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.
I thought about it a bit after reading your suggestion. I think that if there were a dedicated thread for all homework submissions, that would probably make it a little easier to keep track of them (for me), but the downside would be that it would be much more difficult to find past homework submissions for any given lesson, since they'd all be lumped together.
My critiques aside, it helps a lot to go through other peoples' submissions for a given lesson and look at what I've had to say about their work. Generally the more successful students do that, so I would hate to hinder that.
Ultimately I still intend to take critiques off of reddit and move them to the website itself, where I can manage it all much more effectively, but that's a long way off (because I can't really be bothered).
Unfortunately on principle I can't give you much of a critique - I require people to go through all of the lessons and let me mark them off as complete one by one, because the way the lessons are structured, earlier lessons will weed out specific problems better than later ones (which often tend to mask them). If I give you an in-depth critique, it'll set a precedent that will bite me in the ass later.
What I will tell you however is that your drawings are generally quite good but you are demonstrating a very common problem that you've probably read about in other critiques I've written. I talk about this issue here when critiquing another's work. The notes and demos I've included there should apply to you as well.
Oh I am sorry. I didn't realise. I have worked through them all so can submit them in order. Thank you for all your hard work. I did some more last night and I am already seeing an improvement.
Very nice! I don't remember what your last ones looked like, but I'm sure it's a big improvement. There's just two things I want you to note, but I'm going to mark this lesson as complete so feel free to move on to the next one.
The first thing is something you're already doing for the most part, but I do want to emphasize its importance - always consider the shoulder mass. You're acknowledging that joint for sure, and I see it all over, but just remember that there is an entire volume that exists there. Consider whether or not it requires a bit more of that bulk to be defined in the drawing or not.
Secondly, I do notice that your approach to drawing is a little sketchy. This is okay, but as you move ahead, try to think less right on the page, and visualize more before putting down any marks. Consider what kind of line you want to add next, and what purpose it serves. This will work to gradually clean up your drawings in general. Remember the ghosting method from lesson 1.
[This] (http://imgur.com/a/vhFVi) is my third atempt on the assignment I tried to work on clear points of intersection but I still struggle with understanding how they function.
Anyways I still have a lot to improve on. Thank you for creating these tutorials they have been a great resource the last few months. :)
I think you're doing a better job of demonstrating those points of intersection than before. Your proportions still seem to be out of whack much of the time, but that is something you'll have to focus on as you continue to practice (spend more time observing your reference than you spend drawing). As far as this lesson is concerned, I'm going to be marking it as complete.
As you'll see, I just followed a rhythm of 1 lay in, 2 detailed drawings, and some notes per page, since the format requirement wasn't really specified at that level.
Very nice! It's an interesting interpretation of the concepts. Ultimately you hit all the points I covered, focusing on establishing the 3D forms and recognizing how they interact with one another. You had a somewhat different way of going about it, perhaps a little more organic, but the results were good and it's clear that you understand the constructions. Also you drew trash pandas, and I love me some trash pandas.
The only thing I'd like to point out is that you need to keep an eye on your proportions when it comes to the deer and donkeys. The lengths of the bodies seem a little long at times, but that's something that'll come as you continue to practice that particular type of animal.
Keep up the good work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
Yeah, I was aware that I was overshooting the lengths when I was drawing, but it was too late really to fix it at the stage I was in upon discovery. Guess I just have to observe more carefully.
Heres my lesson 5. http://imgur.com/a/MjMi3 and http://imgur.com/a/UwMbl Not sure if filled required pages for each animal due quite lot of them and didnt include all of them here because how many i did. Also decided to focus bit more on lay-ins rather than worrying about details
You really need to reread the lesson. Many of these drawings are completely skipping over the main points that were covered - namely fleshing out the three major masses (head, ribcage, pelvis).
Then beyond that, it's important to keep in mind how each form connects to other forms. Nothing floats arbitrarily in space, everything extends off of something else at very specific points. The shoulder joint, for instance, is extremely important. It's also important to look at where the legs are broken up at the knee/ankle.
I cover those issues in other critiques I've done:
I am still not totally happy with these and think I may have started adding too many contors towards the end. Some guidance would be really usefull. Thank you.
These are pretty well done. The only thing I want to point out is that the ones that come out better are generally the ones where you think through how things like the shoulder/hip joints sit on the body, and explicitly mark them in your drawing. There is room for improvement, but I think you're definitely heading in the right direction.
So, one thing I definitely want to highlight is that you have fantastic observational skills. It's clear that you've been around the block and that when it comes to capturing likeness, you know what you're doing.
This however also causes you to focus a lot more heavily on detail than the underlying construction. I find that a lot of your lay-in detail is very vague and loose, and that in general you have a very sketchy feel to your drawings.
Try to tighten things up, especially with the lay in but in general as well. Consider how the animals are made up of solid forms that connect with each other at very specific points. When you draw these forms, don't just lay them in loosely and timidly. Put them down with confidence. It doesn't matter if it's going to show through in your final drawing, we are not here to draw works of art. This is an exercise in understanding as any other, and the process counts just as much, if not more, as your final result.
This is a pretty common problem that I see from a lot of people. I think that when you're faced with animals which tend to have a lot of expression and emotion to them, it's very easy to get caught up in the details.
Thank very much for your critique! Time to draw then :).
edit: Actually it's not about the expression, it's more because I know I have problems with proportions, for example that specific picture of the horse, quite funny, I actually realized the proportions are bad on the back leg (joint), but didn't want to make a mess of the drawing. So that's why I'm so loose and sketchy cause I never managed to capture the correct form (even the lay-ins) from the start. This isn't to say that I'm trying to argue in favor of my style, I hate this sketchy stile :)), it's just to let you know it isn't about details :).
I think these 4 pages are what you were asking for (I hope). Thanks!
edit: as you can see I tried (unsuccessfully) to plagiarize your ground / grass thing, hope you don't mind, anyway yours looks way better :)... that lack of confidence and determination (on my behalf)... :D
You do seem to be demonstrating an awareness of those intersections and joints between forms, so I'll mark this lesson as complete. I do want to point out though that you should be more mindful of the forms involved with the construction of these animals' heads. You tend to float some of their features arbitrarily on the base sphere. Keep in mind that forms never float in space - they should always be grounded off of something else. Take a look at how I constructed the head of the horse I drew for you last time.
I see what you mean (thinking about the camel for example, where I didn't connect the lines going from the mouth, etc.). I'll keep that in mind. Thanks a lot!
I think overall your understanding of form is improving throughout the set, but you're focusing too much on detail/texture (especially since you're struggling with it).
One thing I want to mention about form before we get into the texture stuff is that when you start tackling something that's really small on the page, try to avoid adding too many things like contour lines. I know that contradicts what I usually say, but at that size it starts to become far less helpful. A good example of this are your rat's feet. Instead of focusing a lot on those tiny forms, I would try to draw them from observation (without drawing through the forms and adding contour lines), and then maybe do exactly what you did - drawing larger studies off to the side. This is also why it's always beneficial to draw larger.
Really it's all an issue of cramped sections of drawings coming out poorly because of the size relationship between the tip of your pen and the lines you're trying to draw. They end up looking clunky and stiff.
Anyway, onto the texture. The biggest issue is that when you start to struggle, your go-to solution is to put more ink down on the page. This is a very normal reaction, but it's the opposite of what you should be doing.
Set aside the need to texture things for a second and consider what you're doing. You're drawing an image, not taking a photograph. The hierarchy of details, where you place your focal points and how you deal with composition are all decisions that are left up to you to make. This is your interpretation of what you are seeing.
So, step back and consider where you want to put those focal points (areas of interest and detail), and where you want to place your rest areas. The most important rule here is that contrast will draw one's eye to an area on the page. So, reserve areas of contrast for your focal points, and for your rest areas, try to stick to swathes of flat value. Since we're working with ink, this means either flat black or blank sections of the page.
We can add small bits of extra detail in these rest areas, but we don't want to compete with our focal points, because that's how you get a very noisy drawing.
Remember: less is always more. It is far better to have fewer lines instead of more.
This leaves us with a few challenges. It's relatively easy to apply detail in a focal area, because we're free to go to town on it. All we have to do is make sure we pay close attention to our reference images and study the patterns and rhythms of the details we see there. Most textures are not composed simply of hatching lines. A texture is going to have different elements that make it look rough, smooth, wet, dry, etc. Here's a demo I did a while ago about identifying different kinds of textures in a reference image.
Now, the bigger challenge is how to convey texture in our rest areas, where lines are expensive and come at a premium. There's definitely some tricks, and I see you using some of them already, just not particularly well.
The first thing a viewer sees when they look at your drawing is the silhouette of the shapes. They don't realize this, but that's the first thing the eye identifies. So, one of the most effective tricks we have to convey a texture without creating too much contrast is adjusting and breaking up the edges of the silhouette. This is especially effective when dealing with fur.
Do not think in terms of individual lines - when drawing that wolf, you do have a broken silhouette, but the wolf's body feels more like a collection of lines rather than a solid shape with a furry edge to it. Furthermore, when drawing the first page with the rat, I see a lot of lines coming off the form, but they create a lot of tangents. These perpendicular intersections of lines (of each fur line with the continuous edge of the body's core form) create a lot of tension and tends to draw the viewer's eye. Instead of that, use subtler, smoother curves. Also, don't break up the edge all over the place. Spread it out unevenly across the form's edge, forming clusters here and there.
Similarly, when you do apply texture to the inside of the form's silhouette, group and organize those details. Don't cover everything equally.
There's one last thing I want to stress about how you draw overall - you're still quite sketchy with your approach, drawing a lot of wasted lines. You need to stop and think before you put a line down on the page. Think about its purpose, and where it goes. Never think on the page - previsualize each mark and when it comes time to put the pen to the page, be sure to apply the ghosting method.
I'd like you to draw four more pages of animals. Two of these pages should contain no texture at all, focus entirely on form. The last two should include texture, with consideration for both focal points and rest areas.
It's an improvement. There are still things to work on but ultimately Rome wasn't built in a day. So, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete and you can continue practicing these on your own while you continue to move through the lessons.
A few things to remember:
DEFINE THE SHOULDER JOINT/MASS. This is important! I've mentioned it before, and honestly everyone has this problem. To extend this, don't be timid with your linework. Don't be afraid of having to hide your construction lines. You've seen my over-drawings, all of my lines are confident and bold. Do the same.
You may be better off using simpler shapes when dealing with legs/feet. There's a lot going on down there, and piling on a lot of contour lines will add to clutter and mess with your head. One thing I noticed is that I have a tendency to deal with these cramped areas like 2D shapes, and then I just add a bit of dimension at the end by pushing some of the line weights for my overlaps. Might be something you want to play with.
Don't scribble shadows, even if your pen is dying. You'll often find that lighting is surprisingly unnecessary. I have a tendency to only draw in shadows to separate out shapes so they can read more clearly.
Got sidetracked so this took way longer than it should have but here is my homework: http://imgur.com/a/x3Igd/all
This was a pretty tough lesson but I definitely see why you had us do a lot of drawings of the same things here as it took me a lot of trial and error to work out the animals to a somewhat decent level. I probably should have drawn a bit bigger too as that made doing the facial details pretty hard.
Not gonna lie, seeing a gallery where every single image is rotated the wrong way does not make me happy.
Anyway, I definitely agree with your point about the size of your drawings - the vast majority of these are way too small, resulting in clunky linework and a general restriction in your ability to think through your forms.
Furthermore, you are very focused on detail, leaving your constructions/lay-ins to fall by the wayside. Unfortunately, while a solid construction with good forms works fine without much in the way of detail, the opposite is not true.
I ended up doing way more of a critique than I intended to, but it should summarize pretty much every piece of advice I have to give: here you go.
The only thing I want to elaborate on is the idea of not working from memory. Anything beyond the first few seconds after looking away from your reference image constitutes working from memory. Your brain tries to guess at things, and it just about always guesses them wrong. Get used to studying your reference more carefully and specifically focusing on the underying constructions. Look past the fur texture and all of the detail to the consistent form structure that lies underneath.
Take another stab at this lesson's homework. Also, while you're free to try adding detail here and there, I want the bulk of these drawings to be construction/lay-in only. Try and channel what you did with your insects, their volumes and forms were pretty well done.
