Melanie Scearce
Melanie Scearce
Community Critiquer
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Sajil Sewpersad
I tried my best
Melanie Scearce
I really like this portrait! Your horizontal proportions are pretty spot on. It gets a bit long vertically so definitely check the unit that you used to find these proportions.
Randy P
Here’s level 1 for dynamic shapes from reference. I tried to pick poses that naturally had some dynamism in them and working on trying to make longer strokes. Made some subtle changes in a few to sharpen an angle and have opposing straight and curved lines. Still fighting a bad habit of getting too dark too soon.
Melanie Scearce
It can be hard to break the habit, but definitely worth it. Find those long lines from the top of the head to the tail and draw through. Make them simple, recalling the CSI lessons, and try to draw from your elbow instead of your wrist. It will be more difficult to put lots of pressure on your lines drawing like this.
Melanie Scearce
Great improvement! Your value shapes represent the plane changes on the pear more accurately in your second drawing. It feels much more three dimensional. You also increased the value range by darkened the darkest dark and lightening the lightest light, which increases the contrast and emphasizes that depth of form. Nice work!
@theealtarboy
Hello! I'm new to this Drawing Basics course and I just finished my first assignment! Would love critique and advice. I did two attempts. Which one is closer? Any improvements?
Melanie Scearce
Hey there! Welcome :) Your shapes look great, I think you really nailed it. In terms of values, I think the shadow areas could be darkened a bit. That will expand your value range and give you more room to experiment and add more value shapes to define that large area of light halftone.
YS Ryan
Asked for help
I followed Stan drawing in each stage as a guide at some stages I copied what he did and other times I tried making my own attempts throughout. It ended up a bit weird with a mix of smudginess to set tone and using lines for shading highlighting the plane changes. If anyone has any feedback on how to improve and what to pay attention to while practising on other portraits it would be appreciated. Thanks 😊.
Melanie Scearce
I really love the expression in the eyes in your drawing, and the lost details in the shadow areas. All good choices. The nose feels a bit long for his face. A good rule of thumb to follow is the 1/3rds -- the hairline to the brow ridge, brow ridge to the bottom of the nose, and bottom of the nose to the chin are all about equal measurements. Mixing it up by following along with Stan and also going off on your own to experiment is a great idea. Keep it up!
J B
Asked for help
My snail guy. Gonna work on more confident strokes!
Melanie Scearce
Confidence will come with practice but you can definitely be mindful about the pressure you're putting on your pencil. Try to keep your strokes light until you are happy with the placement of your line, then darken. You did a great job with this assignment, nice work!
Laurent Van Acker
Challenged myself to do all 24 before watching demo and critiques (as that's a few hours of content). Most went fast, and noticeably got faster the more I progressed. What do you think could improve? I doubt I don't have blind spots :). I consulted the eBook a few times as well, but I'm really eager to watch the demos and continue with new drawings!
Melanie Scearce
Very solid drawings! I love the gesture of #3 and #20. Keep pushing the degree of exaggeration of gesture in these poses. Some of the less dynamic poses are a bit stiff. Look for patterns that you can push with some invention and lean into the power of asymmetric curves. Sometimes you might push it too far, but that's okay. You have to break it sometimes so you know where the limit is.
Gannon Beck
431st Day of Proko and counting. Untimed tonight.
Melanie Scearce
That red is so nice!
Evan Wray
Took me a while to get back onto this project. Ginger and my dogs head, and then some non-organic cross contouring to feel out the differences. Realizing halfway through a lot of these recently that I'm losing track of line quality/weight/perspective and trying to refocus on those things and incorporate them.
Melanie Scearce
It is a lot to think about all at once, but these are looking really good! Are these wavy lines I marked in red an indication of the contour of the ginger root or the wrinkles of the growth pattern?
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