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Steven Wolf
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27d
added comment inProject - Value Scales
Asked for help
This was very challenging. I wanted to start with one that was just a value scale that I could pull off with only using my HB graphite pencil, which is what this is. I planed on doing one next with just my 4b pencil but I ran out of time. I’m still going to do it though. Then I was going to do one with 10 values.
I wanted to smudge these so badly! The light erasing, that you should us with the kneaded eraser, is a helpful technique to even out the darker spots, but if I tried to be too perfect with it, which I did, it would end up giving me spots that were too light, and then I would need to fill in again, and repeat. I felt very much like a dog chasing his own tail. So I realized that I would have to be more forgiving with what I considered was good enough.
The other time consuming thing is, when you realized, after spending so much time trying to make things look smooth, that you need to change the value to darker or lighter and do the whole thing over. It is hard to not take note of the time you are putting into this and not feel rushed. This was made worse by taking a picture. In the photo it ends up looking different than in life. One thing I noticed about the photo is that it seemed to exaggerate the darker and lighter spots on an individual value square. I ended up using that as a tool to find areas that I needed to fill in more or lighten more.
Some places just didn’t seem to want to fill in evenly. That might be oils from my fingers, like was mentioned on the video.
As far as the values go, I think there is a noticeable jump between them, but I think that there was a bigger jump in value at the end. It’s just something I will have to work more on to get that balance just right. It would be easier when I attempt this with different pencil hardnesses. Also, I am sure it would be easier on better paper. I was just using copy paper.
Steven Wolf
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2mo
Asked for help
I’m not sure what my favorite perspective artist are. I’ve always been more interested in drawing people and animals than in backgrounds. But I have also always wanted to be able to imagine and create interesting backgrounds to put characters in. I found a few perspective pictures that I like. I’m having trouble finding ones that might have been better examples of cool backgrounds that take perspective mastery to draw. I’m not even really sure what I’m looking for. I guess just things that really jump out at me.
One thing that I’ve always struggled with is how to have a scene where you have multiple objects that have, not just different vanishing points, but also different horizon lines that they vanish to. For example you have a person standing on the ground, but they are holding a staff that’s coming at an angle towards the camera and above it. It will have a different horizon line than the rest of the room, that is in a one or two point perspective. It’s very hard to find stuff on how to handle that correctly so that everything feels the correct size in relation to the rest of the perspective objects in the room and the room itself.
Steven Wolf
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3mo
Hi Patrick. @Patrick Jones I am hoping you can make it a bit more clear how your new course, “Fantasy Figure Drawing Wizardry,” differs from your other course, “How to Draw Fantasy Females.” One question I have, is which one would you recommend going through first? Is one more advanced than the other? What are you hoping people will come away with from the new class, that maybe they wouldn’t get in the previous class? If you already have, “How to Draw Fantasy Females,” why should you want this one as well?
Right now, just reading about the classes on their overview page, doesn’t really give me a clear idea of why someone would want to get both, or if they only wanted to get one, which one should that be to best suit them. I mean the new class looks awesome, and I love your work, but if I am confused about it I am sure others are too.
I feel like you said the new one would be better for beginners, than the previous one, on a stream, but I see nothing that indicates that in the descriptions on their overview pages. I would love more clarification here. Thanks for your time.
@mcminnjesse
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3mo
Asked for help
Here's 2 attempts for Level 2, Game 2!
The running man went pretty well, but I struggled hardcore with the stretching woman, especially the lower half of her torso.
Other than getting the proportions / perspective right, I sometimes worry that my drawings lack appeal. I realize this will come with practice, but I think sometimes I get too caught up with the technical side of things and forget to make shapes that look good in addition to being correct.
This is exciting, though. My first time working seriously with mannequins. Great exercise!
I think you have done some good work here. You have made some mistakes like in 4 the back foot looks like it is broken in how much it is bend to the side, and in the photo it’s pretty straight. You have managed to accomplish a certain degree of appeal to your drawings here, though. I like that you are using different line weight. You could strengthen the effect, of how you have the line weight that is closer too us a bit thicker, by being more consistent with that choice. For instance in the front arm of 4 the upper arm is a bit thicker than the shoulder, but then the forearm is back to being thinner, then the hand is the most thick. So it doesn’t make sense that the forearm would have such thin lines when that is the second closest thing to us after that hand.
It’s not that you have to make the lines thicker as they get closer to us, but it seems to be what you are going for, which makes it feel odd when it’s not consistently implemented.
I find that your drawings have more appeal when I am looking at them on the “thumbnail” rather than the full picture. I feel this is mainly because when I see it more up close, I can more easily see the waviness of the lines. It is a mild thing, the waviness, but it lacks the confidence and energy of quicker lines. Improving your line quality would help your appeal a lot. That comes not so much with time itself, but with practice at that particular task. I feel like you drew over your lines to darken them, and in that tracing the lines got more wobbly. Now there are different ways to handle that, but one rule of thumb, that I think is very useful, is to not think of it as tracing, but instead as redrawing over the line.
