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3:56 PM, Wednesday April 20th 2022

Hmmm.

Well let me first begin by saying I am not trying to ignore what you said or waste your time, but perhaps I am focusing on the wrong things. I did try to reduce the fur but clearly not enough. I feel like there is a grey area that I am crossing over once I finish construction when adding details. It's almost like "If I am not trying to make a finished picture, what's the point of any detail?" Except perhaps a shadow here or there. I will do another furry critter and see if I can get it right.

I did try to use your wing demo as my model, but it wasn't attached to a bird, so maybe I just missed that part of it. None of your bird demos have wings in flight, so I assumed that the feather which are flatter (which is why I first drew it using a leaf model) would attach to the skeletal part of the wing. Also, I do feel you can see the musculature of the wing in the photo, which is why I added it as a separate structure. I will try another bird and see if I can get that right.

As for the heads, I am clearly missing something there. I do feel lost when attaching parts to the cranial mass. I will follow the demo's again and try just some head studies as part of my resubmission. I attempted multiple squirrel heads before I got to even what you see there.

I think I see what you are saying now about the added masses. The lines do come to a sharper point on the sample. I have a different picture of an elephant and will attempt that one again.

I really thought I did better on this submission, but I will try to improve. It's hard to hear a critique at times, but necessary to grow. Thanks for the advice for continuing forward. I appreciate it.

4:39 PM, Wednesday April 20th 2022

Just to clarify the point about the head constructions, one extremely important point you missed (since you stated you did try to follow the informal head construction demo I linked previously), is that you are leaving arbitrary gaps between the different elements of the head. That demo focuses very heavily on the idea of everything being a puzzle piece that fits together tightly and specifically.

Additionally, keep in mind that you should only be doing the work you're assigned. I go into this at greater length in this video on getting the most out of drawabox from Lesson 0. It is quite new, as this was one of many points I felt that students weren't picking up on from the previous iteration of the content.

3:30 AM, Wednesday May 11th 2022

https://imgur.com/a/lNJc8jZ

I have heard people say "What you THINK you know can hurt you as much as what you don't know". After reading your critiques and going through the tutorials again, I think I understand that quote now. I have made another go of it and I have tried to understand and correct the areas that you pointed out. I really hope I got it this time. or at least closer. To be honest, I started to second guess everything I am doing with this lesson and I did each animal a couple of times but kept finding fault with them. Let me know how I did and any corrections needed. Thanks

10:54 PM, Wednesday May 11th 2022

I'm glad to have pushed you harder last time around, because your improvement here is substantial. I can clearly see that you're working hard to address all the points that I raised, Your work isn't perfect, but it is definitely showing a much stronger effort towards applying what I'd called out.

Here are some more things to keep an eye on.

I am however marking this lesson as complete. I recommend that you periodically go back through the feedback you've received throughout this lesson, so you can regularly refresh your memory on what it is you can continue pushing forward on, but all in all you're headed in the right direction. You may also want to come back and revisit the lesson (to go through the material, not necessarily the homework) when my course overhaul reaches this point - simply because it'll reiterate what I've already shared with you here but in a more structured manner, rather than in the haphazard fashion of a critique trying to address many different things all at once.

Next Steps:

Move onto the 250 cylinder challenge, which is a prerequisite for lesson 6.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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