It’s definitely been a bit since I last posted, mainly because work is becoming more and more execrable by the day – but also because I was having a colossal fit trying to figure out how to draw TORSOS by themselves. It rapidly became the bane of my existence – until I have a minor breakthrough after several hours of forcing myself to practice and something just…clicked!

Turns out the box method is far more useful than I gave it credit for initially. I used to think it would inhibit flowing gesture-based movement but it’s precisely the sort of rigidity and volume I needed to figure out how to place the fundamentals and get an idea on how to start stuff below the neck without relying so heavily on the reference.

It’s not perfect, by any means, but that’s the whole point of practice at the end of the day! There’s a lesson on Proko’s YouTube channel called the ‘bean’ and ‘robo-bean’ that I’ll definitely be practicing in the coming weeks so I can start taking my mannequinization to the next level!

I think I have a good enough start to begin rewarding myself with less practice and more just actual pieces with characters and such, but I’d do want to make sure I’ve moved from fluke to function when it comes to setting up my construction. My mom, bless her, even bought one of those cheap wooden mannequins from Michaels’ since they saw my progress and where ‘amazed’ by it (despite me not seeing much of a reason to BE amazed)!

I’ve also been using a site called SenshiStock.com to pull more dynamic references as multitasking at work leads to a number of problems if I use nude models, and trying to see through layers upon layers of clothing in stock imagery isn’t exactly something I excel at yet.

Here’s hoping that tomorrow isn’t so nonsensical that I can’t even get a single sketch in before the wee hours of the night, but we’ll see. I think challenging myself to draw once a day was a bit of a pipe dream with how my schedule looks at the moment, but that isn’t going to stop me from trying my hardest!