Fully expecting a redo with this one.
Here's the album with the reference pictures that were used, though I couldn't find one of the black widow pictures https://imgur.com/a/gHvBZjV
Hi Dennis! I'm no Uncomfortable and am still learning myself, but I thought I would give some feedback based on what I see.
To start, for the sausage forms, I think it would help you if you focused on keeping your sausages as two balls connected by tube. Right now, a lot of your sausages are really lopsided. Like on this one, the ends are really pinched and the sausages fatten out in the middle. Try making sure that they have a consistent width across them.
Also with the sausages, in the above linked picture, I feel like you need to focus more on how they actual contort in 3D space. For example, the one in the very bottom right, by marking both ends with an ellipses, that demarks to me that both ends are facing me and the middle is bending away from me. That's fine, but if that's the case, the ellipses that bookend it should be more towards the end. Especially on the right end, it feels like it's the capping ellipses is just floating in space and breaks the 3D illusion.
Looking at the insects, I feel like you're struggling with a lot of the "plates" on the bugs. For example, on the praying mantis , I "believe" the segments on the abdomen, but the plates on the thorax don't really wrap around the figure. Maybe try putting down some countor curves on these base forms to make sure that they're really solid in your mind before you add forms on top of it. You have the same kind of problem on the ant. On the abdomen, the plates flatten rather than describe the form. Like the sausages, make sure you understand how the underlying forms exist in 3D space before you add on top of them.
You do a good job with how limbs connect to each other! That's something that I really struggled with. You seem to have a good intuitive understanding of that, though.
For proportions, don't be afraid to mark out segments and spaces with small lines and dots before committing to drawing them. You're scorpion feels all wonky and out of proportion.
You do a lot of "studies" in the corners, I see. I do that too! But I would encourage you to give yourself more space. I like you use my studies to practice how things fit together in 3D space. Like how a plate would wrap around a sausage on a scorpion. Maybe try that in your studies and see if helps.
Next Steps:
Anyways, I'm certainly no expert myself, but that's just my two cents. If I had to request a revision, I would say try one page of sausage forms, focusing on really keeping both ends rounded as outlined in his sausage exercise page. Once you do that, try putting plates on top of these sausages and really focus on making sure they wrap around the form. Then go back and try your ant again!
Good luck! Good job making it this far!
I agree with this critique however I would also add that at times your line confidence gets a little scratchy, so make sure that you're conscious of this. Personally, I find that if I'm drawing for more than about an hour, I start to get scratchy - and I've been at this for years. So if you're feeling your focus slip, take a break, it'll be better for you to come back with fresh eyes to be able to get a sense of what you're looking at as 3D as well.
Additionally, there's places where you've added line weight with a marker - this is a big no-no. You should be confidently superimposing where you wish to add line weight, and not replacing entire lines but rather clarifying overlaps. You did a good job of this on the louse demo, as it's nice and subtle but communicates rather more clearly than a big black line.
Regarding contour lines, you should be adding contours to the base masses in order to solidfy them in your brain as 3D, which would've helped a lot when you went to add the carapace over this beetle because it would've given you a hint about the 3Dness of the underlying forms. Moving forward, I would suggest you take the time to lay down contours and establish each form you put down as solid and 3D in your head before moving on and adding more.
Thank you Khearney and Meta for taking the time to write this! After reading these and looking through the drawings again, I can say most of these were very rushed. I think the final two or three drawings were done in 30-40 minutes each?
These were not representative of my current best ability. I take my time with the initial forms (Some of the corner studies were done to help me get a slightly better sense of the proportions before doing the actual drawing, while others like the mantis were quick iterations to figure out how I would add the balls for the eyes), but I think I just lose my focus after that and rush the rest of the drawing for no real reason other than... "I gotta finish and submit this"? I'm not sure.
I will revisit at least a couple of these while keeping your feedback in mind, but I'll work on my confidence and patience before attempting the revisions. Once again thank you very much for the feedback!
Some of you may remember James Gurney's breathtaking work in the Dinotopia series. This is easily my favourite book on the topic of colour and light, and comes highly recommended by any artist worth their salt. While it speaks from the perspective of a traditional painter, the information in this book is invaluable for work in any medium.
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