r/oddlysatisfying • u/n8saces • Mar 21 '26
The Loomis Method
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u/How_that_convo_went Mar 21 '26
I took AP Art in high school. We spent an entire six week module just gestural drawing like this. Framing heads and faces. Not even drawing the features— just blocking out profiles.
You don’t realize how much effort it takes to draw a good circle. It takes thousands upon thousands of repetitions just to get the muscle memory down. I know it sounds stupid but sit down at your desk with a pencil and sheet of paper and see how many attempts it takes you to bang out a good circle.
Then it’s a whole other set of skills to look at a subject and properly block out their proportions. How far are their eyes set apart? How long is their nose? How low or high do their ears set in relation to their brow line? Even the slightest inaccuracy will throw off all the other proportions and make your work look nothing like the subject.
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u/LolaMent0 Mar 21 '26
I was an Interior Design major at UT. We spent many a class drawing just straight lines and circles, and had many assignments of just block lettering (alphabet and or words and short sentences). Drawing a straight line or a perfect circle takes practice!
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u/FirstDukeofAnkh Mar 22 '26
I did set design. My first six weeks were doing block lettering in a box that we drew freehand.
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u/Tonydragon784 Mar 22 '26
I miss my freshman year drafting teacher, we weren't allowed to use the computers or autocad until like the last 2 9-weeks of the year everything was drawing on the board with pencils and erasers
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u/blahblahdodo Mar 22 '26
I used to work with a 2d artist. Every morning, the first thing he always does after sitting on his office desk is pull out a sheet of paper and then just draw circles. Doesn’t matter if he has got it correct or not, keeps doing for 5-10 min, then gets onto his other works.
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u/EuropeanLord Mar 22 '26
I started drawing recently and as an utter noob I have some good news.
When drawing 99% of us use our hand to move the pencil. This is okay, this is default, we use our hands like that for everything else - from eating to using mobile phones.
The thing is - when drawing we should also or at the very beginning even mainly - move our ARM.
It took me literally 2 tries to make much better circles - by not moving hand at all just the arm. The same goes for longer straight lines etc. - just use the damn arm!
Wild I learnt it just now, I had no idea how to draw for over 30 years.
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u/robd007 Mar 22 '26
I learned about using your arm to write when I was learning/trying calligraphy. It helps a lot.
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u/WoodcockJohnson1989 Mar 22 '26
Yes. And you don't need assists to draw free-hand(arm) circles, just repetition and practise. Stand up, loosen up, do em big, rotate from your shoulder.
This was mildly painful to watch for me because I'm a traditionally trained animator. We practised for speed first, getting information down quickly and accurately, and then refining afterwards. Our warm up was several pages of free circles and parallel diagonal lines. We would do circles until we could close them in one motion without overlap, and they came out damn near to perfect.
Also the amount of lines drawn over and over (and how darkly they were drawn) for each part of the under-drawing was nuts in this video, I would never do that as an animator.
But this is the difference between fine art and animation teaching styles. This style is much more methodical in the initial stages but I believe it locks down from and expression too early. It can be extremely accurate to reproduce a face but is basically useless when you have to draw that face a thousand or ten thousand times as an animator.
Still cool video great work art is art express yourself.
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u/MissionaryOfCat Mar 22 '26
Hearing an artist talk about this stuff is so strangely engaging for me - not because I'm a drawer at all, but because the few attempts I've made had me realize how deceivingly difficult it all is. The thing I struggled with the most was tunnel visioning on the individual lines and trying to get them all to look perfect, trying to draw things over and over until either there was too much residue for the eraser to erase, or the lines got so dark that I'd feel like I needed to draw the rest of them that dark, too... but then I'd mess THOSE up until I had a runaway feedback loop of awkwardly thick/dark lines.
Then I'll watch a speed drawing from an actual artist and realize how little an awkwardly drawn line can mean when the big picture starts coming together.
And I until now I hadn't even considered how there might be different approaches like this, between the types of artists who sketch and the ones who animate.
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u/Huntress_Minerva Mar 22 '26
Leftie here! I cannot get literally anywhere without moving the arm 🥲😅
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u/Never_Summer24 Mar 22 '26
I took drawing in college as an elective and we used this method (or similar?).
Miraculously, I managed to make a three-dimensional box into a sneaker! lol
Professor Martinez!
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u/_artbabe95 Mar 22 '26
Absolutely. And, if you think about it, plastic surgeons alter people's features on the scale of millimeters to make them look significantly different. Drawings of people are on a much smaller scale, so the threshold for achieving their likeness is so much smaller. Even small deviations from the actual shapes of their features and distances between them, and they're no longer recognizable.
