Goddamn, these threads are getting locked quicker than I can repost them! Once again, the old lesson has exceeded 6 months of age. You may continue to post your homework submissions here.
You can still check out the previous homework submissions and critiques - since all of the exercises are fairly standardized, it's always helpful to look through what other people did right and wrong, and what kind of critiques they received.
Nice work! Your form constructions and your textures are quite well done. I especially love the drawing of the caterpillar's head, as well as the (hercules?) beetle from page 6. The way you tackled the hair on the spider from page 4 was quite interesting as well. It seems to fade in and out, which is exceptional. To push it a little further, consider how the clumping of the hairs might impact the silhouette of that form. I can see that you've got a few stray hairs coming off here and there, but those kinds of direct tangents tend to draw a lot of attention. Using an approach like this can be more effective.
Since that sheet you referenced seemed to indicate direct tangents are bad, I'm curious as to how you would handle drawing that. Leave the black hairs out entirely, or angle them a bit more?
Im really sorry to put this here but I wasnt sure where to post this as the lesson 5 thread is now closed >_<. I will re-post it in the new thread for the lesson 5 if necessary.
[This] (http://imgur.com/a/PK3Ma#0) is my second attempt I still need a lot more work on being confident and thoughtful when I work.
Thank you for your response and detailed criticism they have give me a lot to think about and work on. :)
I think you may have missed the point of the demos I linked you to before, specifically in relation to the "clear points of intersection". From these drawings, I see a strong sense of form, but you're applying that form without too much regard for how these animals' bits connect together. I do see some hinting at the shoulders and such, but I'm still seeing your major lines coming out of the bottom of the torsos, rather than from their sides where the shoulders sit.
Here's a breakdown of one of your pages. You've got to remember that everything is a solid 3D form that connects to something else. While your forms and volumes feel three dimensional, they do so in a way that resembles an animal made from clay or putty - the connections don't entirely make sense. Think harder on how parts extend and extrude out of others - how those legs link to the shoulders, how the muzzles extrude out from the cranium. Don't just hint at these things, actually draw them.
Try another couple pages and we'll go from there. Don't worry about going into texture/detail.
Took too long, but.. life happens. Included my failed attempts too. Will definitely take the advice I saw here about fur/hairiness into Lesson 5 (when I get the pass). Insects/Plants. Just so hard to choose one, even though there are so many, there seem to be so few to pick from.
Generally not bad. Your forms are coming together fairly nicely. Some definitely came out better than others, but generally I do see some nice progress as we move through the set, and I like the way you're thinking through the problems of texture and construction.
Overall I don't really have much to say - you're moving in the right direction, and there isn't a lot I'd change about how you're approaching things. Keep up the good work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Generally very nice work. There is one recommendation that I have though - don't let the detailing overpower the form/construction. It's very easy to get so caught up in the detailing that you forget about the form underneath, and when that happens, it's possible to add details in such a way that they contradict, and ultimately flatten out, that form. One example of this is the hornet on the top of page 5.
Anyway, you still did quite well, and the amount of attention to detail is pretty impressive. Keep up the good work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
I tried to rely less on hatching this time but still found myself a bit confused on how to communicate those surface details on some of these. I think maybe it's because I still haven't gotten completely used to drawing anything in pen, rather than pencil or digitally. And maybe part of it is because I'm drawing the subject a bit too large, making it more difficult for myself? Or I'm just not as attentive to the details as I thought I was.
Whatever the case though, I definitely feel like I've improved greatly from these dynamic sketching lessons. So as always, thanks a lot for doing these!
There's some good stuff here, though your drawings seem to fall apart a bit in the middle. The last few are demonstrating some very nice forms though, so it looks like you're improving considerably over the course of the set.
One concern I have actually has nothing to do with your drawings - your scanner's contrast is set really high, so it makes the drawings themselves come out rather harshly. Always be sure to use the 'photo' preset on your scanner, as it tends to capture the greatest range of values.
Now, as for your surface detailing, I definitely see that your are still struggling. Drawing larger actually should help, rather than make things more difficult. I'm still seeing you resorting to hatching and scratchy lines a lot of the time, rather than really paying attention to your reference image. This may help.
I'd like you to try another couple pages of insect drawings. First focus purely on building those forms, as you did in the last few. Then when it comes time to apply detail, draw a circle around your focal area and study your reference image for the kinds of information that gives it its texture. Think before you put down every single mark - if you find yourself wanting to just lay down a bunch of scratchy lines, stop and look at your reference again.
Your texturing has improved somewhat. There's still room for growth of course, and that'll happen over time. For now, I'll mark this lesson as complete.
These are alright, but I'm a little concerned about how your forms are coming through. A lot of them seem to feel a little more flat than they should. I'd like you to do one more drawing of an insect, but take a series of photos throughout the process so I can see what it looks like at the various stages of completion.
Okay, so the trouble lies with your lay-ins, early on. You're still not quite thinking in terms of 3D forms, or in terms of simplification. This is totally normal - when faced with a complex subject, it's very easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of visual information that's being thrown at you.
Here's how I would tackle the lay-in. Your general breakdown isn't bad, but you're still getting too caught up in the complexities of each form. Don't worry so much about that.
There are two goals at this point:
Capture the main elements as simple 3D forms - a combination of the basic geometric forms (balls, tubes, boxes, pyramids, cones) and where necessary, simple organic forms. We are approximating things - even though the wasp's head might not be a ball, it's close enough. Using a ball allows us to establish 3D forms, which we can then work off of as scaffolding.
Avoid thinking on the page, or using several lines where one will suffice. Thinking on the page is basically how I describe overly sketchy behaviour, because it's caused by people failing to think and plan before they put their pen to the page. Think first, then draw. Don't chicken-scratch, instead ghost over the form you'd like to draw. Organic forms can be a little more difficult to nail in one shot, but don't be afraid to make mistakes.
I'd like you to do four more pages of insects, taking these points into consideration.
I took your points in consideration. (At least I tried to.) But I'm not seeing a lot of improvement. So I'm guessing I'll have to do this one over again ^^;
Hmm.. I think it might help to take a change of pace. The issue, or at least the way I see things, is that you're still quite stiff. The fact that you're not drawing through your ellipses at all kind of leads me to that conclusion, among other things.
I'd like you to do four pages of organic forms with contour ellipses and contour curves (the proportions are up to you, but I want you to start off with ellipses - being sure to draw through them). Loosen up. That doesn't mean to be sketchy, but just let your arm guide itself a little more. Focus on wrapping contour lines around the forms. Treat it as though you're drawing a bunch of funky, chubby worms or maggots. Also, try not to wretch at the thought.
I'd like you to do four pages of organic forms with contour ellipses and contour curves (the proportions are up to you, but I want you to start off with ellipses - being sure to draw through them).
You didn't draw through the ellipses! You need to draw through every single ellipse you draw for any of my lessons. Period.
Anyway, your forms and curves are still feeling very stiff. So, to loosen you up, I've devised another exercise. It's very similar to what you just did, but it adds a few minor points to it.
The maggot exercise. Instead of just drawing contour lines, you're going to be drawing organic forms with segmented bodies, like maggots. You're also going to jam an eyeball into one end. I don't want any part of these forms to be cut straight (some of the ones you drew in this last set had flat ends). Everything should be rounded.
Loosen up! If you make a mistake, it's no big deal. Just relax, and try to have fun. I'm not going to give you a page count this time - do as many as you want until you start to feel yourself getting a sense of the curvature of these forms. When you submit, I want to see all of them, in chronological order, so I can see whether or not it has helped.
It seems that I'm not quite sure on what you mean with drawing every ellipse through. I thought it was that you also had to draw the non visible part of the contour ellipse.
did you mean that the ellipses/contour curves have to intersect each other?
By drawing through an ellipse, I mean that when you draw a full ellipse, draw around it two or three times before lifting your pen from the page. This allows you to draw it more confidently and maintain a more consistent speed throughout, because you're not worrying quite as much about nailing it in one go.
Definitely continue working on fighting against that looseness, but I think you're doing great otherwise. Your forms are conveying a great sense of volume, and your renderings look nice. I especially like that boxy tarantula, it really does a great job of driving home the combination of form intersections with organic objects.
My biggest concern here is that you are not applying contour lines very effectively. First and foremost, you don't tend to wrap the contour lines convincingly around the forms, giving the sense of a rounded 3D object - instead, your forms come out flatter. Compare your use of contour lines on these insects to your homework from lesson 2.
Secondly, you're applying those contour lines pretty evenly across the entirety of the form, like a 3D wireframe mesh. Try to avoid this. First off, look for natural features in your reference image that serve as contour lines. That is, features that wrap around the 3D form, giving a clue as to how that form warps through 3D space. Insects tend to feature a lot of natural segmentation, which functions as contour lines. If you can't find anything to reinforce that sense of volume, then use one or two contour lines, but don't spread them out evenly. When things exist at predictable intervals, they start to look artificial.
Generally your insects do improve over the course of the set, but I really get the impression that you're not spending enough time studying your reference image, and are too eager to jump into drawing perhaps a little half cocked. Focus heavily on establishing those forms as convincing 3D forms. All the detail in the world won't fix a weak construction. Also consider how those forms connect to one another, how the cylinder of a leg might fit into the ball of a joint.
I'd like to see you do four more pages of insects, focusing heavily on creating convincing, solid lay-ins with a clear illusion of 3D form.
Yeah was thinking whole day today what im missing and came to a conclusion that i should spent bit more time watching and imagining reference image. So got question regarding contours. This has probably lot to do personal preference but i've been kind of struggling which way to go especially with legs. Should i create form first then find where contour line or make contour line first and then make form around it.
Also not related my homework but can i receive critique if i jump to human anatomy for while after this lesson is completed?
I usually define the center line of a form, then create the form around that, then reinforce it with contour lines. As for jumping to the anatomy lessons, they only require lessons 1/2 to be completed so you're free to do that as well.
It looks like you just deleted the post you made with your 4 new pages, just as I was about to post my critique:
Jesus christ, how the hell did you improve so much in a day? Very nice work. The forms read as having actual volume and occupying real space. Each section really feels like it fits into another piece, and they all feel very smooth and organic. Very well done.
Yeah i deleted it i felt like it wasnt enough to match up with those 4 pages. Started checking how much i actually did and it felt it just wasnt enough. Was planning to do few more pages tomorrow and repost it. But well you saw it and thank you very much.
Whole thing was probably always inside me but got so distracted by everything. Like creating form, worrying about lines, worrying about details then everything just fell apart.
You did a pretty good job, but there's something that your lovely texturing/rendering is hiding - your contour curves aren't particularly great. They're not doing a good job of wrapping around the rounded shells/torsos, and instead flatten them out.
I'm still going to mark this lesson as complete, because your drawings still look pretty fantastic, but I think for your own sake, you might want to go back and practice the organic forms with contour curves from lesson 2, just to remind yourself of what it means to wrap a contour line around a form properly.
Thank you for your feedback. I think that is the issue I am having on the next lessson. I will got back and do some more organic contor drawings so I don't forget to really round the edges of the contor lines.
I am already noticing an improvement in my drawings. Thank you so much for working so hard on these tutorials. I wish they had taught me all this at school.
Right now, your drawings look rather stiff. One thing that's certain is that you're getting a little too caught up in a lot of the visual information you're being presented with in your reference image. Because of this, you're not thinking through how each basic form you're using to construct the basic framework exists in 3D space. Many of these forms are coming out kind of flat, and your contour lines aren't really wrapping around those forms.
I'd like you to take a break from this lesson for a bit, and try this exercise I devised the other day: The maggot exercise. Draw six pages of maggoty forms. Try to loosen up and focus on capturing the roundedness of each form. Also, don't forget to jam a nice healthy eyeball into one end.
First and foremost, you're not really applying any of the concepts we've been covering - mainly starting off simple, and slowly building up your forms. Try starting off with a simple organic form first, then add contour curves/ellipses, and then build up on top of that. Like this.
Also, remember that the degree of the contour ellipses will determine how that organic form turns through space. These notes expand on that concept.
I tried to do it as you outlined and hopefully it's getting closer to passing that hiccup I seem to have with this. I understand the process but it's just like I have to break old habits of just drawing like an idiot once I start! I admire your patience haha
Definitely better. The only thing that you're forgetting is that the eyeball is a sphere - so in order to achieve the correct roundness, you should draw it as an entire sphere that intersects with the rest of the maggot-form. Most of it will be buried within this form, but it's important to understand how the sphere exists in 3D space.