Understood; I redid the homework as you suggested and these ones should be right side up. I ended up filling up the rest of my sketchpad though so I didn't do another page of hybrids: http://imgur.com/a/1mC8O
I found I am still struggling with the non-hooved animals as they all seem to have fairly thick fur that covers up the forms at times. It's usually a lot more clear where the forms are interacting with each other on the hooved animals as their coats of fur are thin. I'm also not quite sure I get the head construction thing still. I tried to build off of the initial circle more but I get the feeling that some of it is still floating in space rather than connecting together properly. This also was particularly the case on the non-hooved animals.
I probably need to work on my pressure control a lot too. Some of ellipses are a bit too dark and it takes away from the actual lines for the form of the shoulders. Anyways, sorry about the lopsided albums.
Definitely a lot better. Your first few pages with the bears and wolves are significantly stronger than they were before. There's still a lot of room to grow, but you're on the right track. As you continue to practice this, the concepts will become more and more apparent and will solidify in your mind.
As for the head construction/things floating in space, you're improving in that regard too. I think what helps is to remember that everything fits together like a puzzle. So, if you think about the skull, you've got an eye socket that is defined by the brow ridge and the cheek bone - so even the eye will fit into a specific space. Once you understand this completely, you won't have to draw how those puzzle-pieces connect together, but for now it's a good idea to do so to help further your own understanding of what's going on in your drawing.
I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - keep practicing (after all these lessons only provide a starting point), but you may move onto the next lesson.
[deleted]
2015-11-17 02:52
Wow, This lesson took me a while to finish.
I must say this was the hardest lesson so far.
Drawing fur is awful(I had a really hard time with it) and I am still having trouble with proportions.
On top of that some of my drawings are a disaster... :D
Your first few birds are looking pretty solid, but as we go through the set, some issues do become more and more apparent.
First off, those initial masses you lay in are intended to represent specific parts of the body. The cranium, the ribcage and the pelvis. They're not just rough estimations or loose approximations.
Some of your limbs tend to come out very stiff - try drawing them with deliberate curves, from shoulder to wrist, then splitting them up at the joints. That is, instead of making each subsection a separate block right off the bat.
You have a desperate need to cover your drawing with detail. Hold yourself back - adding more ink will not solve your problems. Observing your reference and studying the rhythm and hierarchy of patterns will. Also remember - less is generally better than more.
You're drawing small - don't cram your drawings into such small spaces, it's part of what's causing the stiff linework. Turn your sketchbook horizontally and use the full page, and if that's not big enough, use loose printer paper.
Lastly, here's a demo I did for someone last week. Try to follow the specific steps I've laid out, and draw with intention and decision driving every single line. Do not sketch or approximate. Observe, study, think, decide, then draw.
I'd like to see four more pages of animal drawings, but focus more on the construction. Hell, you don't even have to apply detail if you don't want to.
Don't cut off body parts, especially not the feet.
Consider where your ground is as you're drawing. Hell, draw it in. Also keep in mind that the ground is not a line, but rather a 2D plane in 3D space. It can help to draw a cross on the ground, extending into two dimensions.
Spend a LOT of time studying and observing your reference image. This is something most people don't do enough. The second you look away from your reference image, the vast majority of the information you collected will be simplified by your brain (ultimately rendered useless) or just outright forgotten. But you don't actually realize this, so you end up working from memory (which can't be trusted). So, the only solution is to force yourself to look back every few seconds.
Keep an eye on your proportions, especially early on when you're laying in the basic structure.
I want to see one more drawing from you. Take pictures in stages; your three major masses, then the rest of your construction/lay-in, then finally the full detail. I would also like you to include a link to the reference you use.
There's one major thing that I think you're still falling short on - those initial masses. As I mentioned before, these represent explicit masses of the body. As such, they are not just 2d approximations - they should be representing 3D forms. So, if necessary, draw a contour line, or even just a center line going down the middle of each form to get a better sense of how it exists in 3D space.
I do like how you added the arms and legs, though I think your general sense of 3D space needs development. When I add my arms and legs, I totally simplify them into more 2D-ish organic forms, but I'm always keeping in mind how they move in 3D space. After all, they still connect to the body like anything else.
As for your scribbling, one thing came to mind when I read "I end up scribbling a lot". It may seem overly simplistic, but really this is what you need to drive into your mind: if you scribble too much, stop scribbling. Hold yourself back before putting down any mark on the page. If you're scribbling even though you don't want to, that means the root of the problem is that your arm is doing things without the orders coming down from your brain.
As for detail, it's not really there yet, but it's moving in the right direction. This stuff takes time to settle in, and takes time to develop. So keep practicing on your own. You've got the road map to take you a ways further, it's just a matter of reminding yourself of these few concepts over and over.
For now, feel free to move onto the next lesson.
[deleted]
2015-11-25 21:56
Thank you for the feedback.
It is still hard for me to imagine how things connect in 3d.
I hope the next lesson can help me a little with that.
I will keep working on those damn animals as well :D
Some takeaways I found this time around. There are times when I jsut get super busy, and i go a few days or worse, a week, without drawing, and I can see it when I mess up. Was fine with birds cause I started off from the last lesson, then a break, and my dogs looked like poo. I keep trying to stay positive and not say, man, my work sucks compared to so-in-so... Mainly cause I don't know how long they have been drawing and so on.
3-quarter views are tough
Eyes are tough
snakes are not just flat tubes and that was tough. (Any sample lessons for snakes? :D )
Long breaks are super detrimental to progress. Need to draw every day, even if it's doodling...
Firstly, I feel that your lay-ins in general are very loose. The three major masses that I outline represent three distinct masses of the body - the cranium, the ribcage and the pelvis. Simply dropping them in as approximate circles is not going to help a whole lot. You need to draw the specific ellipses with angles and widths/degrees that match the corresponding part of the body.
In general, I feel that you're really eager to get to the detail phase of things, and as such are not spending enough time on these lay-ins, thinking through the actual solid construction. By construction, I specifically mean the way the 3D forms combine.
I'd like you to take a look at this demo I did recently and do a couple pages focusing entirely on the construction and lay-in. Do not go into detail, and be sure to reach each step of the demo multiple times.
I def will have to practice individual parts and seeing the snouts as shapes. i think that was a big challenge. Doing the panda on the last page with better shapes def. helped. However, some of the other animals, circles were good starting points cause it was circular :D
I def. plan to do the 250 cylinder/box challenge before doing the every day objects (obviously assuming I pass this lesson :P )
Just trying to see everything has shapes now. Would printing out some animal photos and actually tracing shapes over them help a bit?
Individual parts are important, but you should continue to practice them in the greatest context of an overall drawing. Just drilling one component will reinforce the idea that these things exist in isolation, when they do not. The shape of the muzzle, the way it curves is in direct response to the curvature of what it is attaching to. So, if you draw them on their own, you have nothing to infer that information from, so it really doesn't help a whole lot.
So, do full studies, not just mindless drills.
Now, as far as your drawing goes, they're a bit hit and miss as I'm sure you well know. Your first two pages are definitely interesting, and the bear is certainly going somewhere. In those pages however I noticed one consistent problem - your legs are too stiff. While it's important to always remember what what you are drawing exists in three dimensions, try to loosen up a bit. Working from organic shapes can help.
I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - you have a long way to go, but Rome was not built in a day. You need to keep pushing in this direction, and continue practicing with full studies of different kinds of animals.
But I do see your point. Each lesson I have something new to work on. In the beginning I struggled with contour shapes, but I see those a bit more now. Now putting pieces together and seeing it all as shapes and being more organic is my next hurdle. I read thru some critiques of others and I think I see the same problem in me. I sometimes rush through a drawing, as if there is an end. I guess cause I my end goal is drawing people, I animals as a hurdle to get there. But obviously the 2 are going to share a lot of similarities.
I've got to the point now where I schedule time just for drawing. Whether it be 30mins or an hour or more. And I am changing my POV as treating these as building blocks, not just the next step towards my end goal.
Like you said, Rome wasn't built in a day, and i'm sure they took their time with each pillar before they could add the roof :D
[deleted]
2015-11-26 22:28
Alrighty so like...4 months ago I hadn't quite finished Lesson 5 and then life got in the way but I've caught up with bits and pieces over time.
Cats are bad. Chinchilla/mouse/ratthing is better, ant-eater and raccoon are much better. The only thing I want to emphasize is that your head constructions are still very arbitrary, in that you're not constructing it from solid forms, you're just kind of approximating things.
Oh, also worth mentioning - your ant eater's tail is not built on any sort of form. You didn't lay the mass in first ,you just kinda went to town on a jaggedy fur-thing. Never jump straight to detail, always lay things in.
It looks like you're shaking off your rust, so I'm pretty content with the last page there, so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. You definitely do need to continue practicing it though.
[deleted]
2015-11-27 00:36
Whoa that was quick, thank you! I will definitely work on heads and keep practicing.
I think on one hand, you have a good grasp of 3D space. You seem to understand in a general sense how the forms fit together, and when you look at a reference image, you see more than just a flat image. This is definitely good.
What isn't good is that you lack patience and focus. You have a penchant for scribbling, and your work tends to be very loose. This looseness and sketchiness comes from the fact that you jump right into drawing as soon as you can, and you solve your problems by drawing. You think right on the page, instead of thinking before you put ink down.
This causes two key problems:
Since your lay-ins are loose, your constructions have a tendency towards being weaker and less solid. You do not draw your masses as clean, complete forms and shapes, so they don't carry the illusion of weight and volume. A really good example of this are your cats, which are very loose and rough. If I had to guess at your state of mind as you drew them, I would say that your mind was focused on the next step, while your hands struggled to complete the step they were on. Focus on the step you're on, and forget about what comes next.
When you draw texture, you rely a lot on hatching lines and scribbling, and they all tend to be quite loose and sloppy. Hatching, crosshatching and scribbling is virtually never present in nature, and it all serves as a shorthand for I have no idea what goes here, but I don't want to leave it empty. Your reference images are full of textures of varying levels of complexity, and it's easy to get overwhelmed and just scribble under the guise of 'implying' detail. Properly implying detail requires you to first understand exactly how those details are organized. Every texture, no matter how complex and seemingly erratic will follow its own rhythm and pattern. It isn't always immediately apparent, and can take a great deal of observation and study to pin it down. You won't necessarily get it in your first or second shot either, and it can take experimentation to learn how to organize those details in your drawing to communicate the particular texture. That said, simply scribbling loosely does not take you one step in the right direction.
As always, the theme of this critique is as follows: think before you draw. Whether it's your initial lay-ins, or your details, every mark is intended to serve a purpose, and in order to serve that purpose successfully, each mark must fit a certain criteria. There is never a situation where any old mark will do, which is really the premise that drives scribbling.
Now, all that said, you have drawn some pretty pictures. Your geese are quite nice (aside from the loose details) - their clean and carefully designed silhouettes are especially well done. I'd say from page 5 onwards, your sense of construction gets stronger, even though the forms themselves are loose and not too well thought out. Although even on that front, the wolf on the right side of page 5 is quite well done.
The only other weakness I can see is your head constructions. Remember that like everything else, those heads are made up of interlocking forms. The initial circle is the mass-in for the cranium, but then a boxy form can be connected to that to form a muzzle or a snout.
Generally in regards to construction, look at this demo I did for someone a while back. Look at how in each step, you can clearly describe what was added to the drawing. If it were loose and sketchy, steps would blend together. Because here we are thinking clearly about the purpose of each element that is added, it gets separated out fairly cleanly.
I'd like you to do 4 more pages of animal drawings, although if you want to do more than that you are welcome to. Don't forget that critiques are restricted again during December, so you can take that time to space out your practice and slow your process down.
Thank you for this insightful critique. I have struggled with being too loose. I think this is because i really had trouble getting proportions right and then trying to find it 'on the page' as you say. I feel this is still my main problem, and i have tried different way of measuring, but nothing seems to really work for me. Grids, measuring with a pencil or ruler on screen or measuring digitally does not result in animals with good proportions.
Anyway ill spend some more time with these animals for now.
I attempted some shading on p. 3, but i guess it went a little overboard and just looked goofy. Anyway, i did try to take your advice from the critique.
Across the set, you do improve, but the first and last pages really, really fail to show an understanding of the concepts. Strangely enough though, page 4 is FANTASTIC. So I'm left kind of confused. I think you definitely have it in you, but the whole idea of constructing organic forms that intersect with one another isn't clicking. So, I'll try again, focusing on the weaker drawings.
