It starts with an ash black line drawn with a raw stick of charcoal. A hand slides the charcoal across textured paper and the shape of a trapezius muscle begins to form. But the line’s drawn too short to accurately represent the space between shoulder and neck, so it vanishes beneath heavy black hatching and gets redrawn. Only now it’s too thick. Scratch it out. Draw it again. And repeat, and repeat, and repeat again.
The process may seem painfully laborious, but it’s a core tenet of any life drawing session. It’s refinement through iteration, a concept Rioters hone during Go Figure, a weekly life drawing club that meets every other Thursday at Riot HQ.
You’ll find more than just seasoned artists here though. The club welcomes Rioters from every team looking to sharpen their anatomical drawing skills, pick up a hobby, or just meet new people from around the office. Whether we’re sketching a model in Victorian costume, a Nurse Akali cosplayer, or a dragon rider elf, feedback and a willingness to scrap a sketch and start over are critical to every club meetup.
Sure, mistakes are made, but when a sketch goes sideways, life drawing teaches us to let go and start over with a fresh perspective. The next iteration, now guided by the lessons gleaned from our previous hiccup, ends up more refined and closer to complete. It’s a lesson we carry well beyond Go Figure when systems crash, champion design hits a roadblock, or creative concepts just aren’t coming together.
Now if only we could convince our high school teachers that doodling in textbooks was actually an exercise in creative iteration. The detentions that could’ve been avoided...