Anyway, I think you're ready to take another stab at the insect homework. Before you do, be sure to reread the lesson and look over the demos carefully.
Great work. I'm glad that you found it challenging, as it shows that you're more than capable of overcoming these challenges with hard work. I still feel that my previous advice still applies (to try to avoid piling on quite so many artificial contour lines, which results in a wireframe-look) but in general your work still looks solid. I especially like how you add details, you seem to have a good eye for the subtle textures that appear on these little creatures.
Very well done. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
There is certainly plenty of room to grow, but I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. As you move onto the next lesson, be sure to continue practicing the exercises I've shown you thus far.
Also, one thing I want to add in relation to this homework in particular, I noticed that when it comes to drawing texture, you have a tendency to draw more and observe less. When a texture doesn't seem to be going quite right, you tend to scribble more and try to fix it by putting down more ink.
Texture is not about putting down more lines - it's about identifying specific kinds of lines and details that promote certain illusions. You should be spending more time observing and studying your reference images and far less time drawing. Beware that your memory is faulty and untrustworthy - the second you look away from your reference image, the vast majority of information you collected is lost of simplified to the point of being useless, so it is necessary to look at your reference again within a second or two. Many don't realize this, so they continue to work from their simplified memories, or start making things up on their own.
Very well done. Your forms are solid and your rendering/texturing has been applied quite well. I especially like your rhino beetle and the first hermit crab, but most of these have been done very well.
Keep up the good work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Actually the first hermit crab was done with a 0.1 mm marker cause I was unhappy with the 0.5 mm thickness (I'm having trouble with the thickness... or so I thought, so I cheated a little bit). But then I did the grasshopper which I'm particularly proud of :). And it's all thanks to your previous explanation with the corn thing. So thanks! Starting with the rhino I took into account your previous observation. The quality of the photo I took of the grasshopper is not so great, maybe that's why it looks... well, not so good, I just uploaded a better version, if it makes any difference... But anyway, thank you! I'll be sure to do a better job for lesson 05.
I think I did a bit better on this than I did on the plants. I mainly struggled on the legs but even those are okay in most of my pictures. I did struggle on some other things like eyes or a specific shape I needed to draw but you can actually tell what each drawing is this time around so that counts for something I guess.
Nice work! Your forms are looking pretty solid, and while your texturing has plenty of room to grow, it's going in a good direction. One thing that I think you grasped on your own but I feel like mentioning anyway is the use of contour lines. Your contour lines are generally decent, but before applying artificial ones (there's a lot on the first page), look for contour lines that exist naturally on your subject. With the segmentation of their bodies, insects tend to have a lot of this. This allows you to avoid adding more contour lines of your own.
If in the worst case scenario you can't find any natural contour lines, add two or three of your own, but don't space them out too regularly. This tends to make things look artificial and man-made, rather than natural.
Anyway, you did well overall, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.
I had much more fun doing these than the plants! But I still feel like i just don't get the textures. I know to look for rythm and of course i have studied the bonus notes on textures. For now i can only hope to improve with practise.
I think you did a pretty good job. Your forms are coming together nicely, and you definitely are beginning to get a hang of identifying the textures. There's room to grow, but you're heading in the right direction. The only thing I want to point out is that filling in the shadow kinda throws off the composition of the individual pieces. Starts to feel a bit weird. I think when the rest of the piece is line, a simple outlined drop shadow works best.
Nice work. Your forms are pretty solid. There are a few things that I would like to recommend to you however, as you move forward.
I noticed that, especially near the beginning, you rough things in, then you draw darker lines on top. Generally this is okay, but I'd like to slightly tweak your mentality in how you approach this a little bit. Don't think of it in terms of rough sketch --> clean drawing. Think of it in terms of shapes and forms. You start off with simple shapes and forms, and then where those forms need to be refined and carved, you draw new lines on top.
Looking at the spider on the top left of page 1 in your imgur album, the legs seem to have been roughed in, and then the exact same shapes had new lines drawn on top - darker ones. Instead of that, I would encourage holding yourself back and thinking through the lay-in more. Draw deliberate, clear lines - not rough sketches. Capture the simple shapes and forms, and if they don't need to be refined further to add complexity, leave them as they are with no new lines drawn on top (except when adding line weight near the end, in which case you're adding to the existing lines, not replacing them).
Also - every single ellipse you draw for my lessons: draw through it.
Lastly, your rendering is something I'd like you to think about more. There are a few issues here. First off, hatching lines are pretty much short hand for "I have no idea what to draw here but I don't want to leave it blank". There's rarely any natural textures you'll see that actually consist of hatching lines. Check out this demo on identifying complex rhythms and patterns in surface textures from reference images. When you do use hatching though, remember that if the lines don't flow along the surface of the 3D object they're on, they will flatten out your forms. This isn't always a bad thing - I often allow far-off objects to be flattened out just for the sake of simplifying my shapes, but if you look at the bottom right of page 8 in your imgur album, your use of hatching totally ignores the actual roundedness of those forms and flattens them out completely.
Anyway, your forms are solid so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - definitely keep what I mentioned in mind as you continue to move forward.
Alright. This took me longer than it should have. In the beginning it seem a lot easier than the plants but once I got to the grasshopper I just... blocked and suddenly it was very difficult and I got frustrated. So I took a short break from the lesson and then got back to it and finished it. But all in all it was intersting - it was challenging but not impossible.
I think it's coming along nicely. My favourite two drawings are the honey bee and black widow on the bottom of page 2. You've definitely got a lot of room to grow (especially when it comes to identifying details in your reference images) but you're on the right track.
There's a few things I'd like to iron out though:
I've actually mentioned this in a lot of critiques I've written today - hatching lines are pretty much short hand for "I have no idea what goes here but I don't want to leave this bit blank". It's not often you'll find textures in nature that actually consist of straight-up hatching lines. We use them when we deal with boxes, but boxes aren't actual objects you find in the world, they're just forms with no actual surface texture to them. Instead of using hatching, hold yourself back and really observe your reference image. Each texture has its own rhythms and patterns that you can identify. Check out this demo on identifying different kinds of textures in a reference image. So, when you start using hatching, you should probably stop and think about why you're using hatching lines.
Don't scribble. This kinda goes hand in hand with the hatching, but you have a huge tendency to scribble your textural lines. Think about every bit of ink you put down on the page. Don't rely on randomness, because that has a very obvious signature that everyone will be able to notice.
When you start drawing, always begin with your lay-in and completely push out any thoughts of detail from your mind. Many of your later pages suffer because you don't think as much about the forms. You get overwhelmed by the thought of adding detail that the forms themselves get flattened out.
Anyway, you've got plenty of room to improve but I think you're moving in a decent direction. Just remember that form is a million times more important than detail. Even if you didn't put any detail down, you'd still end up with a successful drawing if your forms were right. Furthermore, detail is not a "more == better" situation. Be strategic with how you apply it, and think through it very carefully.
Coming along nicely! Your forms are looking good, and your detail passes are showing a lot of good observation and study. If I had to recommend one thing, it'd be not to fill in the drop shadows. They tend to muddy up your shapes, so it's often best to leave them as simple outlined shapes. that way more of the focus and contrast ends up resting on the object itself, without any visual competition. I'll mark this lesson as complete, keep up the good work!
I had a lot of trouble with the proportions of some of these. Also, wings are a PAIN. Since I had done the plants with detail focus without a circle, I did that here too but then I was afraid that was wrong and tried to do it with a focus circle on the last one.
Insects are so much more difficult than plants >.< Also, I didn't used to hate them. Now I do. So so creepy.
I think the most important thing to remember here is that the only thing you should be afraid of is the thought that all of these insects might be crawling on your skin as you draw. Not that you might mess up an ellipse here or there. If you make a mistake, the world won't end. If you half-ass something or draw it timidly because you were afraid, however, then you won't see a whole lot of growth from it. That's considerably worse and more long-lasting than a single fudged drawing.
Now, looking at your work, you seem to be doing pretty well. I'll admit that sometimes you're a little on the looser side, so I will encourage you to pause and think a little more before you put a shape down, but generally your constructions are still looking pretty good.
Your detail/rendering does need work in some areas, however. Overall it's still coming out nicely but there is certainly room to improve. One of the biggest thing that jumped out at me is that you have a tendency to rely a lot on.. not exactly scribbling, but perhaps structured-scribbling. Controlled randomness. When you know that you want to put down a cross-hatchy texture, you tend to scribble that texture in.
Try to avoid randomness altogether. Think about how your details are going to be organized. At the moment things tend to get somewhat muddy because I think you may be eager to put down more and more ink, thinking that more is the solution to fixing problems you may see developing. Instead, hold yourself back and try to identify the hierarchy of details, rhythms and patterns. I did a bit of a demo a while back on identifying different kinds of textures in reference images that you should check out.
Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.
here we go lesson 4 done I'm still having trouble with the sketchiness of my lines I've done the ghosting though it often works I still have to go over them often and they end up sketchy. I've also tried stipling but beacause the drawings are small its kind of hard to do other textures without ending up with a black mess. ps. sorry for the lower quality camera
Nice forms and nice texture work. I don't have actual critique for your drawings because they're all quite well done. I do however have points to raise about the things you yourself mentioned.
It doesn't feel terribly sketchy to me, I'm seeing a lot of clear and purposeful linework and decisions - if you feel that it is sketchy however and that you're having trouble thickening lines after the fact, practice the super imposed lines exercise more.
If you feel your drawings are small, and that it is forcing you to do something, draw bigger. If your pad is too small for this, try to find a larger sheet of paper. Like I said - your drawings are done well - but if you're doing things that you feel you need to excuse during submission, you can always choose to do things differently in the first place.
The photo quality is fine, but having images rotated to be right side up would be nice. I know uploading to imgur on your phone has a tendency of resulting in oddly rotated images, but there must be a way to fix it before submitting.
Anyway, great work - the quality of the drawings is really well done, and I can see a lot of solid understanding of the constructions of these objects as well as the patterns and rhythms of their surface textures. Keep it up and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Your forms are pretty good, and they definitely improve over the set as well. I'm pretty much in agreement with you - solid forms, but you probably could push yourself to experiment further with texture. That said, texture is far less significant. You could leave a solid form-construction blank and it'd still look good. So, you didn't make a mistake in not pushing yourself further here.
Now that we know that your forms are coming out nicely, once you have a solid lay-in/construction set down, you should start to push yourself to study and identify the rhythms and patterns present in your reference images. This is a brief demo I did on the subject which you may have already seen. If you look closely, you can see all kinds of arrangements of detail that result in a wide variety of apparent textures.
Anyway, you did good - keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Not bad, but I do have some concerns you need to keep in mind as you move forward:
Don't be sketchy or loose with your lay-ins. I'm specifically looking at the spider on page 3 - those legs don't look like they really involved a whole lot of thought or consideration.
You're definitely overdoing your contour lines. Contour lines are a tool used to help describe the way a 3D form warps through 3D space. On a rounded object, it demonstrates how the surface of that shape bends and wraps around an axis. Before you add any, consider if there are any specific details in what you're drawing that perform this task already. For example, one thing that I emphasized in this lesson is that insects often have natural contour lines due to all of their segmentation. If these exist, take advantage of them and don't add more. If they don't exist however, you can add a couple here or there, but don't go overboard and don't spread them out evenly, as this will look man-made and it'll get distracting. Never just put anything in your drawing "just because". Everything must serve a purpose, and you should know exactly what that purpose is.
Hatching lines - two things about this. First of all, hatching lines are mini-contour lines. Any detail that runs along the surface will in turn describe it. So, if you're using relatively straight hatching lines on a rounded surface, it's going to communicate that the surface is flatter than you actually intend. Ensure that they follow the surface of the object and actually wrap around the forms. Secondly, hatching lines are really just a shorthand for "I know some sort of texture or visual information goes here but I don't know what it is, and I really don't want to leave it blank". It's very rare that you'd find hatching lines in nature, so before you start putting down that all-too-easy-solution, spend some time observing your reference closely. Identify the patterns of details and visual elements, consider how they are grouped and clustered and how they go about communicating the fact that a surface is rough, smooth, wet, dry, bumpy, or whatever else.
