figure drawing | The Artist's Quest

Hey there fantastic people of the world,

I’ve been working along with my self-regulated Neslon Academy of Imagination & Design curriculum! (Oh yea, I’ve got my own school.) And been posting videos sharing what I’ve been learning. I’m taking 3 courses currently:

Anatomy 101 – Drawing the Body
Anatomy 102 – Drawing the Head + Neck
Character Design 101

Each of these courses (hmmm… I think I’ll call them “books”? Or is that too weird?) is broken down into chapters, and I make a video at the completion of each chapter.

I’ve been putting out a bunch of videos and thought I’d share one from each category here. Would love to hear any feedback about what you liked and what you would change.

Anatomy 101 – Drawing the Body

I haven’t been super happy with the 2 vids I did on this so far (though the second is better). The truth is, studying each part of the body requires a more advanced knowledge than my introductory course will give me (so I’m going to do an advanced anatomy course after studying figure drawing) — for now though I have been forced to come up with ways to simplify the form and the lessen the learning curve that I think will be of benefit to other learners.

Here’s my basic way to draw the back video (including my simple 5-step method for drawing the back):

Anatomy 102 – Drawing the Head + Neck

Most of my studies of the head and neck were from watching videos by Steve Huston at the New Masters Academy online website (definitely recommend it btw).

Here’s my first video in the series that covers a bunch of different techniques to lay in the gesture and get the basic shape of your head down:

Character Design 101

I’m having the most fun with this class and especially making the videos so I’ve saved the best for last!

The idea behind this class is to study character design, especially by looking at what makes great iconic characters so memorable and just… cool!

Since I can’t assume I know which character I’ve done so far will interest you the most, I’ll share all three that I’ve posted so far:

Pikachu Character Design Study

Learn what makes Pikachu so cute and lovable, which will also help you to draw your own Pikachu!

Wolverine Character Design Study

What makes this guy instantly recognizable as a dangerous badass? And how can you make sure your characters look really tough and strong? Answers aboud in….