Anatomy Help?

[Clairite]

So. I've decided to put myself in the spotlight and ask for help drawing figures in flash. I've used the circle method and this is what I've got so far.

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figure_attempt.jpg (22.56 KiB) Viewed 2077 times

I honestly have no idea what I should do from here, and being a total beginner in flash isn't helping.

[Terrantor!!!]

U are definitely gonna wanna combine the black select tool with your shape tool. This will allow you to kinda sculpt out ur form. A few technicals u May or may not know are the difference between strokes(lines) and fills, the shapes that they embody. If I were u, I'd play around a little with the two tools, learn their hot keys to get a little faster at production. Keep ur fingers on the control or alt key while using them to test and learn their alternate utilities. A cool technique u can use is treating ur strokes like cookie cutters for fills.

I'd make a shape, modify it's line, and reiterate it's value by passing more shapes through it. Select ur fill tool and start giving it color. When u are done, double click ur strokes and delete. U will soon get good enough to use the pen tool wich is time consuming but way more accurate.

[Clairite]

Managed to make a face. Don't really like how the eyes nose and mouth turned out, meaning I don't like it all around. Still, good to have a starting off point to work on and have critiqued.

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lady_attempt.jpg (21.6 KiB) Viewed 2042 times

[Terrantor!!!]

Looking good, so far. Nice 'n cartoony. I'd shrink down the lips. Another thing ppl do when starting off is emphasize the nose. Feminine noses really need only to hint their presence. The longer and thicker that bridge looks the manlier and more aged she'll look, in turn. Long story short, keep it simple. I'll try to rip some images and post em tonight to demonstrate my point. Eyes look good. Colors are very intense. Move ur color picker a little to the left to lower saturation.

[Clairite]

Thanks Terrantor!!! I really appreciate the help.


---Edit---

Worked a bit more on it.

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lady_attempt2.jpg (12.12 KiB) Viewed 2021 times

Don't like how the arms are coming about and I don't know how I'm going to handle making her hips and waist.

[Cthulhu]

Looking at what you got down so far, you can take my criticism as a grain of salt and do what you think is best. But you should reconsider how you've been constructing the face. The eyes are too big that it meets the edge of the face, which is anatomically impossible. You can argue that it's how you do the style, but I know different styles enough that they don't extend the distance of the eyes to meet the edge like that. Unless the bone structure is that of a marine animal, but the eyes are facing forward and not sideways.

the sketches I'm providing are at most what I theorize when drawing anatomy. These are at most what I've came up so far and generally rely on when it comes to posture. I rely on shapes and lines to guide the distance for limbs so that drawn movements come out as more natural than static. Maybe these might be handy in flash? 8D

hopefully you can read my shitty writing

[Terrantor!!!]

Great points made by Cthulhu . Study up on guidelines u can use to place and scale parts of the face. For example, the eye line rests along the middle of ur first circle. The eyes are approximately one eye's length apart and one eye's length from the sides of the head. Pretty much line five eyes up. The nose should line up with the bottom of the ears. The mouth is halfway between the nose and chin. The best way to make the chin is to make an egg shape.

[Clairite]

Gotta say, I'm an awful figure drawer.

[Terrantor!!!]

U are as good as u will let yourself be. I've studied art for ages, now. I'm sure Cthulhu is the same. Practice is essential. U keep tracing and adding on til u think it looks good. With every rendition, u will learn something new and I guarantee u will have something noteworthy. My best advice would be to copy and trace. If u have any questions, I'll be on the site.

[Clairite]

Alright, I really messed up to get this point. Meaning I need to work on this even more. The nose was really beating me down, so I decided to make it a pure line. Then I realized the entire structure of the head was wrong and messed around with it, Next thing for me to work on are the eyes. I've been looking over the stuff you guys have given me to practice with. It's good stuff. I don't have a drawing tablet to work with so I'm mouse and keyboarding everything.

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lady_attempt4_crop.jpg (12.8 KiB) Viewed 1764 times

[Terrantor!!!]

Looks like you are getting the hang of it. If u use the mouse, I highly recommend the use of the pen tool. There are tons of tutorials on YouTube that teach u how to use it.

[Clairite]

Messed around with the face some more, also tried my hand at making hair styles. Also used some simple as3 code to practice with that.

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Click to Play
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lady_attempt5_2.swf [ 6.67 KiB | Viewed 1635 times ]

[Terrantor!!!]

Nice. Keep it up, man. You are well on your way to a dress up game.