To extend my last point, I think your use of markers and white gel pen is causing you to miss out on the benefits of really learning how to convey textural information. I believe it's distracting you from the real meat of that aspect of the lessons, and you may want to go back to just drawing with black felt tip pens. Remember that we are not creating illustrations - we are drawing studies. What each drawing teaches you is far more important than the final result.
I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one, but make sure you take these points into consideration.
I strongly believe that it is a bad idea to mix different peoples' interpretation of a subject matter when trying to learn. It makes a lot more sense to learn one, then move onto the other, then when you fully understand each approach separately, you can decide what can be mixed-and-matched.
It's probably very possible to apply white ink in my interpretation of the material (though at this point I don't recommend it), but focus on one thing at a time. If you were doing Peter Han's lessons and getting his critique, I'd hope you'd do the same and focus entirely on what he is teaching you at that moment.
On a few occasions, you do go a little beyond just applying hatching lines or focusing entirely on light and shadow (using markers). You've got some stippling on the black widow and the moth, some hair on your ant, bumps on your scorpion, and so on. That's a start, but what I can infer about your process is that you look at your reference, see points or bumps or hairs, and then you go over to your drawing and you add that.
Instead what I want you to do is identify how those details are arranged - are they spread out evenly, are they arranged in groups, do they cluster to form larger masses? More importantly, how can you arrange those details in order to convey the impression they give without creating too much or too little contrast, depending on how you're composing this drawing.
This is a demo I posted to the subreddit a while ago. Each texture is not a one-to-one reproduction, it is instead an interpretation of what is there. Each texture is designed, with varying density of detail and value, and so on. There's a lot more to it than just seeing dots, and drawing dots.
When it comes to drawing from observation, the key is to spend the vast majority of your time observing. Never rely on your memory, because your memory will deceive you. Our memories are simplified and rendered useless the moment we look away - so at best, we can carry over a line or two before having to look back at our reference.
So yes, it is 'more observation', but it's certainly more complicated than that. It's about learning what to observe, and building that particular mistrust of your own memory.
Excellent work. I especially like your lay-ins (their forms are very confident and well executed), though your experimentation with texture and rendering is very nicely done too.
On that tarantula, I'd say you did a pretty decent job of capturing its hairs, but something you may also want to consider is where you might want to start grouping those hairs into clumps, drawing a short of shock of hair instead of an individual strand. The thing about the individual strands is that they come off a little more tangentially to the rest of the body (although yours mitigated this by being more swooping and curved). On the other hand, a shock or clump of hair is a shape instead of a line, and tends to integrate a little more smoothly with the rest of the body. These notes on fur touch on the concept.
Lastly, one minor thing I noticed with your scorpion's claws was that on the left one's pincers, you didn't consider how those pincers connect to the bulk of the hand - instead you drew two lines without capping off that intersection. It's a really minor point, but I'm being nitpicky because you generally did very well. Always remember to at least in some way define the intersections between forms. You did it more appropriately on the pincers on the opposite claw, so I'm sure you fully understand what you should be aiming for, you may have just let one fall through the cracks a little.
I like your praying mantises! They've got lots of character. One of them's lookin' to pick a fight.
Thank you so much for your comments. I'm excited to hear that I passed. I'm definitely struggling with how to deal with hairs but I'm sure I'll get lots of practice with the next lesson.
Hi again! Merry... christmas? Anyway, as always i thank you for putting your time to check on our homeworks, and with that said, [Here is my lesson 4 Homework!] (http://imgur.com/a/Sfoee)
Hey, unfortunately I'm taking a break through the month of December. Free critiques will resume on January 1st, so you'll have to resubmit the work then - until then, the critiques are restricted to the patreon supporters (if you are one, make sure you've sent me your reddit username via patreon's messaging system). For now, you can definitely still gain quite a bit by looking at the critiques I've given others - it helps to see if you've made similar mistakes.
Well atleast i get the chance to say Happy new Year oh dear professor! Dramatism intensifies. As always thanks for checking our homeworks and here's mine for lesson 4!
There's a few problems - firstly, when you scan your work, using any 'drawing' based presets will generally boost the contrast on the image and obliterate any nuance to your lines. The resulting scans tend to come out looking really harsh.
Secondly, I'm noticing that you're drawing pretty small. Working in such restricted spaces often limits our ability to move as well as our ability to think through spatial problems. We end up scribbling more and drawing forms that have a weaker sense of volume and solidity. It also means that your lines are by default going to be considerably thicker relative to the size of the drawing - so if you draw larger, you're given more freedom with how you apply line weight, instead of having everything becoming thick immediately.
Most of all though, you're focusing very, very heavily on texture and detail. Those parts are coming out rather nicely, but they're being applied to forms that have a tendency to feel flatter. The form construction is the core of your drawing, so no matter how well you apply the details, if the construction isn't done well it won't be able to stand up on its own.
I've recently added a new exercise to lesson 2, called "organic intersections." It focuses on thinking about your form intersections in three dimensions, and considering their weight and flexibility. I think you should go back and try this exercise out.
Then, do two more pages of insect lay-ins. Do not go into detail at all, just draw the constructions. Make sure you draw larger, and when you scan use the "photo" presets.
Okay, here are the two extra lay-ins you requested. Just in case you want to re-check the original homework to compare i will leave the link here.
I did the organic intersection as you reccomended and while i was at it i thought of a technique to draw (which i latter used on these new insects). Prolly some people do it, but anyway, rather than drawing the whole organic form at once thinking how would it go, what i did was draw the "elipses" at some key points, and finish the whole form taking those elipses as a guide. What are your thoughts in this?
That approach sounds fairly decent, but I do have one concern - you have a tendency of drawing ellipses quite stiffly, too concerned with drawing slowly and carefully to get the shape right, which results in wobbly linework and doesn't rely at all on your muscle memory. You need to draw with more confidence, using a stroke fast enough that your brain does not interfere and cause your lines to wobble. That's why I encourage people to draw through their ellipses, because it allows them a little leeway, giving them the room to draw with a little more confidence. Keep that in mind.
Generally you have improved, though the main example of this is the moth. The others suffer quite a bit from wobbly lines.
Also, for your ellipses-as-guides, continue to use that for the main bodies, but avoid it for parts that are smaller, like the legs.
I'll mark the lesson as complete - you should continue to practice these as you move forward, but you may move onto the next lesson when you feel ready.
I'm somewhat on the fence about this. Your results aren't generally bad, but I feel like there is something in the underlying construction, something about how you approach it, that suggests that you're not yet seeing the forms you draw as 3D forms sitting in 3D space.
The most important thing is to keep in mind that the forms we put down as the first step of our lay-in are not rough approximations of the space the object takes up. These forms - often dropped in as simple ellipses - actually represent a solid, voluminous mass. Think of it as though you're playing with putty, and you're laying the ground-work for what you're building.
From your drawings, I'm getting the impression that you're placing 2D shapes on the page, which you will then draw on top of with your "real" lines. This approach is common in step-by-step drawing guides, but focuses entirely on taking a 2D image and simply transferring it to a 2D drawing - rather than what we're after, looking at a 2D image, understanding how it works on a 3D level, and then reconstructing it with 3D forms, represented by 2D shapes in a drawing.
Anyway, the tricky thing is that this isn't something easily explained - so, I'm going to ask you to go to lesson 2 and look at the "organic intersections" exercise that was recently added at the end of the lesson as part of the new years update. Do that exercise, it really pushes the idea of creating actual 3D forms within a 2D drawing.
Do two pages of those, then try drawing two more pages of insect lay-ins. Do not get into any sort of detail or texture, all I want to see is the lay-in construction.
Nicely done! Your constructions are coming along nicely, and your textures are well thought out and executed. For the furry/hairy type textures, you can take a look at these extra notes, but you're making some solid progress. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
This assignment was both challenging and fascinating: HW4!. One obvious area that I need to work on is shadows when they are not in or clear in the reference images. I changed pens (to the Staedler), so hopefully you can see my drawn through ellipses better on this set. Thanks much!
Very nice work. Your forms/constructions are very well done, and you've demonstrated a lot of great experimentation with different kinds of textures. Some of these certainly make my skin crawl (page 9), and that's an excellent sign of success. Keep up the great work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Thanks! Following along with the video demos made a huge difference for me on this lesson. Draw a Box is an awesome find - my drawing has already improved by an order of magnitude. Cheers!
Lesson 4 (the order got messed up a bit when I uploaded)
I found the outlined shadows somewhat distracting sometimes, where I thought it would add a lot of clutter. At other times, they're still useful for showing height.
I tried to avoid over-using contours as per your latest feedback, which does help clean up the in-lays. Conveying form with texture details instead was much nicer, where possible.
Also, very hairy arthropods are really annoying to draw... I think I need to find a middle ground between too much detail and 'symbolizing' the hairs.
Looking good! I think you found a good balance of contour lines as you got further into the set, especially since they tend to match up with natural details in the given insects. Your volumes are looking generally strong, as are your constructions, and your texture/rendering is coming along well.
On the topic of hair, this might help a little. It helps to try and imagine the different hairs as being part of a large network/system of hair that flows and clumps together. Still, the way you approached it works decently because you did make sure to drown out a lot of the noisy/high-contrast sections.
Anyway, keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
This was quite fun to do, and I felt like I learned a lot, since this isn't a subject matter I usually study, hopefully my textures are more interesting this time around than the previous lesson.
Very nice constructions, and very nice attention to texture! Your drawings make good use of contour lines, and you do a great job of conveying complex textures without undermining your focal points. Keep up the fantastic work, and consider this lesson complete!
I think your forms are coming along quite well, and I like that you're taking advantage of segmentation with this particular subject matter. As you move forward, there is one thing that I'd like you to keep in mind, however - when drawing texture, you seem to be relying very heavily on crosshatching. There is a lot more than that going on, if you take a close and careful look at your photo reference. This is a demo I've posted in the past showing the various approaches to demonstrating texture. In truth, cross hatching isn't actually a texture you'll see often in nature, and it's generally used as a sort of "filler" texture when the artist hasn't looked closely enough.
Anyway, definitely keep that in mind as you move forward. You may consider this lesson complete.
Some of these are quite good. I like your surfboard beetle, your lady bug, your caterpillar and your silverfish. In fact, the silverfish are really well done, as the segmentation and forms read very well.
One thing I noticed across all of your drawings is that you appear to be starting off with a faint underdrawing for your lay-in, and then you clean up somewhat with a separate pass, replacing many of the lines. You're working intentionally to hide the underdrawing.
Don't.
We are not here to draw beautiful, pristine objects to frame or stick up on our refrigerator doors. We are trying to understand form and construction. Every step, every mark you put down, should be thought about beforehand as to whether or not it is going to contribute something to the drawing. Does it help you understand the form you are constructing? If so, it should be drawn with confidence, and you shouldn't be trying to hide it. Otherwise, it shouldn't be drawn at all.
In the end, you might end up with a drawing with a lot of lines that seem to make things confusing. At this point, you can add line weight to reinforce and emphasize some lines, bringing them forward and in turn, causing all the other lines to recede. This is very different from the process involved in a 'clean up' pass which doesn't emphasize existing lines, it outright replaces them.
The other thing I noticed is that there isn't a lot of work on the texture front here, which is absolutely fine. There is no necessity to think about texture and detail right now, as it is not nearly as important as establishing form. I did notice that you made attempts in that direction however, so I will comment on those.
Right now, you have one tool in your belt - line, specifically hatching lines. As a result, you attempt to use these to depict the majority of your textures. Unfortunately, this kind of texture doesn't actually exist often in nature. Instead, you need to really look closely at the textures that exist within your photo reference. Look closely to identify the elements that seem to repeat themselves, and then focus on the fact that the majority of what you're seeing are actually shadows cast by those little elements. These shadows don't only exist as line, and they can very easily start clustering together into large groups, creating singular shapes instead of a multitude of lines. Try to avoid just falling back to using hatching lines.
Here are some extra resources on texture, but remember that your focus is purely on form and construction. Texture can come later.
Thank you for your as always in-depth analysis. I'm glad you liked some of them!
I agree with the faint under-drawing comment and will focus my energy towards correcting it. Why I did it actually was more for proportions sake, since I wasn't sure how else to approach the issue. Like, before beginning my drawing, I went: "Ok, this is where the abdomen is going to be, it is about this large, connects with the thorax here and so on..." and marked this with very thinly just to give me an idea. Then I started my drawing with the non-faint lines. I'm not sure whether this is a good idea (measuring proportions like this), but, nonetheless, I am going to stop trying to hide it from now, since I admit I did do that every so often.
