Chayota

Hi H0zynt! I'll be checking your homework :)

Good job on drawing so many animals!

I'll go in parts, highlighting anything that can be worked on:

Organic Intersections: These are great! They seriously look like each one is resting on top of the previous one (gravity effect). Nice job with the shadows although the leftmost one on the first page makes the sausage look like it's floating.

Animals:

As I started looking at these, I quickly noticed that you are correctly defining the base shapes (cranium, ribcage, pelvis).

I like that you worked the tail of the first dog on the left as a fluid 2D shape; it adds good rhythm to the drawing. It contrasts with the stiffer, less natural tail of the dog on the right. I would advise you to work them more like in the first example.

Good work also adding additional masses to the base ones, the intersections of these look appropriate each.

I want to talk about the texture drawing. These are close to what it is to draw the silhouette of each little piece of texture. In this course we avoid doing that, because as in these drawings, it looks a bit stiff and disharmonious with the empty spaces of the drawing.

It is preferred that you draw only the shadows of the main texture pieces. This way the detail is only implied and doesn't feel incoherent with the rest of the drawing. I know this can be difficult to understand in words alone so here are some images: 1 - 2 - 3.

On another subject, the legs could do with a better design. It is common among students not to add more shapes to the sausages that form the foundation of the legs, even though these give them much more realism and life. In this image I contrast the somewhat stiff attempts at a homework assignment with demonstrations where I add more three-dimensional shapes. You will notice how much it changes when you apply this.

On corrections the last thing I can advise is a more strategic use of lineweight. Many drawings like the bird, the eagle or the crane have good constructions but they are overshadowed because all the lines blend together. A more strategic lineweight plus shading could give much more interest to these drawings.

I think this image can serve as an example of how to apply lineweight. Notice how in the middle you have a lot of lines belonging to various shapes. Using lineweight separates the shapes in the foreground from the ones behind. The closer a shape is compared to the others, the more lineweight it has. You can see the greatest application in the shape in the middle.

Finally, I must congratulate the great variety of animals and poses. I encourage you to keep at it. For drawing different and numerous scenarios will help you see your strengths and weaknesses from different angles and give you ideas on how to improve what is needed.

Conclusion: You can move on to the next lesson. But remember to use lineweight in a strategic way in your next drawings. And start working harder on the shadows cast from your textures. Good luck with your next step!

Hello! Good morning to you. I hope my review of your homework will help you.

Organic Intersections: The sausages look consistent in size, which is good. Good job with the contour lines, which follow the shape and its axis.

Maybe the shadows could extend a bit more downwards. Oh, and I'm also interested to note that some of the stacked sausages look "flat". These should look as if they are rolled up on the sausage holding them.

Maybe this article will help, if you don't get my point.

Animals:

I could take several animals and tell you the details they share.

The poses and foreshortening are pretty good, they look believable. But the constructive method is weakly applied. If we stop at the birds you will see that in the ostrich, its wings or hair seem to simply float above it. And the first bird's tail is just a 2D figure with no connection to the pelvis; I would also expect to see wings on this bird but it seems to have been forgotten.

Even in the birds and in the following animals, you can see that the legs are designed as two-dimensional shapes, without having some sausage as a base, which is what you would expect.

There are cases like that otter or marten (idk how it's named on english) where you have used some kind of sausage but in no way go beyond these and no shape is added on top of them, giving an unfinished look.

These mistakes are illustrated in the following image.

In later animals, such as deer or bears, I notice that the face planes are missing. Having added the facial features without them, it looks as if only the eyes and mouth have been glued to the base of the face.

As I highlighted in my image with corrections, you should look for these shots that are somewhat hidden in your reference images, and if you don't notice them there, you should look for more supporting references.

Here are some examples.

Conclusion:

I'll be leaving you some homework and when you finish it we'll see if you can move on to the next lesson.

Don't be discouraged if you feel that I highlighted several mistakes. This is only because we are looking to improve each drawing.

There are many things that are great, like the gestural quality of all the drawings or that hybrid made with several animals (and, of course, the great patience you have to have to draw so many animals methodically).

Good luck!

Hello hello! : D I will try my best to correct your homework.

Congratulations on completing it!

Organic intersections: The second page is your best example. The shape of the sausages is fine, although there are a lot of contour lines in them that don't add anything, as they look flat. Even these killed the illusion of three-dimensionality a bit.

Remember that these contour lines should wrap around the shape, rather than looking flat.

Also, there are some sausages that seem to deflate in the middle, refer to this image as a demonstration.

Animals:

Rather than focus on each specific animal, I will mention the general details that these share.

There's a wide variety, which is good. And I like that you've drawn some of them foreshortened, which is a good practice to keep up.

I can see that the silhouette of many animals has a very accentuated line weight, especially on the tortoise or the horses, which makes us lose interest in the internal details.

Line weight should only be applied in strategic places that we want to highlight, otherwise we end up attenuating much of the drawing.

There are also some animals like the deer ("deer 2") or the lynxes on the first page of these, which look as if they were made of tubes. This is due to not modifying the silhouette to a greater extent.

This is a common mistake, and here is an image where you can get an idea of where you can commonly play with the silhouette.

In most animals, the construction of the face could be worked on more. You can notice that most of them are missing the planes that form the face. These are important as they indicate the proper position of each feature. These images should help with that, 1 - 2 - 3.