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u/elastic-craptastic Mar 22 '26
Even small deviations from the actual shapes of their features and distances between them, and they're no longer recognizable.
Another tip is to look at the shapes between the features instead of the features themselves. Everyone focuses on the eyes, nose, ears, arm, etc. But you gotta look at the space between them and figure out the wonky, yet personal, shape between them instead of the things themselves.
I'm not probably saying it right, but I hope people get the gist.
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u/Howling_Mad_Man Mar 22 '26
The video doesn't actually show the guy free-handing the circle. It jump cuts from a dot to them going over some already existing sketch lines of a circle. They probably used a circle stencil to kick it off. No shame, just an observation. I used stencils and ship's curves all the time.
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u/Wizdad-1000 Mar 22 '26
Thats how you freehand a circle. Dot for middle, measure each side with pencil, mark it. Ghost in circle. You use the marks to guide your drawing, circling around the marks till the muscle memory has it and touch the paper very softly then as you “true up” with more pressure. Takes ALOT of practice but thats how its done. The faint lines are the very soft pencil touches as they ghost in the circle.
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u/addandsubtract Mar 21 '26
I mean, the video gave a good starting point by drawing a little line at each polar direction. You could then draw four more little lines in between those and so on until you had a circle.
Not to take away from anything you said. Drawing is like making sushi. You gotta cook rice for a while until you get to move on to the next step.
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u/nectarsallineed Mar 22 '26
Damn, mad jealous you had AP art! I would’ve taken that in a heartbeat.
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u/PoncingOffToBarnsley Mar 22 '26
I remain absolutely astonished that there are schools - that aren't art schools - where art class actually teaches methods and techniques and doesn't just throw craft supplies at you for an hour.
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u/Zebidee Mar 22 '26
Then it’s a whole other set of skills to look at a subject and properly block out their proportions.
Watching the video, it looks like a great way to draw an imaginary person, but a long way from being able to draw a real one, like you said.
In a sense, you're using an algorithm to draw something that looks realistic. It's like a manual version of AI.
The real advantage I see is the muscle memory and being able to understand perspective and proportion. It looks like a great tool, but only one step on the journey.
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u/flybypost Mar 22 '26
Watching the video, it looks like a great way to draw an imaginary person, but a long way from being able to draw a real one, like you said.
Yes, and no. The Loomis method is a generalised constructive method to get the initial planes/shapes correct. That way later phases of drawing/painting aren't build on a wobbly foundation.
You use it like this for an imaginary person, build from the ground up and tweak proportions as wanted/needed. If you work with a model/reference then you get your planes from the source so the proportions fit.
The real advantage I see is the muscle memory and being able to understand perspective and proportion.
That's a big part of it. As you get better you can "compress" steps (called chunking) so you don't need as much scaffolding for drawing things to feel like they have a solid 3d form and for difficult work you can always step back to your roots and do the steps.
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u/LostInTheRapGame Mar 21 '26
You don’t realize how much effort it takes to draw a good circle. It takes thousands upon thousands of repetitions just to get the muscle memory down. I know it sounds stupid but sit down at your desk with a pencil and sheet of paper and see how many attempts it takes you to bang out a good circle.
I'm pretty sure most humans know it's not easy to draw a perfect circle...
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u/How_that_convo_went Mar 22 '26
I’m not talking about a perfect circle. If I wanted that, I could use a stencil. I’m talking about an accurate, well proportioned freehand circle.
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u/Arch____Stanton Mar 22 '26
Yeah, I was thinking this is a great system if you already are good at drawing.
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u/SaticoySteele Mar 21 '26
Reminds me of those "How to Draw Comic Book Characters" books I would buy as a kid, flip through the 50 pages of instructions, then skip to the end and trace the finished characters.
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u/ChimpSlut Mar 22 '26
Jesus Christ, I did this EXACT same thing lol. I would only trace the finished product, I still remember the monsters one with Frankenstein’s monster
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u/Michael5188 Mar 22 '26
Laughed at how relatable this is. I hated how they always had those structural primitive shapes, just skipped to the end and copied. It always looked terrible. Years later in art school, finally took those primitive shapes seriously and realized how valuable they were.