And yes, I fully agree with the comment about the texture, I'm still having a tough time distinguishing "natural" textures, and although I'm trying to avoid it, I ultimately resort to hatching which admittedly I should not. I am actually waiting for the texture challenge in this regard. That is something I most definitely need!
Anyway, thank you once again for everything and have a great evening! :)
Hello again :) . here is my lesson 4 submission . I have to say that it was freaking to look at the details of the insects . really scary! but on the other hand i found that there are lots and lots of so amazingly beautiful & colorful insects oh my god how beautiful is this creation . anyway i hope i did okay with this lesson . thank you
Your observational skills, as far as putting the forms together are improving. I do however think you're not quite putting enough time and effort into really building up your constructions, and are leaving a lot of the earlier construction lines out.
For example, for the lady bug on page 4, you seem to have jumped into fairly complex shapes early on, instead of first massing them out in simple forms and then building up the complexity. Here's a demo of how I would have approached it.
Now, I have seen you do more construction in other drawings, but you still seem to be quite timid with those lines. Remember that any mark you put down should be drawn confidently. Beforehand, think about whether the mark is going to contribute to the drawing, or to your understanding of how the construction sits in 3D space. If it does contribute, the mark should be drawn, and therefore drawn with confidence. If it doesn't contribute, the mark should not be drawn at all.
Later you can add line weight to really pull lines forward and emphasize them, which in turn pushes other lines back. You will find that this will really help make your construction lines less noticeable, despite having drawn them with confidence.
So, remember - go from simple forms to complex. Never draw a form or a piece of detail that is not supported by what is already on the page.
Thank you again Irshad , I really understands what you're trying to point out .the problem is that i usually draw more than once in a separate paper until i find my self more aware of the form then i draw one finished drawing starting with basic lines , like i show you in one page of the new submission . i think with practice i would abandon this & put very confident lines from the first time which i already done in other drawing . & for the texture i struggle with it even after i saw the demo unfortunately . can i start in lesson 5 now like please :)
That's getting better - just don't forget to focus on wrapping your contour curves around the rounded forms. Sometimes overshooting the curve will help get you used to the curvature required to really hook around convincingly.
You're moving in the right direction, but there's a few things I'd like to deal with before we move onto the next lesson.
First and foremost, your contour curves. I can see that you have a tendency to add a lot of them, but you don't necessarily put as much effort into each individual one as you probably should. The result is far more contour curves than you need, where each one doesn't necessarily carry its weight.
To start with, before you start drawing your own contour curve, take a look at your reference and try to identify details that may perform the task of a contour curve - that is, a detail that wraps around the form, describing the turning and twisting of its surface by its very existence. If you can find one - and trust me, insects are full of them due to their segmented exoskeletons - draw a contour curve where that detail falls.
If you can't find any natural contours however, then you can start adding your own - but don't add more than two or three, and make sure they're not spaced out evenly. Man-made things tend to space details out at regular intervals, it's not a feature you see often in nature.
Now, when you actually draw your contour curves, I've noticed nine times out of ten that your curves don't actually sit inside of your forms. You tend to draw them as if the curves themselves were hovering just above the surface, rather than resting directly on it. This is something you need to work towards fixing. This example from lesson 2 discusses this issue. Note where it says "keep your curves snug against the organic shape."
Another issue I noticed is how you approach drawing legs. If you look at this spider, you can see that you've drawn each section independently. While this certainly is one valid approach, I don't believe it's one that's working for you right now. Reason being, you're having trouble keeping your lines under control. We can see some of these segments bulging out awkwardly.
A better approach may be to start out by drawing the legs as a single form up to each joint, breaking them off only where the legs actually bend. Then you can build up your segmentation on top of this. Relying on a simpler, underlying scaffolding can help keep your lines in check.
Last of all, your sketchpad appears to be quite small, which in turn is making your drawings very small. Drawing at this size can be adding an additional challenge to your plate, as the smaller you draw, the less room you have to work through spatial problems. This, along with perhaps not spending enough effort on applying the ghosting method to your mark making, could also be another major factor that is causing you to lose control of your lines. It'd be a good idea to work on something larger - I usually encourage people to work on loose leaf printer paper, since most people have access to it, it keeps people from getting too precious with their work, and it offers a fair bit of space.
I'd like to see you do four more pages of insects.
Man this was harder. There was definitely a fight in my head between "the construction is more important" vs "it needs to look more like the reference image"
I also struggled with the grounding shadows, they often seemed to skew in the wrong direction.
Excellent work! Your forms and constructions are very solid, you can clearly see the volumes depresented. I'm also pleased to see that you explored a lot of different approaches to capturing the unique textures, and the fact that you allowed a lot of those textures to merge together into solid masses, focusing the detail on the transitional areas.
Very well done. Keep it up, and feel free to move onto the next lesson!
Very nice work. Your forms are coming along really well, and you've taken full advantage of the segmentation of the insect's bodies to emphasize their contours.
As far as texture goes, I do believe there's plenty to work on there. You tend to fall back on hatching lines across the board, which tends to give a fairly similar impression to all of these diverse creatures. It's important to take the time to really observe your reference and see what's going on. Here's a demo I've done in the past to demonstrate the wide variety of textures one can find on subjects like this: http://i.imgur.com/a3Lh6ER.jpg.
The only other thing I'd like to mention is that for the spider, I think the legs on the far side are coming out rather long - due to perspective, they'd probably shrink down a little bit.
In general the priority of these lessons are based in form, with texture coming in as a secondary concern - I'm glad to say that you're nailing the main focus, and you'll be able to continue practicing working with texture and detail as you move ahead. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Here you go. I think I'm improving a little. I felt like some advice you gave me about using natural contours and drawing through ellipses on the previous lesson started to click for me. I'm still having trouble with textures, especially when the subject is not a black and white insect. Sometimes I'm not sure whether to focus on the shading or the pattern and I can only add lines/textures in a binary, all-or-nothing way.
Fantastic work. Your forms and constructions are coming along great - I can feel the solidity and three-dimensionality of each component of each insect, and you're leveraging those contour lines in a great way that doesn't overuse and abuse them.
When it comes to texture, I think you're making great progress - it's important to experiment with different approaches to conveying texture - I see you playing with little marks and details (hatching, stippling) then playing with large solid areas. All of this experimentation is imperative to find your own particular way of doing it.
When it comes to texture, your observation about things being quite binary is pretty accurate. That said, you can think of it in terms of there being 3 possible states. Solid black, blank, and a transition area in between. That transition area is generally where I apply a texture composed of both dark lines and blank spaces. I demonstrate the concept here (though you may have already seen this). If you allow yourself to get comfortable with using large swathes of black in your drawing (as you seem to be by the end), you can leverage that to keep your actual higher-contrast, noisier texture information only in those limited transition areas. This allows you to communicate what kind of texture exists on a surface to the viewer (which is the ultimate goal, communication) without being overbearing and overwhelming. The rest of the form ends up being relatively light on contrast, leading to a more organized and pleasant-looking drawing.
Anyway, texture is always secondary to form. You're nailing the form, and making great strides with texture. Consider this lesson as complete.
Thanks so much! It really means a lot to get such positive feedback from you, and your explanation was very helpful.
A quick unrelated question I have, in these lessons (specifically the next one on animals) when you talk about dedicating a page or two to a "subject" or "species," is that to say that you want us using one specific image as a reference for the whole page, or just that you want any number of references images used as long as they're for the same animal?
Uncomfortable
2015-09-03 19:46
Goddamn, these threads are getting locked quicker than I can repost them! Once again, the old lesson has exceeded 6 months of age. You may continue to post your homework submissions here.
You can still check out the previous homework submissions and critiques - since all of the exercises are fairly standardized, it's always helpful to look through what other people did right and wrong, and what kind of critiques they received.
NeoEXMaster
2015-09-04 01:21
Results: http://imgur.com/a/Er7xw
Uncomfortable
2015-09-04 23:04
Nice work! Your form constructions and your textures are quite well done. I especially love the drawing of the caterpillar's head, as well as the (hercules?) beetle from page 6. The way you tackled the hair on the spider from page 4 was quite interesting as well. It seems to fade in and out, which is exceptional. To push it a little further, consider how the clumping of the hairs might impact the silhouette of that form. I can see that you've got a few stray hairs coming off here and there, but those kinds of direct tangents tend to draw a lot of attention. Using an approach like this can be more effective.
Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson.
NeoEXMaster
2015-09-05 07:12
The spider I referenced had larger, isolated hairs coming straight off the surface like that, which is why I drew them at a more direct 90 degree angle. Here is an example pic where you can see if you look at the black hairs: http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/059/609/original/male-wolf-spider.jpg?1385162811
Since that sheet you referenced seemed to indicate direct tangents are bad, I'm curious as to how you would handle drawing that. Leave the black hairs out entirely, or angle them a bit more?
Uncomfortable
2015-09-05 14:16
I would probably only really include them if they fell into my focal area.
MintGreenTeaLeaf
2015-09-12 10:55
Im really sorry to put this here but I wasnt sure where to post this as the lesson 5 thread is now closed >_<. I will re-post it in the new thread for the lesson 5 if necessary.
[This] (http://imgur.com/a/PK3Ma#0) is my second attempt I still need a lot more work on being confident and thoughtful when I work.
Thank you for your response and detailed criticism they have give me a lot to think about and work on. :)
Uncomfortable
2015-09-13 02:20
I think you may have missed the point of the demos I linked you to before, specifically in relation to the "clear points of intersection". From these drawings, I see a strong sense of form, but you're applying that form without too much regard for how these animals' bits connect together. I do see some hinting at the shoulders and such, but I'm still seeing your major lines coming out of the bottom of the torsos, rather than from their sides where the shoulders sit.
Here's a breakdown of one of your pages. You've got to remember that everything is a solid 3D form that connects to something else. While your forms and volumes feel three dimensional, they do so in a way that resembles an animal made from clay or putty - the connections don't entirely make sense. Think harder on how parts extend and extrude out of others - how those legs link to the shoulders, how the muzzles extrude out from the cranium. Don't just hint at these things, actually draw them.
Try another couple pages and we'll go from there. Don't worry about going into texture/detail.
tsak021
2015-09-14 02:41
Took too long, but.. life happens. Included my failed attempts too. Will definitely take the advice I saw here about fur/hairiness into Lesson 5 (when I get the pass). Insects/Plants. Just so hard to choose one, even though there are so many, there seem to be so few to pick from.
http://imgur.com/a/8AgSz
Uncomfortable
2015-09-14 22:45
Generally not bad. Your forms are coming together fairly nicely. Some definitely came out better than others, but generally I do see some nice progress as we move through the set, and I like the way you're thinking through the problems of texture and construction.
Overall I don't really have much to say - you're moving in the right direction, and there isn't a lot I'd change about how you're approaching things. Keep up the good work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
[deleted]
2015-09-18 22:50
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2015-09-19 16:05
Generally very nice work. There is one recommendation that I have though - don't let the detailing overpower the form/construction. It's very easy to get so caught up in the detailing that you forget about the form underneath, and when that happens, it's possible to add details in such a way that they contradict, and ultimately flatten out, that form. One example of this is the hornet on the top of page 5.
Anyway, you still did quite well, and the amount of attention to detail is pretty impressive. Keep up the good work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Senjutsuki
2015-09-20 02:37
Done
I tried to rely less on hatching this time but still found myself a bit confused on how to communicate those surface details on some of these. I think maybe it's because I still haven't gotten completely used to drawing anything in pen, rather than pencil or digitally. And maybe part of it is because I'm drawing the subject a bit too large, making it more difficult for myself? Or I'm just not as attentive to the details as I thought I was.
Whatever the case though, I definitely feel like I've improved greatly from these dynamic sketching lessons. So as always, thanks a lot for doing these!
Uncomfortable
2015-09-21 17:06
There's some good stuff here, though your drawings seem to fall apart a bit in the middle. The last few are demonstrating some very nice forms though, so it looks like you're improving considerably over the course of the set.
One concern I have actually has nothing to do with your drawings - your scanner's contrast is set really high, so it makes the drawings themselves come out rather harshly. Always be sure to use the 'photo' preset on your scanner, as it tends to capture the greatest range of values.
