Looking through your work, there's definitely a big push here where you're really trying to work through the combination of solid, three dimensional forms. Overall, the direction you're working in is the right one, but there are a number of issues I do want to address to keep you moving along that path with as much momentum as possible.

First, a few minor points to get us started. I've marked up your dog here, and pointed out a few issues:

• Firstly, you're using a lot of clear 3D forms throughout your construction, as I noted earlier, but you do sometimes take shortcuts, bridging a line across from one form to another, closing off a bit of negative space and creating a 2D shape. Every single change you make to your construction should be a solid, complete, enclosed, 3D form. That is, enclosed on its own - not closed off by putting a line across between two other 3D forms.

• Secondly, when it comes to head construction, give these notes a read. This content (which is currently available under the informal demos, which you should still be reading through) is what will eventually be incorporated into the main lesson itself, when I have time to do those revisions. It focuses more heavily on ensuring that all the components of the head fit together like a solid, 3D puzzle - rather than having them float more loosely relative to one another. This principle was expressed in the existing main demos as well, but perhaps not as strongly as they should have. Aiming for eye socket shapes that are pentagons (with the point facing downwards) is especially effective, as it gives us a nice wedge in which to fit the muzzle.

• Thirdly, you're generally doing a good job of sticking to the sausage method, which is good to see. You just slipped up here a little bit, and should be a bit more mindful of where the animals' joints lay. Also, in my lesson 4 critique, I did share this dog leg demo with you, showing how one can build upon those basic sausage structures. You appear not to have pushed them further, and stuck instead with a more basic structure.

Now, moving onto the more notable issue I'm seeing, it has to do with how you're approaching building up those big additional masses on your structures. The fact that you're doing so is great - it's clear that you're focusing on building up volumes, and the use of these separate, enclosed, complete masses is great. But they're not as effective as they could be.

The first key issue is the heavy use of contour lines. Basically you're noting that the forms don't feel quite as solid and 3D as you want them to, so you resort to laying on with these contour lines. They do end up making the forms feel somewhat more 3D, but they don't actually solve the underlying problem. That's because contour lines aren't the correct tool to be using here.

Contour lines, when used initially introduced in the organic forms with contour lines exercise - basically where we put them onto the surface of a single form - really only serve to make a form feel 3D and imbue it with volume in isolation. What we really want here is to help make the whole construction feel like a more cohesive combination of forms - we want to clearly define the relationships between the forms composing this structure.

The tool we need to use here is the silhouette of each additional mass. We need to craft that silhouette so it itself wraps around those existing structures, and reinforces its relationship with the various forms present there.

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.

As you can see in this additional markup of your dog, those additional masses don't need contour lines of their own. The very specific design of each mass's silhouette helps us understand how it behaves in 3D space. Those relationships become a lot clearer than say, the mass you drapped over the middle of its torso, which just kind of dangles there - not really "gripping" the torso but rather resting loosely atop it.

Overall you are headed in the right direction, but I do want to make sure that you fully grasp the points I've laid out above. In order to ensure this, I'm going to assign a couple revisions with one main restriction - you are not allowed to use contour lines that sit along the surface of a single form. Those that define the connection between two forms - like the form intersections in lesson 2, and the contour line used at the joint between sausage forms - are still allowed, and encouraged.