Hey, it's been a while and maybe you've figured this part out but for others following, I thought I'd say something about your issues. Overall, I'd say you did alright. The diffuse cast shadow can be understood from considering the light source and what impacts shadow shapes and qualities. Notice that the penumbra is quite large in both references. Going back to the earlier materials, that's because the light source is so close to the object. Remember, a lightbulb is somewhere between an area source and a point source and when it's as close as it is in your photos, the rays hitting it will have a very wide cone and so on the far side of the subject, the cast shadow is quite long but also the penumbra will be stretched and even more diffuse (the light is glancing off the bottles at really shallow angles and scatters the light). Another issue is that the tabletop is somewhat more reflective that is helpful. That desk has a coating that makes it more reflective. Try to use something more matte, like a sheet of printer paper or if you have it, a large sheet of plain newsprint. You want to minimize the variety of colours and textures that might skew your eye's recognition of values as you build facility with recognizing value simple contrasts.

Nice!

Great notes! Dorien's videos pack a ton of information, I tend to revisit them a bunch when doing the assignments.

Hi crimson! To get to drawing foreshortening poses requires some perspective, overlapping and cross contouring with the figure. Right now I wouldn’t focus on perspective and try to take things a step at a time before you get there! Try to practice the simple poses first. From your figures you provided here I can tell you are drawing with your wrist and not your shoulder and which causes your poses to look stiff. This could also be due to the material you might be using to draw. If you can I recommend getting a newsprint pad with conte! However if you choose not to and want to continue with a sketchbook look into other materials you can use to draw figure to have more gesture in your lines. asymmetry is everywhere around the body and not just a blobs. If we didn’t have asymmetry, our bodies wouldn’t be able to function right and move awkwardly! think of the body of straight vs curves, and simplify it based on that. (Straight is bone and curve is muscle) Like proko said in the first video don’t focus too much on the details and just simplify. From there it’s all practice and observational drawing.

This is amazing Marco! What materials did you use for this? Is this conte on newsprint paper?

Looks great! keep up the good work!