Ali Phelps Illustration: Figure Drawing Studies, Level Up!

After a few weeks of doing a little bit of anatomy study each day, I am pleased to announce that I have improved my figure drawing! In all honesty, I had gotten pretty awful with sketching. I had been cheating my way through anatomy by throwing colors and values around on a canvas and just re-working it until it looked right. WRONG. DON'T DO THIS! It ends up taking so long to get something that looks right, nevermind that it probably isn't right. I have wasted so many hours repainting figures because something was off, but I couldn't figure out how to correct it. Instead of using that time guessing, I should have been studying more. I feel like studying is very similar to physical exercise. I have heard so often of people just starting out who exert themselves for maybe 10-15 minutes and they're tired, whiny, and frustrated. If it is done consistently however, the body adapts and allows you to improve a little bit each time.

Ever since school, I've been so against studying anatomy. I have always found it boring, tedious, and scary. After I received my portfolio review from an artist over at Riot Games (where he said I needed to really study my anatomy), I told myself this was it. There was no way I'd grow my career as a character designer or concept artist if I could not depict the human form correctly. Thus began my rigorous study. I've been doing about 1 hour of gesture drawings every morning before I start work, and then trying to squeeze in a good 3 hours of long studies throughout the week. While I haven't been happy with a lot of what I'm doing, I do see a huge improvement and would like to share that here.

OLD (a year or so ago)