A bit about me - model drawing

Hey everyone!

Today I wanted to share something more about myself as an artist. Now this is something I haven’t really done so far, because this Patreon is of course about Space Rescue- and not really about me ;)

But the thing is- always towards the end of my 3-month development cycle, I run out of things to show. That’s because in these last weeks I’m just cleaning up files, exporting images, and do a lot of coding. Which is all pretty boring stuff to share.

So then I thought, maybe I should tell a bit more about myself- and about the path that lead me to making Space Rescue. Now I won’t bore you with every detail, but I’ll try to focus on some revelant parts of my past, that are more deirectly related to Space Rescue.

So, let’s give this a try!

How I learned drawing girls

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to get better at drawing. And as I liked comics, I thought the best way to learn, was by copying characters from these comics. And so from then on I drew everything ranging from the the Hulk to Dragonball z characters – and eventually got quite good at that :)

But somehow tracing comic characters didn’t made me better at drawing my own characters. And this really frustrated me for the longest time.

You see, I was trying to find a commenality in all these different artstyles- some logic. But each comic artist had a different way of drawing eyes, muscles, hands etc. So which way of of drawing is correct- and how do I blend that into my own style? Well... I couldn’t figure it out.

(Something I drew from imagination at age 14 )

But each artsyle is of course an artist own interpertation of reality. And this made me realize that instead of copying others- I should really start drawing things from life- and from there find my own artstyle.

Playboy examples

So….I bought a bunch of playboys and started drawing naked girls :) Now his was around the time I started my study- and I kept drawing from playboys till after I gratuated. I must have draw hundreds of girls this way, and certainly improved my drawing skills.

But after a while I discovered that copying photo’s also had it’s limits. For example, it was especially difficult to understand how certain muscles or bodyfat would change when someone would take a different pose.

(I took this pose from a Playboy girl, and afterwards made an illustration out of it- ink on paper)

The model drawing club

So to get a better insight in how the body changes through different poses, I decided to join a local model drawing club. And from there on once a month, I would do two hours of live model drawing.

Now this was great! I’d be standing about two meters away from a naked girl, which I could now draw from any side I wanted. And by taking a walk around the model, or just by moving my head -I could now really see how things connected along the body. This his was great! And again my drawing got much better.

(These are a few of the poses I drew back then -Pencil on A3 paper)


You can see above that when I did my model drawing -I didn't add much 'artstyle' to my drawings. That was because it's important to draw wht you see first- and not draw how you want to make things look. Because this will hinder your learning process I think.

Now this was all good practice ... but the downside was that this model drawing class was intended for amateurs. And a model would often remain in the same pose for about an hour because that was the time needed for the average artist there to draw someone. But I was a bit more experienced, and I would be done after 10 minutes. Now for a while this was fine. But eventually I just wanted more practice.

My own model drawing club

And so I started my own model drawing club! And while doing so, I wanted create a modern model drawing club aimed at comic artist & game artist. I imagined having drawing sessions where models would swing swords, or shoot rayguns. And the poses should be short and interesting, so we could draw a dozen poses each session.

And that’s what I did!

I hired a studio, hired some models, and then I invited fellow artist to come and join the drawing sessions. My model drawing club was called ‘Schetssessie 2.0’ and I hosted 50 sessions over the time of 5 years. And this brought my drawing skills to the level where it’s now. And I didn't only learn by just drawing, but also from my fellow artist who joined. It was pretty great!

(Some poses I drew of 5 and 10 minutes. I colored the art afterwards with aquarelle)

(All drawing sessions had a theme, which would become visible through the decor & props for that session- which I mostly made myself. This is for example my own bike - to which I added a fake motorblock to make it fit to the steampunk session of that month. For more fun photo's checkout the social-pages of the sessions.)

Well, those were fun times! But in the end I handed over the drawing club to a friend of mine (who is still hosting monthly sessions) – and I decided use my aquired drawing skills to start making Space Rescue.

And the rest you know! Well, I hope you found this interesting - If so, then I'll tell you a bit more about myself in a few months again.

And meanwhile I'll just keep working on the next game-update!

All the best!
-Robin