Hi there! I saw your submission in the queue, so I figured I'd take a look. Unfortunately, a nearly every insect drawing in this submission has forms that are barely visible or missing. This is likely to be an unintended byproduct of your scanning process. As it stands, the only thing that I can accurately review is the organic forms assignment. I noticed this wasn't a big problem in your lesson 2 or 3 submissions, but in this case, it's problematic. I took a few images to highlight some of the problems I was having in identifying issues to point out or possibly overlook. I feel like there's enough tough areas to identify that, if reviewed as is, would result in a review that doesn't accurately point out what your strengths are, and what areas need improvement.

All that aside, I do want to review your work; you've been very patient with the critique queue, and I just want to make sure I can give you the best review I can. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you to re-upload your drawings, perhaps with different settings on your scanning tool. If need be, simply taking photos of your drawings in bright light might be enough to continue the review.

Edit - 20250109 - Submission resubmitted with improvement in clarity:

Okay, I want to start by saying thanks again for taking the time to resubmit. You were waiting a long time in the critique-exchange queue, so I wouldn't have blamed you for being soured on the experience. That said, I'll be quick but thorough, in order to get you back on track:

Organic Forms with Contours. So looking at this first assignmet, I'm happy to see proper equilateral sausage forms. They're important in both Lesson 4 and 5 as base forms for the leg structures, so it's good to have them mastered to some degree here. On page 1, while the assignment called for 2 pages of contours, the ellipses I see are nicely drawn with gradual degree changes. On the second page, the degree of variation between the contours of the sausage is difficult to detect. Don't forget that these contours are simply a fragment from those ellipses that we see in the other half of this exercise, and they change in the same manner as that sausage moves through space. I have a diagram from another review that helps summarize this idea.

Insects.

Let me open by saying that from what I can see, all of these constructions look great. All the forms and lines used make for convincing insects. The confusion I had when I looked at these initially came from not being able to see the base forms used. Adding to the confusion were the extra lines that I was seeing around the legs. I was unable to identify whether these were sausages with additional forms or whether 2D additions were used. And from what I can see, in this example, it appears that some parts of the legs among your bugs were constructed with ellipses.

I think in a way the ellipse can work as a base form for the legs, as it can be just as solid as demonstrated through the body. There is a strong introductory component in this lesson in the way of building on base forms with additional forms. This is going to be much more prevalent in Lesson 5, when you’re looking to build on muscle groups and skin. Here’s an example showing one of your insect’s leg with organic sausage construction, and then here’s another one by comfy that shows just how much information can be conveyed through organic forms on these things. Suffice it to say that line economy is important in these areas, and a less than flawless ellipse as drawn from a stencil may have too many extra lines to convey this extra information easily. I guess the long story made short here is to stick to sausages for the legs, and then use organic forms to fill in the various lumps and bumps of the surface as needed.

I think that is probably the biggest takeaway from your insects that I picked up on. I thought your texture work was good for the most part. The only thing I’d keep an eye on is to avoid filling dark spots, as they end up obstructing the construction underneath. I also saw some banding on your earwig that was similar to the louse but didn’t come together as well. A single contour line can help you align similar features along a form, and I demonstrated it here.

All in all, I think your work was pretty good. Your scanning software definitely upped the brightness and contrast to a point that your lines were hard to read, but with your help, I was able to power through and make a reasonable evaluation of your work. I think you have a good handle on how we can use base and organic forms to create 3-dimensional creatures, so I’ll finally mark your lesson as complete.