Here's my demo. Ultimately, at least in those drawings, you're not realizing that what you should be focusing on is building up organic forms - which have clear volume and solidity to them. You're getting caught up in drawing what you see, not actually understanding how it exists in 3D space. Those initial forms you construct, you're treating them like initial estimations that are later thrown away or ignored - they're not. Those are the masses of the ribcage, the pelvis, and the cranium, so you should strive to make their position, scale and angle match up. Then, you connect the pelvis to the ribcage creating a sausage-like torso. It's really important that at all steps you're pushing the illusion that it's a 3D form with volume. Sometimes this may require you to add contour lines, though don't draw more than you need.
If the original sausage doesn't match up with the body in your reference, you can then build on top of it by adding more organic forms. For example, if you look at the second last step in my example, I pile a bunch of extra forms along the back to create the humps and generally bulk out the back muscles.
Another important aspect I've stressed before is being aware and being explicit about how the body parts fuse together. A good example for this is the connection point between the neck and torso that I drop in early on, in the second step. I've added an ellipse to the front of the torso to mark where the torso transitions into the neck. Touches like that will help reinforce your volumes.
I want you to do two pages of rhinos and two pages of elephants. We will get this down.
Thank you for this very through critique! I see i really had some problems. In these four pages i really tried to focus on the forms - and then the proportions got second priority. I really find it hard to get both right at the same time. And i guess that is why my lizards turned out ok before. Their proportions are really off, but since its lizards you dont notice. Hopefully that will improve over time.
Better, though I still have a few minor misgivings so here's what I want you to do:
Go to lesson 2, find the 'organic intersections' exercise I've recently added, and do one page. Then come back to this, and literally draw the demo I drew for you last time, and take a photo at each step. Submit both of those to me, then I'll mark this lesson as complete.
I really liked those sausage intersections :) But the rhino somehow gained a bit of weight in the process :/ I guess i should stay well clear of portraiture.
Pretty nice work on your organic intersections. You're right though, your rhino doesn't really look a whole lot like mine. A lot of it does have to do with observation, which will improve with practice (so don't stay clear of things that you fail at - failing is good, failing is necessary.) There are however some things you can change immediately that will help.
First off, you're not drawing through your ellipses - those are the first steps, on which everything else is built, and they tend to come out uneven because you're not drawing through them as you should be.
Secondly, your lines are kind of sketchy and chickenscratchy when you put in that head. There's no solidity to that form because the lines are not clearly thought out.
Lastly, and this one's hardest of all and will take time - but remember that you need to FEEL the forms you're drawing are solid and 3D. You need to feel the difference between a flat, substanceless shape from a solid, weighty form.
Your organic intersections were starting to feel like they had form to them. They weren't all the way there (gotta work on getting those contour lines to wrap around), but they were much further along than your rhinoceros. As you move forwards, I encourage you to continue practicing that exercise as warmups before you draw more animals.
For now though, I'll mark this lesson as complete as there isn't much more I have to impart.
I found proportions for longer animals harder since the main masses were further away, got any tips on that? birds were pretty simple since they're basically two balls together...
A lot of this is very, very well done - your birds especially. In general you're showing a good sense of construction and how the various forms fit together. You also have an eye for detail, and you're doing a good job of identifying various textures and considering how to render their details whilst balancing the density of information in the various parts of any given drawing.
I do see a few issues that we can work on, however. What stands out most to me is that you have a tendency to rough in shapes with smaller chicken-scratchy line segments, rather than drawing complete, unbroken shapes from your shoulder. As such, your underlying forms do not carry the sense of solidity and weight that would really push your drawings to the next level.
Do not get caught up in the need to create a beautiful drawing. That's not our focus here. A lot of people become afraid to put down lines, and end up loosely sketching in order to ensure that what they do put down can be hidden or ultimately dealt with. This undermines our focus on 3D form, as independent, chicken-scratch strokes do not come together to form a single element, rather they emphasize their independence. In the end we want our drawing to be understood as a collection of forms, not a collection of lines.
Ultimately we don't want to be wasting our marks, and we want to focus on putting down only what is necessary. That said, lines that help us understand our forms and shapes and wrap our minds around how these objects exist in 3D space are necessary. On the other hand, chicken-scratching a line creates a lot of wasteful marks where a single one would have been far more effective.
Another thing I'm noticing is that when you draw ellipses, you don't draw through them. I've mentioned this in earlier lessons, you should be drawing through every single ellipse you draw for any of my lessons. What you choose to do outside of the lessons is your business, but ultimately as long as you do it while doing these homework sets, you'll get enough mileage to understand what it means to draw an ellipse confidently enough to maintain its evenness and roundedness. Your lines are still wobbling, due to a lack of that much needed confidence.
I generally like how you approach fur, capturing elements of it here and there with short lines - what I would like you to be aware of however is the impact hatching lines have, and the different ways they can be used. There are many instances where you've used them wonderfully here, but be mindful of how the surface of a form warps and bends when applying such lines. Those lines should follow along the surface of the form unless you want them to flatten it out. There are situations where you might want to flatten out a shape (for example, the drawing in the middle of the first page of wolves, I think it was an effective choice to flatten out the far legs). On the other hand, in the drawing of the ferret (i think it's a ferret), you seem a little more careless with how you're applying those lines, so you end up flattening forms out where you probably didn't intend to.
The thing about hatching lines is that people tend to use them as a shorthand for "I have no idea what goes here but I don't want to leave it blank". When using details that simple, it's easy to just stop thinking and go to town - you need to make sure that you think through all your decisions and all of the lines you put on the page.
So, long story short - your drawings are very nice, good eye for structure and detail, but you need to draw with more confidence and draw complete shapes made up of singular, continuous lines. Breaking up the line undermines the integrity of the form. Keep that in mind as you move onto the next lesson.
Edit: This demo I did in the past does a decent job of showing what I mean about drawing with more confidence, and using longer, more continuous lines: http://i.imgur.com/dtjwmvj.jpg
You've told me the thing about sketchy lines in one of the other lessons, guess I haven't improved on that, I'll try harder.
As for the cross hatching I think that's due to me trying to rush it because It's often a large area to cover so I'll try slowing down, drawing with more patience and as you say paying attention to the contours of the forms.
The more complete birds and raccoons I did in a seperate sketchbook that I'll use as a summary of my progress in drawing I hope to share that with you one day.
You definitely have improved. I especially love your lizards, and generally onwards from there your work gets considerably stronger. That said, there are still fundamental problems that are holding you back. You're not spending enough time on your lay-in, and ultimately you are a little afraid to add the lines necessary for you to understand how the whole thing sits in 3D space. Remember that we're breaking everything down into simple shapes so we can learn how to piece it all together.
The initial masses you draw in represent specific body parts - the cranium, the ribcage, the pelvis. They're not arbitrary bits, they should reflect those masses. Generally this means keeping your cranium spherical, making sure the ribcage is larger and is oriented correctly, and making sure that the angle of the pelvis matches what you see in your reference.
Be mindful of how forms intersect, and add extra forms on top of your base forms. Think of it like playing with clay or putty. You start off with one form, but if you feel your camel needs a hump, you pull out some more putty and construct a hump as a new solid organic form that sits atop the previous one. Furthermore, be aware of how those forms intersect - there are clear shoulder masses that intersect with the torso, so marking out that intersection point (usually fairly elliptical) is important to get a sense of it.
Lay in the entire form - I noticed you tend to just wing it with the legs. Your results are pretty good, but I'm inclined to believe that you probably find things getting weaker without reference for that exact pose. Understanding how everything fits together as simple forms and shapes grants you a greater degree of flexibility. You'll notice that in my demo, I only used the reference as a guide to tell me where all the parts go. My viewing angle has deviated somewhat.
I'd like you to do four more pages of animal drawings, but only the lay-ins. Add details for the last page, but I want the first three to be strictly like my demo, complete forms and shapes with contour lines where necessary.
Your forms have improved somewhat (still a ways to go), but I feel like you got sloppier as far as observing things goes - a lot of these feel much more simplistic (almost cartoony) in form and construction than the previous set. Also, it would help to draw things larger on the page - smaller drawings will restrict your ability to think through 3D space.
Here's some extra notes. At this point, it's pretty much up to you to continue practicing and applying the things I've mentioned in my critiques. So, i'm going to mark this lesson as complete and let you move onto the next one.
Don't think that the goal here is to work without reference. That is an ability that will emerge, certainly, but even those who can work without reference will use it, knowing full well that their work will be better for it. They're not going to be replicating what their reference shows them exactly, but they will use that reference to inform their decisions while creating new, original works.
Anyway, all that said, don't treat reference as though it's training-wheels, meant to be cast off. In the long run, you just end up learning how to use reference better, being able to take small parts from many images instead of relying entirely on just reproducing a single photograph.
I have a quick tip for this module and other ones when drawing nature from photoref. Most nature photography uses telephoto lenses which can flatten the image and reduce perspective. Since this is constructive drawing and you want to feel the 3d form when searching for image reference I recommend adding "Wide Angle Photography" to your search terms. Hope this is useful!
In many ways you're moving in the right direction, but you are missing some key points.
Biggest of all, you're treating the lay-in like an underdrawing or approximation. It's not - it's a solid construction, all of which represents distinct masses and intersections on the animal you're drawing.
For instance, the initial three masses - by the end of your drawing, they tend to be sitting loose inside the body, like they serve no purpose. These masses represent actual solid parts of the body - the cranium, the ribcage, the pelvis. Each one should be constructed with what they represent in mind. The cranium is always a circle (remember that's not the whole skull, just part of it), the ribcage is generally quite large, and the pelvis is always has an angle to it.
Once these masses are dropped in, you build your construction around them. You construct the torso by creating an organic, sausage-ish form by connecting the ribcage to the pelvis. You create the head by extending other forms off of it. Then you add more masses and bulk to the shoulders (which sit on the side of the torso, where the legs connect to it - they do not connect at the bottom).
You never add detail that cannot be supported by the forms and structure that is already there. For instance, your approach to drawing heads and faces doesn't utilize any underlying structure or scaffolding, you just draw the features wherever you think they go. This results in details that do not feel believable or grounded, because there's nothing supporting their position or existence.
When drawing, we're not focusing on what the end result is going to be. We're not simply copying over a photograph and reproducing it with 100% faithfulness. We are understanding what's there, and quite literally reconstructing it. Think as though you're building it up with clay. Without the structure of a head, without those forms, you can't even consider where the eye's going to go. If the torso has a big hump on the back, you literally add a new organic form and pile it on top to add that sort of volume (very much like the organic intersections exercise from lesson 2).
Right now, you're still caught up in trying to draw the photograph, so you laid down your loose lay-in and then focused on drawing details details details. The result will often end up feeling flat because of this. It turns out that details are actually completely unimportant - all of the meat of the drawing comes from the lay-in and construction.
Lastly, I am noticing that you're spending a lot more time drawing than you are studying your reference. This isn't abnormal, but it is something we want to work to change. When studying a reference image, look beyond all of the detail and observe the actual forms that sit underneath. Often these things are obscured by fur, but with a little logic, you can surmise how the masses underneath come together.
Furthermore, when actually applying a little detail at the end, you never want to rely on your memory. You'll see fur, and say, "I know what fur is like" and you'll spend the next minute drawing what fur means to you. Instead, you should spend lots of time observing how that fur flows around the body, where it clumps, where it's frizzy, and most importantly, where it creates shadows and where it all fuses into one indistinguishable mass.
Following what I've said here, in the notes, and in those demos, I'd like you to do four more pages of animals. I don't want you to go into any detail at all. Focus on just the lay-in construction.
Hello here's the four [pages] (https://goo.gl/photos/7k1W1ebMCxJQeogG6) you asked, I did the lay ins without details. Hope it will be better. Thank you for your time once again!
You're going in the right direction. There's still plenty of room to improve, mostly in the observation side of things. Spend more time really studying your reference, trying to identify the lighter nuances in the forms you see. This will come with time and practice - the most immediate corrections have been made.
I'll leave you to practice your animals at your own discretion, and will mark this lesson as complete.
I really enjoyed this lesson, especially drawing the hybrids. When drawing the furry animals, I've found helpful the use of skeleton reference to understand better the forms and then build the shapes on that. Here's the lesson!
Your animal constructions are looking pretty good! I definitely do notice though that your smaller drawings tend to be weaker, likely because you don't have as much room to think through spatial problems, resulting in stiffer constructions. In general though you're moving in the right direction.
The biggest problem I noticed was how you approach drawing fur - you add tufts everywhere, and that just tends to look messy. Instead, I recommend that you use this process. First add your tifts to the silhouette of your forms, then find out where your darker shadow areas are, and use a fur texture in your gradients/transitions between dark/light. Don't try to apply the texture all over the place, you need specific areas of detail (focal points) and spaces that are empty (rest areas).
