Lesson 4: Applying Construction to Insects and Arachnids
7:16 PM, Thursday November 21st 2024
Here's my shot at lesson 4 ! It was quite enjoyable to draw insects !
Hello! I'm Simon and will be reviewing your lesson 4 exercises!
First of all for the organic forms with contour curves you did a really good job of snuggling every single curve right inside of the sausage form. Some of those ellipses keep the exact same angle through every single ellipse and it kind of makes them look flatter so I recommend for the next ones you take your time to do it just like the ones that you've made with varying degree ellipses!
For the insect constructions you haven't numbered them or named them so I'll be saying the number on the order of the imgur file.
The first one has a pretty flat head and abdomen and I'm not sure what those lines underneath are supposed to represent but it seems more like you just weren't focused as much as on the other ones cause the other one have a much better sense of volume to them!
The wasp is pretty good! For the legs take your time to add the details and to add them with volumes, on some of those legs it's just flat lines and it breaks the illusion of the ones you did take the time to do the right way. The proportions aren't perfect so for the next insects or animals you do I recommend you first put dots down before putting your ellipses in order to double check that your proportions are at least not too far off!
Your spider and scorpion are really solid good job! As for the housefly those contour lines on the abdomen and thorax don't quite wrap around so Make sure to wrap those around just like in your contour curves examples.
Your shrimps' legs are great that's what you should be striving for in terms of additive masses! The few ladybugs you did seem a little rushed, it's not because it's a simple animal that it should be taken as granted, the fewest lines there are the bigger their impact, so if you don't take the time to really think of those ellipses as volumes and to add a good contour curve to it it kind of breaks the illusion unfortunately.
I think you understood the assignment judging by your insects that I said above were great but I feel like you may feel a little inclined to rush things once there's no example video/insect to follow, so next time make sure to take your time and not rush too much!
As for the textures for the spider it's really good for the rest and especially the wings... a bit less.
If you haven't already I recommend you start doing the 25 texture challenge alongside your next two lesson and maybe focus on wings examples from different insects/animals for your first few textures!
In any case good job on getting this lesson done and I will mark it as complete! Good luck on the next one!
Next Steps:
Move onto Lesson 5 and do 25 texture challenge alongside!
Thank you for your answer ! I'll make sure to spend some time working on those wing textures !
I'd been drawing as a hobby for a solid 10 years at least before I finally had the concept of composition explained to me by a friend.
Unlike the spatial reasoning we delve into here, where it's all about understanding the relationships between things in three dimensions, composition is all about understanding what you're drawing as it exists in two dimensions. It's about the silhouettes that are used to represent objects, without concern for what those objects are. It's all just shapes, how those shapes balance against one another, and how their arrangement encourages the viewer's eye to follow a specific path. When it comes to illustration, composition is extremely important, and coming to understand it fundamentally changed how I approached my own work.
Marcos Mateu-Mestre's Framed Ink is among the best books out there on explaining composition, and how to think through the way in which you lay out your work.
Illustration is, at its core, storytelling, and understanding composition will arm you with the tools you'll need to tell stories that occur across a span of time, within the confines of a single frame.
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