View Full Submission View Parent Comment
4:21 AM, Sunday January 9th 2022
edited at 4:22 AM, Jan 9th 2022

Here are the revisions I tried to go further with the constructions but I still have trouble figuring out how the additional masses should be shaped.

I'm also not sure if I spent enough time observing. I tried to look at my reference more often but found it easy to slip into my usual work flow without realizing.

Lastly regarding head construction, I didn't notice this while drawing my initial submission but I noticed this time I was having trouble applying the method listed in the demo section to animals with eyes on the sides of their head. Can you give me a quick demo of how you'd draw an animal head like that using the same principal?

edited at 4:22 AM, Jan 9th 2022
5:26 PM, Monday January 10th 2022

I can see that overall, your use of additional masses has improved a fair bit in most cases, though there still are some (like along the shark) where you're drawing the sides that touch the existing structure as outward curves, which does not create a relationship between them. Inward curves in this case, as you've used them elsewhere, do a much better job of "gripping" onto the existing structure.

As to the animals with their eyes on the side of their heads, [here's a demo]() (they're never quick). I noticed that when tackling the rhino, you went back to having the eye socket just floating loosely on the head structure, and you likely had difficulty less because of the eyes being on the side of the head, and more because the rhino's head is more elongated, making it difficult to just start the cranial ball on one end, and extend in a single direction. So, I found the most banana-headed rhino I could find, and based my demo on that.

Now, this is an area you still need to work on, but I'm not going to hold you back on its account. Just keep practicing the specific use of those techniques, and remember above all else that your goal here is not to copy the reference. If you're stuck between a choice of applying the technique and having it come out differently, vs. abandoning the technique and following the reference, follow the technique. Each drawing is at the end of the day just a puzzle, as you can see in the rhino head demo I made for you. We start with the same core elements, and we gradually build upon them through the addition of simple forms, defining their relationships with the existing structure and continually moving in the direction defined by our reference. We may not get to that specific goal itself, but we want to continually move in that direction, studying it closely to identify the specific nature of each new piece we wish to build out.

It's this process of solving the puzzle that allows our brain to practice, again and again, the act of manipulating forms and understanding the relationships between those forms, in 3D space.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and mark this lesson as complete.

Next Steps:

Move onto the 250 cylinder challenge, which is a prerequisite for lesson 6.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
2:14 AM, Thursday January 13th 2022

Sorry for replying a little late but there's no link for the rhino head demo.

2:30 AM, Thursday January 13th 2022

Oh shoot! Sorry, I do so many critiques in a day that my brain gets a little fried. I usually do a CTRL+F for instances of () to catch places where I've left my links empty, but I guess I forgot to that time. I should probably automate it so the system catches them for me.

Here's the demo.

The recommendation below is an advertisement. Most of the links here are part of Amazon's affiliate program (unless otherwise stated), which helps support this website. It's also more than that - it's a hand-picked recommendation of something I've used myself. If you're interested, here is a full list.
Color and Light by James Gurney

Color and Light by James Gurney

Some of you may remember James Gurney's breathtaking work in the Dinotopia series. This is easily my favourite book on the topic of colour and light, and comes highly recommended by any artist worth their salt. While it speaks from the perspective of a traditional painter, the information in this book is invaluable for work in any medium.

This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.