The only other thing I'd like to point out is that it looks like your underlying construction lines are a little timid, often being considerably fainter. This timidness implies a lack of confidence which can trickle down into constructions that are less solid. Remember - if a mark serves a purpose, draw it confidently. If it does not serve a purpose, don't draw it at all. Then, you can use line weight to push the lines you want to emphasize and cause all other construction lines to start receding in turn.
I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.
I think that aversion to drawing through things implies an equal aversion to putting more construction lines down in general, which is definitely not the kind of attitude you want to approach things with. I noticed this a little bit in the middle of the album where you didn't mass out the connection of the arm/shoulder to the torso, and especially with that sitting bear where you jumped right from the initial masses into the overall construction.
While you have strong observational skills which definitely come through to help out, this does result in constructions that feel less solid and don't carry the same illusion of volume.
The camel near the end's torso definitely starts to feel more sturdy and solid, although its legs end up feeling stiff because you deal with it as a single form rather than several connected parts (upper leg, lower leg, etc). I definitely recommend adding a break at each joint and considering them both independently as well as how they relate to one another.
I especially like the toad at the end.
In general, I think you'd definitely benefit from applying the constructional aspects of the lesson and the overall drawabox approach, and setting aside your own misgivings about cluttering your drawings. After all, we're not drawing pretty illustrations - these are just more exercises to understand how forms can come together. They're exercises with cute animal faces.
Here are some additional demos I've done for others in the past to continue driving home the idea of step-by-step construction - the last one with the adult bear should help you approach the construction of snouts/muzzles:
I could ask you to do more to demonstrate an understanding of construction, but beyond this point I can't really think of what I would mention to you as further advice. I think you generally know what you're doing, and where you failed to do as directed, it was a conscious decision (the wrong decision, but you knew what you were doing). So, I do generally get the impression that you're aware of things. Beyond the extra demos, I don't think I have much else to share.
So, I'll mark this lesson as complete. I pretty much have faith that you'll be heading down the right track. Also, the next lesson will force you to think in terms of basic forms, drawing through and construction, and if you try to rely very much on detail-oriented observation, you won't get too far. So, it'll help in that department as well.
Thank you for your detailed feedback, the additional demos were very helpful too. I'll try to divert my focus more to capturing the key forms and proper construction.
Just a comment for context, absolutely all of the animal positions in the drawings are based from a picture. Exeeeept the quimeras. I tried to make em take some interesting positions that i hadn't drawn so i did struggle a bit. I think the rabbit-bear came okay, but the choco-wolf came a taaaad weird.
There's some good here, and there's some less so. The baby elephant on this page shows a lot of great elements. The first thing I noticed is that you've done a good job of massing in the initial head/ribcage/pelvis, and then you've connected the pelvis and ribcage into a sausage form that feels as though it sits in three dimensions, and that impression carries through to the rest of the construction. Furthermore, you're marking in the points of intersection between those forms and the other forms you add - like the legs. Towards the negative side, I'm noticing that you're not drawing through your ellipses much, and in general you're very timid when it comes to putting marks down on the page.
Once you decide to put a mark down on the page - and every single mark is led by a conscious decision, not instinct - you must draw that mark confidently, otherwise it'll wobble and waver, and won't feel solid. This will inevitably lead to a lot of lines falling on the page, as you flesh out your forms with additional contour lines, draw through forms, and so on. That's fine - afterwards you can organize them, emphasizing certain lines by adding weight to them, which in turn will cause the other lines to recede and become less noticeable. Everything is relative, after all, and it is remarkably easy for a thin line to be ignored beside a line twice as thick.
So, this confidence is definitely a major factor that is missing, and is holding you back from drawing solid forms, and therefore entirely believable constructions.
Next, your texturing often gets rather hectic. On your first page, the falcon's head is largely just a mess of scribbles. You allowed yourself to get overwhelmed by the amount of information in your reference image, and ended up drawing without thinking.
Every texture has a rhythm and a pattern to it, and almost always, it's better to draw less of it rather than more. Also, how you depict a texture - the kinds of marks you use on a small scale - are going to vary depending on what kind of texture you're drawing. Most beginners will fall back to just using short hatching lines, and this is often a major pitfall. Hatching lines tend to imply a somewhat rough texture with a lot of small individual ridges, perhaps like fabric. There are other kinds of marks one can leverage - longer lines for instance, that flow into one another can feel smoother, stippled dots can be used to imply little bumps and divets, and so on. The bigger thing to consider though is not to just draw some pattern because you think it fits - look closely at your reference image. There's all kinds of things going on in there, all kinds of visual elements and patterns unfolding, all to their own rhythm and structure. Never rely on randomness, and never just draw and hope for the best. Look closely, study, and if at the end of the day you can't pin down what's going on, you don't have to fill the area just for the sake of filling it.
For more information on texture, you can take a look at these notes.
I much prefer how you tackled your details in this page. You looked carefully at how the ridges around the eye radiate out, and you focused more on the structure and layering of feathers. Admittedly some of the feathers higher up on the wing end up being overly simplified, almost into symbols, but for the most part it's a fairly successful drawing.
When it comes to fur, you didn't do a great job. These notes may help a little. I'm planning on expanding the material available on texture, that's definitely an area where people struggle a lot - I just need to find the time to do so.
Anyway, before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do two more pages of animals - focus on drawing confidently, DRAWING THROUGH YOUR ELLIPSES, and so on. I don't want to see timidity. Commit to your decisions. With these drawings, I'm definitely more interested in seeing your form constructions than texture/detail.
Better, somewhat. You didn't entirely follow my instructions - for example, in my last critique I wrote in capital letters, "draw through your ellipses", but for the most part you didn't. You are however moving in the right direction - still plenty of room to improve, and it's really not my concern if you follow my instructions or not.
I do have one tip to offer though - a lot of your fur tends to come out like short spikes. The lines are stiff and hard, and don't flow too well. You may want to consider drawing longer lines when drawing the clumps of fur, and reducing the number of clumps you decide to flesh out along the edges. Also, with those longer lines, soften them - let them curve a little more, and draw from your shoulder so the lines aren't stiff and harsh.
Anyway, I recommend that you reread the last critique I gave you, but you're free to move onto the next lesson when you feel ready.
Thanks again for all the feedback, i admit i was having real problem with fur, so your tip is much welcome.
And about the ellipses I may have misunderstand what you meant. If it's completly drawing the ellipses that we use to give a body "3Dness", and not just the parts that we can see about it, i believe i did so this time (in comparison to the original homework). An example is in the squirrel tail
If it's something else i apologize for misunderstanding and forwardly ask: What did you mean?
I see. It's kind of understandable - I use the same terminology for both things. In the context of 3D forms, drawing through is as you said. In the context of 2D shapes, like ellipses, this is what I'm referring to.
I'm actually pretty pleased with the variety of ways you experimented with when rendering your texture. Your forms/constructions are really solid as well, and the best test for that is your hybrid lizard-bird-thing. It feels reasonably believable because all of the forms fit together nicely.
My only concern is that you seem to have been using two pens - one for roughing in your forms and another for your clean-up/texture/detail. That's generally something I try to discourage, as it has a tendency to distract people from investing the appropriate amount of time and focus on their underlying form constructions, and makes them too preoccupied with the 'final' pass. This didn't really happy with you, but it's still something I wouldn't want to encourage.
Instead of doing a 2-pass approach, it's better to lay in your forms with the black pen, and then later on add weight to the important lines to emphasize them - this in turn causes the other lines to recede, making the drawing considerably clearer. The difference here is that instead of outright replacing all of the lines in your drawing, you're merely emphasizing lines that already exist. This means all of the marks you draw throughout the entire process are lines that should be well thought out and planned, and ultimately contribute to the end product in one way or another. This approach demands a great deal of focus and forethought.
Anyway, keep up the good work and feel free to move onto lesson 6.
For this lesson i decided to draw more poses of each species per page and focus strongly on proportions/movement, except for the birds who's shapes are so easy i decided to do some texture/detail work.
I wanted to focus on movement to loosen/reassure (as noted in previous review) my construction lines and approach the animals more in a geometrical manner, and i think it went well in that matter. To make sure i respected proportions i used the measuring with my thumb and pen trick in front of my computer, i don t know if it s a bad technique for my development but it allowed me to almost nail my proportions.
By the time i ended with the two hybrids i was suprised to see how i memorised the general shapes/poses of both species i had drawn before, i am curious to see if i will be able to draw a horse from memory in several days.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-13 02:02
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.
[deleted]
2015-09-13 09:37
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2015-09-13 14:55
I thought about it a bit after reading your suggestion. I think that if there were a dedicated thread for all homework submissions, that would probably make it a little easier to keep track of them (for me), but the downside would be that it would be much more difficult to find past homework submissions for any given lesson, since they'd all be lumped together.
My critiques aside, it helps a lot to go through other peoples' submissions for a given lesson and look at what I've had to say about their work. Generally the more successful students do that, so I would hate to hinder that.
Ultimately I still intend to take critiques off of reddit and move them to the website itself, where I can manage it all much more effectively, but that's a long way off (because I can't really be bothered).
muffinpink
2015-09-14 08:23
Lesson 5(http://imgur.com/a/xgl7h)
I found this exercise the hardest so far. I am not sure I quite got it. Some feedback would be brilliant.
I had a good look through your previous feedback an I guess that it is to do with the layin stage.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-14 22:50
Unfortunately on principle I can't give you much of a critique - I require people to go through all of the lessons and let me mark them off as complete one by one, because the way the lessons are structured, earlier lessons will weed out specific problems better than later ones (which often tend to mask them). If I give you an in-depth critique, it'll set a precedent that will bite me in the ass later.
What I will tell you however is that your drawings are generally quite good but you are demonstrating a very common problem that you've probably read about in other critiques I've written. I talk about this issue here when critiquing another's work. The notes and demos I've included there should apply to you as well.
muffinpink
2015-09-15 08:41
Oh I am sorry. I didn't realise. I have worked through them all so can submit them in order. Thank you for all your hard work. I did some more last night and I am already seeing an improvement.
thetickdr
2015-09-15 18:39
Here's second attempt at lesson 5. (First one seems to have been lost in the comments)
It's been a long time since previous attempt. Hope there's some improvement.
Uncomfortable
2015-09-15 19:56
Very nice! I don't remember what your last ones looked like, but I'm sure it's a big improvement. There's just two things I want you to note, but I'm going to mark this lesson as complete so feel free to move on to the next one.
The first thing is something you're already doing for the most part, but I do want to emphasize its importance - always consider the shoulder mass. You're acknowledging that joint for sure, and I see it all over, but just remember that there is an entire volume that exists there. Consider whether or not it requires a bit more of that bulk to be defined in the drawing or not.
Secondly, I do notice that your approach to drawing is a little sketchy. This is okay, but as you move ahead, try to think less right on the page, and visualize more before putting down any marks. Consider what kind of line you want to add next, and what purpose it serves. This will work to gradually clean up your drawings in general. Remember the ghosting method from lesson 1.
thetickdr
2015-09-16 04:56
Thanks for the feedback!
I've had some troubles with the shoulders, thats true. Somehow the hips were easier to understand for me.
Will keep your remarks in mind next time.
MintGreenTeaLeaf
2015-09-27 08:35
[This] (http://imgur.com/a/vhFVi) is my third atempt on the assignment I tried to work on clear points of intersection but I still struggle with understanding how they function.
Anyways I still have a lot to improve on. Thank you for creating these tutorials they have been a great resource the last few months. :)
Uncomfortable
2015-09-27 17:05
I think you're doing a better job of demonstrating those points of intersection than before. Your proportions still seem to be out of whack much of the time, but that is something you'll have to focus on as you continue to practice (spend more time observing your reference than you spend drawing). As far as this lesson is concerned, I'm going to be marking it as complete.
NeoEXMaster
2015-10-03 06:33
My results: http://imgur.com/a/mQd6T
As you'll see, I just followed a rhythm of 1 lay in, 2 detailed drawings, and some notes per page, since the format requirement wasn't really specified at that level.
Uncomfortable
2015-10-03 20:48
Very nice! It's an interesting interpretation of the concepts. Ultimately you hit all the points I covered, focusing on establishing the 3D forms and recognizing how they interact with one another. You had a somewhat different way of going about it, perhaps a little more organic, but the results were good and it's clear that you understand the constructions. Also you drew trash pandas, and I love me some trash pandas.
