Mentor Experiment: Leg Studies Critique

For those of you who were wondering, the Mentor Experiment took a brief detour last week in light of my preparation for Megacon.

This week we look at Barry and Kyndra’s leg studies assignment. I’m going to combine both critiques into one post for brevity. First up, we have Barry’s designs (Click the image below to see a larger version.)

The first thing I noted when reviewing Barry’s work was that I couldn’t tell the male legs apart from the female legs. Female legs tend to taper a bit more than male legs, with the kneecap less emphasized. The next thing I discovered was that there was a great deal of symmetry going on with both the positions of the legs, as well as the shapes used to realize the volumetric forms. Symmetry, while beautiful in nature, tends to make a pose look less dynamic.

The first thing I would suggest to Barry is to simplify the volumetric shapes to curves and straights, and to de-emphasize the muscles. The muscles fall into the “details” category, and should only be incorporated after the basic volumetric forms are solid. Another point to make note of is that legs taper to the ankles. While there is a hint of tapering in Barry’s drawings, I feel that the volumetric forms of the lower leg can be tapered even more.

Overlapping forms create depth, and there’s one drawing where the legs are posed such that they form an awkward tangent. (It’s the sitting pose in the middle.) Watch those tangents, Barry!

Moving on, we next look to Kyndra’s drawings. Overall, I think she has a solid grasp of both proportions and volumetric form. There is a clarity about her drawings that make it every easy to determine whether the legs belong to a male or female. My suggestions for Kyndra would be to focus on including the heel – it should slightly curve out from the lower leg. The other area (which is minor) is to keep in mind that the more the leg is bent, the more there is overlap between the upper leg and the lower leg.

Let’s give our crew a round of applause for their efforts, shall we? And lets also thank the other participants like JahhDog and DungeonWarden for their continued participation. Keep it up, folks!

We’re half-way through the Mentor Experiment! Next up: Drawing hair!

-Krishna

Krishna February 22, 2012 drawing legs, how to draw legs, mentor experiment