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3:17 AM, Monday July 13th 2020

There is improvement in some areas, but there are still issues that I'm seeing. When it comes to being more mindful of how some of the additional masses - specifically those along the backs of your animals - wrap around the underlying structure, you're certainly getting better.

I also think that you're dropping the ball when it comes to observing/studying your reference in certain areas. Specifically, the front legs of some of your animals, like the wolf, the puppy, and the fox appear to have no knees.

Looking at the wolf specifically, I went over it and pointed out a number of issues here. The back half is honestly pretty well done. It is a bit simplistic, in that the legs specifically still stick to a lot of the bare bones sausage structure, though I can see y ou attempting to make some small attempts at building up complexity on top of that armature. You can see an example of how much farther that kind of structure can be taken here.

The front half of the wolf goes all kinds of wrong though. You're drawing the ribcage way too small (I mention here that it should be half of the torso, you make this mistake pretty frequently), the knees are missing, and the proportions feel quite off.

Additionally, when drawing the head you tend to overlap the eye socket right over the muzzle. Instead, you should be treating them like pieces of a 3D puzzle (I mentioned this in my previous critique) where they fit together cleanly, not overlapping one another. The intent is not for them to float arbitrarily, but rather to have clear spatial relationships against one another.

One of the reasons these drawings are expected to take so long is because the vast majority of our time really is spent studying and observing our reference image, to understand all the different forms that are present, what the major forms are, and how they exist in proportion to one another. Then we continually go back, after every single form we construct, to ensure that we're not working from memory, but that we are doing our best to capture what is present - not what we think the animal looks like.

You're making progress, but you do have a ways to go. Take what I've mentioned here and do another 4 pages, keeping these points in mind. When you submit the next 4, include your reference images, as they can sometimes be helpful in understanding why you may have made certain choices that aren't immediately clear otherwise.

Next Steps:

4 additional pages of animals.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
9:31 AM, Friday July 17th 2020
edited at 9:32 AM, Jul 17th 2020

I took my time to work on the issues you listed, the ones in this critique - the ones in the previous one as well. I'm pleased to present you assignments you required - please take a look. https://imgur.com/gallery/hrkfHig

P.S.

And references of course!

https://imgur.com/a/XrgPas1

edited at 9:32 AM, Jul 17th 2020
7:37 PM, Friday July 17th 2020

So I asked for the references because I expected to have to do some more concrete demonstrations for you, but I am very glad to see that you've shown considerable improvement here, and further demonstrations won't be required (which is great because I have a handful of critiques to do before starting on a long night of drawing comics).

I think you've taken the main points I mentioned to heart - you're making far better use of your additional masses, taking much more care in studying and observing your references so as to capture them more accurately (knees included), and are constructing their heads with a far greater sense to structure.

While there is certainly room for improvement, that will come with continued practice. What's important is that you're moving in the right direction now, and applying these principles effectively. I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Next Steps:

Feel free to move onto the 250 cylinder challenge, which is a prerequisite for lesson 6.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
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