Starting with your organic intersections, your work here is progressing well. You're clearly considering how the different forms you're piling up relate to one another and how they all exist under the shared forces of gravity as they slump and sag over one another. I can also see that you're giving thought to how your shadows wrap around the surfaces upon which they're being cast, although when it comes to the areas where they fall on the ground, you do tend to have them falling on what appears to be differently oriented ground planes, rather than giving the impression of a single flat surface.

This of course can be tricky, because it requires us to consider how far a given mass is from the surface it casts, and if a mass is resting upon that surface, then the cast shadow will be very close and largely occluded by the form casting it. But, there are circumstances where we may intend for the mass to be sitting upon the ground, but the way it's been drawn has it floating a little higher. We can see this towards the far right of your first page, for instance. While this does mean that the mass isn't as stable as we'd necessarily like, we still need to be attentive to this so we place our cast shadows correctly.

Here I've altered the cast shadow to the far right, added a shadow that a form towards the far left should have been casting upon the ground, and added a few other missing cast shadows that were overlooked.

Continuing onto your animal constructions, right off the bat there are a few points I noticed that stood out, as they were addressed in my critique of your Lesson 4 work. This was of course some nine months ago, but it is often necessary for students to take their own steps in ensuring that they do what they need to in order to ensure they're addressing the issues that have been called out. It's very easy to simply come back from a break and continue forwards with the next lesson without consideration for what issues may have been called out (or perhaps having them more loosely in mind, but without specifics), and each student needs to decide what it is they need to apply the information they're given as effectively as they can. For some that means reviewing the past feedback periodically, for others it means taking notes, and for yet more it's a combination of the two or something else entirely.

The specific issues are as follows:

• While much less prominent, I can see you taking a fair bit of liberty with altering your existing forms' silhouettes or adding onto them with flat shapes - basically taking shortcuts that involve engaging with your drawing in two dimensions, rather than sticking as strictly to actions in 3D space as discussed before. While this mostly falls into the category of extending off those silhouettes, there are some notable instances of cutting into them as well.

• In my previous critique, I called out the importance of being much more conservative in your use of line weight, and applying it as explained here - focusing on the areas where your forms overlap, and limiting it to those localized areas. You frequently use line weight more liberally throughout your constructions, reinforcing silhouettes, parts of silhouettes, or otherwise trying to distinguish later structural elements from earlier constructional steps (which in general should be avoided, in favour of sticking to the same general thickness from one step of construction to the next to avoid the temptation of redrawing more of the drawing than we need to).

As these come up often in small areas, I've identified a number of them here on these notes - although there are definitely some that I've left out, as I was mainly illustrating the point that such cases are still present in your work.

Now I should state that there's a lot in your work here that is very much pushing in the right direction, and I feel strongly that you did yourself a considerable disservice in not addressing these points more fully. There's a lot of elements in your constructions that convey aspects of solidity and a strong grasp of 3D space, but these all serve to hold them back from shining through to their fullest potential. It's clear that your brain understands the relationships between things in 3D space, but these issues keep it from getting down onto the page.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying you must be submitting perfect work or anything like that. This is entirely about taking the time necessary to identify and address the points that are raised in previous feedback. It's entirely possible to be aware of those points and then to mess up because our skills aren't fully developed yet, and we're not able to make every mark we intend. But the issue here is different - it's the intentions and choices that contradict the prior feedback. This also happens - we are forgetful creatures - but we need to be cognizant of that inherent human trait, and account for it.

In addition to these points, I did notice that you still tended to approach fur with a greater focus on decorating your constructions, rather than focusing entirely on communicating the idea. This resulted in areas with a lot of very haphazard use of filled black areas. Remember - filled black shapes should be restricted only to defining cast shadows to imply the presence of textural forms, as discussed back in Lesson 2. While fur can be considered as forming into clumps which themselves cast more prominent shadows, we can generally get enough across through the silhouette - and generally it seems like you're really allowing yourself to be carried away by trying to draw the fur, rather than communicating that there is fur present. That is to say, replicating your reference image, rather than getting across what the reference image depicts.

