Lesson 5: Applying Construction to Animals

2:03 AM, Friday May 15th 2020

Lesson 5 - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/6mE9RZ8.jpg

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hello ive completed lesson 5,

It was a lot easier for me to complete than the previous lessons just in terms of being consistant, i forgot to do texture/detail on almost all of them after I realized I was too lazy to go back and do it so sorry hopefully that doesnt dock off any marks?

I had a really hard time with legs in general and also the one rhino picture posted in the album and im not sure why so critque on that one would be really great.

over all this lesson was pretty fun, thanks so much!

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6:25 PM, Friday May 15th 2020

Starting with your organic intersections, these are looking great. You've got a strong impression of how these forms interact with one another in 3D space, and how gravity impacts them in a believable fashion, causing them to skump and sag over one another. Just don't forget to cast shadows on the ground as well, in order to make them feel like they're resting on a surface.

The first thing that stands out to me isn't actually an important element as far as these things go, but it's still worth mentioning. You definitely started out with a pretty spiky, haphazard approach to fur, but looking over the submission as a whole, you definitely improve upon this, and are clearly experimenting with different ways in which to tackle this particular challenge. I think with continued practice you'll find a better balance of areas of interest (the tufts) and the areas of rest (smooth edges), but as far as actually designing your tufts you're showing considerable progress.

Another area in which I'm seeing improvement is your use of the sausage method to lay down your simpler leg structures. There are definitely areas where you were less consistent in doing so - the back legs of your first wolf, for example, neglected the technique altogether. Then later on, there were places where you used the sausage method to a point, but didn't reinforce some of the joints between your forms with contour lines.

Things continued to get better as you hit the rhinos, but just before that I noticed how in one of the back legs of your second camel, you added a little protrusion to its back leg (which we can see here, just below the knee joint. This looks like a pretty minor issue, but it's actually something that should be addressed. Specifically the fact that this little addition has been done in 2D space. That means you've taken the flat silhouette shape of that lower leg, and altered it as a shape on the page. This reminds the viewer that what they're looking at is in fact a bunch of lines on a page, rather than a three dimensional object in a 3D world.

Now, I had shown you previously this demonstration of how to take a simple sausage chain as a starting structure and wrap additional forms around it (drawing each additional form in its entirety and clearly defining how it wraps around the existing structure). I don't really see much in the way of you applying this to any of your drawings. Across all of these, you're sticking to the most basic level. That isn't inherently bad, but it does suggest that there is much further than you can push yourself.

Another thing I wanted to mention was that your linework tends to be a little scratchy in a few cases, which suggests to me that you may not be applying the ghosting method as consistently as you should be to each and every mark you put down. Again looking at the second camel, we can see a number of the lines along your legs being quite scratchy - several strokes piling up on top of one another instead of singular clean lines. We can also see this along that same camel's neck - there's just so much more linework being put down than there needs to be. Instead of drawing more reflexively, take the time to think through what the specific mark you want to draw is supposed to accomplish, go through the planning and preparation phases, and execute the mark once. You can go back in for additional line weight later, but that again follows the same process of applying the ghosting method.

The last point I wanted to make was that when dealing with your camel's humps, you've drawn them such that those forms do feel three dimensional, but they haven't really been integrated with the rest of the structure. That is to say, they feel like they're sitting on the camel's back, but like they'd slip off at any moment. There's no stability there. Here's what I mean.

I also pointed out there how in that particular drawing you drew the eye socket with a single continuous, rounded stroke - drawing it with individual straight lines helps establish how it fits against the muzzle/brow ridge/cheek bone a lot better.

Lastly, on your final rhino you added additional forms along the back, but did so in a way that doesn't really establish them as individual, solid forms. Remember that these things need to be complete, enclosed forms, and you don't want to try to accomplish too much with a single form. Keep them simple and don't be afraid to use several additional forms in a single area to build up more nuanced form structures. And of course, don't cut off the feet as you did on the back legs - you can always find other reference images of rhino feet to figure out how they should look.

So! I've laid out a number of areas for improvement. I think overall you're doing a pretty good job, but I would like you to get some of the sketchier lines under control, integrate your forms with one another, drawing each and every form as a complete enclosed entity, etc. So I'm going to assign a few more pages before we mark this as complete.

Also, since you have a penchant for asking a lot of questions, I'm going to say ahead of time - do your best to apply what I've laid out here, then ask your questions while submitting the revision work.

Next Steps:

I'd like you to do 3 more pages of animal constructions.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
1:23 AM, Saturday May 16th 2020

alright thanks for the feedback! ill try to finish some new ones as soon as I can. does it have to be ones i did already or can I pick new animals to try out?

3:59 PM, Saturday May 16th 2020

That's up to you.

4:27 PM, Saturday May 16th 2020

Okay thank you, really sorry for the questions its a bad habit of mine i'll try my best to finish these and send them here when im done!

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2:02 AM, Saturday May 23rd 2020

http://imgur.com/a/Py3Dgfd

(sorry i dont know if the website got my link so im sending it a second time but here are my redos) & i have some questions i wrote down on second thought i'll just ask them now (hopefully thats alright)

  1. in terms of what addtional masses to draw around the forms, in the example of the dog leg you gave me, was it the actual muscle structure of the dog leg? it seemed a little random but i havent looked at dog leg anatomy or anything. i tried to look at the muscles i could see on the leg but its a little hard to look and draw that at the same time for me

  2. line confidence is something we work on in the course, when i draw an ellipse i usually go through the ghosting motion and then draw the ellipse but it tends to come out messy/scratchy looking cause im going quite fast. line confidence is about being able to do something within a single stroke & so i try to do it fast and not hesitating much, but again, it tends to mess up my ellipses more often so ive been trying to go slow but thats not exactly what youre suppose to do? is it just about finding the right speed to ghost?

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