The only thing I'd like to point out is that you need to keep an eye on your proportions when it comes to the deer and donkeys. The lengths of the bodies seem a little long at times, but that's something that'll come as you continue to practice that particular type of animal.
Keep up the good work, and feel free to move onto the next lesson.
NeoEXMaster
2015-10-04 05:48
Yeah, I was aware that I was overshooting the lengths when I was drawing, but it was too late really to fix it at the stage I was in upon discovery. Guess I just have to observe more carefully.
Ninfu11
2015-10-08 19:53
Heres my lesson 5. http://imgur.com/a/MjMi3 and http://imgur.com/a/UwMbl Not sure if filled required pages for each animal due quite lot of them and didnt include all of them here because how many i did. Also decided to focus bit more on lay-ins rather than worrying about details
Uncomfortable
2015-10-10 01:52
You really need to reread the lesson. Many of these drawings are completely skipping over the main points that were covered - namely fleshing out the three major masses (head, ribcage, pelvis).
Then beyond that, it's important to keep in mind how each form connects to other forms. Nothing floats arbitrarily in space, everything extends off of something else at very specific points. The shoulder joint, for instance, is extremely important. It's also important to look at where the legs are broken up at the knee/ankle.
I cover those issues in other critiques I've done:
http://i.imgur.com/1nFmI45.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/F2pRsA1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/k9bHvRB.jpg
Please take another stab at this lesson's homework, once you've had the chance to reread the lesson.
muffinpink
2015-10-12 12:32
Here is my work for this lesson: http://imgur.com/a/xgl7h
I am still not totally happy with these and think I may have started adding too many contors towards the end. Some guidance would be really usefull. Thank you.
Uncomfortable
2015-10-12 17:32
These are pretty well done. The only thing I want to point out is that the ones that come out better are generally the ones where you think through how things like the shoulder/hip joints sit on the body, and explicitly mark them in your drawing. There is room for improvement, but I think you're definitely heading in the right direction.
Feel free to move onto the next lesson.
muffinpink
2015-10-13 12:27
Thank you for taking the time to look at them.
Its so hard to not get distracted by making the drawing look good and adding in all the details.
razvanc87
2015-10-16 22:52
Right... time to share my ugly animals. Thanks! :)
Uncomfortable
2015-10-17 16:02
So, one thing I definitely want to highlight is that you have fantastic observational skills. It's clear that you've been around the block and that when it comes to capturing likeness, you know what you're doing.
This however also causes you to focus a lot more heavily on detail than the underlying construction. I find that a lot of your lay-in detail is very vague and loose, and that in general you have a very sketchy feel to your drawings.
Try to tighten things up, especially with the lay in but in general as well. Consider how the animals are made up of solid forms that connect with each other at very specific points. When you draw these forms, don't just lay them in loosely and timidly. Put them down with confidence. It doesn't matter if it's going to show through in your final drawing, we are not here to draw works of art. This is an exercise in understanding as any other, and the process counts just as much, if not more, as your final result.
This is a pretty common problem that I see from a lot of people. I think that when you're faced with animals which tend to have a lot of expression and emotion to them, it's very easy to get caught up in the details.
I'd like you to try another four pages of animals, focusing on lay-ins (don't worry about detail for now). Here's a draw-over to help clearify my points.
razvanc87
2015-10-17 16:18
Thank very much for your critique! Time to draw then :).
edit: Actually it's not about the expression, it's more because I know I have problems with proportions, for example that specific picture of the horse, quite funny, I actually realized the proportions are bad on the back leg (joint), but didn't want to make a mess of the drawing. So that's why I'm so loose and sketchy cause I never managed to capture the correct form (even the lay-ins) from the start. This isn't to say that I'm trying to argue in favor of my style, I hate this sketchy stile :)), it's just to let you know it isn't about details :).
razvanc87
2015-10-17 20:50
I think these 4 pages are what you were asking for (I hope). Thanks!
edit: as you can see I tried (unsuccessfully) to plagiarize your ground / grass thing, hope you don't mind, anyway yours looks way better :)... that lack of confidence and determination (on my behalf)... :D
Uncomfortable
2015-10-19 19:01
You do seem to be demonstrating an awareness of those intersections and joints between forms, so I'll mark this lesson as complete. I do want to point out though that you should be more mindful of the forms involved with the construction of these animals' heads. You tend to float some of their features arbitrarily on the base sphere. Keep in mind that forms never float in space - they should always be grounded off of something else. Take a look at how I constructed the head of the horse I drew for you last time.
razvanc87
2015-10-19 19:09
I see what you mean (thinking about the camel for example, where I didn't connect the lines going from the mouth, etc.). I'll keep that in mind. Thanks a lot!
CorenSV
2015-10-26 23:06
Here is my homework
Pretty sure this isn't the only problem with my drawings. But I really don't have a clue on how to draw the feathers/fur of the animals.
Could explain that a bit more?
Uncomfortable
2015-10-27 21:53
I think overall your understanding of form is improving throughout the set, but you're focusing too much on detail/texture (especially since you're struggling with it).
One thing I want to mention about form before we get into the texture stuff is that when you start tackling something that's really small on the page, try to avoid adding too many things like contour lines. I know that contradicts what I usually say, but at that size it starts to become far less helpful. A good example of this are your rat's feet. Instead of focusing a lot on those tiny forms, I would try to draw them from observation (without drawing through the forms and adding contour lines), and then maybe do exactly what you did - drawing larger studies off to the side. This is also why it's always beneficial to draw larger.
Really it's all an issue of cramped sections of drawings coming out poorly because of the size relationship between the tip of your pen and the lines you're trying to draw. They end up looking clunky and stiff.
Anyway, onto the texture. The biggest issue is that when you start to struggle, your go-to solution is to put more ink down on the page. This is a very normal reaction, but it's the opposite of what you should be doing.
Set aside the need to texture things for a second and consider what you're doing. You're drawing an image, not taking a photograph. The hierarchy of details, where you place your focal points and how you deal with composition are all decisions that are left up to you to make. This is your interpretation of what you are seeing.
So, step back and consider where you want to put those focal points (areas of interest and detail), and where you want to place your rest areas. The most important rule here is that contrast will draw one's eye to an area on the page. So, reserve areas of contrast for your focal points, and for your rest areas, try to stick to swathes of flat value. Since we're working with ink, this means either flat black or blank sections of the page.
We can add small bits of extra detail in these rest areas, but we don't want to compete with our focal points, because that's how you get a very noisy drawing.
Remember: less is always more. It is far better to have fewer lines instead of more.
This leaves us with a few challenges. It's relatively easy to apply detail in a focal area, because we're free to go to town on it. All we have to do is make sure we pay close attention to our reference images and study the patterns and rhythms of the details we see there. Most textures are not composed simply of hatching lines. A texture is going to have different elements that make it look rough, smooth, wet, dry, etc. Here's a demo I did a while ago about identifying different kinds of textures in a reference image.
Now, the bigger challenge is how to convey texture in our rest areas, where lines are expensive and come at a premium. There's definitely some tricks, and I see you using some of them already, just not particularly well.
The first thing a viewer sees when they look at your drawing is the silhouette of the shapes. They don't realize this, but that's the first thing the eye identifies. So, one of the most effective tricks we have to convey a texture without creating too much contrast is adjusting and breaking up the edges of the silhouette. This is especially effective when dealing with fur.
Do not think in terms of individual lines - when drawing that wolf, you do have a broken silhouette, but the wolf's body feels more like a collection of lines rather than a solid shape with a furry edge to it. Furthermore, when drawing the first page with the rat, I see a lot of lines coming off the form, but they create a lot of tangents. These perpendicular intersections of lines (of each fur line with the continuous edge of the body's core form) create a lot of tension and tends to draw the viewer's eye. Instead of that, use subtler, smoother curves. Also, don't break up the edge all over the place. Spread it out unevenly across the form's edge, forming clusters here and there.
Similarly, when you do apply texture to the inside of the form's silhouette, group and organize those details. Don't cover everything equally.
There's one last thing I want to stress about how you draw overall - you're still quite sketchy with your approach, drawing a lot of wasted lines. You need to stop and think before you put a line down on the page. Think about its purpose, and where it goes. Never think on the page - previsualize each mark and when it comes time to put the pen to the page, be sure to apply the ghosting method.
I'd like you to draw four more pages of animals. Two of these pages should contain no texture at all, focus entirely on form. The last two should include texture, with consideration for both focal points and rest areas.
CorenSV
2015-10-30 20:09
Here they are
Uncomfortable
2015-11-01 18:23
http://i.imgur.com/T4PHtJo.jpg
Try again, 4 pages, 2 lay-ins and 2 full drawings. And don't just draw the head of something, draw the whole thing.
CorenSV
2015-11-03 19:23
Second try
Uncomfortable
2015-11-03 20:59
It's an improvement. There are still things to work on but ultimately Rome wasn't built in a day. So, I'm going to mark this lesson as complete and you can continue practicing these on your own while you continue to move through the lessons.
A few things to remember:
DEFINE THE SHOULDER JOINT/MASS. This is important! I've mentioned it before, and honestly everyone has this problem. To extend this, don't be timid with your linework. Don't be afraid of having to hide your construction lines. You've seen my over-drawings, all of my lines are confident and bold. Do the same.
You may be better off using simpler shapes when dealing with legs/feet. There's a lot going on down there, and piling on a lot of contour lines will add to clutter and mess with your head. One thing I noticed is that I have a tendency to deal with these cramped areas like 2D shapes, and then I just add a bit of dimension at the end by pushing some of the line weights for my overlaps. Might be something you want to play with.
Don't scribble shadows, even if your pen is dying. You'll often find that lighting is surprisingly unnecessary. I have a tendency to only draw in shadows to separate out shapes so they can read more clearly.
Godsopp
2015-11-10 21:49
Got sidetracked so this took way longer than it should have but here is my homework: http://imgur.com/a/x3Igd/all
This was a pretty tough lesson but I definitely see why you had us do a lot of drawings of the same things here as it took me a lot of trial and error to work out the animals to a somewhat decent level. I probably should have drawn a bit bigger too as that made doing the facial details pretty hard.
Uncomfortable
2015-11-11 18:51
Not gonna lie, seeing a gallery where every single image is rotated the wrong way does not make me happy.
Anyway, I definitely agree with your point about the size of your drawings - the vast majority of these are way too small, resulting in clunky linework and a general restriction in your ability to think through your forms.
Furthermore, you are very focused on detail, leaving your constructions/lay-ins to fall by the wayside. Unfortunately, while a solid construction with good forms works fine without much in the way of detail, the opposite is not true.
I ended up doing way more of a critique than I intended to, but it should summarize pretty much every piece of advice I have to give: here you go.
The only thing I want to elaborate on is the idea of not working from memory. Anything beyond the first few seconds after looking away from your reference image constitutes working from memory. Your brain tries to guess at things, and it just about always guesses them wrong. Get used to studying your reference more carefully and specifically focusing on the underying constructions. Look past the fur texture and all of the detail to the consistent form structure that lies underneath.
Take another stab at this lesson's homework. Also, while you're free to try adding detail here and there, I want the bulk of these drawings to be construction/lay-in only. Try and channel what you did with your insects, their volumes and forms were pretty well done.
Godsopp
2015-11-13 03:48
Understood; I redid the homework as you suggested and these ones should be right side up. I ended up filling up the rest of my sketchpad though so I didn't do another page of hybrids: http://imgur.com/a/1mC8O
I found I am still struggling with the non-hooved animals as they all seem to have fairly thick fur that covers up the forms at times. It's usually a lot more clear where the forms are interacting with each other on the hooved animals as their coats of fur are thin. I'm also not quite sure I get the head construction thing still. I tried to build off of the initial circle more but I get the feeling that some of it is still floating in space rather than connecting together properly. This also was particularly the case on the non-hooved animals.
I probably need to work on my pressure control a lot too. Some of ellipses are a bit too dark and it takes away from the actual lines for the form of the shoulders. Anyways, sorry about the lopsided albums.
Uncomfortable
2015-11-14 18:52
Definitely a lot better. Your first few pages with the bears and wolves are significantly stronger than they were before. There's still a lot of room to grow, but you're on the right track. As you continue to practice this, the concepts will become more and more apparent and will solidify in your mind.
As for the head construction/things floating in space, you're improving in that regard too. I think what helps is to remember that everything fits together like a puzzle. So, if you think about the skull, you've got an eye socket that is defined by the brow ridge and the cheek bone - so even the eye will fit into a specific space. Once you understand this completely, you won't have to draw how those puzzle-pieces connect together, but for now it's a good idea to do so to help further your own understanding of what's going on in your drawing.
