skull measurements charts.

these are my  reference sheets with measurements.

use them wisely ;)

  

Skull Project- part2

My project log

This is the log for my skulls project. Just reading the summary will give you everything important, but I wanted to include the log to give a general idea of my day-today.

Things I did right

-I got a lot more work done than expected.

The method and results for this way of working were so obvious and enjoyable I really took every moment I could to study, and had fun besides.

I actually memorized what I set out to remember.

 I usually have a pretty bad memory, especially for dry facts. But with repeating regularly it went down easy enough.

 

Things I did wrong

-I did not take measurements exact enough.  The lines I drew by hand, guessing my measurements. For stuff like this, using a ruler is mandatory.

-I did not think through what photos to take the measurements off.

At first I used photos from the internet for my front/ side etc views. If you do that, you need to be sure all the photos are from the same skull, and from the right angles or things will not add up. I realized that only at day 10! this wasted a lot of time.

I kept adding to my project backlog.

On the list of things to do, a lot of items were not described in enough detail, or the work-method still had to be thought out. I kept adding items to the list without taking out others. If I had not enjoyed myself so well I sneaked in in almost twice the amount of hours I had planned I would never have finished the list.

 

-demonstration of what was done (questions about this increment)

 

This is how I drew skulls from memory at the end of the project:

Still not perfect, but a great deal better that the child-monster in my previous blog-post.

What I learned (outside of deliverable goals).

Project Log

Now follows my log of these 2 weeks with the drawings I did, together with some thumbs of the drawings.

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Day1 - 22/12/14 Had to reread the documentation on SCRUM to be sure where to start. Decided on writing down the requirements for this project.

Day 2- 23/12/14  Started my requirements for this project, but it turned into a whole 'product backlog' -talking about everything I want to learn in the long run. Needed to choose and what to do and further expand on those items. I also worked on the scrum method for ‘time-boxing’ items; so that I’d have an idea how much of the work I could actually do in 2 weeks. Started with re-reading Loomis and doing some of his boxed heads, only with skulls.

Day3- 24/12/14 Chose my list of requirements for this project. Still not sure how to get those measurements into my head. Still trying with Loomis and other techniques.

Day4– 25/12/14 I drew a side-view. Then tried to do it from memory. It’s not sticking yet. I’m using boxes but for the positions I really need to cheat.

Day 5 - 26/12/14: -I’m taking measurements of the side of the head. I have to Write DOWN the numbers, and make sure they are PRECISE. I should use STRAIGHT lines with a ruler -not freehand like I have been doing. I cannot remember numbers if I do not write them down and I cannot remember the right ones if I am not exact. A bit late to realise but better now than never. -I still need to do the front but I’m still not sure what the best way is to memorize this. Maybe memorizing the side first would be better. Now I’m deviating to tumblr… still not sure about the best course of action.  -Read up on study-techniques. The Best for this kind of thing seems to be just to keep repeating. So I’m going to do that, until I can still get it right the next morning. Then some more times to make it stick longer.

Day 6 - 27/12/14 -rehearsing the side-view. There’s just the nose-bone length and jaw-bone shapes to get right. -want to do the measurements for the front view/ en face. -need to get those measurements b/f we leave… tight. (Took the measurements and started copying that evening.)

Day 7 - 28/12/14 Got the measurements for the front. I’m wondering if I need top/bottom and back too… Shape simplification is up for today.

Day 8 - 29/12/14 Nearly have side & front memorized right. Just a few details. I just found out I cannot draw perfect squares. They are too wide, and I only notice when I turn the paper. I want to draw out the shapes, cranium, eye socket, cheekbone, nose, upper and lower jaw. Have to look into Hampton and other literature on how.

Day 9 - 30/12/14- Mistakes I keep making: side view- I stick the nose-bone out a little too much. and the back of the jaw a little too low. front- eyes go up from the center 1/6 not 1/ 12. teeth go lower, to half way and the sparings on the sides of the skull move up on the 1/2 from center line. I sort of have the side/front memorized, but there is something weird going on when lining them up together. I just took 2 good photos of the internet, but front and side view seem to be from a very different shaped skull. -worked on simplifying the shapes of the jaw. these are just from memory. then played around with playdough. which is way to soft to get the shape right, but the kids had fun and I think I learned stuff anyway. Finished the shape simplification of the jaw. want to work on the cheekbone next. still coming up short on some good literature on this. suggestions are appreciated :p

Day 10 - 31/12/14 Figured out the problem with the skulls! The front view is of a male, the side of a female. Both quite prominently so and thus quite different. I made my own pictures this time, of my , and have documented the differences between male/female (though honestly it seems like a lot of generalizing). The important thing is that front and side view line up right now. Trying free drawing without ref for my skull, which I have found out must be a girl. Having trouble figuring the stuff going /w the eye sockets and inside of the mouth when doing undersides. Forgot about doing the back bottom and top. I’ll have to learn those first I think.

