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8:36 PM, Monday March 23rd 2020

That is completely normal. Drawing involves a lot of thinking, and it can really be quite overwhelming - especially when I'm outlining all of these things you need to work on. Getting stressed and having it cause you to forget important points is entirely normal.

What may help is to read through the critique (while looking at your drawing and trying to identify what I'm talking about on your drawing), then taking a break. Come back to it later - like perhaps the next day - and try doing the same thing again. Then you can try doing another drawing, and compare it to the critique you'd received, see what you'd actually ended up improving upon, and what may have been forgotten. You may then wish to give it another shot the following day, if many elements were missed.

8:00 PM, Sunday March 29th 2020

https://i.imgur.com/MT0XAX9.jpg i really hope i did better this time

11:58 PM, Sunday March 29th 2020

I think you did enough to demonstrate that you were more clearly trying to apply the issues raised in my previous critique. There is still loads of room for improvement, but I ultimately wanted to see you making more of a direct effort to apply what I'd been saying before I jumped into actually creating a full demonstration of how I'd approach drawing this puma constructionally.

Before I get into that demo, just a couple quick notes:

  • Don't draw some things with a light/faint stroke, and others with a darker mark. It seems to me you're using different pens to achieve that (which is a big no-no because it'd force you to trace back over your lines), but either way, always focus on every single mark you draw as being part of your final drawing. Don't try to hide certain parts and separate your drawing into an underdrawing and a "clean-up" pass.

  • From what I can see, when drawing the darker lines for the torso form, you actually extended it a little beyond where your ribcage was. Don't do that. Your ribcage and pelvic masses are solid, 3D forms - all you're doing in this step is combining them together into a larger sausage form. By extending it like this, you're taking liberties with it in two dimensions, which flattens things out.

  • Some of your sausage forms are definitely getting better.

  • Your head construction is pretty good. I do remember this being a particular strength from last time as well. Your eye sockets are way too rectangular, though, and you tend to draw your eyeballs to be far too small.

So, here is the detailed demonstration I just finished putting together for you. As you go through it, compare the steps I've applied to your own.

One key point is that your construction here, and in all of the previous attempts, stopped at around step 12. You always left things very simple, and neglected to build up the more complex additional forms that help establish the impression of the animal's musculature. Given that this is all still built up by use of form and construction, none of that falls into "texture" or "detail".

So with that, I've got a few additional tasks for you which I will list below.

Next Steps:

First, to properly absorb the demonstration, I'd like you to draw the puma again whilst following along with my demonstration. Work through each and every step.

Then I'd like you to do two more separate animal studies, applying what you learned while following the demonstration.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
10:25 PM, Saturday April 11th 2020

https://imgur.com/a/c4iVP9a thank you for all of your critiques i really hope i did better this time

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A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.

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