I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - keep practicing (after all these lessons only provide a starting point), but you may move onto the next lesson.
[deleted]
2015-11-17 02:52
Wow, This lesson took me a while to finish.
I must say this was the hardest lesson so far.
Drawing fur is awful(I had a really hard time with it) and I am still having trouble with proportions.
On top of that some of my drawings are a disaster... :D
Oh well, here is my Lesson 5!
Uncomfortable
2015-11-17 21:12
Your first few birds are looking pretty solid, but as we go through the set, some issues do become more and more apparent.
First off, those initial masses you lay in are intended to represent specific parts of the body. The cranium, the ribcage and the pelvis. They're not just rough estimations or loose approximations.
Some of your limbs tend to come out very stiff - try drawing them with deliberate curves, from shoulder to wrist, then splitting them up at the joints. That is, instead of making each subsection a separate block right off the bat.
You have a desperate need to cover your drawing with detail. Hold yourself back - adding more ink will not solve your problems. Observing your reference and studying the rhythm and hierarchy of patterns will. Also remember - less is generally better than more.
You're drawing small - don't cram your drawings into such small spaces, it's part of what's causing the stiff linework. Turn your sketchbook horizontally and use the full page, and if that's not big enough, use loose printer paper.
Lastly, here's a demo I did for someone last week. Try to follow the specific steps I've laid out, and draw with intention and decision driving every single line. Do not sketch or approximate. Observe, study, think, decide, then draw.
I'd like to see four more pages of animal drawings, but focus more on the construction. Hell, you don't even have to apply detail if you don't want to.
[deleted]
2015-11-18 03:08
Ok, Lesson 5! here is my second try.
I tried to follow the steps on the demo, but I am still having trouble imagining the ribcage and pelvis.
I did one drawing per page so I could draw them bigger.
Uncomfortable
2015-11-20 20:46
Things to keep in mind:
Don't cut off body parts, especially not the feet.
Consider where your ground is as you're drawing. Hell, draw it in. Also keep in mind that the ground is not a line, but rather a 2D plane in 3D space. It can help to draw a cross on the ground, extending into two dimensions.
Spend a LOT of time studying and observing your reference image. This is something most people don't do enough. The second you look away from your reference image, the vast majority of the information you collected will be simplified by your brain (ultimately rendered useless) or just outright forgotten. But you don't actually realize this, so you end up working from memory (which can't be trusted). So, the only solution is to force yourself to look back every few seconds.
Keep an eye on your proportions, especially early on when you're laying in the basic structure.
I want to see one more drawing from you. Take pictures in stages; your three major masses, then the rest of your construction/lay-in, then finally the full detail. I would also like you to include a link to the reference you use.
[deleted]
2015-11-24 04:26
Ok, here is the reference http://www.polarbearendangered.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/cute-polar-bear.jpg
And I took pictures for each step as asked.
I am still having trouble with the adding the details part =/ I end up scribbling a lot.
[Polar Bear!] (http://imgur.com/a/mgEsd)
Uncomfortable
2015-11-25 00:35
You're getting there. I'll mark this lesson as complete, leaving you with a demo of how I'd approach the same drawing.
There's one major thing that I think you're still falling short on - those initial masses. As I mentioned before, these represent explicit masses of the body. As such, they are not just 2d approximations - they should be representing 3D forms. So, if necessary, draw a contour line, or even just a center line going down the middle of each form to get a better sense of how it exists in 3D space.
I do like how you added the arms and legs, though I think your general sense of 3D space needs development. When I add my arms and legs, I totally simplify them into more 2D-ish organic forms, but I'm always keeping in mind how they move in 3D space. After all, they still connect to the body like anything else.
As for your scribbling, one thing came to mind when I read "I end up scribbling a lot". It may seem overly simplistic, but really this is what you need to drive into your mind: if you scribble too much, stop scribbling. Hold yourself back before putting down any mark on the page. If you're scribbling even though you don't want to, that means the root of the problem is that your arm is doing things without the orders coming down from your brain.
As for detail, it's not really there yet, but it's moving in the right direction. This stuff takes time to settle in, and takes time to develop. So keep practicing on your own. You've got the road map to take you a ways further, it's just a matter of reminding yourself of these few concepts over and over.
For now, feel free to move onto the next lesson.
[deleted]
2015-11-25 21:56
Thank you for the feedback.
It is still hard for me to imagine how things connect in 3d.
I hope the next lesson can help me a little with that.
I will keep working on those damn animals as well :D
tsak021
2015-11-17 18:45
Some takeaways I found this time around. There are times when I jsut get super busy, and i go a few days or worse, a week, without drawing, and I can see it when I mess up. Was fine with birds cause I started off from the last lesson, then a break, and my dogs looked like poo. I keep trying to stay positive and not say, man, my work sucks compared to so-in-so... Mainly cause I don't know how long they have been drawing and so on.
3-quarter views are tough
Eyes are tough
snakes are not just flat tubes and that was tough. (Any sample lessons for snakes? :D )
Long breaks are super detrimental to progress. Need to draw every day, even if it's doodling...
My Drawings: http://imgur.com/a/jvutm
Uncomfortable
2015-11-18 20:35
Firstly, I feel that your lay-ins in general are very loose. The three major masses that I outline represent three distinct masses of the body - the cranium, the ribcage and the pelvis. Simply dropping them in as approximate circles is not going to help a whole lot. You need to draw the specific ellipses with angles and widths/degrees that match the corresponding part of the body.
In general, I feel that you're really eager to get to the detail phase of things, and as such are not spending enough time on these lay-ins, thinking through the actual solid construction. By construction, I specifically mean the way the 3D forms combine.
I'd like you to take a look at this demo I did recently and do a couple pages focusing entirely on the construction and lay-in. Do not go into detail, and be sure to reach each step of the demo multiple times.
tsak021
2015-11-24 04:44
I def will have to practice individual parts and seeing the snouts as shapes. i think that was a big challenge. Doing the panda on the last page with better shapes def. helped. However, some of the other animals, circles were good starting points cause it was circular :D
I def. plan to do the 250 cylinder/box challenge before doing the every day objects (obviously assuming I pass this lesson :P )
Just trying to see everything has shapes now. Would printing out some animal photos and actually tracing shapes over them help a bit?
Uncomfortable
2015-11-25 01:03
Individual parts are important, but you should continue to practice them in the greatest context of an overall drawing. Just drilling one component will reinforce the idea that these things exist in isolation, when they do not. The shape of the muzzle, the way it curves is in direct response to the curvature of what it is attaching to. So, if you draw them on their own, you have nothing to infer that information from, so it really doesn't help a whole lot.
So, do full studies, not just mindless drills.
Now, as far as your drawing goes, they're a bit hit and miss as I'm sure you well know. Your first two pages are definitely interesting, and the bear is certainly going somewhere. In those pages however I noticed one consistent problem - your legs are too stiff. While it's important to always remember what what you are drawing exists in three dimensions, try to loosen up a bit. Working from organic shapes can help.
I'm going to mark this lesson as complete - you have a long way to go, but Rome was not built in a day. You need to keep pushing in this direction, and continue practicing with full studies of different kinds of animals.
tsak021
2015-11-25 01:43
Will do. Unfortunately, on some of them, the legs actually were straight. (ex: http://i.imgur.com/0YKgBfv.jpg)
But I do see your point. Each lesson I have something new to work on. In the beginning I struggled with contour shapes, but I see those a bit more now. Now putting pieces together and seeing it all as shapes and being more organic is my next hurdle. I read thru some critiques of others and I think I see the same problem in me. I sometimes rush through a drawing, as if there is an end. I guess cause I my end goal is drawing people, I animals as a hurdle to get there. But obviously the 2 are going to share a lot of similarities.
I've got to the point now where I schedule time just for drawing. Whether it be 30mins or an hour or more. And I am changing my POV as treating these as building blocks, not just the next step towards my end goal.
Like you said, Rome wasn't built in a day, and i'm sure they took their time with each pillar before they could add the roof :D
[deleted]
2015-11-26 22:28
Alrighty so like...4 months ago I hadn't quite finished Lesson 5 and then life got in the way but I've caught up with bits and pieces over time.
Here is the link to the original comment chain leading up to the follow up assignment I didn't finish
and
Here is the link to my attempt cobbled together over free time the past few months to finish that assignment, but I think I got a little rusty ):
Uncomfortable
2015-11-27 00:29
Cats are bad. Chinchilla/mouse/ratthing is better, ant-eater and raccoon are much better. The only thing I want to emphasize is that your head constructions are still very arbitrary, in that you're not constructing it from solid forms, you're just kind of approximating things.
This is how I would tackle a trashpanda's head.
Oh, also worth mentioning - your ant eater's tail is not built on any sort of form. You didn't lay the mass in first ,you just kinda went to town on a jaggedy fur-thing. Never jump straight to detail, always lay things in.
It looks like you're shaking off your rust, so I'm pretty content with the last page there, so I'm going to mark this lesson as complete. You definitely do need to continue practicing it though.
[deleted]
2015-11-27 00:36
Whoa that was quick, thank you! I will definitely work on heads and keep practicing.
XSDM
2015-11-29 20:24
This was a very frustrating lesson! I went though a ton of paper for this one. And not even close to satisfied with the results.
http://imgur.com/a/MtIU5
Uncomfortable
2015-12-01 23:02
I think on one hand, you have a good grasp of 3D space. You seem to understand in a general sense how the forms fit together, and when you look at a reference image, you see more than just a flat image. This is definitely good.
What isn't good is that you lack patience and focus. You have a penchant for scribbling, and your work tends to be very loose. This looseness and sketchiness comes from the fact that you jump right into drawing as soon as you can, and you solve your problems by drawing. You think right on the page, instead of thinking before you put ink down.
This causes two key problems:
Since your lay-ins are loose, your constructions have a tendency towards being weaker and less solid. You do not draw your masses as clean, complete forms and shapes, so they don't carry the illusion of weight and volume. A really good example of this are your cats, which are very loose and rough. If I had to guess at your state of mind as you drew them, I would say that your mind was focused on the next step, while your hands struggled to complete the step they were on. Focus on the step you're on, and forget about what comes next.
When you draw texture, you rely a lot on hatching lines and scribbling, and they all tend to be quite loose and sloppy. Hatching, crosshatching and scribbling is virtually never present in nature, and it all serves as a shorthand for I have no idea what goes here, but I don't want to leave it empty. Your reference images are full of textures of varying levels of complexity, and it's easy to get overwhelmed and just scribble under the guise of 'implying' detail. Properly implying detail requires you to first understand exactly how those details are organized. Every texture, no matter how complex and seemingly erratic will follow its own rhythm and pattern. It isn't always immediately apparent, and can take a great deal of observation and study to pin it down. You won't necessarily get it in your first or second shot either, and it can take experimentation to learn how to organize those details in your drawing to communicate the particular texture. That said, simply scribbling loosely does not take you one step in the right direction.
As always, the theme of this critique is as follows: think before you draw. Whether it's your initial lay-ins, or your details, every mark is intended to serve a purpose, and in order to serve that purpose successfully, each mark must fit a certain criteria. There is never a situation where any old mark will do, which is really the premise that drives scribbling.
Now, all that said, you have drawn some pretty pictures. Your geese are quite nice (aside from the loose details) - their clean and carefully designed silhouettes are especially well done. I'd say from page 5 onwards, your sense of construction gets stronger, even though the forms themselves are loose and not too well thought out. Although even on that front, the wolf on the right side of page 5 is quite well done.
The only other weakness I can see is your head constructions. Remember that like everything else, those heads are made up of interlocking forms. The initial circle is the mass-in for the cranium, but then a boxy form can be connected to that to form a muzzle or a snout.
Generally in regards to construction, look at this demo I did for someone a while back. Look at how in each step, you can clearly describe what was added to the drawing. If it were loose and sketchy, steps would blend together. Because here we are thinking clearly about the purpose of each element that is added, it gets separated out fairly cleanly.
I'd like you to do 4 more pages of animal drawings, although if you want to do more than that you are welcome to. Don't forget that critiques are restricted again during December, so you can take that time to space out your practice and slow your process down.
XSDM
2015-12-02 08:54
Thank you for this insightful critique. I have struggled with being too loose. I think this is because i really had trouble getting proportions right and then trying to find it 'on the page' as you say. I feel this is still my main problem, and i have tried different way of measuring, but nothing seems to really work for me. Grids, measuring with a pencil or ruler on screen or measuring digitally does not result in animals with good proportions.