Now, as for your surface detailing, I definitely see that your are still struggling. Drawing larger actually should help, rather than make things more difficult. I'm still seeing you resorting to hatching and scratchy lines a lot of the time, rather than really paying attention to your reference image. This may help.
I'd like you to try another couple pages of insect drawings. First focus purely on building those forms, as you did in the last few. Then when it comes time to apply detail, draw a circle around your focal area and study your reference image for the kinds of information that gives it its texture. Think before you put down every single mark - if you find yourself wanting to just lay down a bunch of scratchy lines, stop and look at your reference again.
Senjutsuki
2015-10-03 21:36
Been really busy with other stuff but here they are.
Also it seems like my scanner is already set on 'photo' so I just went ahead and adjusted the contrast using Paint. Do these look better?
Uncomfortable
2015-10-05 19:29
Your texturing has improved somewhat. There's still room for growth of course, and that'll happen over time. For now, I'll mark this lesson as complete.
CorenSV
2015-09-22 19:49
Here is my Homework
EDIT: Something is wierd on my end. The last picture doesn't load. Does this one work?
I didn't do any spiders because I'm honestly scared shitless of them. even just seeing them in pictures makes me want to run.
If I have to I'll do them. But I really rather not.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-23 20:18
These are alright, but I'm a little concerned about how your forms are coming through. A lot of them seem to feel a little more flat than they should. I'd like you to do one more drawing of an insect, but take a series of photos throughout the process so I can see what it looks like at the various stages of completion.
CorenSV
2015-09-23 21:45
Here you go
Uncomfortable
2015-09-24 19:46
Okay, so the trouble lies with your lay-ins, early on. You're still not quite thinking in terms of 3D forms, or in terms of simplification. This is totally normal - when faced with a complex subject, it's very easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of visual information that's being thrown at you.
Here's how I would tackle the lay-in. Your general breakdown isn't bad, but you're still getting too caught up in the complexities of each form. Don't worry so much about that.
There are two goals at this point:
Capture the main elements as simple 3D forms - a combination of the basic geometric forms (balls, tubes, boxes, pyramids, cones) and where necessary, simple organic forms. We are approximating things - even though the wasp's head might not be a ball, it's close enough. Using a ball allows us to establish 3D forms, which we can then work off of as scaffolding.
Avoid thinking on the page, or using several lines where one will suffice. Thinking on the page is basically how I describe overly sketchy behaviour, because it's caused by people failing to think and plan before they put their pen to the page. Think first, then draw. Don't chicken-scratch, instead ghost over the form you'd like to draw. Organic forms can be a little more difficult to nail in one shot, but don't be afraid to make mistakes.
I'd like you to do four more pages of insects, taking these points into consideration.
CorenSV
2015-10-03 16:11
I took your points in consideration. (At least I tried to.) But I'm not seeing a lot of improvement. So I'm guessing I'll have to do this one over again ^^;
Link to pictures
Uncomfortable
2015-10-03 21:10
Hmm.. I think it might help to take a change of pace. The issue, or at least the way I see things, is that you're still quite stiff. The fact that you're not drawing through your ellipses at all kind of leads me to that conclusion, among other things.
I'd like you to do four pages of organic forms with contour ellipses and contour curves (the proportions are up to you, but I want you to start off with ellipses - being sure to draw through them). Loosen up. That doesn't mean to be sketchy, but just let your arm guide itself a little more. Focus on wrapping contour lines around the forms. Treat it as though you're drawing a bunch of funky, chubby worms or maggots. Also, try not to wretch at the thought.
Also, don't forget to draw from your shoulder.
CorenSV
2015-10-04 19:08
here
Uncomfortable
2015-10-05 20:31
You didn't draw through the ellipses! You need to draw through every single ellipse you draw for any of my lessons. Period.
Anyway, your forms and curves are still feeling very stiff. So, to loosen you up, I've devised another exercise. It's very similar to what you just did, but it adds a few minor points to it.
The maggot exercise. Instead of just drawing contour lines, you're going to be drawing organic forms with segmented bodies, like maggots. You're also going to jam an eyeball into one end. I don't want any part of these forms to be cut straight (some of the ones you drew in this last set had flat ends). Everything should be rounded.
Loosen up! If you make a mistake, it's no big deal. Just relax, and try to have fun. I'm not going to give you a page count this time - do as many as you want until you start to feel yourself getting a sense of the curvature of these forms. When you submit, I want to see all of them, in chronological order, so I can see whether or not it has helped.
CorenSV
2015-10-05 22:50
It seems that I'm not quite sure on what you mean with drawing every ellipse through. I thought it was that you also had to draw the non visible part of the contour ellipse.
did you mean that the ellipses/contour curves have to intersect each other?
those eyeball maggots look pretty fun to draw :).
Uncomfortable
2015-10-05 22:52
By drawing through an ellipse, I mean that when you draw a full ellipse, draw around it two or three times before lifting your pen from the page. This allows you to draw it more confidently and maintain a more consistent speed throughout, because you're not worrying quite as much about nailing it in one go.
Leaniv
2015-09-27 12:39
http://imgur.com/a/ZcPJU
still loose,even when im fighting hard against it,but as usual when i plan it before put down the stuff, my hand say "ahaha,no"
Uncomfortable
2015-09-27 17:07
Definitely continue working on fighting against that looseness, but I think you're doing great otherwise. Your forms are conveying a great sense of volume, and your renderings look nice. I especially like that boxy tarantula, it really does a great job of driving home the combination of form intersections with organic objects.
Great work!
Ninfu11
2015-09-30 21:40
Heres lesson 4 http://imgur.com/a/ploWe
Hopefully once again taken some baby steps. Like always thanks for your hard work
Uncomfortable
2015-10-01 19:32
My biggest concern here is that you are not applying contour lines very effectively. First and foremost, you don't tend to wrap the contour lines convincingly around the forms, giving the sense of a rounded 3D object - instead, your forms come out flatter. Compare your use of contour lines on these insects to your homework from lesson 2.
Secondly, you're applying those contour lines pretty evenly across the entirety of the form, like a 3D wireframe mesh. Try to avoid this. First off, look for natural features in your reference image that serve as contour lines. That is, features that wrap around the 3D form, giving a clue as to how that form warps through 3D space. Insects tend to feature a lot of natural segmentation, which functions as contour lines. If you can't find anything to reinforce that sense of volume, then use one or two contour lines, but don't spread them out evenly. When things exist at predictable intervals, they start to look artificial.
Generally your insects do improve over the course of the set, but I really get the impression that you're not spending enough time studying your reference image, and are too eager to jump into drawing perhaps a little half cocked. Focus heavily on establishing those forms as convincing 3D forms. All the detail in the world won't fix a weak construction. Also consider how those forms connect to one another, how the cylinder of a leg might fit into the ball of a joint.
I'd like to see you do four more pages of insects, focusing heavily on creating convincing, solid lay-ins with a clear illusion of 3D form.
Ninfu11
2015-10-01 19:47
Yeah was thinking whole day today what im missing and came to a conclusion that i should spent bit more time watching and imagining reference image. So got question regarding contours. This has probably lot to do personal preference but i've been kind of struggling which way to go especially with legs. Should i create form first then find where contour line or make contour line first and then make form around it.
Also not related my homework but can i receive critique if i jump to human anatomy for while after this lesson is completed?
Uncomfortable
2015-10-01 19:58
I usually define the center line of a form, then create the form around that, then reinforce it with contour lines. As for jumping to the anatomy lessons, they only require lessons 1/2 to be completed so you're free to do that as well.
Ninfu11
2015-10-01 20:05
Thank you very much.
Uncomfortable
2015-10-02 19:52
It looks like you just deleted the post you made with your 4 new pages, just as I was about to post my critique:
Jesus christ, how the hell did you improve so much in a day? Very nice work. The forms read as having actual volume and occupying real space. Each section really feels like it fits into another piece, and they all feel very smooth and organic. Very well done.
Go ahead and move onto the next lesson.
Ninfu11
2015-10-02 20:06
Yeah i deleted it i felt like it wasnt enough to match up with those 4 pages. Started checking how much i actually did and it felt it just wasnt enough. Was planning to do few more pages tomorrow and repost it. But well you saw it and thank you very much.
Whole thing was probably always inside me but got so distracted by everything. Like creating form, worrying about lines, worrying about details then everything just fell apart.
muffinpink
2015-10-05 12:15
Here is my homework: http://imgur.com/a/anYqV
I really enjoyed drawing the beatles but never want to spend so long looking at spiders again!
Thanks for looking at my work.
Uncomfortable
2015-10-05 20:46
You did a pretty good job, but there's something that your lovely texturing/rendering is hiding - your contour curves aren't particularly great. They're not doing a good job of wrapping around the rounded shells/torsos, and instead flatten them out.
I'm still going to mark this lesson as complete, because your drawings still look pretty fantastic, but I think for your own sake, you might want to go back and practice the organic forms with contour curves from lesson 2, just to remind yourself of what it means to wrap a contour line around a form properly.
muffinpink
2015-10-06 10:13
Thank you for your feedback. I think that is the issue I am having on the next lessson. I will got back and do some more organic contor drawings so I don't forget to really round the edges of the contor lines.
I am already noticing an improvement in my drawings. Thank you so much for working so hard on these tutorials. I wish they had taught me all this at school.
andysnewhat
2015-10-05 19:55
Here's my lesson 4 work! http://imgur.com/a/IIWj0
Idk if I'm making any progress at all here so who knows
Uncomfortable
2015-10-06 19:50
Right now, your drawings look rather stiff. One thing that's certain is that you're getting a little too caught up in a lot of the visual information you're being presented with in your reference image. Because of this, you're not thinking through how each basic form you're using to construct the basic framework exists in 3D space. Many of these forms are coming out kind of flat, and your contour lines aren't really wrapping around those forms.
I'd like you to take a break from this lesson for a bit, and try this exercise I devised the other day: The maggot exercise. Draw six pages of maggoty forms. Try to loosen up and focus on capturing the roundedness of each form. Also, don't forget to jam a nice healthy eyeball into one end.
andysnewhat
2015-10-08 16:53
Here you go! http://imgur.com/a/PRyL2
Not sure if the roundness is really there so I might still be fucking this all up here, but thanks for the help anyway haha!
Uncomfortable
2015-10-10 01:32
First and foremost, you're not really applying any of the concepts we've been covering - mainly starting off simple, and slowly building up your forms. Try starting off with a simple organic form first, then add contour curves/ellipses, and then build up on top of that. Like this.
Also, remember that the degree of the contour ellipses will determine how that organic form turns through space. These notes expand on that concept.
Try again.
andysnewhat
2015-10-10 05:46
Okay here you go then! http://imgur.com/a/PRyL2
I tried to do it as you outlined and hopefully it's getting closer to passing that hiccup I seem to have with this. I understand the process but it's just like I have to break old habits of just drawing like an idiot once I start! I admire your patience haha
Uncomfortable
2015-10-12 15:58
Definitely better. The only thing that you're forgetting is that the eyeball is a sphere - so in order to achieve the correct roundness, you should draw it as an entire sphere that intersects with the rest of the maggot-form. Most of it will be buried within this form, but it's important to understand how the sphere exists in 3D space.
Anyway, I think you're ready to take another stab at the insect homework. Before you do, be sure to reread the lesson and look over the demos carefully.
lotcm0130
2015-10-11 14:40
Hi. Here is my attempt for lesson 4. http://imgur.com/a/MrOFJ
I really tried to apply your last advise, but it was quite challenging. Especially understanding the form of beetles' head was hard to me.
Uncomfortable
2015-10-12 17:09
Great work. I'm glad that you found it challenging, as it shows that you're more than capable of overcoming these challenges with hard work. I still feel that my previous advice still applies (to try to avoid piling on quite so many artificial contour lines, which results in a wireframe-look) but in general your work still looks solid. I especially like how you add details, you seem to have a good eye for the subtle textures that appear on these little creatures.
Very well done. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
lotcm0130
2015-10-14 06:21
High-resolution reference photo really helped haha. Anyway thank you for your thoughtful comment :)
CorenSV
2015-10-13 19:03
Here is my second try
Uncomfortable
2015-10-14 19:15
There is certainly plenty of room to grow, but I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. As you move onto the next lesson, be sure to continue practicing the exercises I've shown you thus far.
