Creating Reversible Art

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Legotti
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Creating Reversible Art

Unread post by Legotti »

Hey there. One thing I've been trying to get my head around is creating poses that reverse well, and how to structure the pose so I know it'll flip. Especially when the outfit's on 3/4ths view body, those centerlines are not gonna meet up. So far I do half, see what it looks like rotated, move it around til I find a position that works flipped, then adjust the drawing so it lines up. Not terribly efficient though. Having a better understanding of how to lay it out in the planning stages would be ideal, but a lot of poses don't rotate cleanly at certain points.

I know the classic card art is more abstract and emblematic, so limbs get placed in any close enough position to where it might have been on the historical full figure cards. But I would like, if I can, to maintain some sense of normal proportions on my cards.

For the more emblematic art, it seems sensible to tackle it in layers, like a paper doll. Torso reversed first, then overlay a limb segment layered over it (like forearm and hands), flip that to see it looks right, then draw the connected bit with what space you have left. Haven't tried that with more realistic figures though. I'll do that today.

For more realistic figures, I'm finding my posing options have more restrictions. Possibly just due to inexperience though.
Flat colors work because your brain fills in the rotation instead of having to work out how the planes meet with shading. I may not always go that route in my coloring though, so I don't want to be reliant on it.

I've seen plenty of dividers like banners running through the figure which solves all that, but I'd rather the figure just meet up at a certain point. Overlapping cloth from the outfit is a good one, but again, it's planning that sort of thing out from the get go, instead of editing it in later to work around a problem.


I've been getting a bit more traction adding the general rhythm line of the dividing line, in whatever shape I'd like it to be, then trying to form a figure that conforms to that. Basically how I'd approach gesture in drawing someone or something I see from life. Then you can mess with the precise shape of the dividing line after it's been done simply. But since I'm so new to this, I'm sure there are some personal tricks and common practices that I'm just not aware of. What's your process?
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Re: Creating Reversible Art

Unread post by MagikFingerz »

I'm no artist, but I do appreciate the work behind trying to get this right. Just like back designs, court cards should be mirrored. Otherwise it's just a sketch/image on a card, putting indices on it doesn't make it a playing card in my book.

And yes, dividers are a quick fix that doesn't create a very good end result, or at least not as good as it could be.
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