Anyway ill spend some more time with these animals for now.
XSDM
2016-01-01 21:57
Happy New Year!
Heres my second attempt: http://imgur.com/a/1i9vo
I attempted some shading on p. 3, but i guess it went a little overboard and just looked goofy. Anyway, i did try to take your advice from the critique.
Uncomfortable
2016-01-02 01:34
Across the set, you do improve, but the first and last pages really, really fail to show an understanding of the concepts. Strangely enough though, page 4 is FANTASTIC. So I'm left kind of confused. I think you definitely have it in you, but the whole idea of constructing organic forms that intersect with one another isn't clicking. So, I'll try again, focusing on the weaker drawings.
Here's my demo. Ultimately, at least in those drawings, you're not realizing that what you should be focusing on is building up organic forms - which have clear volume and solidity to them. You're getting caught up in drawing what you see, not actually understanding how it exists in 3D space. Those initial forms you construct, you're treating them like initial estimations that are later thrown away or ignored - they're not. Those are the masses of the ribcage, the pelvis, and the cranium, so you should strive to make their position, scale and angle match up. Then, you connect the pelvis to the ribcage creating a sausage-like torso. It's really important that at all steps you're pushing the illusion that it's a 3D form with volume. Sometimes this may require you to add contour lines, though don't draw more than you need.
If the original sausage doesn't match up with the body in your reference, you can then build on top of it by adding more organic forms. For example, if you look at the second last step in my example, I pile a bunch of extra forms along the back to create the humps and generally bulk out the back muscles.
Another important aspect I've stressed before is being aware and being explicit about how the body parts fuse together. A good example for this is the connection point between the neck and torso that I drop in early on, in the second step. I've added an ellipse to the front of the torso to mark where the torso transitions into the neck. Touches like that will help reinforce your volumes.
I want you to do two pages of rhinos and two pages of elephants. We will get this down.
XSDM
2016-01-03 19:34
Thank you for this very through critique! I see i really had some problems. In these four pages i really tried to focus on the forms - and then the proportions got second priority. I really find it hard to get both right at the same time. And i guess that is why my lizards turned out ok before. Their proportions are really off, but since its lizards you dont notice. Hopefully that will improve over time.
Here are the next pages: http://imgur.com/a/35Is3
Uncomfortable
2016-01-03 19:43
Better, though I still have a few minor misgivings so here's what I want you to do:
Go to lesson 2, find the 'organic intersections' exercise I've recently added, and do one page. Then come back to this, and literally draw the demo I drew for you last time, and take a photo at each step. Submit both of those to me, then I'll mark this lesson as complete.
XSDM
2016-01-04 22:12
Here it is: http://imgur.com/a/6IdtP
I really liked those sausage intersections :) But the rhino somehow gained a bit of weight in the process :/ I guess i should stay well clear of portraiture.
Uncomfortable
2016-01-05 02:32
Pretty nice work on your organic intersections. You're right though, your rhino doesn't really look a whole lot like mine. A lot of it does have to do with observation, which will improve with practice (so don't stay clear of things that you fail at - failing is good, failing is necessary.) There are however some things you can change immediately that will help.
First off, you're not drawing through your ellipses - those are the first steps, on which everything else is built, and they tend to come out uneven because you're not drawing through them as you should be.
Secondly, your lines are kind of sketchy and chickenscratchy when you put in that head. There's no solidity to that form because the lines are not clearly thought out.
Lastly, and this one's hardest of all and will take time - but remember that you need to FEEL the forms you're drawing are solid and 3D. You need to feel the difference between a flat, substanceless shape from a solid, weighty form.
Your organic intersections were starting to feel like they had form to them. They weren't all the way there (gotta work on getting those contour lines to wrap around), but they were much further along than your rhinoceros. As you move forwards, I encourage you to continue practicing that exercise as warmups before you draw more animals.
For now though, I'll mark this lesson as complete as there isn't much more I have to impart.
ohmygezuz23
2015-12-15 04:15
So one month later I got this done.
I found proportions for longer animals harder since the main masses were further away, got any tips on that? birds were pretty simple since they're basically two balls together...
So thanks in advance and happy holidays.
Uncomfortable
2015-12-15 20:48
A lot of this is very, very well done - your birds especially. In general you're showing a good sense of construction and how the various forms fit together. You also have an eye for detail, and you're doing a good job of identifying various textures and considering how to render their details whilst balancing the density of information in the various parts of any given drawing.
I do see a few issues that we can work on, however. What stands out most to me is that you have a tendency to rough in shapes with smaller chicken-scratchy line segments, rather than drawing complete, unbroken shapes from your shoulder. As such, your underlying forms do not carry the sense of solidity and weight that would really push your drawings to the next level.
Do not get caught up in the need to create a beautiful drawing. That's not our focus here. A lot of people become afraid to put down lines, and end up loosely sketching in order to ensure that what they do put down can be hidden or ultimately dealt with. This undermines our focus on 3D form, as independent, chicken-scratch strokes do not come together to form a single element, rather they emphasize their independence. In the end we want our drawing to be understood as a collection of forms, not a collection of lines.
Ultimately we don't want to be wasting our marks, and we want to focus on putting down only what is necessary. That said, lines that help us understand our forms and shapes and wrap our minds around how these objects exist in 3D space are necessary. On the other hand, chicken-scratching a line creates a lot of wasteful marks where a single one would have been far more effective.
Another thing I'm noticing is that when you draw ellipses, you don't draw through them. I've mentioned this in earlier lessons, you should be drawing through every single ellipse you draw for any of my lessons. What you choose to do outside of the lessons is your business, but ultimately as long as you do it while doing these homework sets, you'll get enough mileage to understand what it means to draw an ellipse confidently enough to maintain its evenness and roundedness. Your lines are still wobbling, due to a lack of that much needed confidence.
I generally like how you approach fur, capturing elements of it here and there with short lines - what I would like you to be aware of however is the impact hatching lines have, and the different ways they can be used. There are many instances where you've used them wonderfully here, but be mindful of how the surface of a form warps and bends when applying such lines. Those lines should follow along the surface of the form unless you want them to flatten it out. There are situations where you might want to flatten out a shape (for example, the drawing in the middle of the first page of wolves, I think it was an effective choice to flatten out the far legs). On the other hand, in the drawing of the ferret (i think it's a ferret), you seem a little more careless with how you're applying those lines, so you end up flattening forms out where you probably didn't intend to.
The thing about hatching lines is that people tend to use them as a shorthand for "I have no idea what goes here but I don't want to leave it blank". When using details that simple, it's easy to just stop thinking and go to town - you need to make sure that you think through all your decisions and all of the lines you put on the page.
So, long story short - your drawings are very nice, good eye for structure and detail, but you need to draw with more confidence and draw complete shapes made up of singular, continuous lines. Breaking up the line undermines the integrity of the form. Keep that in mind as you move onto the next lesson.
Edit: This demo I did in the past does a decent job of showing what I mean about drawing with more confidence, and using longer, more continuous lines: http://i.imgur.com/dtjwmvj.jpg
ohmygezuz23
2015-12-16 04:05
Ah yes thank you.
You've told me the thing about sketchy lines in one of the other lessons, guess I haven't improved on that, I'll try harder.
As for the cross hatching I think that's due to me trying to rush it because It's often a large area to cover so I'll try slowing down, drawing with more patience and as you say paying attention to the contours of the forms.
The more complete birds and raccoons I did in a seperate sketchbook that I'll use as a summary of my progress in drawing I hope to share that with you one day.
[deleted]
2015-12-27 23:00
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2015-12-28 00:20
You definitely have improved. I especially love your lizards, and generally onwards from there your work gets considerably stronger. That said, there are still fundamental problems that are holding you back. You're not spending enough time on your lay-in, and ultimately you are a little afraid to add the lines necessary for you to understand how the whole thing sits in 3D space. Remember that we're breaking everything down into simple shapes so we can learn how to piece it all together.
Take a look at this camel demo. There's a few key things to take from this:
The initial masses you draw in represent specific body parts - the cranium, the ribcage, the pelvis. They're not arbitrary bits, they should reflect those masses. Generally this means keeping your cranium spherical, making sure the ribcage is larger and is oriented correctly, and making sure that the angle of the pelvis matches what you see in your reference.
Be mindful of how forms intersect, and add extra forms on top of your base forms. Think of it like playing with clay or putty. You start off with one form, but if you feel your camel needs a hump, you pull out some more putty and construct a hump as a new solid organic form that sits atop the previous one. Furthermore, be aware of how those forms intersect - there are clear shoulder masses that intersect with the torso, so marking out that intersection point (usually fairly elliptical) is important to get a sense of it.
Lay in the entire form - I noticed you tend to just wing it with the legs. Your results are pretty good, but I'm inclined to believe that you probably find things getting weaker without reference for that exact pose. Understanding how everything fits together as simple forms and shapes grants you a greater degree of flexibility. You'll notice that in my demo, I only used the reference as a guide to tell me where all the parts go. My viewing angle has deviated somewhat.
I'd like you to do four more pages of animal drawings, but only the lay-ins. Add details for the last page, but I want the first three to be strictly like my demo, complete forms and shapes with contour lines where necessary.
[deleted]
2015-12-28 22:27
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Uncomfortable
2015-12-30 02:48
Your forms have improved somewhat (still a ways to go), but I feel like you got sloppier as far as observing things goes - a lot of these feel much more simplistic (almost cartoony) in form and construction than the previous set. Also, it would help to draw things larger on the page - smaller drawings will restrict your ability to think through 3D space.
Here's some extra notes. At this point, it's pretty much up to you to continue practicing and applying the things I've mentioned in my critiques. So, i'm going to mark this lesson as complete and let you move onto the next one.
[deleted]
2016-01-01 21:31
[deleted]
Uncomfortable
2016-01-01 21:34
Don't think that the goal here is to work without reference. That is an ability that will emerge, certainly, but even those who can work without reference will use it, knowing full well that their work will be better for it. They're not going to be replicating what their reference shows them exactly, but they will use that reference to inform their decisions while creating new, original works.
Anyway, all that said, don't treat reference as though it's training-wheels, meant to be cast off. In the long run, you just end up learning how to use reference better, being able to take small parts from many images instead of relying entirely on just reproducing a single photograph.
Whirly123
2015-12-29 12:52
I have a quick tip for this module and other ones when drawing nature from photoref. Most nature photography uses telephoto lenses which can flatten the image and reduce perspective. Since this is constructive drawing and you want to feel the 3d form when searching for image reference I recommend adding "Wide Angle Photography" to your search terms. Hope this is useful!
Uncomfortable
2015-12-29 18:11
Thanks for the tip! And long-time-no-post :D
Whirly123
2015-12-29 18:40
Yeah I know. Long time no draw too! Need to get back to it!
Nuinui
2016-01-21 17:33
Hello here's my homework thank you for your time!
Uncomfortable
2016-01-21 23:50
In many ways you're moving in the right direction, but you are missing some key points.
Biggest of all, you're treating the lay-in like an underdrawing or approximation. It's not - it's a solid construction, all of which represents distinct masses and intersections on the animal you're drawing.
For instance, the initial three masses - by the end of your drawing, they tend to be sitting loose inside the body, like they serve no purpose. These masses represent actual solid parts of the body - the cranium, the ribcage, the pelvis. Each one should be constructed with what they represent in mind. The cranium is always a circle (remember that's not the whole skull, just part of it), the ribcage is generally quite large, and the pelvis is always has an angle to it.
Once these masses are dropped in, you build your construction around them. You construct the torso by creating an organic, sausage-ish form by connecting the ribcage to the pelvis. You create the head by extending other forms off of it. Then you add more masses and bulk to the shoulders (which sit on the side of the torso, where the legs connect to it - they do not connect at the bottom).
You never add detail that cannot be supported by the forms and structure that is already there. For instance, your approach to drawing heads and faces doesn't utilize any underlying structure or scaffolding, you just draw the features wherever you think they go. This results in details that do not feel believable or grounded, because there's nothing supporting their position or existence.
When drawing, we're not focusing on what the end result is going to be. We're not simply copying over a photograph and reproducing it with 100% faithfulness. We are understanding what's there, and quite literally reconstructing it. Think as though you're building it up with clay. Without the structure of a head, without those forms, you can't even consider where the eye's going to go. If the torso has a big hump on the back, you literally add a new organic form and pile it on top to add that sort of volume (very much like the organic intersections exercise from lesson 2).