Also, one thing I want to add in relation to this homework in particular, I noticed that when it comes to drawing texture, you have a tendency to draw more and observe less. When a texture doesn't seem to be going quite right, you tend to scribble more and try to fix it by putting down more ink.
Texture is not about putting down more lines - it's about identifying specific kinds of lines and details that promote certain illusions. You should be spending more time observing and studying your reference images and far less time drawing. Beware that your memory is faulty and untrustworthy - the second you look away from your reference image, the vast majority of information you collected is lost of simplified to the point of being useless, so it is necessary to look at your reference again within a second or two. Many don't realize this, so they continue to work from their simplified memories, or start making things up on their own.
This breakdown of different ways texture can be applied may be helpful.
razvanc87
2015-10-13 21:02
Damn those crabs are super difficult to render and figure out. Here's my homework for lesson 4. Thanks!
Uncomfortable
2015-10-14 19:24
Very well done. Your forms are solid and your rendering/texturing has been applied quite well. I especially like your rhino beetle and the first hermit crab, but most of these have been done very well.
Keep up the good work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
razvanc87
2015-10-14 19:37
Actually the first hermit crab was done with a 0.1 mm marker cause I was unhappy with the 0.5 mm thickness (I'm having trouble with the thickness... or so I thought, so I cheated a little bit). But then I did the grasshopper which I'm particularly proud of :). And it's all thanks to your previous explanation with the corn thing. So thanks! Starting with the rhino I took into account your previous observation. The quality of the photo I took of the grasshopper is not so great, maybe that's why it looks... well, not so good, I just uploaded a better version, if it makes any difference... But anyway, thank you! I'll be sure to do a better job for lesson 05.
Godsopp
2015-10-16 23:50
Here is my homework: http://imgur.com/a/FIWJN/all
I think I did a bit better on this than I did on the plants. I mainly struggled on the legs but even those are okay in most of my pictures. I did struggle on some other things like eyes or a specific shape I needed to draw but you can actually tell what each drawing is this time around so that counts for something I guess.
Uncomfortable
2015-10-17 16:06
Nice work! Your forms are looking pretty solid, and while your texturing has plenty of room to grow, it's going in a good direction. One thing that I think you grasped on your own but I feel like mentioning anyway is the use of contour lines. Your contour lines are generally decent, but before applying artificial ones (there's a lot on the first page), look for contour lines that exist naturally on your subject. With the segmentation of their bodies, insects tend to have a lot of this. This allows you to avoid adding more contour lines of your own.
If in the worst case scenario you can't find any natural contour lines, add two or three of your own, but don't space them out too regularly. This tends to make things look artificial and man-made, rather than natural.
Anyway, you did well overall, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.
XSDM
2015-11-01 20:22
My insects and arachnids: http://imgur.com/a/tuhfm
I had much more fun doing these than the plants! But I still feel like i just don't get the textures. I know to look for rythm and of course i have studied the bonus notes on textures. For now i can only hope to improve with practise.
Uncomfortable
2015-11-01 21:08
I think you did a pretty good job. Your forms are coming together nicely, and you definitely are beginning to get a hang of identifying the textures. There's room to grow, but you're heading in the right direction. The only thing I want to point out is that filling in the shadow kinda throws off the composition of the individual pieces. Starts to feel a bit weird. I think when the rest of the piece is line, a simple outlined drop shadow works best.
Anyway, feel free to move onto the next lesson!
ZenithSpark
2015-11-06 01:32
Finally finished this one up. Lesson 4
only mix up this time around is that the last image should be the first image.
Uncomfortable
2015-11-07 19:04
Nice work. Your forms are pretty solid. There are a few things that I would like to recommend to you however, as you move forward.
I noticed that, especially near the beginning, you rough things in, then you draw darker lines on top. Generally this is okay, but I'd like to slightly tweak your mentality in how you approach this a little bit. Don't think of it in terms of rough sketch --> clean drawing. Think of it in terms of shapes and forms. You start off with simple shapes and forms, and then where those forms need to be refined and carved, you draw new lines on top.
Looking at the spider on the top left of page 1 in your imgur album, the legs seem to have been roughed in, and then the exact same shapes had new lines drawn on top - darker ones. Instead of that, I would encourage holding yourself back and thinking through the lay-in more. Draw deliberate, clear lines - not rough sketches. Capture the simple shapes and forms, and if they don't need to be refined further to add complexity, leave them as they are with no new lines drawn on top (except when adding line weight near the end, in which case you're adding to the existing lines, not replacing them).
Also - every single ellipse you draw for my lessons: draw through it.
Lastly, your rendering is something I'd like you to think about more. There are a few issues here. First off, hatching lines are pretty much short hand for "I have no idea what to draw here but I don't want to leave it blank". There's rarely any natural textures you'll see that actually consist of hatching lines. Check out this demo on identifying complex rhythms and patterns in surface textures from reference images. When you do use hatching though, remember that if the lines don't flow along the surface of the 3D object they're on, they will flatten out your forms. This isn't always a bad thing - I often allow far-off objects to be flattened out just for the sake of simplifying my shapes, but if you look at the bottom right of page 8 in your imgur album, your use of hatching totally ignores the actual roundedness of those forms and flattens them out completely.
Anyway, your forms are solid so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - definitely keep what I mentioned in mind as you continue to move forward.
Diana_K
2015-11-07 17:39
http://imgur.com/a/69dyq
Alright. This took me longer than it should have. In the beginning it seem a lot easier than the plants but once I got to the grasshopper I just... blocked and suddenly it was very difficult and I got frustrated. So I took a short break from the lesson and then got back to it and finished it. But all in all it was intersting - it was challenging but not impossible.
Uncomfortable
2015-11-07 20:10
I think it's coming along nicely. My favourite two drawings are the honey bee and black widow on the bottom of page 2. You've definitely got a lot of room to grow (especially when it comes to identifying details in your reference images) but you're on the right track.
There's a few things I'd like to iron out though:
I've actually mentioned this in a lot of critiques I've written today - hatching lines are pretty much short hand for "I have no idea what goes here but I don't want to leave this bit blank". It's not often you'll find textures in nature that actually consist of straight-up hatching lines. We use them when we deal with boxes, but boxes aren't actual objects you find in the world, they're just forms with no actual surface texture to them. Instead of using hatching, hold yourself back and really observe your reference image. Each texture has its own rhythms and patterns that you can identify. Check out this demo on identifying different kinds of textures in a reference image. So, when you start using hatching, you should probably stop and think about why you're using hatching lines.
Don't scribble. This kinda goes hand in hand with the hatching, but you have a huge tendency to scribble your textural lines. Think about every bit of ink you put down on the page. Don't rely on randomness, because that has a very obvious signature that everyone will be able to notice.
When you start drawing, always begin with your lay-in and completely push out any thoughts of detail from your mind. Many of your later pages suffer because you don't think as much about the forms. You get overwhelmed by the thought of adding detail that the forms themselves get flattened out.
Anyway, you've got plenty of room to improve but I think you're moving in a decent direction. Just remember that form is a million times more important than detail. Even if you didn't put any detail down, you'd still end up with a successful drawing if your forms were right. Furthermore, detail is not a "more == better" situation. Be strategic with how you apply it, and think through it very carefully.
Go ahead and move onto the next lesson.
Diana_K
2015-11-07 20:27
Yes, texture is a bit of a problem to me but I'll take your advice and THINK before I do anything.
Thanks a lot for the feedback.
[deleted]
2015-11-08 14:46
Finally done with this lesson.
I honestly hated looking at those insects, especially the spider.
Anyway, the proportions were a little off in some of the drawings but I think for the most part they were okay.
Lesson 4!
Uncomfortable
2015-11-08 18:17
Coming along nicely! Your forms are looking good, and your detail passes are showing a lot of good observation and study. If I had to recommend one thing, it'd be not to fill in the drop shadows. They tend to muddy up your shapes, so it's often best to leave them as simple outlined shapes. that way more of the focus and contrast ends up resting on the object itself, without any visual competition. I'll mark this lesson as complete, keep up the good work!
munchkinmommy
2015-11-08 16:47
Here's mine.
I had a lot of trouble with the proportions of some of these. Also, wings are a PAIN. Since I had done the plants with detail focus without a circle, I did that here too but then I was afraid that was wrong and tried to do it with a focus circle on the last one.
Insects are so much more difficult than plants >.< Also, I didn't used to hate them. Now I do. So so creepy.
Thank you for checking and sorry for the rant!
Uncomfortable
2015-11-08 18:40
I think the most important thing to remember here is that the only thing you should be afraid of is the thought that all of these insects might be crawling on your skin as you draw. Not that you might mess up an ellipse here or there. If you make a mistake, the world won't end. If you half-ass something or draw it timidly because you were afraid, however, then you won't see a whole lot of growth from it. That's considerably worse and more long-lasting than a single fudged drawing.
Now, looking at your work, you seem to be doing pretty well. I'll admit that sometimes you're a little on the looser side, so I will encourage you to pause and think a little more before you put a shape down, but generally your constructions are still looking pretty good.
Your detail/rendering does need work in some areas, however. Overall it's still coming out nicely but there is certainly room to improve. One of the biggest thing that jumped out at me is that you have a tendency to rely a lot on.. not exactly scribbling, but perhaps structured-scribbling. Controlled randomness. When you know that you want to put down a cross-hatchy texture, you tend to scribble that texture in.
Try to avoid randomness altogether. Think about how your details are going to be organized. At the moment things tend to get somewhat muddy because I think you may be eager to put down more and more ink, thinking that more is the solution to fixing problems you may see developing. Instead, hold yourself back and try to identify the hierarchy of details, rhythms and patterns. I did a bit of a demo a while back on identifying different kinds of textures in reference images that you should check out.
Anyway, I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next lesson.
ohmygezuz23
2015-11-12 18:27
here we go lesson 4 done I'm still having trouble with the sketchiness of my lines I've done the ghosting though it often works I still have to go over them often and they end up sketchy. I've also tried stipling but beacause the drawings are small its kind of hard to do other textures without ending up with a black mess. ps. sorry for the lower quality camera
Uncomfortable
2015-11-12 21:02
Nice forms and nice texture work. I don't have actual critique for your drawings because they're all quite well done. I do however have points to raise about the things you yourself mentioned.
It doesn't feel terribly sketchy to me, I'm seeing a lot of clear and purposeful linework and decisions - if you feel that it is sketchy however and that you're having trouble thickening lines after the fact, practice the super imposed lines exercise more.
If you feel your drawings are small, and that it is forcing you to do something, draw bigger. If your pad is too small for this, try to find a larger sheet of paper. Like I said - your drawings are done well - but if you're doing things that you feel you need to excuse during submission, you can always choose to do things differently in the first place.
The photo quality is fine, but having images rotated to be right side up would be nice. I know uploading to imgur on your phone has a tendency of resulting in oddly rotated images, but there must be a way to fix it before submitting.
Anyway, great work - the quality of the drawings is really well done, and I can see a lot of solid understanding of the constructions of these objects as well as the patterns and rhythms of their surface textures. Keep it up and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
the_commotionnotion
2015-11-17 21:03
Lesson 4
Lay it on me. I know that I'm really struggling with texture here for some reason but I hope they at least seem shapely. Thanks in advance.
Uncomfortable
2015-11-18 20:42
Your forms are pretty good, and they definitely improve over the set as well. I'm pretty much in agreement with you - solid forms, but you probably could push yourself to experiment further with texture. That said, texture is far less significant. You could leave a solid form-construction blank and it'd still look good. So, you didn't make a mistake in not pushing yourself further here.
Now that we know that your forms are coming out nicely, once you have a solid lay-in/construction set down, you should start to push yourself to study and identify the rhythms and patterns present in your reference images. This is a brief demo I did on the subject which you may have already seen. If you look closely, you can see all kinds of arrangements of detail that result in a wide variety of apparent textures.
Anyway, you did good - keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
[deleted]
2015-11-28 01:50
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2015-11-28 19:55
Not bad, but I do have some concerns you need to keep in mind as you move forward:
Don't be sketchy or loose with your lay-ins. I'm specifically looking at the spider on page 3 - those legs don't look like they really involved a whole lot of thought or consideration.
