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  • Hey guys, it's Mike,

  • and in this video we're going to be drawing a fighting scene

  • and I'm going to show you the principles I use

  • when I'm composing a scene of two characters fighting.

  • So I started off drawing a rectangle, that's going to be the frame of our scene

  • I'm going to start off with dividing the paper into thirds,

  • or this frame into thirds,

  • and I'm going to draw one of our characters on the right third

  • the idea with this scene is going to be

  • one character is going to be leaping at the other,

  • kind of, catching him off guard and it's going to be an up-shot

  • so if you saw the video of drawing characters in perspective in an up-shot,

  • you'll see some of the tips and techniques that we used in that video.

  • So I'm starting with the head,

  • and tilting the shoulders slightly, curving it because it's an up-shot

  • and here we have the general guideline for the up-shot.

  • Remember, it gets more narrow towards the top.

  • Using simple shapes, not focusing on details,

  • this stage of the drawing is all about finding the pose

  • and the best way to do that is to use simple shapes

  • I have the head torso and hips

  • the head is going to be much smaller than normal

  • and the hips are going to be much bigger than normal

  • below the hips I draw the legs

  • and you can already see the angle that I'm after

  • he's slightly tilted and those horizontal lines

  • of the shoulders and the waist are curved

  • like sad faces because it's an up-shot.

  • So next I'm going to draw the shoulder that is closest to us

  • with a curve and normally the elbow, which I'm going to

  • draw with a circle, normally it's at the bottom

  • off the rib cage

  • but I'm going to draw it slightly higher for this view

  • because of the perspective.

  • And for the elbow I just use a circle, very simple.

  • And now coming out at an angle,

  • I'm going to draw the forearm, just two lines

  • really easy

  • and for the hand, it's going to be a square

  • or a rectangle and he's going to be holding a sword

  • and so I'm going to draw the hilt

  • and the sword's going to be angled towards the upper left.

  • I'm not even worried about what kind of sword this is

  • or what the details of it are

  • I'm just worrying about the position

  • and that's all I'm focused on, is the position.

  • to make things easy, oh,

  • first I'm drawing in his other arm

  • again, circle for the elbow

  • and getting more narrow as we head towards the wrist

  • because this arm is going away from us.

  • And just like in my videos on hands,

  • I just try to find the palm shape first

  • and I'm just placing that for the hand.

  • For his head, I'm going to erase it and

  • redraw it because I want to make sure that the head is

  • smaller than normal so we have that perspective going for us.

  • And I also want to point out that

  • his left arm, the top part of the arm is

  • shorter than the forearm

  • on the other side, it's the opposite

  • the forearm is smaller, shorter length

  • than the top part of the arm.

  • So now for the other character,

  • I'm going to draw him on the other third at an angle

  • and for this scene to have a dynamic feel,

  • I want to create depth, so this character

  • is going to be smaller

  • and I drew his head and tilted his shoulders.

  • He's also going to be viewed in an up-shot

  • so just like the first character,

  • I'm going to draw in his shoulder.

  • This time, I'm going to use a big circle for his shouler.

  • Zoom in a little big so you guys can see it

  • And he's going to be mid swing so

  • he's going to be coming out all epic-like, mid swing

  • so his arm is going to be coming across his body

  • using a circle for his elbow,

  • and now his forearm and a square

  • for his hand that is grabbing the sword.

  • So now I'm going to place the sword,

  • just like the other character, thinking about

  • the angle that I want it to have.

  • And I'm leaving room for the other fist

  • which I'm going to place with another square

  • right there, and for that arm you just draw it

  • behind the first arm, down to the elbow

  • and coming back up towards the shoulder.

  • so after this we'll move on to drawing the legs.

  • The idea for this guy is that he's going to be

  • leaping at this guy in the foreground

  • kind of like, surprising him or something.

  • So I'm drawing his legs behind that sword

  • down to his knee.

  • Since he's leaping, his lower leg is going to be...

  • you're not going to see it so it's just his knee

  • and then another shape for his foot

  • and then his other leg is going to go behind the sword

  • down to his knee

  • and then, just to vary it a little bit,

  • you're going to see some of his lower leg,

  • right there, and below that is his foot.

  • This stage of the drawing is all about using

  • these simple shapes, right?

  • really easy geometric shapes, circles for joints

  • and what I like about it is

  • it's vary easy to erase and find new poses

  • and you haven't really invested a lot of time

  • into the drawing

  • Imagine if you spent maybe ten minutes

  • or twenty minutes drawing an arm

  • and it's looking great and there's a lot of

  • detail in it but you continue your drawing

  • and you realize that, hey, maybe this position isn't right.

  • and you want to change it but there's a part of you

  • that's like, "Man, I spent so long on that drawing..."

  • and it's almost a lose-lose situation.

  • The pose isn't strong, in your mind, but you don't want to change it.

  • But with this method that I often do, I use simple shapes

  • and I haven't invested a lot of time in it

  • and there's no detail so I'm not really worried about erasing.

  • so when I'm searching for the pose, like I'm doing here,

  • it's not really heartbreaking to erase it.

  • so here I'm trying to find the correct angle of the sword

  • and just to capture that feeling of-- he's in mid motion.

  • It's just a square and two lines for each forearm

  • and I just keep erasing it, keep changing the angle of the forearm

  • and the sword, until I find the correct position.

  • and the same thing goes for the legs.

  • It's maybe circles for the knees,

  • you can see that I'm just trying to find the angle

  • and it's really easy to redraw

  • and so this drawing [laughs], I really had to struggle

  • with this sword arm for this guy, and it's really frustrating

  • and a struggle some times but don't settle for something

  • when you know it's not working because

  • you may think that adding detail will save the drawing but

  • the pose is really the most important thing,

  • and so here I realize that it starts to feel better

  • when the arms or at least the fists are further away

  • from his head so it feels like he's swinging

  • and the feeling is what I was after.

  • So I'm pretty happy with this position and now

  • I'm going to zoom out and you guys can see

  • the shot, the scene that we have, and even with

  • just simple shapes and anatomy, the scene has,

  • in my mind, captured that feeling that I was after

  • of an up-shot, we have depth between the front guy

  • and the back guy and the guy in the back

  • is in mid motion of his swing.

  • So what I'm doing now is [laughs]

  • I'm erasing everything and starting all over, no,

  • what I'm doing now is I'm using my kneaded eraser

  • and I'm just gently erasing the hard lines

  • so that what I have left on the paper is what I like to call

  • "the ghost of an image"

  • What this does now is it gives me a solid foundation

  • for the next stage which is going to be

  • adding in all the detail.

  • So now I'm going to into a timelapse and I'm just going

  • to be adding in armor for both of these characters

  • and I guess what I wanted to talk about was

  • just the concept of drawing in different stages

  • and this is something that I learned in college

  • that I hadn't done prior to school

  • and so the first stage that we did was, remember,

  • it was just about finding the pose

  • we don't think about detail, we just think about simple shapes

  • and the position of characters

  • Often, I like to think of it like we're directors for a movie