I noticed that the design of the legs is rather poor regarding shapes, and in some cases you don't even use sausages for these as base shapes. The legs should be worked with the same importance as any part of the animal. This picture may help as a reference.

Lastly, it seems that most of the time you drew textures it was representing their silhouette. We have already talked about this in lesson 2. It looks stiff and leaves a lot of empty spaces visible to the viewer. Not to mention that you have to draw a lot more detail.

When rendering textures, it is most accurate to draw their cast shadows. This way the missing spaces are not a hindrance and the amount of detail you have to add is less tedious.

If this explanation is not enough, these images should do the job, 1-2.

Conclusion:

I think you should draw two more animals taking into account the details I mentioned.

Take your time about it, and think methodically about each thing you add to your drawings.

Congratulations on finishing your homework for this lesson! It must have taken you a while as there were quite a few animals.

There are many things that can be improved, and that's what I will focus on during the revision:

Organic Intersections: On both pages the sausages look a bit stiff, and the contour lines don't help as they look too flat.

It looks like you're rushing to draw them. If so, start taking more time to do it to get better results.

I drew corrections on these to explain some more technical things. The thickness of your sausages should be consistent and, each sausage should appear to curl over the ones holding it. Check out this image: https://imgur.com/qLHExue

Animals:

On the owl you worked too little on the face, it looks as if its eyes and beak are floating above it. This is why you should be careful to draw the facial planes, which will give us a better idea of the position of each feature.

Image with corrections: https://imgur.com/nJJzUCc

I really liked the idea of drawing two animals on top of each other, it's a great way to practice how the shapes interact. Although I admit that the excessive amount of contour lines dulled the drawing a bit.

They gave too much stiffness or artificiality.

You can notice this in your ostrich drawing as well.

Image with corrections: https://imgur.com/SctiPlQ

Finally I'll talk about what seems to be too little planning in your lines. There are drawings like the tiger on the yellow sheet where it can be seen that you didn't give enough interest to the base forms (cranium, rib cage, pelvis) or other elements like the tiger's toes.

You can also notice a lack of planning when drawing the fur of the dog and the cat in the last drawing.

When you want to represent the texture of an animal, you should analyse it beforehand (as in the texture exercises in lesson 2) and capture what you understand.

Within this course, using hatching or random lines shows that you have not analysed the texture of what is in your drawing.

Image with corrections: https://imgur.com/wLVIGml

Conclusion:

I will leave some homework for you to work on the things mentioned.

Don't be discouraged if you feel there is too much to correct!

You also did some great things like drawing animals in full motion or in pairs. Both have a unique touch!

Hi Pikscarots! I'll take care of checking your homework.

It will be more practical to go in parts:

Organic Intersections: over all, these look good. Although on the first page, the sausage that is more on top looks a bit static, even as if it had been cut out from behind.

On the second page, in the middle there is a sausage that seems to deflate where it intersects the larger one. Take a look at these photos 1 - 2.

Birds: The first bird looks good. The main masses (pelvis, rib cage, head,) are well positioned, and the shapes placed on top of these seem to follow the contour of the base.

I will suggest you not to fill the eye with black. In this drawing, this has flattened the shape of the eye, it looks like there is only a hole.

(Oh, and you built the hind leg with a deformed sausage, remember these should be consistent in thickness).

The second bird shows good use of techniques. The planes forming the head look solid and fit well. The use of tubes with ellipses for the long neck is well done.

I will only mention about the back, it looks a bit poor. It's as if a piece was cut off at the end. I'm not saying it's not really like that, but adding some hair at the end would give it a little more life.

Other Animals:

I'll start by talking about the first wolf because there are a lot of things that can be corrected here. It looks as if it was made of pipes; a big part of this is due to not having modified the silhouette, and another part is due to not having designed its parts better.

I'll leave this image where I work more on that problem.

I like how in the other animals you used perspective in various ways. Not many people do that in these lessons. In your case it looks awesome and I will ask you to keep it up.

The only problem I notice in all the other drawings is the poor design of their legs. Refer to this image.

Conclusion:

You seem to have understood and applied the most important part of the lesson, move on when you feel ready.

Good luck, and keep working with what I mentioned!

I understand, I'll keep practicing these for a while.

Thanks for replying!

I thank you both very much for helping me with the reviews!

This time I drew through all the shapes, even the ones on the back.

The ends of my sausages are still somewhat elliptical, due to the hook in my hand when tracing them. I'm trying to improve on that.

I'm still working on subtleties like line weight or intersections of shapes.

Image: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11aIAFchoBs64wkaCiXqJudoJyl4NEsc2?usp=sharing

Creativity is something that can be practiced, yes. It just happens to be very different from technical skills. In fact it is often a very confusing, non-linear process.

Intuition is the key here.

Take some things that inspire you, and reinterpret them in your own way. Mix them, copy them, or add shapes to them.

Draw in total freedom, forgetting about techniques. It's much harder than drawing technically. But the experience gained will help you to create amazing things.

Best of luck with whatever you plan to do.

I guess I should warn you about re-doing the course.

It's not the approach the Drawabox team would recommend.

In fact, part of what is necessary to learn the course to its greatest advantage is to keep going, even if you don't grasp a specific lesson.

You are free to do as you see fit.

But these reviews should avoid the overexertion of redoing the entire course!

Oh! one last thing.

You can continue even if you don't have the two agreements (that's just to get the full lesson badge).

If you are interested in having it anyway, on the Drawabox Discord server they can help you by getting it.

Good Day!