I stuck to mainly level 1 - this was even harder than the CSI lines, imo. I went over the 10 shapes limit a couple of times. Ref list outside of the ones given in the assignment: Unsplash: - Wolf by Milo Weiler - Cobra by Asad Ys - Owl by Sonder Quest - Leopard by Gwen Weustink Cat and Young seagull photos by me

Here’s my 1st attempt at the Level 1 project. Generally I found the exercise to be really fun and interesting! I still do question whether I simplified enough as I often find it hard to pull myself out of the detail. Any feedback would be really appreciated :)

I went with Junji Ito. He's probably best known for his horror graphic novel Uzumaki. Since I have a thing for faces (also his more complex pages would have been too much), I picked two characters - Azaki from Uzumaki and Yoshiko from his adaptation of No Longer Human. Ito has an interesting way of increasing the chaos of his lines with increasing horror. If you zoom in into Azaki's jawline you can see how the little hatch-lines go across the jawline - it sort of breaks the edges. It was really hard to follow along how to do the wavy lines inside the spiral - that's where most of the chaos resides. Another thing is that when things go off rails, he changes how people's faces look by shading and lines. I compared Yoshiko's face in the beginning of her meeting Yozo - everything minimal, clean lines, no strong shadows. You can also notice that there are chopped lines used to reduce line weight. After Yoshiko has been driven mad - her hair gets frazzled and the chaotic shadows appear. Had issues trying to do this with pencil (6H and 4B) instead of ink. The white highlight strands on Yoshiko's hair really needed some white ink / paint marker instead.

I feel like this might be a bit of a dumb question but I'm confused about this contrast concept. Would this also be okay? (it's the opposite of what Proko did) Idk if that's how it works but I choose to emphasize the shadow of the body in the head. And the light of the background in the leg.

Hierarchy of Importance and Light and Shadow. Somehow the light and shadow version looks off to me. I'll do it again if the demo confirms this offness I'm feeling. XD Drawn on glassine paper pencils 2B and 2H (for the thin lines).

My before and after demo for the boots. K think I did better before but I did the after demo days later (along with the camel and skull) and just feel like today just wasnt my day. I cant keep myself from pressing too hard on the pencil and I feel like I dont have control of what Im doing. Im also having great difficulty looking at something and back to the paper to try and replicate it . Each time I get back to the paper it feels like I need to reorient myself. Maybe its just an off day but Im definitely feeling lost right now.

Second round doing this set of warmups. The Connect the Dots is fun for 1 -point perspective exercises as well :D

I decided to draw 'Martial Owl' based on several photos of burrowing owl. <(o.o)> (They are so cute!) First on the left is the result, before it the practice sketches more or less following the refs Photo ref credits left to right : Hisham Atallah, Kirk Swenson, Ron Dudley,-- There was also one image on St Louis Zoo website I looked at / followed that I do not know the photographer for nor did I load it here => https://stlzoo.org/animals/birds/owls/burrowing-owl More refs in AllAboutBirds org for views from different angles and trying to catch a glimpse of the talons ( the raised talon in the final image is not from a direct ref) https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Burrowing_Owl/photo-gallery/620657722

Used the whole arm, I'm really not used to drawing like that. It got messy, need to improve on pressure control and aim. The girl and the hand are from second round - Poor cyber girl looks like I she was drawn angry. (I was still having fun, though I swear XD )

Uggh. The more I am loathing uploading my sketches, the more important it is that I do it. (Nothing to fear, but fear itself). I did the penguin first, but he seemed very stoic and not at all gestural (I guess “stiffness” is a gesture). Then I did the hand, which I was “OK” about, but then (like “Maren” posted), I thought I’d do a small sketch of the girl, but my torso-left leg gesture-line was too long, and I started with her legs/boots but then her head started to overlap the hand sketch. 🙄 Next time I won’t try to economize my use of paper.