Right now, you're still caught up in trying to draw the photograph, so you laid down your loose lay-in and then focused on drawing details details details. The result will often end up feeling flat because of this. It turns out that details are actually completely unimportant - all of the meat of the drawing comes from the lay-in and construction.
Lastly, I am noticing that you're spending a lot more time drawing than you are studying your reference. This isn't abnormal, but it is something we want to work to change. When studying a reference image, look beyond all of the detail and observe the actual forms that sit underneath. Often these things are obscured by fur, but with a little logic, you can surmise how the masses underneath come together.
Furthermore, when actually applying a little detail at the end, you never want to rely on your memory. You'll see fur, and say, "I know what fur is like" and you'll spend the next minute drawing what fur means to you. Instead, you should spend lots of time observing how that fur flows around the body, where it clumps, where it's frizzy, and most importantly, where it creates shadows and where it all fuses into one indistinguishable mass.
Here are some extra notes on your work: http://i.imgur.com/dXB0IBG.png
And, here are some construction demos I've done in the past: http://i.imgur.com/ZNSG70A.jpg, http://i.imgur.com/L3OKmgL.jpg
Following what I've said here, in the notes, and in those demos, I'd like you to do four more pages of animals. I don't want you to go into any detail at all. Focus on just the lay-in construction.
Nuinui
2016-01-22 07:21
Okay thank you for everything, i'll work harder and try to understand better.
Nuinui
2016-01-25 14:18
Hello here's the four [pages] (https://goo.gl/photos/7k1W1ebMCxJQeogG6) you asked, I did the lay ins without details. Hope it will be better. Thank you for your time once again!
Uncomfortable
2016-01-25 21:04
You're going in the right direction. There's still plenty of room to improve, mostly in the observation side of things. Spend more time really studying your reference, trying to identify the lighter nuances in the forms you see. This will come with time and practice - the most immediate corrections have been made.
I'll leave you to practice your animals at your own discretion, and will mark this lesson as complete.
Tomberri
2016-02-04 19:16
I really enjoyed this lesson, especially drawing the hybrids. When drawing the furry animals, I've found helpful the use of skeleton reference to understand better the forms and then build the shapes on that. Here's the lesson!
Uncomfortable
2016-02-04 22:42
Your animal constructions are looking pretty good! I definitely do notice though that your smaller drawings tend to be weaker, likely because you don't have as much room to think through spatial problems, resulting in stiffer constructions. In general though you're moving in the right direction.
The biggest problem I noticed was how you approach drawing fur - you add tufts everywhere, and that just tends to look messy. Instead, I recommend that you use this process. First add your tifts to the silhouette of your forms, then find out where your darker shadow areas are, and use a fur texture in your gradients/transitions between dark/light. Don't try to apply the texture all over the place, you need specific areas of detail (focal points) and spaces that are empty (rest areas).
The only other thing I'd like to point out is that it looks like your underlying construction lines are a little timid, often being considerably fainter. This timidness implies a lack of confidence which can trickle down into constructions that are less solid. Remember - if a mark serves a purpose, draw it confidently. If it does not serve a purpose, don't draw it at all. Then, you can use line weight to push the lines you want to emphasize and cause all other construction lines to start receding in turn.
I'll mark this lesson as complete, so feel free to move onto the next one.
Suchimo
2016-02-10 08:54
Lesson 5
I'm finding myself averse to drawing through ellipses and balls on this lesson, since it begins to feel very cluttered.
Snouts towards the viewer were especially difficult.
Uncomfortable
2016-02-10 20:58
I think that aversion to drawing through things implies an equal aversion to putting more construction lines down in general, which is definitely not the kind of attitude you want to approach things with. I noticed this a little bit in the middle of the album where you didn't mass out the connection of the arm/shoulder to the torso, and especially with that sitting bear where you jumped right from the initial masses into the overall construction.
While you have strong observational skills which definitely come through to help out, this does result in constructions that feel less solid and don't carry the same illusion of volume.
The camel near the end's torso definitely starts to feel more sturdy and solid, although its legs end up feeling stiff because you deal with it as a single form rather than several connected parts (upper leg, lower leg, etc). I definitely recommend adding a break at each joint and considering them both independently as well as how they relate to one another.
I especially like the toad at the end.
In general, I think you'd definitely benefit from applying the constructional aspects of the lesson and the overall drawabox approach, and setting aside your own misgivings about cluttering your drawings. After all, we're not drawing pretty illustrations - these are just more exercises to understand how forms can come together. They're exercises with cute animal faces.
Here are some additional demos I've done for others in the past to continue driving home the idea of step-by-step construction - the last one with the adult bear should help you approach the construction of snouts/muzzles:
http://i.imgur.com/ZNSG70A.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/L3OKmgL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dtjwmvj.jpg
I could ask you to do more to demonstrate an understanding of construction, but beyond this point I can't really think of what I would mention to you as further advice. I think you generally know what you're doing, and where you failed to do as directed, it was a conscious decision (the wrong decision, but you knew what you were doing). So, I do generally get the impression that you're aware of things. Beyond the extra demos, I don't think I have much else to share.
So, I'll mark this lesson as complete. I pretty much have faith that you'll be heading down the right track. Also, the next lesson will force you to think in terms of basic forms, drawing through and construction, and if you try to rely very much on detail-oriented observation, you won't get too far. So, it'll help in that department as well.
Suchimo
2016-02-11 00:21
Thank you for your detailed feedback, the additional demos were very helpful too. I'll try to divert my focus more to capturing the key forms and proper construction.
KiwiYoz
2016-02-16 20:34
Hello again! As always thanks for the free critiques and lessons, that said Here is my lesson 5 homework!
Just a comment for context, absolutely all of the animal positions in the drawings are based from a picture. Exeeeept the quimeras. I tried to make em take some interesting positions that i hadn't drawn so i did struggle a bit. I think the rabbit-bear came okay, but the choco-wolf came a taaaad weird.
Uncomfortable
2016-02-17 20:54
There's some good here, and there's some less so. The baby elephant on this page shows a lot of great elements. The first thing I noticed is that you've done a good job of massing in the initial head/ribcage/pelvis, and then you've connected the pelvis and ribcage into a sausage form that feels as though it sits in three dimensions, and that impression carries through to the rest of the construction. Furthermore, you're marking in the points of intersection between those forms and the other forms you add - like the legs. Towards the negative side, I'm noticing that you're not drawing through your ellipses much, and in general you're very timid when it comes to putting marks down on the page.
Once you decide to put a mark down on the page - and every single mark is led by a conscious decision, not instinct - you must draw that mark confidently, otherwise it'll wobble and waver, and won't feel solid. This will inevitably lead to a lot of lines falling on the page, as you flesh out your forms with additional contour lines, draw through forms, and so on. That's fine - afterwards you can organize them, emphasizing certain lines by adding weight to them, which in turn will cause the other lines to recede and become less noticeable. Everything is relative, after all, and it is remarkably easy for a thin line to be ignored beside a line twice as thick.
So, this confidence is definitely a major factor that is missing, and is holding you back from drawing solid forms, and therefore entirely believable constructions.
Next, your texturing often gets rather hectic. On your first page, the falcon's head is largely just a mess of scribbles. You allowed yourself to get overwhelmed by the amount of information in your reference image, and ended up drawing without thinking.
Every texture has a rhythm and a pattern to it, and almost always, it's better to draw less of it rather than more. Also, how you depict a texture - the kinds of marks you use on a small scale - are going to vary depending on what kind of texture you're drawing. Most beginners will fall back to just using short hatching lines, and this is often a major pitfall. Hatching lines tend to imply a somewhat rough texture with a lot of small individual ridges, perhaps like fabric. There are other kinds of marks one can leverage - longer lines for instance, that flow into one another can feel smoother, stippled dots can be used to imply little bumps and divets, and so on. The bigger thing to consider though is not to just draw some pattern because you think it fits - look closely at your reference image. There's all kinds of things going on in there, all kinds of visual elements and patterns unfolding, all to their own rhythm and structure. Never rely on randomness, and never just draw and hope for the best. Look closely, study, and if at the end of the day you can't pin down what's going on, you don't have to fill the area just for the sake of filling it.
For more information on texture, you can take a look at these notes.
I much prefer how you tackled your details in this page. You looked carefully at how the ridges around the eye radiate out, and you focused more on the structure and layering of feathers. Admittedly some of the feathers higher up on the wing end up being overly simplified, almost into symbols, but for the most part it's a fairly successful drawing.
When it comes to fur, you didn't do a great job. These notes may help a little. I'm planning on expanding the material available on texture, that's definitely an area where people struggle a lot - I just need to find the time to do so.
Anyway, before I mark this lesson as complete, I'd like you to do two more pages of animals - focus on drawing confidently, DRAWING THROUGH YOUR ELLIPSES, and so on. I don't want to see timidity. Commit to your decisions. With these drawings, I'm definitely more interested in seeing your form constructions than texture/detail.
KiwiYoz
2016-02-23 18:37
Here are the extra 2 pages.
Uncomfortable
2016-02-24 01:24
Better, somewhat. You didn't entirely follow my instructions - for example, in my last critique I wrote in capital letters, "draw through your ellipses", but for the most part you didn't. You are however moving in the right direction - still plenty of room to improve, and it's really not my concern if you follow my instructions or not.
I do have one tip to offer though - a lot of your fur tends to come out like short spikes. The lines are stiff and hard, and don't flow too well. You may want to consider drawing longer lines when drawing the clumps of fur, and reducing the number of clumps you decide to flesh out along the edges. Also, with those longer lines, soften them - let them curve a little more, and draw from your shoulder so the lines aren't stiff and harsh.
Anyway, I recommend that you reread the last critique I gave you, but you're free to move onto the next lesson when you feel ready.
KiwiYoz
2016-02-24 04:10
Thanks again for all the feedback, i admit i was having real problem with fur, so your tip is much welcome.
And about the ellipses I may have misunderstand what you meant. If it's completly drawing the ellipses that we use to give a body "3Dness", and not just the parts that we can see about it, i believe i did so this time (in comparison to the original homework). An example is in the squirrel tail
If it's something else i apologize for misunderstanding and forwardly ask: What did you mean?
Uncomfortable
2016-02-24 15:11
I see. It's kind of understandable - I use the same terminology for both things. In the context of 3D forms, drawing through is as you said. In the context of 2D shapes, like ellipses, this is what I'm referring to.
KiwiYoz
2016-02-24 16:46
Ohhhhh. Now i get it. Yeah will remember to do it from now on. Thanks a lot!
Lingwer
2016-02-22 12:46
Here you go.
Lesson 5 Animals
The whole texture thing is still giving me problems, but otherwise a quite enjoyable lesson.
Thank you for your time Uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable
2016-02-22 22:33
I'm actually pretty pleased with the variety of ways you experimented with when rendering your texture. Your forms/constructions are really solid as well, and the best test for that is your hybrid lizard-bird-thing. It feels reasonably believable because all of the forms fit together nicely.
My only concern is that you seem to have been using two pens - one for roughing in your forms and another for your clean-up/texture/detail. That's generally something I try to discourage, as it has a tendency to distract people from investing the appropriate amount of time and focus on their underlying form constructions, and makes them too preoccupied with the 'final' pass. This didn't really happy with you, but it's still something I wouldn't want to encourage.
Instead of doing a 2-pass approach, it's better to lay in your forms with the black pen, and then later on add weight to the important lines to emphasize them - this in turn causes the other lines to recede, making the drawing considerably clearer. The difference here is that instead of outright replacing all of the lines in your drawing, you're merely emphasizing lines that already exist. This means all of the marks you draw throughout the entire process are lines that should be well thought out and planned, and ultimately contribute to the end product in one way or another. This approach demands a great deal of focus and forethought.
Anyway, keep up the good work and feel free to move onto lesson 6.
FromageMoustache
2016-03-11 01:53
Hello Uncomfortable!
Here s my submission for this lesson : http://imgur.com/a/MMHPc
For this lesson i decided to draw more poses of each species per page and focus strongly on proportions/movement, except for the birds who's shapes are so easy i decided to do some texture/detail work.
I wanted to focus on movement to loosen/reassure (as noted in previous review) my construction lines and approach the animals more in a geometrical manner, and i think it went well in that matter. To make sure i respected proportions i used the measuring with my thumb and pen trick in front of my computer, i don t know if it s a bad technique for my development but it allowed me to almost nail my proportions.
By the time i ended with the two hybrids i was suprised to see how i memorised the general shapes/poses of both species i had drawn before, i am curious to see if i will be able to draw a horse from memory in several days.
Thank you for your time!