The demos listed here have no written counterpart.
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Lesson 5: Applying Construction to Animals
Video Demos
Otter demo
Here's a subject that you don't see drawn too often, despite being insufferably adorable. An otter.
Head construction demo
A frequent pain point for students is constructing the heads of animals, as they'll often jump into detail and forget that construction and blocking in forms applies just as much here as it does to the rest of the body.
ComicAd Network is an advertising platform built for comics and other creative projects to affordably get the word out about what they're making. We use them for our webcomic, and while they don't pay much, we wanted to put one of their ad slots here to help support other creatives.
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.
Staedtler Pigment Liners
These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.
Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).
Getting Your Work Critiqued
Having your work reviewed by others is critical, as those who are just starting out aren't in a position to properly judge their own work, and won't be for quite some time. Don't be afraid to show your struggles - it's by analyzing your mistakes that we can help you grow. Perfect homework is not what we're looking for; we just need it to be complete.
There are currently two places you can get your work critiqued by the community - Reddit and our Discord Chat Server.
Both of these are completely free.
Private Patreon Critiques
If you are interested in receiving extra help, I critique the work of those who support Drawabox on Patreon.
All of these private critiques are done through reddit, in specific threads where students post their work as a comment, including a link to their work (often hosted on Imgur, though most image hosts are okay).
My requirements are more strict than the free community critiques:
- You must complete the lessons in order, in their entirety, starting from lesson 1
- All work for the lesson must be completed - that means all exercises in the lesson, not just those in a given section
- You may only move onto the next lesson once the previous has been marked complete
- The work must be done in the tools recommended in the lesson
The minimum pledge for this lesson is $10.00/month. The orange button above will take you to the reddit thread for this lesson, you can post a link to your work there and I'll be notified. Once I catch the submission, I'll add it to this backlog spreadsheet.
Pledges are collected at the beginning of the following month, but you may start submitting your work immediately. If you're a new patron, I'll be reaching out to your shortly to collect your reddit username.