Foghorn109 in the post "Lesson 4: Applying Construction to Insects and Arachnids (Patreon Critique Thread)"
2019-08-03 13:24
Here is my lesson 4. Thank you in advance
This is getting fun, building things little by little is so much better than pure observational drawing. Drawing without understanding what I'm doing (like the picasso exercise when you draw upside down) is awfully boring and I was afraid that's what drawing was about, but this lesson has been a big relief. It does gets better and better!
Foghorn109 in the post "Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants (Patreon Critique Thread)"
2019-07-18 22:22
Thank you very much for all this! I also really needed this refresh about the distinction between cast shadow and pattern details.
The ellipses still give me trouble, the flower pot was difficult to tackle. When I do some ellipse exercises, of course I try to ghost and use the shoulder as much as I can, but I still feel like the muscle memory hasn't kicked in yet. I tend to overthink things, so I think about whether my eyes should stay in the minor axis and trust the brain to superpose correctly (more confident line but often comes out as two separate ellipses) , or if I should slow down a little and follow the pen as I trace the ellipse (better defined ellipse but more wobbly)
The next lesson seems to have plenty of ellipses so I'm hopeful
Foghorn109 in the post "Lesson 3: Applying Construction to Plants (Patreon Critique Thread)"
2019-07-18 20:55
Here is my lesson 3: https://imgur.com/a/WfkL4Dq
I am scared of details, it makes my brain freeze
Foghorn109 in the post "Lesson 2: Contour Lines, Texture and Construction (Patreon Critique Thread)"
2019-07-04 12:55
Here is my lesson 2, I had a big mental block with the textures. Thank you in advance!
Foghorn109 in the post "Lesson 4: Applying Construction to Insects and Arachnids (Patreon Critique Thread)"
2019-08-03 18:29
Thanks a lot, I do have an important question before moving on.
You say to never cut through the original shapes, only build on top of them. Sometimes it feels like there is either no choice, or you have to make a more complex shape. For example in the wasp demo for the abdomen, it looks like you can't encapsulate it simply in an ellipse without cutting it later. In the demo you drew the left line and right line separately. Was the alternative to draw an ellipse that fits "as much as possible", and complete it later with the "triangle" end? How do I know when to "trace" lines to make a shape, and when to find the common denominator and build from it?
I really had this problem with the thorax of my failed beetle, I just couldn't figure out a way to encapsulate it into either an small ellipse that would be too small to connect with the abdomen, or too big that would need replacing a big part of the line. Here was my [reference]
(http://www.duanrevig.com/Insectes/Coleopteres%20Coleoptera/Scarabidae%20Oryctes%20nasicornis%20Rhinoceros_JPG_orig.html)