You're definitely overdoing your contour lines. Contour lines are a tool used to help describe the way a 3D form warps through 3D space. On a rounded object, it demonstrates how the surface of that shape bends and wraps around an axis. Before you add any, consider if there are any specific details in what you're drawing that perform this task already. For example, one thing that I emphasized in this lesson is that insects often have natural contour lines due to all of their segmentation. If these exist, take advantage of them and don't add more. If they don't exist however, you can add a couple here or there, but don't go overboard and don't spread them out evenly, as this will look man-made and it'll get distracting. Never just put anything in your drawing "just because". Everything must serve a purpose, and you should know exactly what that purpose is.
Hatching lines - two things about this. First of all, hatching lines are mini-contour lines. Any detail that runs along the surface will in turn describe it. So, if you're using relatively straight hatching lines on a rounded surface, it's going to communicate that the surface is flatter than you actually intend. Ensure that they follow the surface of the object and actually wrap around the forms. Secondly, hatching lines are really just a shorthand for "I know some sort of texture or visual information goes here but I don't know what it is, and I really don't want to leave it blank". It's very rare that you'd find hatching lines in nature, so before you start putting down that all-too-easy-solution, spend some time observing your reference closely. Identify the patterns of details and visual elements, consider how they are grouped and clustered and how they go about communicating the fact that a surface is rough, smooth, wet, dry, bumpy, or whatever else.
To extend my last point, I think your use of markers and white gel pen is causing you to miss out on the benefits of really learning how to convey textural information. I believe it's distracting you from the real meat of that aspect of the lessons, and you may want to go back to just drawing with black felt tip pens. Remember that we are not creating illustrations - we are drawing studies. What each drawing teaches you is far more important than the final result.
I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one, but make sure you take these points into consideration.
[deleted]
2015-11-28 20:22
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2015-11-28 20:28
I strongly believe that it is a bad idea to mix different peoples' interpretation of a subject matter when trying to learn. It makes a lot more sense to learn one, then move onto the other, then when you fully understand each approach separately, you can decide what can be mixed-and-matched.
It's probably very possible to apply white ink in my interpretation of the material (though at this point I don't recommend it), but focus on one thing at a time. If you were doing Peter Han's lessons and getting his critique, I'd hope you'd do the same and focus entirely on what he is teaching you at that moment.
[deleted]
2015-11-28 20:35
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2015-11-28 20:43
On a few occasions, you do go a little beyond just applying hatching lines or focusing entirely on light and shadow (using markers). You've got some stippling on the black widow and the moth, some hair on your ant, bumps on your scorpion, and so on. That's a start, but what I can infer about your process is that you look at your reference, see points or bumps or hairs, and then you go over to your drawing and you add that.
Instead what I want you to do is identify how those details are arranged - are they spread out evenly, are they arranged in groups, do they cluster to form larger masses? More importantly, how can you arrange those details in order to convey the impression they give without creating too much or too little contrast, depending on how you're composing this drawing.
This is a demo I posted to the subreddit a while ago. Each texture is not a one-to-one reproduction, it is instead an interpretation of what is there. Each texture is designed, with varying density of detail and value, and so on. There's a lot more to it than just seeing dots, and drawing dots.
When it comes to drawing from observation, the key is to spend the vast majority of your time observing. Never rely on your memory, because your memory will deceive you. Our memories are simplified and rendered useless the moment we look away - so at best, we can carry over a line or two before having to look back at our reference.
So yes, it is 'more observation', but it's certainly more complicated than that. It's about learning what to observe, and building that particular mistrust of your own memory.
[deleted]
2015-11-28 20:50
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2015-11-28 20:58
That's really not something I want to do.
WinglessViva
2015-12-16 19:50
That was quite some exposure therapy! brrr :S
Please find my homework here
Uncomfortable
2015-12-16 20:58
Excellent work. I especially like your lay-ins (their forms are very confident and well executed), though your experimentation with texture and rendering is very nicely done too.
On that tarantula, I'd say you did a pretty decent job of capturing its hairs, but something you may also want to consider is where you might want to start grouping those hairs into clumps, drawing a short of shock of hair instead of an individual strand. The thing about the individual strands is that they come off a little more tangentially to the rest of the body (although yours mitigated this by being more swooping and curved). On the other hand, a shock or clump of hair is a shape instead of a line, and tends to integrate a little more smoothly with the rest of the body. These notes on fur touch on the concept.
Lastly, one minor thing I noticed with your scorpion's claws was that on the left one's pincers, you didn't consider how those pincers connect to the bulk of the hand - instead you drew two lines without capping off that intersection. It's a really minor point, but I'm being nitpicky because you generally did very well. Always remember to at least in some way define the intersections between forms. You did it more appropriately on the pincers on the opposite claw, so I'm sure you fully understand what you should be aiming for, you may have just let one fall through the cracks a little.
I like your praying mantises! They've got lots of character. One of them's lookin' to pick a fight.
Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
WinglessViva
2015-12-17 06:50
Thank you so much for your comments. I'm excited to hear that I passed. I'm definitely struggling with how to deal with hairs but I'm sure I'll get lots of practice with the next lesson.
KiwiYoz
2015-12-27 00:21
Hi again! Merry... christmas? Anyway, as always i thank you for putting your time to check on our homeworks, and with that said, [Here is my lesson 4 Homework!] (http://imgur.com/a/Sfoee)
Uncomfortable
2015-12-27 02:08
Hey, unfortunately I'm taking a break through the month of December. Free critiques will resume on January 1st, so you'll have to resubmit the work then - until then, the critiques are restricted to the patreon supporters (if you are one, make sure you've sent me your reddit username via patreon's messaging system). For now, you can definitely still gain quite a bit by looking at the critiques I've given others - it helps to see if you've made similar mistakes.
You can check out this announcement on the hiatus for more information.
KiwiYoz
2016-01-02 04:02
Well atleast i get the chance to say Happy new Year oh dear professor! Dramatism intensifies. As always thanks for checking our homeworks and here's mine for lesson 4!
Uncomfortable
2016-01-02 19:29
There's a few problems - firstly, when you scan your work, using any 'drawing' based presets will generally boost the contrast on the image and obliterate any nuance to your lines. The resulting scans tend to come out looking really harsh.
Secondly, I'm noticing that you're drawing pretty small. Working in such restricted spaces often limits our ability to move as well as our ability to think through spatial problems. We end up scribbling more and drawing forms that have a weaker sense of volume and solidity. It also means that your lines are by default going to be considerably thicker relative to the size of the drawing - so if you draw larger, you're given more freedom with how you apply line weight, instead of having everything becoming thick immediately.
Most of all though, you're focusing very, very heavily on texture and detail. Those parts are coming out rather nicely, but they're being applied to forms that have a tendency to feel flatter. The form construction is the core of your drawing, so no matter how well you apply the details, if the construction isn't done well it won't be able to stand up on its own.
I've recently added a new exercise to lesson 2, called "organic intersections." It focuses on thinking about your form intersections in three dimensions, and considering their weight and flexibility. I think you should go back and try this exercise out.
Then, do two more pages of insect lay-ins. Do not go into detail at all, just draw the constructions. Make sure you draw larger, and when you scan use the "photo" presets.
KiwiYoz
2016-01-08 19:32
Okay, here are the two extra lay-ins you requested. Just in case you want to re-check the original homework to compare i will leave the link here.
I did the organic intersection as you reccomended and while i was at it i thought of a technique to draw (which i latter used on these new insects). Prolly some people do it, but anyway, rather than drawing the whole organic form at once thinking how would it go, what i did was draw the "elipses" at some key points, and finish the whole form taking those elipses as a guide. What are your thoughts in this?
Uncomfortable
2016-01-08 22:55
That approach sounds fairly decent, but I do have one concern - you have a tendency of drawing ellipses quite stiffly, too concerned with drawing slowly and carefully to get the shape right, which results in wobbly linework and doesn't rely at all on your muscle memory. You need to draw with more confidence, using a stroke fast enough that your brain does not interfere and cause your lines to wobble. That's why I encourage people to draw through their ellipses, because it allows them a little leeway, giving them the room to draw with a little more confidence. Keep that in mind.
Generally you have improved, though the main example of this is the moth. The others suffer quite a bit from wobbly lines.
Also, for your ellipses-as-guides, continue to use that for the main bodies, but avoid it for parts that are smaller, like the legs.
I'll mark the lesson as complete - you should continue to practice these as you move forward, but you may move onto the next lesson when you feel ready.
StrikerX3
2016-01-09 15:06
Insects.
Doing the shape of the butterfly was really difficult and I still botched it.
Uncomfortable
2016-01-09 18:28
I'm somewhat on the fence about this. Your results aren't generally bad, but I feel like there is something in the underlying construction, something about how you approach it, that suggests that you're not yet seeing the forms you draw as 3D forms sitting in 3D space.
The most important thing is to keep in mind that the forms we put down as the first step of our lay-in are not rough approximations of the space the object takes up. These forms - often dropped in as simple ellipses - actually represent a solid, voluminous mass. Think of it as though you're playing with putty, and you're laying the ground-work for what you're building.
From your drawings, I'm getting the impression that you're placing 2D shapes on the page, which you will then draw on top of with your "real" lines. This approach is common in step-by-step drawing guides, but focuses entirely on taking a 2D image and simply transferring it to a 2D drawing - rather than what we're after, looking at a 2D image, understanding how it works on a 3D level, and then reconstructing it with 3D forms, represented by 2D shapes in a drawing.
Anyway, the tricky thing is that this isn't something easily explained - so, I'm going to ask you to go to lesson 2 and look at the "organic intersections" exercise that was recently added at the end of the lesson as part of the new years update. Do that exercise, it really pushes the idea of creating actual 3D forms within a 2D drawing.
Do two pages of those, then try drawing two more pages of insect lay-ins. Do not get into any sort of detail or texture, all I want to see is the lay-in construction.
Nuinui
2016-01-12 16:44
Hello here's my homework. Thank you for your time.
Uncomfortable
2016-01-13 23:18
Nicely done! Your constructions are coming along nicely, and your textures are well thought out and executed. For the furry/hairy type textures, you can take a look at these extra notes, but you're making some solid progress. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
sperezmiller
2016-01-22 18:30
This assignment was both challenging and fascinating: HW4!. One obvious area that I need to work on is shadows when they are not in or clear in the reference images. I changed pens (to the Staedler), so hopefully you can see my drawn through ellipses better on this set. Thanks much!
Uncomfortable
2016-01-23 02:39
Very nice work. Your forms/constructions are very well done, and you've demonstrated a lot of great experimentation with different kinds of textures. Some of these certainly make my skin crawl (page 9), and that's an excellent sign of success. Keep up the great work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
sperezmiller
2016-01-27 03:14
Thanks! Following along with the video demos made a huge difference for me on this lesson. Draw a Box is an awesome find - my drawing has already improved by an order of magnitude. Cheers!
Suchimo
2016-01-25 14:09
Lesson 4 (the order got messed up a bit when I uploaded)
I found the outlined shadows somewhat distracting sometimes, where I thought it would add a lot of clutter. At other times, they're still useful for showing height.
I tried to avoid over-using contours as per your latest feedback, which does help clean up the in-lays. Conveying form with texture details instead was much nicer, where possible.
Also, very hairy arthropods are really annoying to draw... I think I need to find a middle ground between too much detail and 'symbolizing' the hairs.
Uncomfortable
2016-01-25 21:01
Looking good! I think you found a good balance of contour lines as you got further into the set, especially since they tend to match up with natural details in the given insects. Your volumes are looking generally strong, as are your constructions, and your texture/rendering is coming along well.
On the topic of hair, this might help a little. It helps to try and imagine the different hairs as being part of a large network/system of hair that flows and clumps together. Still, the way you approached it works decently because you did make sure to drown out a lot of the noisy/high-contrast sections.
Anyway, keep up the good work and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Lingwer
2016-01-29 00:16
Insects and arachnid
Once again thank you for your time.
This was quite fun to do, and I felt like I learned a lot, since this isn't a subject matter I usually study, hopefully my textures are more interesting this time around than the previous lesson.
Uncomfortable
2016-01-30 22:33
Very nice constructions, and very nice attention to texture! Your drawings make good use of contour lines, and you do a great job of conveying complex textures without undermining your focal points. Keep up the fantastic work, and consider this lesson complete!
Lingwer
2016-01-31 01:36
Thanks!
Tomberri
2016-01-31 13:26
Here's the last lesson that I've completed.
