Lesson 4: Applying Construction to Insects and Arachnids

3:04 AM, Tuesday July 19th 2022

Reddit - Dive into anything

Reddit - Dive into anything: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/w2hywn/lesson_4_insects/

Everyone keeps telling you that you need to practice your fundamentals. ...

List of Insect Drawings:

0: Fruit Fly (27 June, 2022)

1: Mason Bee (29 June, 2022)

2: Praying Mantis (3 July, 2022)

3: Dragonfly (9 July, 2022)

4: Jumping Spider (11 July, 2022)

5: Mosquito (12 July 2022)

6: Stag Beetle (13 July, 2022)

7: Grasshopper (16 July, 2022)

8: Butterfly (17 July, 2022)

9: Pill Bug (17 July, 2022)

0 users agree
10:29 PM, Saturday July 23rd 2022

Hi BowtieBuck! I'll be reviewing your homework. Let's see:

Organic Forms with Contour Curves: They look fine, on some of the smaller ones the line is a little wobbly; also it would've been nice to see you try more dramatic changes of degree on the curves. The curves themselves are a bit inaccurate, but the line flows well, so that's good.

Be careful with the degree of those curves. Sometimes they have different degrees, comparing one end to another, when they should be symmetrical, after all, they're supposed to be broken ellipses. This happens especially on the smaller ones. It takes time to fix that, but when you're making them try to visualize those ends and ghost them thoroughly before making the marks.

The form of the sausages is good, although you should be careful not to make them smaller on one side, remember: they're two spheres joined by a tube, nothing more.

Insect Drawings:

Construction: Your constructions look good, although they started a bit shaky with the fly, they got better quickly. You should draw the intersections on your initial construction and legs, that will help solidify the 3D illusion. Try also to construct your heads one step at a time, on insects like the grasshopper, it is better to build the big, boxy forms after you got the initial cranium sphere down, instead of trying to get the whole form in one go. Don't make that sphere too big neither, on the stag beetle, the added shell on the head ended up smaller than your initial cranium.

The same goes for the legs; although you did add forms in a similar way to the wasp demo most of the time, it would've been good to see you add little masses to the legs when needed. The back legs of the grasshopper are a good example: you got your initial sausage, but then you added the whole form of the leg in a way that didn't interact with that initial construction, and it ends up feeling disconnected and a bit flat. Something like these masses could've worked better.

Continuing with legs, if the legs of the insect are in the background, show how they intersect with the main body regardless. On your praying mantis that aspect is not there, on other drawings like the beetle or mosquito, you can see the intersection but is half finished. That's part of the initial construction, so make sure you're doing it right. It doesn't matter if you're not 100% accurate, but remember that these are supposed to be exercises, not pretty drawings (although they will end up looking pretty regardless a lot of the time).

Pay attention to the way wings interact with the main body. Sometimes they just feel like they're attached directly to the body, and that's not the case. Your fly and mason bee are better in that aspect. Don't use hatching for the back legs; that's from an older demo, just draw through the parts in the background and let them be.

Finally, your detail looks good (way better than mine), but if you're going to do it, go all the way. Your dragonfly has everything with detail, except for the wings.

Overall, your submission looks pretty good, the things that I listed here you should be able to correct as you go through the lessons. A lot of ideas that we saw in this lesson will come up again on the next ones, so make sure that you work on these corrections in your warmups and as you go through the next lesson's homework. Feel free to move on to Lesson 5!

Next Steps:

  • Feel free to move on to Lesson 5.
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12:54 PM, Sunday July 24th 2022

Thank you for your feedback. Especially your use of clear and specific examples. I will keep these points in mind as I move onwards.

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