Day 11- 1/1/15 side and front are pretty much memorized. I still get in trouble when trying out different angles though. started on the bottom. its a pretty easy one. I changed the scema to match my own skull better; have the chin recede. getting there.. if im sure I have the bottom memorized gonna do top and back. Then do the parts.

Day 12- 2/1/15 okay, I think front and side are no longer a problem. working on the underside; I think I just about have it. (now just top and back) also worked on the 'muzzle' area. last will be the dome of the skull. 3 shapes of the head: -Shape of the jaw: It is like a V (male more U), seen from below. depending on how far the chin juts out, it can either allign with the teeth/upper lip/forehead, or fall back a bit. the 'U' shape of the lower teeth is smaller then the total V of the lower jaw (2/3). they move up straight at the base, where the connection to the eye socked moves outward a bit. the lib in front of the jaw's hinge curves outward pretty strongly, reaching out towards the cheekbone's outside. -Shape of the muzzle: The upper teeth form a horse's iron. the are of the upper lip to nose forms a hoof. the hoof tilts down, making its front line a vertical. the hoove's length twise up from the back reaches the position of the outer eyesocket's top. the triangle reaches down again to the front of the teeth. from the half-way point the cheekbones extent from the nose, near straight angles inside, but curving round at the front. the nose cuts into the front of the triangle at ablt 30 degrees. -Shape of the dome:  An egg, somewhat pushed in to be flatter at the top. there is an indent where the muzzle starts. and some 'ridges'for the cheekbone and eyesocket's outside to attach to. seen straight from the bottom, there is a hole 1/4 from the back to near 1/2. the area where the hole originates is extended somewhat, until the fall in for the muzzle starts.

Day 13- 3/1/15 Memorized underside. Working on back&top. Got the last shape mapped out. Tried another free turning. Will do some last ones tomorrow.

Day 14- 4/1/15 -I have now successfully memorized all views, and 3 shape masses. -I didn’t have a definition of done yet, so I wrote one out: Goal can be demonstrated in its usual context and to a reasonable degree out of context. i.e., applicable in the exercises as done during the project, but also applicable for a portfolio piece. Drawing 1.1 (skulls) SKULLS: (low level features/deliverables?) -inventory how many more. (from ref, from no-ref)                           1p DONE(26/12) -get measurements right, from life-skull. Side                                      2p (DONE(27/12) get measurements right, from life-skull. FRONT                                  2p(DONE 28/12) -get measurements bottom                                                                      2p (DONE 02/01) Get measurements top                                                                              1p (DONE 3/1/15) Get measurements back                                                             1p (DONE 3/1/15) -make shape simplification.                                                                      4p (DONE 3/1/15) -memorise measurements and check by drawing. (front/side)         12p (DONE 1/1) -memorise measurements bottom, top, back                                      6p (DONE 4/1/15) -memorise simplifications                                                                         12p (DONE 4/1/15) -finish remaining skulls using measurement and line quality.            30 DONE ON 04/01/2015 (of 59) Points done: 71

 

SKULL project- part 1.

Drawing from imagination.

When drawing something realistic, one can either draw what you see before you, or draw a picture from your mind’s eye; a piece of imagination if you will.

As much as I enjoy drawing the world around me, it has for a long time been my goal to draw from imagination just as well. It seems a simple enough thing to do; I have quite a visual vocabulary, as all adults with working eyes do, and I have very little trouble breaking down what I see into geometrical shapes. So, piece of pie, right?

Apparently, wrong.

I have found drawing from imagination frustrating and ugly for a long time. The main problem, I feel, is usually the faces of the people I draw. At some point it was suggested to me learning to draw  skulls would help me draw faces. So I joined in a levelup Conceptart assignment to draw 99 skulls. Half of these would be from reference, the other without. 

I bought myself a skull replica and started drawing it. I drew from that, and I drew from photos. Pretty soon I had reasonably nice drawings like this one:

Then came the hard part of course; I picked up my tablet, and tried to draw the same skull – from a different angle – just from memory.

I ended up with this:

I think most people reading this will understand that I was a little… upset.

Still, as upset as I was, I did somewhere ask myself the big question. Which is:

How did this happen? Where did I go wrong?

And this time, I figured it out. 

When I was drawing, I’d ask myself the right questions, like:

"What shape is the ball of the head?"

And I’d answer:

"It’s like a ball. But with pieces taken off from the sides. It’s higher and deeper than it is wide."

The return question –of course- is:

"How much is taken from the sides? How much higher and deeper is it than wide?"

I did not have a clue.

Not knowing made everything worse. I would try something like 1.5 times as high as wide, then decide it didn’t look right, and try something a lot less high. But guessing one thing and finding it didn't look right made me second-guess even the things I did know, until I ended up with the mess above.

Learning the correct measurements.

It occurred to me that as long as I kept doubting my measurements, I would never get these skulls right. I had to memorize the correct sizes and shapes, and I had to know them so well I would not start doubting myself when drawing. Still, I had done about 30 skull drawings from reference in the last months and so far none of that was sticking. 

Now, I am not the best for learning facts, I know. In school it was always a problem; but I am good with numbers, and it’s not like there is that many measurements to keep track of.

