, !):
This is from 1997 (!). In some ways it's cruder; in other ways it benefits from the larger aspect ratio (I suspect this was done on 8.5x11 paper, or even larger). But my little notebook has been helping me draw every day:
And so: drawing every day. Onwards.
-the Centaur (the author one)
My rendering of the last pose from the DALL-E character sheet for Porsche:
Not entirely terrible, though I can see my proportions are a bit cartoonish. These systems can't take art direction yet - I had to clean the character sheet up in Photoshop to really make it suitable, and even then the middle pose should have had the legs more spread apart, which it tried to do erroneously on the right-hand pose with a fifth leg - but they sure can render the heck out of an image.
-the Centaur (the author one)
Drawing another angle of Porsche from the Midjourney-produced character sheet. Not terrible.
-the Centaur
Another sketch of Porsche, this one based on a "character sheet" I generated with Midjourney based on my own character descriptions. Yes, yes, I understand there are many issues with AI art generators, some of which are real and some of which are not; my own writing has been used to train large language models, I know artists who have been discouraged from art by generative AI, and I expect the use of these systems for final product will be very disruptive. HOWEVER, there are some things which AI generators can do which can't be feasibly done by any other method - such as producing character sheets for your own practice.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I managed to convince ChatGPT / DALL-E to cough up the above "centauress in a spacesuit" drawing after many iterations, then got it to transform that image into the following character sheet of Porsche from several different angles:
It ain't perfect - note she has five legs on the right, and the perspective differences aren't really that well done - but it's close enough for me to use these as reference as I do my own drawing practice, shown at the very top. Seeing these "drawings" gives me new perspectives on how to render my own ideas at a higher level than I can currently do, enabling me to bootstrap my artistic skills.
There's a long way to go for AI generated art to be able to respond to art direction - but it is helping me chart a new direction in my own art, which is great, because if I can draw it, I can then art direct myself.
Onward!
-the Centaur
A foreshortened arm. Not ... terrible; could be better.
-the Centaur
