Those who know me well know I like basketball. Throughout the years I've done drawings of guys dunking or shooting. I noticed some major improvements in the way I depict these human figures. Here are some milestones.
I did both artworks out of my imagination and artworks where I referred to photos. It's not fair to compare them, so I'll separate them into the 2 categories.
Artworks done from my imagination
Lee Shu Hui
Pencil on paper
24 Aug 2007
Lee Shu Hui
Pen on paper
2010
As you can see, there is a major improvement in depiction of form. I would probably accredit it to reading the entire Slam Dunk series. The manga REAL, drawn by Takehiko Inoue (the same manga artist who came up with Slam Dunk), also played a huge role in igniting my passion for basketball and I always loved reading because of the wonderful graphics, emotional plot (father-son troubles and then reunions, friends, deep thoughtful words of meaning about life spoken by characters) and the games played within the pages.
Artworks where I referred to photos
They're up there, titled 1st to 3rd Basketball artworks.
Hi ShuHui!
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I really love your doodles! I like how you manage to sketch so confidently with pen and ink! I like how you can imagine the forms and draw out of your own imagination without any reference photos of that sort.
The way you draw your figures, they resemble manga figures which probably have influenced your artistic style quite a lot. I feel that your figures are in well proportion and they are not distorted. In terms of their body movement, you have drawn it out and laid it out clearly. Incredible. I also appreciate that rough texture you have on your sketches due to the nature of the ink and your choppy strokes. Gives the work a more relaxed and spontaneous mood, just like how the sport Basketball is. There seems to be a logical connection between the nature of the sport and the style of your sketching!
Oh, I wished that perhaps, you could have payed more attention to the modeling of the clothes like the jersey on the basketball players. This gives the overall sketch more dimension and form. After all, the player is dunking, so I would imagine the clothes to fold abit more. And maybe you could have given more variation to your forms by drawing about from different angles. Instead of showing the back of the player, you could show him dunking from the front. Or you could draw from an ant's perspective (from a low level) which will allow the player to look bigger and seem more powerful and skillful. Otherwise from a high level, which will then capture the movement of the ball more effectively.
I like how you link sports and arts together when they are rather mutually exclusive and I rarely see sketches of sports.
Very delightful sketches!