Any feedback or critique or ways to improve would be appreciated! (The 8 pages of plant drawings are all there - it's just split up because not all drawings were done in the same orientation on every page. Hope that's not confusing!)
Thank you so much! :)
Hi Lopsidedflan,
I've checked your submission,
Starting of by your organic arrows, I see that you are doing a good job making them flow through the page, though you are not making them go deep, or get closer to the viewer. There a two simple tricks you can use to make this illusion, first make them smaller as they get further from the viewer (which you've been already doing) and second, make the spaces between the turns of the arrows exponentially bigger as they get closer to the viewer.
Also, line weight has to be subtle, I know you exaggerated it to differentiate which are on top of what, but now, by applying so much line weight the arrow just looks stiff and not really organic.
Leaves are looking pretty good, you are giving them a nice flow, while also constructing on top of them, which is what you always have to do.
Branches look like you improved with your line during the lesson, though you are not varying the degrees of your ellipses. This is a key element to create the illusion of depth, it's like we did with sausages, but applied to branches.
Overall, your Plants look well constructed, but most of them look very messy. Now, this is not an issue on it's own, the issue is that you are not using line weight correctly, nor cast shadows at all. It is a common misunderstanding that line weight and cast shadows are kind of included on the texture part, it's not, we use line weight and shadows as tools to clarify and communicate things to the viewer.
This is a demo on your sunflower and how you can use these tools to make things more clear to the viewer. Though notice I had to exaggerate a lot of this elements because you had applied a lot of line weight without a real purpose.
Another thing that went a little over with are contour curves, this is especially noticeable in your bird of paradise plant. Remember that contour curves are less effective the more you applied to the same form, so don't put them down because you can, think of them as also tools. Also, try to vary their degrees as I recommend you do with your ellipses.
Overall, you did a good job on this lesson, though I'm gonna ask you to apply line weight and cast shadows to two plants of your choice and try to make them more clear, I would recommend you to chose first a simple one (like one of the succulents) and then get into another one more complex (I would love to see you tackle the dieffenbachia).
Next Steps:
Choose 2 plants you've already done and apply line weight and cast shadows to them. Remember to be as subtle as possible, also this is not an easy task, it takes more time thinking than actually doing it, so take your time.
The point of this is to make your plants more clear and to start thinking about line weight and cast shadows as tools that we are given to communicate.
Good luck!
This is another one of those things that aren't sold through Amazon, so I don't get a commission on it - but it's just too good to leave out. PureRef is a fantastic piece of software that is both Windows and Mac compatible. It's used for collecting reference and compiling them into a moodboard. You can move them around freely, have them automatically arranged, zoom in/out and even scale/flip/rotate images as you please. If needed, you can also add little text notes.
When starting on a project, I'll often open it up and start dragging reference images off the internet onto the board. When I'm done, I'll save out a '.pur' file, which embeds all the images. They can get pretty big, but are way more convenient than hauling around folders full of separate images.
Did I mention you can get it for free? The developer allows you to pay whatever amount you want for it. They recommend $5, but they'll allow you to take it for nothing. Really though, with software this versatile and polished, you really should throw them a few bucks if you pick it up. It's more than worth it.
This website uses cookies. You can read more about what we do with them, read our privacy policy.
