Lesson 4: Applying Construction to Insects and Arachnids
3:37 PM, Saturday February 1st 2020
R&S:
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3 users agree
9:25 PM, Sunday February 2nd 2020
Overall, I'd say these are looking very nice. You've definitely understood the purpose of the lesson on breaking insects down into their component forms and building the drawing from those. You're also observing the detail well I think. I do have some pointers, but for the most part their pretty minor.
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Try to be more confident with your initial forms. I notice on some (eg the wasp abdomen, the scorpion pincher), you're going around these forms numerous times. This is usually because someone's not confident that they've laid the form down well enough, and it undermines the final drawing. Keep it to 1-2 times around max. One thing that can help is to keep a scratch piece of paper around that you practice just the initial form until it feels right, then lay it down on your final drawing.
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Keep in mind how your texture wraps around the forms. You're applying it pretty evenly across the whole drawing. You want to vary it from darker near the edges to lighter on the planes facing the viewer, like you did in lesson 2.
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Don't draw the drop shadow immediately below the insect. Shadows will be close on parts like legs that are touching the ground plane. But as the forms move further away from the shadow, more distance will generally open up between the insect and the drop shadow.
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Always put at least one contour on a form. For the most part, you constructed these well in 3D, but there were a few places where it fell flat (literally). The biggest offender here is the lepidoptera. Without contours, it's just a flat shape, and the resulting drawing will be flat as well. Even a complete side on view, it helps to skew the drawing at least a little bit in one direction or the other in order to give it volume.
Again, good job overall. I think you're ready to move onto lesson 5.
Next Steps:
Move on to lesson 5.
6:14 AM, Monday February 3rd 2020
I'll make a note of all of these, thank you~ (Especially that first point! I don't know why I thought that'd constitute grinding!)
5:42 PM, Monday February 3rd 2020
I qualify grinding as looking at something and thinking "oh no that's terrible I need to do that whole thing more before I Get It" where practice is "alright I need to try this smaller version a few times before doing it right the first time"
They can be very similar, but have slightly different end goals
5:47 PM, Monday February 3rd 2020
I though of it more as an extension of that 'if it's incorrect, just try to fix it, somehow' advice, and felt that having 'trial runs' before committing to something felt too much like running away from that, but ye, I understand!
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