In her Creating a Dynamic Character: Gesture Drawing class, Patricia Caldeira made and used a lot the Line of Action site. After going to there and registering, I’ve discovered an excellent tutorial of how to start with gesture drawing.
Line of Action Gesture Drawing Tutorial
NOTE: The tutorial is after the initial Interactive drawing tutorial tool from the top of the page. Just scroll over the tool to get to the tutorial part.
Gesture Basics #1: Line of action
- first mark: the line of action
- you can exaggerate it to make it less stiff
- lines of actions are C curves
- lines of actions are not S shaped
- some artists make two lines of actions – one for the body, the other for the arms
Gesture Basics #2: Head, ribcage and pelvis
- use 3 ovals for head, ribcage and pelvis
Gesture Basics #3: Joints
- the major pivot points of the body
- shoulder
- elbow
- wrist
- hip socket
- knees
- ankles
- record the major pivot points
- connect the pivot points with lines
- you can continue from here by adding musculature, …