Uncomfortable
2016-02-01 21:33
I think your forms are coming along quite well, and I like that you're taking advantage of segmentation with this particular subject matter. As you move forward, there is one thing that I'd like you to keep in mind, however - when drawing texture, you seem to be relying very heavily on crosshatching. There is a lot more than that going on, if you take a close and careful look at your photo reference. This is a demo I've posted in the past showing the various approaches to demonstrating texture. In truth, cross hatching isn't actually a texture you'll see often in nature, and it's generally used as a sort of "filler" texture when the artist hasn't looked closely enough.
Anyway, definitely keep that in mind as you move forward. You may consider this lesson complete.
V3ctoralex
2016-02-08 18:11
Hello again :)
Here is my homework submission for this lesson: http://imgur.com/a/Qy894
Bugs sure are an interesting topic to draw. I might be wrong, but I felt a little more comfortable drawing them compared to plants.
Still, am awaiting your critique! Thank you a lot once again for doing this!
Uncomfortable
2016-02-08 21:37
Some of these are quite good. I like your surfboard beetle, your lady bug, your caterpillar and your silverfish. In fact, the silverfish are really well done, as the segmentation and forms read very well.
One thing I noticed across all of your drawings is that you appear to be starting off with a faint underdrawing for your lay-in, and then you clean up somewhat with a separate pass, replacing many of the lines. You're working intentionally to hide the underdrawing.
Don't.
We are not here to draw beautiful, pristine objects to frame or stick up on our refrigerator doors. We are trying to understand form and construction. Every step, every mark you put down, should be thought about beforehand as to whether or not it is going to contribute something to the drawing. Does it help you understand the form you are constructing? If so, it should be drawn with confidence, and you shouldn't be trying to hide it. Otherwise, it shouldn't be drawn at all.
In the end, you might end up with a drawing with a lot of lines that seem to make things confusing. At this point, you can add line weight to reinforce and emphasize some lines, bringing them forward and in turn, causing all the other lines to recede. This is very different from the process involved in a 'clean up' pass which doesn't emphasize existing lines, it outright replaces them.
The other thing I noticed is that there isn't a lot of work on the texture front here, which is absolutely fine. There is no necessity to think about texture and detail right now, as it is not nearly as important as establishing form. I did notice that you made attempts in that direction however, so I will comment on those.
Right now, you have one tool in your belt - line, specifically hatching lines. As a result, you attempt to use these to depict the majority of your textures. Unfortunately, this kind of texture doesn't actually exist often in nature. Instead, you need to really look closely at the textures that exist within your photo reference. Look closely to identify the elements that seem to repeat themselves, and then focus on the fact that the majority of what you're seeing are actually shadows cast by those little elements. These shadows don't only exist as line, and they can very easily start clustering together into large groups, creating singular shapes instead of a multitude of lines. Try to avoid just falling back to using hatching lines.
Here are some extra resources on texture, but remember that your focus is purely on form and construction. Texture can come later.
http://drawabox.com/lesson/texture
http://i.imgur.com/a3Lh6ER.jpg
I'm going to mark this lesson as complete, so go ahead and move onto the next one.
V3ctoralex
2016-02-08 22:05
Thank you for your as always in-depth analysis. I'm glad you liked some of them!
I agree with the faint under-drawing comment and will focus my energy towards correcting it. Why I did it actually was more for proportions sake, since I wasn't sure how else to approach the issue. Like, before beginning my drawing, I went: "Ok, this is where the abdomen is going to be, it is about this large, connects with the thorax here and so on..." and marked this with very thinly just to give me an idea. Then I started my drawing with the non-faint lines. I'm not sure whether this is a good idea (measuring proportions like this), but, nonetheless, I am going to stop trying to hide it from now, since I admit I did do that every so often.
And yes, I fully agree with the comment about the texture, I'm still having a tough time distinguishing "natural" textures, and although I'm trying to avoid it, I ultimately resort to hatching which admittedly I should not. I am actually waiting for the texture challenge in this regard. That is something I most definitely need!
Anyway, thank you once again for everything and have a great evening! :)
ReDraw-mind
2016-02-14 20:56
Hello again :) . here is my lesson 4 submission . I have to say that it was freaking to look at the details of the insects . really scary! but on the other hand i found that there are lots and lots of so amazingly beautiful & colorful insects oh my god how beautiful is this creation . anyway i hope i did okay with this lesson . thank you
Uncomfortable
2016-02-15 22:03
Your observational skills, as far as putting the forms together are improving. I do however think you're not quite putting enough time and effort into really building up your constructions, and are leaving a lot of the earlier construction lines out.
For example, for the lady bug on page 4, you seem to have jumped into fairly complex shapes early on, instead of first massing them out in simple forms and then building up the complexity. Here's a demo of how I would have approached it.
Now, I have seen you do more construction in other drawings, but you still seem to be quite timid with those lines. Remember that any mark you put down should be drawn confidently. Beforehand, think about whether the mark is going to contribute to the drawing, or to your understanding of how the construction sits in 3D space. If it does contribute, the mark should be drawn, and therefore drawn with confidence. If it doesn't contribute, the mark should not be drawn at all.
Later you can add line weight to really pull lines forward and emphasize them, which in turn pushes other lines back. You will find that this will really help make your construction lines less noticeable, despite having drawn them with confidence.
So, remember - go from simple forms to complex. Never draw a form or a piece of detail that is not supported by what is already on the page.
I'd like to see you do another two pages of insects. Also you might want to look at this brief demo on identifying different textures that exist in a given piece of reference. You seem to be relying on little hatching lines a lot, there's a whole world of other kinds of patterns and textures, but you've got to look more closely.
ReDraw-mind
2016-02-22 10:10
Thank you again Irshad , I really understands what you're trying to point out .the problem is that i usually draw more than once in a separate paper until i find my self more aware of the form then i draw one finished drawing starting with basic lines , like i show you in one page of the new submission . i think with practice i would abandon this & put very confident lines from the first time which i already done in other drawing . & for the texture i struggle with it even after i saw the demo unfortunately . can i start in lesson 5 now like please :)
Uncomfortable
2016-02-22 22:16
That's getting better - just don't forget to focus on wrapping your contour curves around the rounded forms. Sometimes overshooting the curve will help get you used to the curvature required to really hook around convincingly.
Go ahead and move onto the next lesson.
NoEnemyLikeWater
2016-02-21 17:39
Here you go!
Uncomfortable
2016-02-21 18:41
You're moving in the right direction, but there's a few things I'd like to deal with before we move onto the next lesson.
First and foremost, your contour curves. I can see that you have a tendency to add a lot of them, but you don't necessarily put as much effort into each individual one as you probably should. The result is far more contour curves than you need, where each one doesn't necessarily carry its weight.
To start with, before you start drawing your own contour curve, take a look at your reference and try to identify details that may perform the task of a contour curve - that is, a detail that wraps around the form, describing the turning and twisting of its surface by its very existence. If you can find one - and trust me, insects are full of them due to their segmented exoskeletons - draw a contour curve where that detail falls.
If you can't find any natural contours however, then you can start adding your own - but don't add more than two or three, and make sure they're not spaced out evenly. Man-made things tend to space details out at regular intervals, it's not a feature you see often in nature.
Now, when you actually draw your contour curves, I've noticed nine times out of ten that your curves don't actually sit inside of your forms. You tend to draw them as if the curves themselves were hovering just above the surface, rather than resting directly on it. This is something you need to work towards fixing. This example from lesson 2 discusses this issue. Note where it says "keep your curves snug against the organic shape."
Another issue I noticed is how you approach drawing legs. If you look at this spider, you can see that you've drawn each section independently. While this certainly is one valid approach, I don't believe it's one that's working for you right now. Reason being, you're having trouble keeping your lines under control. We can see some of these segments bulging out awkwardly.
A better approach may be to start out by drawing the legs as a single form up to each joint, breaking them off only where the legs actually bend. Then you can build up your segmentation on top of this. Relying on a simpler, underlying scaffolding can help keep your lines in check.
Last of all, your sketchpad appears to be quite small, which in turn is making your drawings very small. Drawing at this size can be adding an additional challenge to your plate, as the smaller you draw, the less room you have to work through spatial problems. This, along with perhaps not spending enough effort on applying the ghosting method to your mark making, could also be another major factor that is causing you to lose control of your lines. It'd be a good idea to work on something larger - I usually encourage people to work on loose leaf printer paper, since most people have access to it, it keeps people from getting too precious with their work, and it offers a fair bit of space.
I'd like to see you do four more pages of insects.
Peteman22
2016-02-22 11:46
Here's my homework: http://imgur.com/a/DWqJh
Man this was harder. There was definitely a fight in my head between "the construction is more important" vs "it needs to look more like the reference image"
I also struggled with the grounding shadows, they often seemed to skew in the wrong direction.
Thank you for all your work.
Uncomfortable
2016-02-22 22:19
Excellent work! Your forms and constructions are very solid, you can clearly see the volumes depresented. I'm also pleased to see that you explored a lot of different approaches to capturing the unique textures, and the fact that you allowed a lot of those textures to merge together into solid masses, focusing the detail on the transitional areas.
Very well done. Keep it up, and feel free to move onto the next lesson!
Peteman22
2016-02-22 22:29
Aaw shucks, you're making me blush.
JayBubulous
2016-02-24 04:27
Lesson 4 homework is here.
Uncomfortable
2016-02-24 20:42
Very nice work. Your forms are coming along really well, and you've taken full advantage of the segmentation of the insect's bodies to emphasize their contours.
As far as texture goes, I do believe there's plenty to work on there. You tend to fall back on hatching lines across the board, which tends to give a fairly similar impression to all of these diverse creatures. It's important to take the time to really observe your reference and see what's going on. Here's a demo I've done in the past to demonstrate the wide variety of textures one can find on subjects like this: http://i.imgur.com/a3Lh6ER.jpg.
The only other thing I'd like to mention is that for the spider, I think the legs on the far side are coming out rather long - due to perspective, they'd probably shrink down a little bit.
In general the priority of these lessons are based in form, with texture coming in as a secondary concern - I'm glad to say that you're nailing the main focus, and you'll be able to continue practicing working with texture and detail as you move ahead. Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
ClassicRandy
2016-02-28 20:26
Here you go. I think I'm improving a little. I felt like some advice you gave me about using natural contours and drawing through ellipses on the previous lesson started to click for me. I'm still having trouble with textures, especially when the subject is not a black and white insect. Sometimes I'm not sure whether to focus on the shading or the pattern and I can only add lines/textures in a binary, all-or-nothing way.
Uncomfortable
2016-02-28 21:45
Fantastic work. Your forms and constructions are coming along great - I can feel the solidity and three-dimensionality of each component of each insect, and you're leveraging those contour lines in a great way that doesn't overuse and abuse them.
When it comes to texture, I think you're making great progress - it's important to experiment with different approaches to conveying texture - I see you playing with little marks and details (hatching, stippling) then playing with large solid areas. All of this experimentation is imperative to find your own particular way of doing it.
When it comes to texture, your observation about things being quite binary is pretty accurate. That said, you can think of it in terms of there being 3 possible states. Solid black, blank, and a transition area in between. That transition area is generally where I apply a texture composed of both dark lines and blank spaces. I demonstrate the concept here (though you may have already seen this). If you allow yourself to get comfortable with using large swathes of black in your drawing (as you seem to be by the end), you can leverage that to keep your actual higher-contrast, noisier texture information only in those limited transition areas. This allows you to communicate what kind of texture exists on a surface to the viewer (which is the ultimate goal, communication) without being overbearing and overwhelming. The rest of the form ends up being relatively light on contrast, leading to a more organized and pleasant-looking drawing.
Anyway, texture is always secondary to form. You're nailing the form, and making great strides with texture. Consider this lesson as complete.
ClassicRandy
2016-02-28 22:32
Thanks so much! It really means a lot to get such positive feedback from you, and your explanation was very helpful.
A quick unrelated question I have, in these lessons (specifically the next one on animals) when you talk about dedicating a page or two to a "subject" or "species," is that to say that you want us using one specific image as a reference for the whole page, or just that you want any number of references images used as long as they're for the same animal?
Uncomfortable
2016-02-28 22:36
Any number of reference images as long as they're for the same animal.
ClassicRandy
2016-02-28 23:12
Great, thanks!