dataguard in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"
2017-02-22 09:18
Well, here it is. I've made tons of mistakes, but I feel like I've became better at spotting them too. Line quality is still rubbish, made even worse how I've had to add a lot of line weight to separate stuff from the construction lines. Trying the curvy boat was a mistake, but I had to challenge myself. Wheels are hard too, I hate wheels.
Also, using a fineliner and a ruler makes for a terrible mess, ink stains everywhere.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects (new 30min intro video, 3 new demos)"
2017-02-06 22:50
Thank you! That really is something I have to work on. Even though I can clearly see how bad it is, I couldn't improve in a significant way yet. However I've been getting better at only using my shoulder, can even feel the underdeveloped muscles aching after a longer session. I'm definitely going try your suggestion of drawing unplanned lines and ellipses - all of my warm-up sessions consisted of lesson 1&2's exercises so far. Not to mention a countless amount of subdivided boxes.
Unfortunately I don't have an ellipse guide, but hopefully I'll be okay without. It certainly looks like it'll be one hell of a challenge.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 6: Drawing Everyday Objects (new 30min intro video, 3 new demos)"
2017-02-06 04:36
I thought this one would be easy compared to the animals, but damn. Anyway, please excuse the messy lines, but despite doing warm-ups and exercises every day, I still can't seem to get them right. (Though at times it was definitely the fault of excessive caffeine intake.) So, I'm not happy with the results, but I'd like to ask for your opinion for what to re-do, and so on.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals (new 50min intro video, 3 new demos)"
2017-01-22 02:26
Thanks! I've been fighting the stiffness, but progress is very slow on that front. Is this something that I can expect to naturally improve over time? I've been keeping up with practice every day for at least an hour, but given that I started from scratch, it's probably going to be a long road.
And yeah, my observation skills are definitely very, very insufficient. I've been trying to focus more, but it's surprisingly hard. I figured that once I've finished your lessons, I'll look for some other material focusing on the observational side of things, though that'll be far in the future.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 5: Drawing Animals (new 50min intro video, 3 new demos)"
2017-01-21 05:08
This lesson was rather tough, but very rewarding to do regardless. The results are so-so, eagerly waiting for your critique. Thank you.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"
2017-01-03 04:02
Thank you!
I appreciate your advice with the 3D forms, throughout this lesson I've ended up with a lot of drawings that just ended up feeling completely flat. Hopefully I'll be able to overcome that with more patience and practice.
I definitely need to focus a lot more on textures, I can't yet wrap my head around how to accurately convey complex surfaces without getting overwhelmed.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 4: Drawing Insects and Arachnids (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"
2017-01-01 06:15
Hi again, and a Happy New Year! This took a lot of time, and I think I've used more than 100 pages for practice. I'm don't think that amount reflects on the quality of my work, but you are the judge. I've also included a fictional insectoid (A silithid from Warcraft), hope that's okay.
Pictures are in order of completion:
dataguard in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"
2016-12-21 04:45
Thanks for your response! Definitely my bad on the pots, shouldn't have taken those less seriously once I decided to include them. But anyway, in order to improve I did around 25 pages of the branches exercise, plus more plants for practice. however I'm not sure if there's that much of a difference. Sometimes I still forget not to stop after one ellipse after ghosting a few times before, no matter how much I tell myself not to. Feels a bit hopeless, but I don't want to give up.
Doing that thing where you lock your wrist, then elbow to focus on your shoulder definitely helped though, but I still feel very inaccurate and rather stiff.
Is this a step in the right direction at least?
dataguard in the post "250 Cylinder Challenge"
2016-12-18 07:16
Again, I'm not too happy with the quality of the outcome, but I'll leave the critique to you. Constructing the ellipse inside a plane is still incredibly difficult. I didn't attempt that too many times as I felt it held me back from focusing on correctly practising the proper stroke for the ellipse itself.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 3: Drawing Plants (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"
2016-12-17 09:58
Finally done. Your lesson also made me realize just how few plants I can name from the top of my head.
There's still obviously millions of improvements to be made, but most importantly I seem to have trouble with making objects appear as they're coming "towards" the viewer, it just never ends up being convicing in any way. Also textures are still mostly a mystery to me, but I'll try to tackle the texture challenge sometime. Working on my cylinders in the meantime.
Another problem area would be that shoulder drawing feels way too stiff and inaccurate, especially with smaller ellipses and short smooth lines. Larger strokes feel mostly okay though, with slowly increasing accuracy as well.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 2: Organic Forms, Contour Lines, Dissections and Form Intersections"
2016-12-12 04:00
I had the most problems with textures. It was rather hard to even pick the ones I ended up using, and drawing them was even more difficult. I suppose the texture challenge would be useful, but honestly I'm completely lost with how to draw this stuff well. Is there any material that could help me?
Now I'm definitely not happy with how the rest turned out either, but before I grind these exercises more, I'd like to ask for your help. I've also begun the 250 cylinders challenge, currently at the 30th one. To change that up, I draw about 40% of the cylinders in boxes like you did in the video, is that okay?
dataguard in the post "250 Box Challenge"
2016-12-05 00:26
So it's not that bad after all :) Thanks for the critique. I definitely kept getting a bit tired, though I attempted to do a similar amount of boxes every day, spaced out, might have been just the monotony getting to me.
I did put the points, first for the main "Y", and then the next three for the corners. However I missed, overshot, or just reconsidered them before the final line sometimes, that's why there are a few stray ones scattered around.
I'll be moving on to Lesson 2 then!
dataguard in the post "250 Box Challenge"
2016-12-04 12:55
Well, as everyone says, this definitely took more time than expected.
Overall I think I did pretty terrible. Ghosted lines are still wildly inconsistent, even with an average of 7-10 "in-air passes", and I still can't do the hatching on the sides good enough. Corrections not always were made, since I either wasn't sure how to make it look correct (sometimes the corrections ended up looking worse), or pretty much the whole box would have needed to be redone. Still pretty damn far from mastering boxes, but I suppose that is to be expected this early in.
Unfortunately I mostly ignored line weight and only focused on the lines themselves, but whenever I tried, it's pretty obvious that I have no pressure control yet.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"
2016-12-01 03:44
Thanks! I really do have a hard time drawing consistently confident lines, and at times they're just straight up sloppy. I've noticed that some of the time it's the result of bad hand posture, but getting the right pace also proves difficult sometimes.
I'll be starting the box challenge next then, paying extra attention to line quality.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 1: Lines, Ellipses and Boxes"
2016-11-30 06:56
I've completed the homework, and I'd like to ask for some guidance, before I move on to the 250 box challenge. I've tried my best, but it is quite obvious that this is the first time I actually sat down to draw something in years. I included 1-2 out of the many practice pages as well. Oh, and I just pledged on patreon, I'm not quite sure how to get that verified. Regardless, I sent you a message there.
Thank you.
dataguard in the post "Lesson 7: Drawing Vehicles (new 40min intro video, 3 new demos)"
2017-02-22 21:49
Thank you! It was really a fun and rewarding experience to go through your lessons, I've learned so much. I plan to make the switch to digital and focus on figure drawing from this point on, hopefully going through your revised lessons on that material later on, once you have the time to finish them.
I'm definitely going to keep up the daily practice, my ellipses really need it, but my lines are far from perfect too. Already burned through a lot of pens and this stack of papers, it's not a habit that I can easily drop now. Might even give that scary texture challenge a go once I'm more confident.