I need help with art. Thanks!

[Dronee]

Hi there.

I'm a relative beginner in arts with less than half a year's experience. Self-taught. I find that portraits are very difficult to paint, especially if there's a lot of perspective. I've heard that there's a program called Poser which has 3D models doing poses for you, but it's expensive.

Is there any way to go around the problem? An alternative freeware software? Realistic human dolls? Anything that works and doesn't cost much money would be great.

It's also great if you have some links to videos where they dissect corpses in a way that is useful for artistic instruction. I'm doing some beginner 3D modelling as well and find it hard to understand the muscular structure of living things without seeing it as it is.

Other than that, any advice or resources you can share in traditional, digital or 3d modeling art will be great too! Thanks in advance.

 

[Dronee]

Seriously, I need help in this. For personal reasons, learning art is important to me beyond mere recreation or hobby or even self-expression. I don't have the money for art school. So even the smallest resources you can share will be helpful. Things like a good, active, supportive art forum as well as the things mentioned in my previous post. Thanks.

 

[Nack]

Many great artists used real life as their references, nothing is better than real life. You could try copying some still life pics. But you'll need to learn the basics, shapes, perspective, human anotomy, etc. But in the end what matters is practice.

 

[persona]

Deleted...

 

[dooby-duck]

I'm no good at traditional drawing and painting but enjoy sculpture in wood, metal and ceramic. You could look into archaeological facial reconstructions. They take a skull that they have dug up and overlay in clay the muscles ant tissues to reconstruct someones facial features.

It might be a bit basic but you could consider looking into how to draw cartoons to help with perspective.

 

[Dronee]

1. Get yourself a good anatomy book. They tend to be pretty expensive, but should be worth the cash.

2. Posemaniacs.com A website with lots and lots of male and female human poses as well as hand poses. You can rotate the models around, they are 3D.

3. However, the issue with both 3D models and art books is that they usually offer only one standard look. In real life people have different sized and shaped bodies, different propotisions in face etc. so the only way to learn to paint realistic people is by painting from real life. Either take lessons or ask your friends to pose for you.

4. Here are also couple tutorials that might help.

Hope that helps! I used to do art too, but stopped years ago.

Thanks a lot guys. Keep the advice coming yar? I've no doubt that the pose website will be especially useful. It'd be exactly what I need for the moment.

 

[Shift]

I think the best thing to do is find someone to model for you, but models are expensive... Maybe a friend or family member would want to have a portrait done and volunteer for you (although, I find it a bit hard to work with people who have no background with art). Or you could try drawing yourself in a mirror.

 

[agoraphobickatie]

youtube.com! you can find anything, any kinds of lessons, etc!

 

[mysissucks]

Amazon.com: The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (9780007116454): Betty Edwards: Books

The drawing bible. EVERYONE should read it. Edwards makes it easy how to really see what youre looking at.

 

[Felgen]

Hi there.

I'm a relative beginner in arts with less than half a year's experience. Self-taught. I find that portraits are very difficult to paint, especially if there's a lot of perspective. I've heard that there's a program called Poser which has 3D models doing poses for you, but it's expensive.

Is there any way to go around the problem? An alternative freeware software? Realistic human dolls? Anything that works and doesn't cost much money would be great.

It's also great if you have some links to videos where they dissect corpses in a way that is useful for artistic instruction. I'm doing some beginner 3D modelling as well and find it hard to understand the muscular structure of living things without seeing it as it is.

Other than that, any advice or resources you can share in traditional, digital or 3d modeling art will be great too! Thanks in advance.

DAZ Studio is a free alternative to Poser that works the same way.