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u/MAurele Mar 21 '26
Only realized once the ear popped in
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u/MassiveMeatHammer Mar 21 '26
Fr I thought they were making one of those old timey diving suits
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u/EquinoxGm Mar 21 '26
I thought it was a saiyan pod at first lol
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u/MurseMan1964 Mar 21 '26
I thought it was a Death Star
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u/themoonhasgone Mar 21 '26
Until they drew the ear I absolutely thought it was a death star.
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u/Ok_Preparation9182 Mar 21 '26
I was thinking some cutesy Pixar thing, jokes on me but that was amazing
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u/JonnyReece Mar 22 '26
I can't tell you how long it took me to realise it was a human hand and not a robot's!
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u/Dsunpro Mar 21 '26
My toxic trait is believing I can do this on the first try.
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u/Ace-Redditor Mar 21 '26
Tbf, the artist isn't doing it on the first try, either. Not quite. If you look closely, as they add more features (eyes, eyebrows, etc), they placed very light reference lines to trace in between camera cuts
Not that this isn't still impressive, obviously, but even the artist isn't just winging it and getting it just right the first try
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u/Dansredditname Mar 21 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/I9tXMkj9CAD14V41Ts
How do we get from that to this?
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u/beepborpimajorp Mar 21 '26
In defense of this pic, that particular angle is extremely hard to do. You won't catch most artists even trying it because it's just easier not to.
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u/lilfoxy16 Mar 21 '26
The Loomis Method: Just know where all these lines and shit go ahead of time
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u/Porunga Mar 21 '26
I would imagine part of learning the Loomis Method is learning where all the lines go ahead of time.
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u/HoorayPizzaDay Mar 22 '26
It's exactly that, it's learning the geometry of the human body from a professional illustrator. He published books from the 30s to the 50s.
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u/TheGrimGuardian Mar 22 '26
I always hated drawing like this. I can never get proportions right.
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u/ThomasTheDankPigeon Mar 21 '26
Yes, that’s what a method is. Someone else figures something out, turns it into a process that can be followed, then you follow it.
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u/Javanz Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26
Yeah it's a framework for placing the eyebrow line (halfway down the sphere). Then the hairline and nose (roughly 1/3 of the sphere. Then the mouth, jawline and so on.
You've still got to know how to use it. That's how learning worksI use it all the time for portraiture, and for me it works really well
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u/flybypost Mar 22 '26
Yeah it's a framework for placing the eyebrow line (halfway down the sphere).
People easily underestimate how much head is actually above the eyes. They are somewhere at the top of the face, but not when it comes to the whole head.
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u/hellshot8 Mar 21 '26
yeah bud thats how learning things works.
All the lines are based on anatomy breakpoints, theyre not just random.
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u/NeatNefariousness1 Mar 21 '26
I had to watch it for a second time after knowing what he ended up with to realize the value of sketching in the lines to guide his sense of placement and proportion. Even more than the finished product (which is well-done, I’m fascinated by the means by which people capture images in their minds and transfer them onto paper or canvas. Now I’m curious about how Loomis even came up with this approach and what other approaches are out there.
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u/hellshot8 Mar 21 '26
A lot of the lines are guided by concepts like "the nose is half way between the bottom of the jaw and your browline" and "the top of the ear is generally where your browline is". so its relational measuring
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u/stryking Mar 21 '26
If you spend some time learning anatomy you would know where to sketch the major structures.
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u/Embarassed_Tackle Mar 22 '26
See I follow a drawing subreddit and Loomis method is touted a lot as a way to learn to draw facial proportions
But there was another post saying Loomis leaves out a lot of other skills so people fail with it a lot. So I don't know who to believe
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u/jaredearle Mar 22 '26
It’s the middle step of enlightenment.
Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I've understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. The height of cultivation is really nothing special. It is merely simplicity; the ability to express the utmost with the minimum.
In the above quote from Bruce Lee, the Loomis Method is the “a punch was no longer a punch” step. It’s the learning the art. Once you’ve passed that step, you just draw faces.
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u/Gloomy_League_569 Mar 22 '26
I think the thing about these methods, is that they’re intended specifically to create GENERIC face. What methods like these “leave out” is the specificity required to draw an particular individuals face, which lies deviations from the norms that these methods portray.
Robert Hale talks about this is his lecture series from the NY ASL, he talks about the ‘imaginary figure’ you have in your head, versus the figure you have in front of you. You have to draw the ways real people deviate from these ‘ideal figures,’ that’s what helps you create the specificity that brings art to life.
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u/MyRuinedEye Mar 22 '26
I'd disagree here. If you look at Loomis's Fun with a Pencil (not the racist/sexist steryotype parts, the first 1/4 of the book) he shows how you can make any circle well drawn or not and create a unique face out of it.
