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3:31 PM, Thursday January 21st 2021

Regardless of how bad your initial forms look, don't draw over them. Accept them, and consider them as real 3d masses. Like you said drawing over them will only make them look worse.

These lessons exercises objective is not to make appealing drawings, but to teach you how to think 3d on the page, so don't worry if the results look bad. So ghost, draw confidently and accept the result.

For the contours, focus only on the intersections between forms. Doing a lot of contours in the middle of forms is risky, because as long as you rush one a bit it will flatten the form very easily, and they aren't that strong anyways. Doing a good contour on one intersection will be much stronger than a few good ones on the middle of a form.

I've also noticed you've been drawing a lot of detail on the drawings. As you're struggling with the basic forms, I recommend to skip detail and texture altogether for a while until you're confident with the construction.

5:42 PM, Thursday January 21st 2021
edited at 5:48 PM, Jan 21st 2021

Thank you Elodin.

I'm getting pretty worried that I'm on Lesson 4 and my basic shapes are still this unconvincing: https://imgur.com/a/9qLJWRk

I've done pages and pages of these things focusing on drawing from the shoulder and ghosting confident lines, but they never seem to get any better. I either try to be really careful and neat and that makes them wobbly and unconvincing, or I try to be loose and fast and they end up scribbly and misshapen. Is there something obvious that I'm missing/is there a trend or habit you notice that I need to get out of?

I really appreciate the feedback.

edited at 5:48 PM, Jan 21st 2021
5:49 PM, Thursday January 21st 2021

You can be really careful and neat and draw confidently, and that's what you should aim for. Ghost and focus on confidence, the result will be a bit inaccurate but it will get better with time.

These kinds of things take a lot to get better at, so be patient. Even pros after thousands of hours drawing still have trouble with ellipses, that's how hard they're.

3:24 PM, Friday January 22nd 2021

Thanks, fair points.

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