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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Overlap the neck

There's a common problem that occurs when we sketch too quickly or we're just not paying attention. The neck/chest connection just doesn't quite cut the mustard. It happens to me often in the early stages of the gesture and I usually try to catch it and fix it.

The circumference of the neck starts at the clavicle and connects to the back spine of our bodies( obviously we all know that). But many times when we caricature we draw the neck lines right on top of the shoulder line. It runs the risk of having tangents in the drawing and thus flattening out the pose. That neck needs some sense of overlapping shapes to help make it feel connected to the body in a natural way.

I sketched out the examples for this with one of my students and the T-shirt analogy came up. If you look at your shirt you'll see that the hole for your head comes out of the front, not the top where the shoulder seam is. Also, clothing has all the gesture lines we need to help guide us in the line work. Use the collar, use the seams, use whatever it is on that clothing to reveal the form. It's all overlap, and it is needed, unless you really want a flat looking drawing. Even those who draw in a so-called "flat" design style make use of these principles. Shane and Shannon, for instance, use overlap beautifully to show the forms working together, as well as staying completely away from tangents! They're super good!

Down below I threw in a couple of drawings I liked, just for fun.

Hope all's well......









16 comments:

samacleod said...

Great post Dave! Definitely useful!

mark kennedy said...

Good stuff Dave, thanks for posting!

Ghassan Lafi said...

Thanks for sharing the experience !

Leo Matsuda said...

awesome gestures Dave!!! Thanks for the hints too. We'll miss your gesture class at CalArts.

m.j. Nuñez said...

wooow::! que buenos trazos me encantaron las exprsiones corporales..!!

Saludos..!!

C.Deboda said...

Excellent post. Very helpful.

Jenny Lerew said...

Thanks for this one!

Daniel Cheng said...

great blog! Love these gestures!

rusty said...

great tips! thanks for sharing.

Andreas said...

Great tip on something I have been struggling with for a long long time. Love the t-shirt idea.

SHANE PRIGMORE said...

Dude , you are awsome. That guy on the bottom is such a solid sculptural gesture drawing. Beautiful Dave!

Richard Gaines said...

Really wonderful gestures and character designs! I definitely agree about overlapping planes. At my school, no one understood this concept, and everything they did looked flat.

I also loved the small Mickey tutorial way below. Thanks.

Philip Thomas said...

I really like the last gesture. Very powerful. Thanks for the great advice.

Pepe Sanchez said...

thanks for the advice Dave...really useful. Your drws are just awesome!! I will check back often.

Marcos Mateu said...

All these character sketches... so nice!

Livie Lightyear said...

This is something I would have never thought of... I definately have a lot to learn about anatomy! Thank you for this... I know it will help me in the future!