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9:07 PM, Sunday April 5th 2020

One important thing to keep in mind is that when establishing whether or not you understand the primary concepts behind constructional drawing, going out of your way to pick unique or challenging subject matter is more likely to get in the way, rather than help you progress faster. Once your grasp of the concepts is more solid, then you can certainly venture into less standardized subjects, but until then it's just going to provide you with a lot of distraction.

There are a few issues I want to point out as being things you shouldn't be doing that come up in these drawings you've done, but I think it would be best if you tried your hand at another 3.

Here are some notes directly on your drawings. In addition to these points, I think overall your linework appears really stiff and hesitant. You're not drawing with confidence, you appear to be much slower, and it's clear that you're drawing more lightly when approaching the earlier phases of construction, then drawing with a darker line later on. If you look at any of my demonstrations, you'll see that I draw with the same amount of confidence throughout, and I don't purposely attempt to hide my underlying construction.

Also, for the snake, I'd probably do something more like the boxes on a string explained here, rather than sausages due to how sausages end up having joints that you would not see on a snake's body. The additional benefit of boxes is that it allows you to focus on how the snake's body has top/side/bottom planes.

Overall, these drawings aren't great. You've gone out of your way to focus on more challenging subject matter before fully establishing your grasp of the concepts with more simple, standardized subject matter. You focused a lot on detail and approached construction quite stiffly, rather than applying what was demonstrated in the various demonstrations.

Next Steps:

Do another 3 drawings, but with no detail or texture whatsoever. Focus entirely on construction, and choose more standard subjects, the sorts of things that are covered in the various demonstrations (including those on the informal demos page).

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
3:54 PM, Monday April 6th 2020

third time was not the charm. https://imgur.com/a/NZ58Xr1

5:16 PM, Monday April 6th 2020

For all intents and purposes, you've improved on the major points I wanted to see. The bigger issue now that I'm seeing is that you rushed to get the work resubmitted in under 24 hours from my last submission. When I see this from students, it suggests that they're more focused on getting things done and moving forward.

The key problem in your work is that you're making a lot of really obvious issues in terms of actually observing and studying your reference. Most aspects of your construction are considerably better than before, but there are key aspects of your reference that is not being heeded. I pointed out a lot on this cat. Aside from just its proportions (which are honestly expected to be a little out of whack), there are really obvious characteristics about the shape of the ears that you ended up ignoring entirely. This tells me that you were drawing more from memory, rather than only drawing one form at a time in between spending most of your time studying your reference.

There are a couple constructional issues I noticed - you're still not approaching head construction in terms of large facial components that fit together like a 3D puzzle, which is something I raised specifically in my initial critique. Also, you have a habit of putting a bunch of contour lines on your tails not because they serve any specific purpose, but because you feel you should. When students do this, it's often because they're trying to solve problems by adding more contour lines, rather than putting more focus into the ones that matter most. The contour lines we add along the surface of a single given form only do so much - the ones that do far more are those that define the relationship between different forms. In this case, it'd be where the tail connects to the torso. Take more care in demonstrating that connection there, and you won't need to worry about contour lines along the length of the tail.

All in all, there's still plenty of room for improvement on the construction side of things, but for all intents and purposes it's coming along well. I am however going to have you do one more page, specifically to have you take your time and actually observe your reference far more carefully.

Next Steps:

As mentioned above, do one more page with the same restrictions as before. Take your time in observing your reference more carefully - and to further encourage you to slow down, think about my critiques and push yourself to draw without rushing through any aspect of the process, you may only submit on Saturday or later. I will not accept anything submitted sooner than that.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
5:28 PM, Monday April 6th 2020

about the tail thing - I actually constructed it using the branch technique which relies on those contours. should I just wing(well, tail) it?

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5:07 PM, Saturday April 11th 2020

http://imgur.com/a/IALETEl

I made extra sure to think about every line, and essentially put everything you've told me at a higher priority. still didn't really understand how to block the muzzle, and made the cranium small which introduced some problems

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