So why did I keep forgetting?

1. I divided my attention to too many things at once, ending up learning nothing. At around this time I was also studying for a scrum exam. Scrum is a way of project ‘managing’. One of the things they mentioned is working on one project at the time and minimizing outside interference as that ruins productivity. They gave figures that suggested that if a person worked on 5 different things, as much as over 90% of one's time would be spend just switching from one project to the other.It occurred to me the same might be true - or perhaps even more true - for studying. I mean let’s face it, I’ve been studying skulls, anatomy, light, line use and whatever else just randomly at a moment’s whim, switching from one subject to the other several times a day.  Perhaps it was too much, and so I reasoned focussing on one field of study for let’s say 2 weeks would be a lot more productive.
2. I did not write down any numbers or make exact diagrams of the things I wanted to remember. A different thing that occurred to my later, when studying is that I hardly ever wrote down or verbalized my measurement. This made it harder to remember, because there was no actual measurement stored in my head, just an image of ‘bigger than’, or ‘this fit 1 ½ times into that’. Remembering an image is a lot harder then just remembering a number. I vowed to write down my measurements.
3. I did not repeat or rehearse the things I wanted to remember. Lastly, the way to remember – on study- turned out to be the simplest in the world. Repeat. So, I vowed to draw and write out my measurements until I could do it without any difficulty.

At this moment I decided to try a scrum-based project of 2 weeks of just studying skulls.

It worked out so well for me, I would like to give a detailed account here and in the next installments of this blog. Perhaps this form of study can be beneficial to others as well. I will go into the principles I used for study in my other blog, how to study art.

 

My project’s goal

I decided my goal would be to learn the measurements of the skull well enough so that if I wanted to just draw them from the top of my head, I’d never have to worry about wondering if I knew the correct sizes again. On the side I figured I might also finish that 99 skulls assignment.

 

Drawing skulls from memory

SKULLS: (low level features/deliverables?) -inventory how many more. (from ref, from no-ref)                           -get measurements right, from life-skull. Side                                      -get measurements right, from life-skull. FRONT                  -get measurements bottom                                                                      -get measurements top                                                                             -get measurements back                                                                           -make shape simplification.                                                                        -memorise measurements and check by drawing. (front/side)         -memorise measurements bottom, top, back                                      -memorise simplifications                                                                         -compare measurements and simplification to literature   -check skull-to-face positions.                                                                 -re-read line quality piece.                                                                        -finish remaining skulls using measurement and line quality.

1p 2p 2p 2p 1p 1p 4p 12p 6p 12p  4p 4p 1p 59p

Okay so that’s not quite honest- all the red text I missed my first time around and added them during the first week. I just kind of dived into this project after all, starting it on the Monday I wrote out these goals. It is normal in scrum to try and do this in advance, but I felt I had incentive now, and it would be a shame to let go. As for the points, this is a measurement of amount of work. It is not supposed to be the same as time, but min aligns rather closely with about 1h of work, and I guessed I would have between 20-25p p available per week. It was obvious from the start I would not finish this entire project in 2 weeks. I figured the main thing was memorizing the shapes and measurements so that’s what I did first.

 

Project Log summary

I will add my project log in the next post, maybe divide it into several as there is a lot of items I want to highlight as interests of study.

Suffice it to say here that it took me several days to adapt SCRUM to something workable for my project, then another day or so trying to figure out how to study a thing like measurements. I wasted more time not measuring precisely enough (drawing lines freehand etc), and not writing down my measurements. Another several days were wasted trying to line up two completely different skulls for the front and side view. In spite of all that, I had the rough measurements and shapes memorized by the end of the two weeks, and trying to create a turned skull view from memory ended me up with pieces like this.

Which is, considering where I started, quite the improvement. I checked if I could still remember the basic measurements after two weeks, and they seemed to all still be there. Though I need to check again now as it has been over a month now. The point is, after all, to have this information at a ready at any time in the future.

 

Conclusions

Remembering the measurements and shapes turned out to be a simple thing in retrospect; all it required was to draw out from an example the front and side view –and for another view days the bottom, top and back as well. The check if I remembered those measurements the very next morning until I got it 100% right. 

The Start

This is the start of my ‘Advance in Art’ blog. I might need to state that I am talking of art as a craft; one of making visually appealing imagery based on the real world.  

I have drawn for many years; all my life actually, for as long as I can remember. I have been called good or at least talented quite a few times.

But I have to be better.

I need to advance.

In my desire for advancement, I have studied quite a bit for the last years, but the result has always let me down. Then, a few weeks ago, I rigorously changed the way I study. So far the results have been very promising. As such, I would like to document my advancement in this blog. This should be read together with my other blog, ‘how to study art’ (soon to come), which will focus more on my method than the results.

I am certain that the method I am using for study can help many others like me that struggle to advance. This blog should be seen as a showcase of my method. Of proof the concept is –for me at least – working.

I mean to update this blog at once every project, with a project always lasting 2 weeks.