Another thing that would add to the appeal is if you had more curves and shapes that warped to a purpose. You have this going on with the torso and it is adding a lot of appeal to that drawing. If you added the same kind of thing to the cylinder shapes of the limbs, even if just subtly, I think it could add to the appeal.
Now that may be, arguably, out of scope for this lesson, but you were wondering about the appeal so that is why I went into that.
Steven Wolf
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4mo
I’ve made two collages of some of my drawing, one from last year and one from this year, that I think is worth looking at. None of this is really finished work, and there are gesture drawings where I’m not too concerned with the proportions, where instead I am just working on flow and line control. I typically don’t bother correcting the proportion issues, even though I do see them. Right now, I have more the attitude of, fix it in the next one. Anyway, I thought I would share them here.
Steven Wolf
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4mo
Asked for help
I’m planning on doing more of these, but this is what I have gotten down so far. I had some problems figuring out the male pose with the twist at first. It was looking too flat a points and just wrong. I still don’t think I got it perfect but I think I got it pretty close now, and I feel like it holds it’s volume. For the other one I just thought it would be fun to do a gesture sketch first and then draw the torso box on top, so I did, and it was.
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4mo
If you're having fun you're doing it right! I do have a question about the male pose -- did you intend on drawing the pose from a different perspective than the reference image? It looks like we are looking at him from the front in your drawing.
@shimada_clan
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6mo
Asked for help
i noticed that my pressure is very light.. i don't know if that's a bad or good thing for this stage x)
Nice lines. Is that digital or pencil and paper? I think drawing lightly is important, so it is good that you can do that, but being able to also draw darker is important too. Often when I press down harder than I am used to on my iPad I have less control with my lines, because I am not as used to doing that. So that is something to consider. If you don't practice it you will not be as good at it. Keep in mind that if your lines are so light that people have a hard time seeing them, they are not going to care as much how good you lines are.
Steven Wolf
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7mo
Asked for help
Level 2
I’ve optimistically named this drawing “page 1,” in the hopes that I will be able to do more. If not I’m happy that I could at least do one for Level 2.
Steven Wolf
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7mo
Asked for help
Level 1
This was pretty challenging. I feel like I improved a lot each subsequent page. I got the convergence wrong on the first page and had to correct that, on some of my cubes, using red lines for the corrections. After the second page I felt that I was making my convergences too extreme, introducing too much distortion into the perspective of my cubes. I kept this in mind for page 3, where I tried to do more subtle perspective, trying to imagine that the vanishing points were farther away from each other. I think that came out better, except maybe for box 9 where I made one line too steep a convergence. It looks more like a waste basket than a box.
One other thing that I struggled with is in keeping something cube shape, where all sides would be the same size, when I rotated it. Figuring out just how to show that all sides should be about the same size never held up to more extreme foreshortening. I feel like this was explained in an earlier video, so I will have to look for that later.
Lisanne
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7mo
Asked for help
This was my first go. Drawing intuitively feels nice but also makes me question myself. Why am I doing it this way? Wait, what about the rules? I went in to make big changes a couple of times. I don’t feel like I got it yet, so I I’m going to make a page of each every day this week. To be continued!
Nice lines. Okay here is what I’m seeing that I think is throwing you off a bit. I think that you might be trying to stay too true to the blob shape with your cubes. I think I struggled with that too a bit last night when I was working on this. Just remember, if it’s between staying more true to the blob or following the perspective rules for the cubes, pick the cube each time. I know something I was trying to workout was should I try to keep the blob in the cube by making the cube a bit too big, or stay within the blob and have the cube look maybe too small for it. I think somewhere in between is good. It doesn’t have to match up perfectly, and I don’t think it should or even can, and still be the right perspective each time.
Alright, lets look on cube 8, it was a nice idea to number them, it makes giving feedback much easier. The bottom sides could work as is, but it’s kind of a wide angle perspective, and I feel like we shouldn’t be practicing anything but the most normal lens perspective right now to keep things consistent in our brains. So I would have made that front planes top line angle less obtuse, less wide from that of the one on the side plane. The side plane’s lines looks good.
But lets just say if you wanted to keep that wide angle to the perspective of the cube. In that case you would need to fix the line of the back most plane, as that does not converge in the correct direction. Remember, those front and side planes are the ones that are closest to the viewer, so they will appear as the biggest in perspective. Meaning the converging lines will converge away from us, not, as you have them, towards us. So that back line of the top plane should be converging with the front line of the top plane as it goes away from us, instead of towards us.
As far as the other cubes go there is a lot of the same issue going on. I would work on making the angles less wide, and on picturing what is closest to us on the cube and what goes away, and make sure the lines are converging in the direction that goes away from us. Maybe look at a cube in real life, you could even use a Kleenex box for that. Cube 14 looks good to me. Nice job on that one.