Based on your own commentary you obviously understand that there are issues here, but your description of your approach seems to be very much out of your control, rather than the result of more conscious choices being made. So, you keep adding more and more, but aren't necessarily thinking about it from the perspective of the viewer, and considering what information is being conveyed. This is by no means uncommon - we see similar issues here on this fox by another student, which I then took myself and reduced to what was the bare minimum, as shown here. Note just how little of that internal scratchwork was necessary.

Now, touching upon those points I'd already raised has eaten up a fair bit of this critique, so I'm going to try and touch on the major points your actual animal constructions require as briefly as I can.

• I can see that you are making extensive use of additional masses. The way in which they're designed however can still be improved to help promote a greater sense of solidity. Just be sure to always draw each and every one as a complete form - this is something you at times may intend to be doing, but don't quite bring all the way around, as shown here. You surely intended for that mass to be fully self-enclosed, but you allowed yourself to get distracted before it was closed off. This simply suggests that you may want to slow down and give yourself more time to think and consider your actions before executing them.

• One thing that helps with the shape here is to think about how the mass would behave when existing first in the void of empty space, on its own. It all comes down to the silhouette of the mass - here, with nothing else to touch it, our mass would exist like a soft ball of meat or clay, made up only of outward curves. A simple circle for a silhouette. Then, as it presses against an existing structure, the silhouette starts to get more complex. It forms inward curves wherever it makes contact, responding directly to the forms that are present. The silhouette is never random, of course - always changing in response to clear, defined structure. You can see this demonstrated in this diagram.

• In regards to the previous point, there are two main issues - where you rely too heavily on making every aspect of a new mass out of outward curves, making it appear overly rounded and blobby (and thus not conveying how it wraps around the existing structure), and where you include sharper corners or changes in trajectory where there's no defined form for the mass to press up against to cause those corners.

• As shown here, you can see these principles in action. Note how every individual mass is designed as a chain of components, and I'm thinking clearly about where I want inward curves, where I want outward curves, and where I want sharp corners vs gradual transitions - and most importantly, why. You'll also note that there are occasions - mainly above the hip and shoulder - where I actually stretch those masses further down to press up against the hip and shoulder masses, which give us a reason to include the kind of inward curves and define the kind of spatial relationships that help our structures feel more solid and grounded.

• Also, here are some helpful notes on tackling feet.

The last major point I wanted to discuss is head construction. Lesson 5 has a lot of different strategies for constructing heads, between the various demos. Given how the course has developed, and how I'm finding new, more effective ways for students to tackle certain problems. So not all the approaches shown are equal, but they do have their uses. As it stands, as explained at the top of the tiger demo page (here), the current approach that is the most generally useful, as well as the most meaningful in terms of these drawings all being exercises in spatial reasoning, is what you'll find here on the informal demos page.

There are a few key points to this approach:

• The specific shape of the eyesockets - the specific pentagonal shape allows for a nice wedge in which the muzzle can fit in between the sockets, as well as a flat edge across which we can lay the forehead area.

• This approach focuses heavily on everything fitting together - no arbitrary gaps or floating elements. This allows us to ensure all of the different pieces feel grounded against one another, like a three dimensional puzzle.

• We have to be mindful of how the marks we make are cuts along the curving surface of the cranial ball - working in individual strokes like this (rather than, say, drawing the eyesocket with an ellipse) helps a lot in reinforcing this idea of engaging with a 3D structure.

Try your best to employ this method when doing constructional drawing exercises using animals in the future, as closely as you can. Sometimes it seems like it's not a good fit for certain heads, but with a bit of finagling it can still apply pretty well. To demonstrate this for another student, I found the most banana-headed rhinoceros I could, and threw together this demo.

Now I can understand that the first chunk of this critique may have been disheartening. As such, I wanted to reiterate - you are demonstrating a well developing grasp of 3D space throughout your work here, and I can see it improve even from the beginning to the end of your homework set. It's simply a matter that the resources available to you here can be done better. If the feedback is unclear, ask for clarification. Otherwise, do everything you can to apply those points.

You'll find some revisions assigned below.