Koi Fish - Drawing Questions

Hi, I’m very new to drawing and been trying to start learning so I can pursue tattooing. I have got question to ask relating to Koi fish anatomy/placement.


1) Been looking at many real Koi fish reference pictures and trying to work out where abouts the eye placement goes on the head on all koi fish, also do different koi fish have different eye placement?

But not quite sure how to work it out. Could somebody tell me a technique to work out where to draw the eye placement for a Koi fish or animals etc?


2) What is the best way to study a reference picture facial feature proportions for animals? Is there a certain view I have to look at the picture like a side/plan view or front on view? Or you can study the proportions of the animal at any view?

Because sometimes I try measure on side view then see if the measurement are the same on front view but it is not the same? Unless I’m not measuring the exact facial features on both views?


Thanks everyone!

What worked for me is contour drawing.
If you can decompose all your subjects in shapes, then decompose all your shapes in grids, you can place anything at the good place.

What you need is a minimum understanding of how perspective works (many information online).

For example, if you rotate this cylinder, you can see where the red dot and the blue line should be, thanks to the grid.

This was done with my mouse so sorry for the rawness, but here's what a basic fish look like in basic shapes with grids:





Hope it'll help.

Peace,

DKJ

Also, i find very interesting to check out some other people's studies.

In Google Images, type "YourChoiceOfAnimal studies" to get some great reference of how people worked on it.
The results are mostly people with good skills who want to show off, so there are a lot of techniques and hints there.

Search: "Wolf studies"


Koi Studies


Spider studies



I guess you get what i mean.

Peace, enjoy your journey!

DKJ

After that, you can try to pull the main shadows of a picture to get a grip of the how shapes and light are working together.



Everything is in the breakdown of shapes and light. Once you start to understand how the whole things is working, you can bypass the grids and work on the more definig lines.



He had very big and funny hears, that's why the sculptor ended up breaking his work in despair ;-)

A good exercise is to exagerate the shadows with a big black marker to feel where the contrasts should be (you can do that on tracing paper over a picture):


Peace,

DKJ

Here's a good video discussing drawing koi that will answer a lot of your questions there.
When it comes to studying animals (or humans or anything else), remember that the proportions never change based on profile, only the way you see them. An animal's eyes never change position on their head just because their head moved, the head just changed positions moving the eyes to a different location in space. Another way to say it is that your eyes are on the front center of your head. If you turn your head, they're still on the front center, but, the front center of your head is now in a different location. Think about how the planes of a surface move rather than how the features move and you'll have a much easier time with it.

DKJ said:

Also, i find very interesting to check out some other people's studies.

In Google Images, type "YourChoiceOfAnimal studies" to get some great reference of how people worked on it.
The results are mostly people with good skills who want to show off, so there are a lot of techniques and hints there.

Search: "Wolf studies"
View attachment 25506

Koi Studies
View attachment 25507

Spider studies

View attachment 25508

I guess you get what i mean.

Peace, enjoy your journey!

DKJ

Click to expand...

This was an amazing tip! Thanks

sheyd said:

This was an amazing tip! Thanks

Click to expand...

Everything by the masters is good documentation
Breaking down everything you can, color theory, shadows and lights, techniques, is something i understood very late but it works with everything, writing, music, sculpting, drawing.
It's not making miracles but it helps a lot.

Peace,

DKJ

noobs - pay attention.

this is an incredibly valuable thread.

dk & cyber thanks.

Thanks Gasden, i love the sharing going on here, it's unvaluable.

If i find some time soon, i'll give up some other ideas on how to deconstruct anything and rebuild it in another motion/position.

Peace,

DKJ

I'm not saying this is easy, nor that i'm a pro at it, but with a bit of comprehension of how shapes work in perspective, here's how you can manage to draw almost anything, in any position (reference always needed).

So, basically, and it's what's been done but not fully explained in Cybertrasher's koi video, you need to get the initial big shapes and detail them by adding more and more shapes. Exactly like when sculpting.

To me, there are 2 basic things to know:
FINDING THE SHAPES
UNDERSTANDING BONES AND MUSCLES

THE SHAPES
You can deconstruct anything in simple geometric shapes as discs and spheres, triangles and pyramids, squares/rectangles/diamonds and their polygons.
Let's have a look at this horse head.


2 spheres linked by a long rectangle, and some triangular jaw bone.

Now, if you have those elements, always try to get the 2 extreme points (the ones the most far away from each other) to get a direction.
Let's see how the the skull and the muzzle can give you the direction of this horse's head.


I know... It looks more like a pig or dog in the end

This is just one part of the horse and you could have his body looking to the right and its head looking to the left, so get the direction for every part which makes a whole.
Each part is usually separated from another by a joint.

In the head horse, there's the head, the jaw, the ears, and that's all. Every part can have its own direction.

Now, if you take a human hand, each phalanx is a part.

As i told you before, the goal is to go progressively into more detail.

Imagine if you drew like me Rafaello:


First things first.
You're not going to draw the hands, then the head, and link them together.
Do the simple things first and find the joints, join them by some lines, and then add some volume.
The puppet is the skeleton over which you will build the muscles and details.

Which are taking us to the second basic thing to know...

UNDERSTANDING BONES AND MUSCLES

The skeleton is made of bones, on which lay the muscles.
All skeletons and muscles are documented on Google Image, you have all the references needed to do the job, congratulations!

Muscles are made to move and lift weight. So any muscle has a relaxed and a contracted position.
Some, like the biceps, are very easy to understand. Some are more stylish.
So, depending of the position of the body, muscles will be in one of their two positions.
Now that you've drawn your joints and joind them by lines, you'll have to build some muscle.
After that, you have your final shape!

You just have to find the shapes of the muscles.

When the shapes are drawn, shading has never been so easy.




OKAY, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE KOI?

You can deconstruct anything, but every flexible cylinder shaped thing like a Koi or a snake follows the same rule.
One part, one bone, aka the Spine!

Look at how you can deconstruct the Koi:

Starting from the head to the end of the body (the 2 extreme points), you can push a curve as the desired direction.
Notice that the fin are attached to the body with joints. Same goes for the head.


With tracing paper to define more and more details (layering), you can progress in your drawing step by step.

Hope it'll help and share what you know. This is just how i do and understand it. Any questions welcome!

Peace,

DKJ

Almost forgot to talk about the grids.

Since it's all geometry, you can build grids to find where stuff like Koi eyes need to be.
Use your grids (and also perspective) to find where your parts need to be drawn.



This is a difficult exercise, and i took a very wrong angle, but that's what my rough 1st try would be:



Peace,

DKJ
PS: here's a link to my favorite perspective drawing, learning book :

DKJ said:

What worked for me is contour drawing.
If you can decompose all your subjects in shapes, then decompose all your shapes in grids, you can place anything at the good place.

What you need is a minimum understanding of how perspective works (many information online).

For example, if you rotate this cylinder, you can see where the red dot and the blue line should be, thanks to the grid.
View attachment 25503
This was done with my mouse so sorry for the rawness, but here's what a basic fish look like in basic shapes with grids:

View attachment 25504

View attachment 25505

Hope it'll help.

Peace,

DKJ

Click to expand...

You are very awesome drawer i think... Thank you...

LednertHurman said:

You are very awesome drawer i think... Thank you...

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot, but truth is i always have a hard time designing something from start to end.
These are just my tips to get from an idea to the end product by adding more and more details.

Peace,

DKJ