DRAWING BODIES, SHADING AND PERSPECTIVE
“rough drafts are carving. shading follows the sun. bigger means closer.”
The Lesson
Bodies in motion require lots of rough sketches. You're carving toward the shape, not drawing it perfectly first. Do a dozen takes before the final. For shading, pick where the sun is and make all objects conform. Use hashtags (little lines), dots, or solid gray. Shadows under objects don't need to match the object's shape exactly. For perspective, just make closer things larger. Hands reaching toward viewer should be oversized. Use vanishing point lines as guides, then erase them. Best practice: draw your own hand in many poses (always hard), draw boxes you can rotate mentally, draw pipes with connections and fittings. Boxes teach straight lines, pipes teach curves. Copy other cartoonists poorly, combine styles, and A/B test until you think 'huh, pretty good.'
Real-World Example
A founder practices drawing by sketching their hand for 10 minutes each morning. After a month, they can draw hands from memory in various poses. They practice boxes next, rotating them mentally before drawing. Their product mockups improve dramatically because they can now sketch ideas quickly with proper perspective and shading, even though they're not 'artists.'
Watch Scott explain this lesson
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