I did them all on the same page because I'm a rebellious student.

First I wanted to make a bird with the head of a pig (saw it in that Frankenstein movie with Emma Stone), so I started sketching a blue tit from observation. I realized the proportions of that bird are way too specific and that it was gonna be too difficult. The fourth sketch is from imagination, lol. After crying for hours and already putting my drawing tablet on eBay, my best art buddy Patrycja came to the rescue and gave my art career a second chance by recommending me to draw something easier: an octopus. Patrycja, if you read this, know that I will be eternally grateful and I will try to repay you for the rest of my life (even though I know I can't, since I owe EVERYTHING to you). Anyways, so I decided to try drawing from imagination only now. The first octopus is my own creation, for the second one I looked at a reference photo real quick to check what an octopus actually looks like. ;-) The tortoises are all from imagination/memory without even checking any reference photos. After I was done, I decided to look them up on Google and I realize they have no bones, okay? But it doesn't matter since it's a space-travelling tortoise, which explains how evolution turned them boneless. You don't need bones when floating through a vacuum, you know? Conclusion: I didn't enjoy this assignment. I do not see how you can imagine creatures before developing a solid intuition for threedimensional shapes in perspective (which are the next two sections of the course). On the other hand, when I really tried, I managed to achieve passable results (by just imagining it really hard I guess :D). We'll see how I will feel about this exercise at this early point after finishing the whole course.

My first attempt before watching demo. It might be hard to see the lines of the robot girl, partly because of the paper and doing it lightly but also I am sure I did smudge some graphite as well :) Drawing with coloured pencils makes it a bit more visible.

I redid the exercise from memory. For the penguin I haven't seen the reference for half a day (and it shows, lol), while for the others I looked at it right before starting. I realized I'm executing the "loose sketching" idea completely wrong. I basically try to draw my lines as hectically as possible without thinking about it at all. Otherwise I can't achieve that sketch look anymore since my line quality is too clean now, lol. It still doesn't look like a sketch though, just like I was really lazy and impatient.

I decided to improve the human hand to make it more symmetrical. It works much better for that pose. It definitely didn't happen by accident. For the girl, I tried to exaggerate the pose a bit, and I think it worked. Still pretty close to the original though. Tbh I didn't get this exercise. A line drawing seems to be the least suited reference picture for me to inspire "exploring lines", lol. And if I look at people's assignments, everyone else seemed to have the same problem. Nobody really deviated from the references. And most people's submissions seem very carefully crafted, too. In the video, it says "sketching is problem solving in real time". But if you show me the clean line drawing, the problem is already perfectly solved. I can only improvise on it to make some changes, or I just copy it. Right?!

I decided to simplify the skull.

I realize I didn't simplify enough. ;-) My focus was on splitting up everything into C, S, and I curves that I always tried to execute in one smooth motion. This was great practice for me since I tend to chicken scratch or "smear" a lot. My linework needs some work, lol. Also played around with varying and adding extra lineweight, not really sure how to do that yet.

I redid the portrait after watching the demo. It felt really "schematic" and simplified before adding the darks, so hopefully this can be considered a good solution of the exercise. It's cool how those few details make it feel so alive, but it kinda feels too realistic now. Also, the nose is too big as always. :-D Other than that I'm quite happy with it. I'm using CSP and I still have trouble with the pencil tool, lol. Its feel just doesn't make sense to me. I'm curious about any feedback! Thank you.

I used fineliners for the second drawing to focus more on the simplified shapes rather than the shading. Messed up the proportions, but didn't bother to fix it, since I didn't see it as the focus of the exercise. Not sure if I simplified it enough, and then got a little carried away with some highlights at the end. :-D