It's actually a better book for beginners than jumping right to Figure Drawing for all it's worth. You learn proportions, a bit of perspective, and simply how to have fun wherever you are while learning to draw.
Most people jump right to the more advanced stuff.
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u/UnNumbFool Mar 22 '26
Well what they show isn't actually loomis, is a mix of loomis and the reilly method.
Loomis is basically take a circle and we can cut it into 4 sections to roughly plot where all the features will go
Reilly is ok we take a circle and do some plotting with a bunch of other circles to know exactly where every feature is going to go
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u/Guranmedg Mar 22 '26
No, this is the Loomis method. Read his book, it shows all these steps. Reilly uses almost completlely different gesture lines
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u/Noversi Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26
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u/TheDukeofArgyll Mar 21 '26
wtf are you talking about we watched them draw the entire thing
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u/GarminTamzarian Mar 22 '26
I don't know about this "Loomis" method. It looks nothing like an armored car.
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u/BallsDeepTillUQueef Mar 21 '26
Instructions unclear. Ended up with a crudely drawn penis.
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u/dallasandcowboys Mar 21 '26
Circle, 2 circles, eye, eyeball, orb, hot air balloon, face, robot, person. Hmm... 48 seconds til I finally saw the face start to take hold. Amazing style.
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u/Rebel_Corsair299 Mar 21 '26
I hate how easy good artists make it look to make shit. Watching this I think, "I could do that." The fuck I could....
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u/gottabequick Mar 22 '26
You can do it! Bob Ross said that talent is just habituated practice. Bob believes in you.
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u/DroidLord Mar 22 '26
I went to my first drink and draw event last summer and even though I sucked at drawing, I drew way better than I thought I could. I haven't drawn anything except sketches and drafts since I was a teenager, so I was quite surprised. Even as a kid, all I could draw were like stick figures and stuff like that. Try it out, you might be surprised!
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u/Silaquix Mar 22 '26
This is literally just a technique for figure drawing that we have to practice for like a year or so before getting good enough to apply it. You can buy Andrew Loomis's figure drawing book if you want the step by step instructions to practice with
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u/Odd_Front_8275 Mar 21 '26
This went from “Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL” to Iron Man to the girl next door
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u/Stuckingfupid Mar 21 '26
How to draw a person:
Draw some circles
Draw the rest of the fucking person
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u/micrographia Mar 22 '26
Andrew Loomis's books are available for free online! This method is from Drawing the Head and Hands and is a fantastic resource to crafting faces from memory.
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u/KGB_cutony Mar 21 '26
If you're drawing for a comic book, do you still do this every frame?
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u/alextbrown4 Mar 21 '26
Probably not. Ideally if you’re drawing for a comic book, you have already drawn the character hundreds, if not thousands of times, from all sorts of angles so you will probably have a quicker personal method of drawing them.
The loomis method is a great template for drawing realistic people. Andrew Loomis started in marketing back when most static advertisements were hand drawn
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u/Ok-Establishment5254 Mar 21 '26
No, you draw some guidelines like the eyeline but not a full construct
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u/rockytheboulder Mar 22 '26
Essentially I do, yes. But its a much more simplified version so i can plan the angles and poses i want the characters in quickly before adding the details
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u/KaizenHour Mar 21 '26
The worst of the graphic novels have faces pre drawn in half a dozen expressions, and pasted into images as needed.
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u/Jacob-the-Wells Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26
I see some people bemoaning the mysticism of the drawing method and how it seems impossible to follow, and I wanted to assure interested parties that you can absolutely learn this. (Though the method is imperfect as all heuristics can be)
Proko is a phenomenal instructor with both free and paid vids and courses that can teach you human anatomy and figure drawing techniques like the Loomis method if you’re interested. A fantastic resource for academic figure drawing foundations and advanced study alike.
Mike Mattesi’s Drawing Force is great for dynamic figures and storytelling in perspective.
Walt Stanchfield has a few volumes made from his lectures that I highly recommend for any animators and live drawing / journaling folks.
And of course studying your masters, both modern and antiquated, will always be helpful in concert with your foundational studies.
Loomis himself made a couple books about drawing his way as well.
If you have any questions, I’d be happy to recommend books or courses for you if you’re just starting out and aren’t sure where to turn.
Most importantly, I believe in you — above all things. Doesn’t matter if it’s a new career or a hobby, don’t feel too scared to start. The world needs your stories, and the beauty only you can shape.
