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angular vs rounded

I've been admiring the art of wonderful artists such as Shoomlah and Sulacoyote and noticed that they have a very unique and attractive angular approach towards their art. Canines in particular look great in it.

Before I noticed the difference it never registered that I had my male characters more angular whereas my females were rounded and almost mochi ball like. It looked right to me that females were soft and slinky but I would like to aim for something different.

I'm just wondering if others on here have delved deeper into this than I have and have resources. I'm studying Vilppu and have noticed an improvement from drawing cubes :)

It's fun!

As far as stylized art. I have tried to do more angular and elongated bodies. However my attempts thus far have failed to produce results.

As far as male vs female I have noticed that too, but I am wondering if that all boils down to how the female skeleton and the male skeleton lead to differing feels for what looks natural. Females being much smaller and hormonal fat deposits leading to more curvy forms than with males. So my guess is, is that is natural for someone to want to draw females more rounded and less angular than males.

Who is Vilppu? I don't think I have ever heard of him.

Hi, kinda going off on 3 hours of sleep so if I miss a few essential verbs and words extrapolate the context. thx. Vilppu is one of the modern masters of gesture and life drawing. He wrote a few how to books and they really improved my ability to sense forms shapes and get the most out of life drawing. Do a quick google and you'll see his name.
While I prefer ken hultgren's book on animal drawing more, his methodology in cubes and perspectives may be considered the next step up.
Well at least it is for me because I don't usually bother with cubes :)

I find myself really drawn to angular art for some reason, and find it comes in a variety of different forms. Cartoonists like Jackson Publick (of Venture Brothers fame) and fine artists like J.C> Leyendecker would be good, but very respectively different examples of this. Leyendecker is particularly interesting because he combines rounded and angular elements in a really effective way. He seems to have a sense of which is better for each area of a particular image, and sometimes, he'll combine founded overall shapes with more defined linework and really angular shading and brush strokes.

I think it's particularly appealing for me because I grew up drawing Disney/Don Bluth style so my characters tend to be very rounded and angles provide a new and interesting challenge for me. Especially in drawing people. I've been trapped by the cutesy Disney style for a while, and working in a more angular style is one of the only ways I've been able to successfully draw people without them looking too childlike.

Males = angular, females = rounded is a time-honored cliche because it works; it's an exaggeration of what you see in a person who fits what we evolved to see as being a parent likely to do a good job carrying your genes into the next generation.

If you want to try drawing more angularly for a while, then do it. Sit down to draw and tell yourself you can't use any curves. The first few attempts will likely be horrible and awkward; those failures might have a few bits that work, that you can build on. Construct some roughs using boxes instead of balls and tubes. Doodle some things with no construction, keeping all the lines as straight as you can. Let in a few curves here and there to play against the corners, or even bring them in to accentuate them.

Try to draw something based entirely on squares and rectangles. Then try to draw something based entirely on triangles. Scribble and experiment.

Bridgman's books on life drawing are handy for boxy construction ideas; he strongly favored boxes over spheres.

Study your favorite pointy artists and steal shamelessly from them, too. Drawing like Matt Howarth is a different kind of angularity than drawing like Peter Chung; so's drawing like Lyonel Feininger. Or drawing like Ed Benedict.

Usually I can only really successfully do 'rounded' line styles if I do a lot of erasing and stuff, really take my time with it. Generally, the more straight lines you see in my work, the less erasing I did and the more spontanious it was. Angular/straight liney styling is simply faster for me, so it's what I work with.

That and I tend to like kind of angular animals. Canines have pointy snoots and pointy ears.

Also, Peter Chung is the man.

Regarding Sulacoyote, speaking as someone who's observed him draw, a lot of the angularity comes from the way he holds his pencil. He holds it overhand most of the time and draws with his wrist. Sorry Sul, not meaning to speak for you here, just something I've noticed, especially when we used to have class together.

I've done this before as well and achieved similar results. Its really great for gesture drawing and loosening up. My figure drawing teacher instilled this method int ous by making us draw with a conte crayon attached to a three foot stick and standing far away from our paper. You'd be amazed at how much great angular gesture you can get by just holding your pencil a different way than you're used to :)

Yea, I really loved Aeon flux's design work. But never managed to find out who drew the cartoon until much later (I saw the show the first time in 1991??1992??, back when we didn't have google...).

Thorn and sula, that's interesting. I've been drawing quite angularly offline and rather like the difference. I haven't tried holding the pencil differently or favoring either my arm or wrist though. I think that will really help as I also did what worked intuitively.

Thanks for the input!

That too, what Thorn said. I can't remember how she holds her pen (I haven't been outside in about 3 months let alone seen anyone) but I do remember she held it a different way than I did, and her style tends to be more curvy.

For about two years I only drew by holding the pen by its end tip and having my hand really far from the paper. The results were terribly noodly, but it helped tighten things up when I went back to holding it 'writing style'.

Only somewhat related to the topic, but I *love* Glenn Vilppu. I'm in his life drawing for animals class right now, and he really is a total genius and sweet old grandpa of an instructor. Seeing him draw and explain in person the texts that you have is really amazing. But yes, he holds his chalk/pencil overhand, like if you were pointing at the paper with your finger, and your drawing tool is underneath. It's difficult drawing with your arm, but the results are completely different from the more typical pencil hold. The same goes with inking, I don't remember where I saw this (possibly Kazu Kibuishi from boltcity.com or an inking tutorial), but whomever it was rested his inking tool on his middle finger with the index and thumb to hold it in place, then uses the arm to ink. Smooth and fantastic arcs and lines, but takes quite a bit of practice and steady inking surface to accomplish.