Before we get started, I want to mention that I am going to be leaving out the work you did for those other courses. I think it's great that you're diving into them, and they should certainly be helpful in their own regard, but it is important to keep in mind that what we're doing in this lesson is actually not focused on the mechanics of drawing actual animals - but rather, they're exercises that use animals as a lens to look at the problem of understanding how objects in general can be broken down into simple forms, and built back up, in order to train our spatial reasoning skills. I recommend those NMA classes for those who are interested in actually learning about drawing animals specifically - that is, since it's not something we have to address here, as our goals are entirely different.

Since your submission is a redo, I'm going to take a quick moment to skim through my original feedback and summarize the major points we addressed there:

• A minor point, but early on I emphasized the importance of drawing through your ellipses two full times before lifting your pen.

• The importance of observing reference images more closely, and more frequently, in order to ensure that the forms you wish to construct reflect what is actually present in the reference, rather than leaning into your brain's natural desire to oversimplify things (which is what happens when we rely on memory).

• And in relation to the previous point, giving each and every drawing as much time as you require to give every aspect of the drawing (observation, markmaking, etc.) as much time as it requires.

• I had called out the fact that you were still altering the silhouettes of some of your forms, which I'd emphasized as an issue in your Lesson 4 critique.

• I talked about the importance of sticking to the characteristics of simple sausages when constructing your animals' legs.

• I also drew your attention to the way in which we build upon those sausage structures with yet more complete, fully self-enclosed forms in order to add bulk where it's needed, once the basic sausage structure is established.

• We discussed how to go about designing and constructing your additional masses.

• I warned you against the overuse of contour lines, and stressed the importance of considering whether they're really necessary for what you're trying to achieve, and what exactly each mark will contribute.

• And lastly, I talked about the specific approach I wanted you to use for your head construction.

Of these points, there are some you've addressed really well, along with some points that are still somewhat present or to a minor extent, and others that appeared to have been skipped or missed.

Things you've done well:

• You're WAY more purposeful and considerate when it comes to the marks you put down. I can see you putting a lot of time and thought into the execution of each one. Despite this, your marks are still confident and smooth, so as a whole your markmaking is looking very good.

• The way in which you approach designing the additional masses, considering how they pile atop one another, how they wrap around their underlying structures, where you place your inward/outward curves, and where you put your sharper/more gradual corners/transitions - all of that is coming along quite well too, and it's very clear that you've put a lot of attention to considering them.

• You've improved a lot when it comes to respecting the solidity of your forms, avoiding altering their silhouettes, and so on. The only place you break away from this is when constructing your heads (specifically the muzzles), but it's not quite the same issue there.

• You're much more consistent in applying the sausage method when constructing your animals' legs.

• You've also done a great job of eliminating any unnecessary contour lines.

There are things that are improving but do still need to be given a little more attention:

• You frequently still forget to draw through your ellipses. Not always, but there are a lot of ribcages where you've only gone around them with one round. Also, in general, you tend to execute them a little more hesitantly than the rest of your linework. Don't forget to use the ghosting method here, to ensure a confident execution and an evenly shaped ellipse.

• I think your observation has improved, but it's somewhat selective. There are still places where you oversimplify things - for example, your animals' feet - and there are some drawings that definitely show way less time being invested into observation than others. This merely says that you are making efforts to address this, but you need to be much more intentional in doing so. If you allow yourself to forget, then you're likely going to slip back into drawing more from memory, and so you need to actively keep this in mind.

• While you've generally done far better when building up additional masses, the only place where you neglect to do so correctly is in your animals' legs. Here you fall back to working in 2D, basically adding one-off lines. For example, as shown here I've colour-coded each individual line/form. In purple and orange we've got your major sausages, and in green we've got that contour line that defines the joint between them. In red and blue however, you've attempted to add more structure but without actually defining complete, fully self-enclosed forms. The blue and red should be their own complete additional masses. Also, when building up masses on the legs, don't just focus on the ones that impact the silhouette - also consider the masses that exist internally within the silhouette, as they define how those other masses will interlock with one another. I've demonstrated this here on another student's work.

One thing I do want to offer advice on is how to tackle those feet. As shown here on another student's work, we can approach the feet constructionally just like anything else. Right now you're trying to do too much at once, establishing the basic mass of the foot as well as each individual toe. Instead, as shown in the diagram, you can build up a boxy form (that is, one with clear corners that help to imply the presence of distinct planes without needing to draw those internal edges), then build yet more boxy forms onto it for each toe.

And lastly, there's one thing you appear to have skipped over entirely: the point I raised about head construction, which I'll quote again below:

Lesson 5 has a lot of different strategies for constructing heads, between the various demos - although in all fairness, most of your constructions here, aside from one or two, don't really apply the methodology from the demos when constructing heads. That aside, given how the course has developed, and how I'm finding new, more effective ways for students to tackle certain problems. So not all the approaches shown are equal, but they do have their uses. As it stands, as explained at the top of the tiger demo page (here), the current approach that is the most generally useful, as well as the most meaningful in terms of these drawings all being exercises in spatial reasoning, is what you'll find here on the informal demos page.

There are a few key points to this approach:

• The specific shape of the eyesockets - the specific pentagonal shape allows for a nice wedge in which the muzzle can fit in between the sockets, as well as a flat edge across which we can lay the forehead area.

• This approach focuses heavily on everything fitting together - no arbitrary gaps or floating elements. This allows us to ensure all of the different pieces feel grounded against one another, like a three dimensional puzzle.

• We have to be mindful of how the marks we make are cuts along the curving surface of the cranial ball - working in individual strokes like this (rather than, say, drawing the eyesocket with an ellipse) helps a lot in reinforcing this idea of engaging with a 3D structure.

Try your best to employ this method when doing constructional drawing exercises using animals in the future, as closely as you can. Sometimes it seems like it's not a good fit for certain heads, but with a bit of finagling it can still apply pretty well. To demonstrate this for another student, I found the most banana-headed rhinoceros I could, and threw together this demo.

While it's unfortunate that you missed that part, and that comes down to whatever strategy you've been using to absorb and apply the points raised in critique, I'm still pleased with the overall improvement. I am going to assign some revisions so you can address the points I've raised here that still do need to be worked on, but as a whole you're moving in the right direction. This will also give you a chance to apply those head construction techniques. You'll find the revisions assigned below.