Yay, made it to submission time!
References used for this lesson: https://imgur.com/a/LboBp0K
I found I struggled wrapping my head around the beetles, particularly breaking down the exoskeleton and wrapping them around the core form. I also wasn't quite sure how to approach the stag beetle's mandibles (last insect drawing). I settled on using the branch method, but it doesn't seem quite right.
Thank you!
Really great work overall! You're definitely demonstrating a very strong grasp of construction and the spatial relationships between the forms within each drawing.
Starting with your organic forms with contour curves, these are largely well done, with just two things to mention:
You've got one form with a bit of pinching through its midsection at the top left of the first page, and the bottom left of that same page has ends of different sizes, though not too dramatically so. These things happen, and the rest of your sausage forms were excellent, but I figured I'd point it out anyway.
I am noticing that you seem to be a bit hesitant when it comes to making your contour curves widen as we slide along the length of a given form. You are definitely showing an understanding of how that degree changes at different positions (like where you've got those curves getting narrower, then reversing in some of these) but if you look at cases like the furthest curve of the bottom left sausage of your first page, that last curve definitely needs to be much wider to properly demonstrate the orientation of that particular cross-section.
Moving onto your insect constructions, these really are phenomenally done. You're doing an excellent job of building up your forms from simple and gradually developing greater complexity through the addition of more forms, and by considering how those forms would wrap around and integrate with the existing structure. You're also making good use of the sausage method as well.
On the topic of the sausage method, one thing that can be improved is that you do have a number of places where you'll put down a sausage correctly, then place a ball form over top of it, then kind of smooth things out. This is actually how I demonstrated it in the wasp demo, but it's something I mean to replace when I get a chance. Here's a preferable way of approaching that. It's better because it no longer involves placing two 3D forms that effectively occupy the same space. Instead, the added forms wrap around the existing structure, in a way that reinforces the solidity of what's already there.
The last thing I wanted to talk about was what you raised with the hercules beetle's horns. Your approach to them was certainly correct, short of one thing - the way you have the additions connecting to the main trunks suggest (based on their size and relationship to the size of the additional bits) that they're actually going to jutt out towards the camera, rather than shoot off to the side. To put it simply, you don't have them connecting to the trunks correctly. Here's how I'd tackle it, focusing on how the base of those additions would wrap around the surface of the existing structure. Also, here's a somewhat related demo from the informal demo section of the lesson.
The points I've mentioned here are pretty minor, and overall you've really knocked this one out of the park. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete, so keep up the great work.
Next Steps:
Feel free to move onto lesson 5.
Like the Staedtlers, these also come in a set of multiple weights - the ones we use are F. One useful thing in these sets however (if you can't find the pens individually) is that some of the sets come with a brush pen (the B size). These can be helpful in filling out big black areas.
Still, I'd recommend buying these in person if you can, at a proper art supply store. They'll generally let you buy them individually, and also test them out beforehand to weed out any duds.
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