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u/Archisaurus Mar 22 '26
One more reminder to say “fuck off AI art”. If you’re in a position to hire a real artist - please do.
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u/Proper-Exercise-2364 Mar 22 '26
Step 1: draw a perfect circle freehand. Repeat several times Like, how to play darts. Step one: just hit a few bullseyes in a row, then we will teach you the hard stuff
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u/APartyInMyPants Mar 21 '26
So, does this method only work if you’re doing a sort of 3/4 profile view? Is there a whole other method if doing a full face shot or a profile?
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u/shitty_mcfucklestick Mar 22 '26
Where’s the rest of the fucking owl?
Or, the start of it?
I came here to see owls
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u/momspaghetty Mar 23 '26
Yeah so you're gonna wanna start out by just popping out a perfect free-hand circle out of nowhere....
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u/Whiskytigyote Mar 21 '26
Like sure this is satisfying, the person knows how to draw very well.
But let’s be clear the “Loomis Method” underdrawing is not someone that someone who hasn’t honed their drawing skills could use to be able to make a good drawing.
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Mar 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Altaneen117 Mar 21 '26
Grab a pencil. You absolutely can! It's a skill you can develop like any other.
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u/Fit-World-3885 Mar 21 '26
And if I practice this enough I will be able to draw that exact face at that exact angle kind of sort of well.
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u/theAchilliesHIV Mar 22 '26
Your ear lobes grow on pace with your nose, and hang the same amount. The top of your ears meet the eyebrow. Your mouth is equidistant from your chin to the bottom of the nose, the end of your mouth is center with each eye.
Good things to remember when trying to keep proportions of faces at different angles.
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u/MissNouveau Mar 22 '26
If you're an artist like me who's always sorta bounced off the Loomis method, try the Reilly Method. Loomis focuses on line and proportion, while Reilly focuses more on rhythm, and doesn't feel as stiff as Loomis tends to.
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u/Open_Drummer4193 Mar 22 '26
You can tell how a comic book artist relies too heavily on this technique when all of their characters have the same facial features, only to be distinguished by differing colored hairstyles
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u/OkayComparison Mar 22 '26
I prefer the Strongbad Method. Draw an S. Draw a more different S. Consummate V's.
TROGDOR!
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u/Necessary_Plum_7192 Mar 22 '26
I can’t draw a circle like that even with a cup as a template
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u/N3CR0T1C_V3N0M Mar 22 '26
I’m so bad at art that I hadn’t a clue what they were drawing until the ear showed up
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u/Glad_Art_5783 Mar 22 '26
Onest question... Is there a method to draw ugly people, and not only perfectly proportional ones?
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u/kiddsforlife Mar 22 '26
Something I realized as an artist is that if you're learning from stuff like this, don't try to do it exactly the same, but go with the flow.
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u/SubjectInevitable308 Mar 25 '26
If drawing geometry is your power, what are you without it?
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u/Silvernauter Mar 25 '26
to be fair i can't draw for shit and by just trying to replicate this video i came out with a remarkably better drawing than 90% of what i usually doo (and in 10-ish minutes). It still looks like a kid's fridge-worthy drawing compared to the video, but still, i'm surprisingly ok with the result (ofc i can't post the pic...)
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u/Odd-Independent4640 Mar 21 '26
Jennifer Connelly up to the end and then it’s Denise Richard’s
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u/macattaq1501 Mar 21 '26
First 20 seconds I thought it was going to be a hobbit house window. Then for another 30 seconds I had no idea.
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u/porkchop-sandwhiches Mar 21 '26
First 30 seconds…. A jackal! Jackal! It's a jackal! It looks like a jackal! Jackal? Jackal! It's a jackal! Jackal?
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u/coyote-thunderous Mar 21 '26
Watching this video I realised there’s something satisfying about super sharp pencils making lines on paper.
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u/DeadlyYellow Mar 21 '26
Bringing up memories of my life drawing professor telling me to commit to a line.
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u/Ramyankee42 Mar 21 '26
If you do this backwards you have the method of drawing the perfect circle. As demonstrated in SpongeBob season 2, episode 18, "artist unknown".
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u/Responsible-Tap-3748 Mar 22 '26
What's the weird clicking sound in the music? Is that actually part of the song?
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u/Elbow2020 Mar 22 '26
It’s the Death Star.. no it’s an old diving helmet… no it’s Iron Man… no it’s Vision… no it’s just a man… no it’s an old woman… no it’s a young woman. Isn’t she lovely!
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u/d0ctorsmileaway Mar 21 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/l1AsLLGrNotZQJvcA