Expert advice | Your questions answered
Question
Please help me depict a figure who’s off balance!
Klaudiusz Chmielewski, England
Answer
Tom Fox replies
With a bit of practice, you can
control not just whether the figure
is balanced, but how unbalanced
you want them to be.
First, draw the ground plane, in the form
of a grid, and the horizon line to establish eye
level. Now draw the major masses as boxes –
the torso and hips – and get them leaning to
one side. If you can get some twist between
those two, then that’s even better. Once the
ground and boxes are blocked in, the figure
should already appear off-balance, without
even having drawn the limbs. You can see
these highlighted in my first process image.
Next, draw the legs. Draw a line down from
the boxes to the f loor. Now choose where you
want the feet to be. If you draw them at a point
directly below the torso, it’ll add stability to the
figure. The further you place the feet from the
point below the torso, the more off-balance the
pose will become. Imagine where the weight is
distributed. Posing yourself is the best way to
imagine this. Establish a clear lean and you’re
off to a great start.
Finally, add the arms as cylinders and you’ve
blocked out an off-balance gesture. Job done!
Step-by-step:
Paint a character
in a predicament
1
Boxes for torso and hips establish the
gesture and rough proportions. This
gesture includes a nice twist in the torso,
between the hips and the mass of the
chest. Although the pelvis and ribcage
don’t bend, don’t forget to keep these
forms quite flexible, because they represent
the masses of the body, not the bones.2
Now for the anatomy and detailing.
Reduce the opacity of the box forms
and draw straight over the top. Always try
the pose yourself and imagine yourself in
that position. What attitude does the pose
suggest? Would legs turn inwards or out?
The more you inhabit your character, the
more dynamic your gestures will be.3
Fill the area under the lines to give a
silhouette as a base layer, then paint
flat colours on top of this base. Try to be
delicate and use smaller jumps in value
than you’d imagine. Subtle changes in
value, hue or saturation can add a nice
colour vibration, as you can see in the
blue-ish highlights on the top of his jumper.Everything in nature can be
simplified into simple box
forms with careful analysis.
Even things as organic as
clothing and anatomy can
be translated into boxes.
There’s no need to overcomplicate your colouring. Flat
colours with just two or three values to describe the
values will do. Then just add highlights to show
differences in material.