Sketching Form and Gesture
Move past flat outlines and hesitant marks to sketch subjects with three-dimensional weight and kinetic energy. Learn how to control line hierarchy, carve out volumes, and use selective contrast to bring spontaneous drawings to life.
Like Duolingo, but for Sketching Form and Gesture. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Constructing Form and Gravity and Rhythm, Space, and Focus. It assumes you already know the basics.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Sketching Form and Gesture
- Thicker, higher-contrast strokes visually advance forward in a line drawing
- Thinner, delicate contours cause receding forms to sit further back in space
- Varying contour thickness creates depth even before adding any shading tone
- Ground contact points require the heaviest strokes to convey weight and occlusion
- Undersides shielded from light need medium-heavy lines to suggest ambient shade
- Upward surfaces receiving direct light require minimal or delicate mark-making
- Direct light can be suggested by deliberately omitting or breaking contour lines
- A continuous dark outline seals an edge and makes the lit surface appear dull
- The viewer's eye automatically connects broken line segments across bright areas
- In a T-junction, the uninterrupted line marks the form in front
- The receding form's contour must terminate abruptly at the foreground boundary
- Clean T-junctions create unambiguous depth cues without requiring tone or color
- Pivoting from the shoulder produces smooth, continuous curves with confident weight
- Lifting the pencil between intentional strokes prevents furry accumulation of graphite
- Pivoting primarily from the wrist or fingers results in short, hesitant scratch marks
- Cross-contour arcs bow toward the viewer when a cylinder tilts forward toward the eye.
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Sketching Form and Gesture the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
You are sketching two overlapping hills. How should you draw the distant hill so it stays behind?
Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.
Where Sketching Form and Gesture takes you
- 1
Constructing Form and Gravity
- Line Weight and Overlap Hierarchy
- Cross-Contour and Planar Slicing
- 2
Rhythm, Space, and Focus
- Gesture and Kinetic Rhythm
- Controlled Values and Lost Edges
2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
Sketching Form and Gesture is taught in the Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start Sketching Form and Gesture today.
Download Tomo, search Sketching Form and Gesture, and play your first lesson in under a minute.