Gestures and Dragons...

Like any other artist, gestures are an important exercise I keep up with. It's a great way to warm-up and get your mind into the right mode of thought, and it helps you hone your ability to not make your drawings suck or be as stiff as board planks.

Even though doing gestures of everyday events and people (parades, malls, etc.) are a vital thing, for warm-up purposes it doesn't quite work out. There's not many options, to be frank, that can let you replicate the timed sessions a class or life drawing session gives you, beyond using a stopwatch and some self-control.

That is, of course, until I found out about irfanview. I knew about it for sometime, but I didn't know it had a pretty damn extensive slideshow feature. This, coupled with the terrific photos from Character Designs, makes for an great way to get into a warm-up routine (To me, at least, it beats posemaniacs out of the water.)

So to tie this all into some new art to post, here are some gesture sketches I did using this set-up, as well as a little dragon sketch I did the other day (if for no other fact than "How to Train Your Dragon" is still fresh in my mind.)