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Bambs79 β Foreshortening Practice
Published: 2010-01-04 10:25:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 122960; Favourites: 1301; Downloads: 0
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I feel that foreshortening is one of the weaker aspects of my comic drawing, which is a bit of a bummer when you consider that the best comic illustration is that which involves well executed foreshortening. Therefore I figured a bit of practice was in order. The above sketches are all taken from reference - the next step is seeing if I can commit it to memory and learn how to draw foreshortened anatomy off the cuff!Related content
Comments: 52
Ooh, this will be helpful for me. I may reference it, but not directly copy or anything ^ ^; Thank you for creating such a useful guide! >w<
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You're welcome. If it can be of use to you then I'm glad I could help! 
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Did you learn hand drawing from some author or practicing? they look great
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Thanks for the kind compliment. Most of it is self taught - though I highly recommend looking at Ryan Ottley's (The artist who draws Invincible for image comics) artwork, he's awesome at anatomy. He's my biggest influence. Also check out Ed McGuiness.
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thank you very much! this is awesome and helpful
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Can you make reference for male figures in different action poses? If it's just okay
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Cool, glad to be of help! Thanks for comment, sorry my reply is late!
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yeah...foreshortening seems scary to me lol
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Yeah, I hear ya, sometimes I can get it right off the bat and others I'll spend a couple of hours trying to nail a pose!
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Thanks, glad to be of help! Cheers!
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FAVE'd....fantastic, but you may have already gathered that! Thanks for drawing this....
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Thanks - yeah, I spend a lot of time finding pics with lots of foreshortening to copy - still can't do it right off the bat though, I'm still having to use reference. 
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I'm in your exact same situation lol. I want my pictues to have more depth and what not so I'm trying to get foreshortening down. I sort of just started picking it up seeing how I've known it but never really applied it.
Good luck to ya ;3
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WOW! I just needed to see this kind of drawings! Thank you
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Thanks very much for your kind comment!
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Sorry for such a long time of silence but I didn't logged in anymore since.
Your tutorial are so much useful, I especially like the studies on arms and hands. I have so much to learn from you. Thank you very much.
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ahh yeah totally agree with you man all of my drawings are references either from books or google lol
but i think if i keep using reference and remember the shapes and anatomy i will get better with time
but i really thank you for time thanks
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Only a few come from imagination, most of the time I use reference pictures, which I really recommend! Some people say it's cheating which I think is a load of crap. I never heard anybody criticise Monet or Van Gogh for painting from reference! 
Foreshortening is a bastard to get right so I definitely suggest using reference pictures. What I've done is build up a sketchbook of different poses, body parts etc which I can use if I get stuck. Also, just draw all the time. The best way to get better at anatomy and foreshortening is just draw, draw and draw some more until it becomes ingrained in the memory. Being good at something is just being very familiar with that thing, so by drawing all the time, you're just becoming more familiar with your art.
All the best with your artwork! Like your Wolverine pic!
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Wonderful work you did here, and extremely helpful. Thanks! c:
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Again, I'm a real fan of your sketches. They're very lively and yet still casual. Foreshortening is a bitch... but it looks like you're great at it!
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Aw thanks, you're very kind. Yeah, foreshortening is tough, especially when it's really extreme and say, a fist, is obscuring all the arm and the shoulder, it's hard to make it not look weird when you can't see the rest of the arm behind it. I figure it's best to get lots of photo reference and learn from that. A lot of comic artists say that using reference is cheating (ok, so how did they learn how to foreshorten?) but I use a combination of photos and other comic artists and try and combine the two.
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Foreshortening always a good thing to practice.
Good on you, working on what you see as your weak spots.
thumbs up for dedication to improving your art.
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Wow, the one with the fist directly in front of the camera is particularly effective. It's also a good lesson in how to vary the line weight and amount of detail to complete the effect.
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Hey dude, sorry it's taken ages to reply to this note, been really busy! Glad you like some of the foreshortening pics, I've been struggling with it for ages so felt it deserved some practice. I keep visiting your page to see if you've put anything of your own up yet!! 
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Great stuff Rob, I dig what your doing here. I think your getting a real handle on foreshortening. These look awesome.
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If you want to emulate the foreshortening king, I suggest you look up Jack "King" Kirby's comic books. He's always showing his superheroes bursting out of the borders of his comic pages.
Nice sketches though, but I guess you're your own worst critic.
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I'll take it as a reference when drawing, good job ^^
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Cool, if anything I can do can be of help to someone else then I'm a happy man! Cheers! 
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The two best ways to get better are drawing from life (as you did here) and using very simple geometric shapes (tubes, mostly) to get a feel for lengths and foreshortening. But drawing from life is critical to help you see how the shapes changes when body parts are drawn in perspective. I guess your girlfriend will be doing lots more modeling in the future.
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I try drawing tubes but I can't seem to get it right. That or I expect my tubes to look like the finished item! 
I explained to my good (and ever patient) lady that I really needed some photo reference in order to get to grips with foreshortening so I asked her to take some pics of my arms in various poses. However, she was totally willing to model too, so we both had a blast messing about, pulling stupid super hero poses! The Hellboy shot in my gallery is also based on a pic of me and at some point in the future Becky will appear as Supergirl! Still, the great Alex Ross uses his friends and family for reference so I figure why not do the same!
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I know what you mean especially foreshortening the legs and not making your figures look like dwarfs.
BTX
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Legs are my 'achilles heel' if you forgive the pun! That's probably why I've not done many in my sketchbook yet! Trying to draw the body from above and get the legs right is so difficult, I end up getting frustrated. In fact, I spent all day today doing just 1 illustration, which took so long because I couldn't get the foreshortening on the legs right!
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hmm i have to use this for a reference sometime
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No worries my friend, glad that it can be of help to people. Thanks for all the faves too dude, much appreciated as always!
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