Did another practice drawing this evening. Used .5mm HB mechanical pencil instead of the 5mm 2B lead holder from the other 2 studies above. Much better control for the size I was working at.

Looks very good! You really captured the structure in these studies. The rendering is also nicely done, with good improvement from the first page to the last. There is a bit of a tendency to go darker in skin tone value, mostly for the light skin tones, which reduces the contrast between skin and lips. I think just lightening the skin tone, with the values for the lips staying the same, would bring back some of the contrast missing. Another rendering tip would be to look for more of a variety of edges, especially more softness as the lips transition into the face around the corners. Hope this helps!

Hi @ern1s, nice drawings! Charcoal can be a bit harder to control than graphite, but I think you did a good job👍 - I don't know if there is a secret or hack specifically related to wrinkles. I think the important thing is that they are drawn with the same care as the major forms of the lips; that you treat them as forms and shade accordingly, or if your process is more about copying shapes, edges and values accurately, that the shapes and values and edges of the wrinkles match the reference. When drawing details it's important to make sure that they don't disrupt the whole (unless that's the effect you're going for). So you might want to keep the contrast low, not drawing the wrinkles with dark or bright accents, but rather, keep it with in the value of that zone. You tend to go too dark with the wrinkles. Remember that the marks you put down communicate something. Really dark lines could suggest: - a deep crease where no light enters - a cast shadow And if the above doesn't make sense in the context, then it will look like the local value changes, that there are black stripes painted on the lips. - Before adding all the nuances of the shading, it could help to start with dividing the image into two value groups. Then once that's established you may start adding nuances within those groups. I hope this helps :)

These are great! Very expressive, a lot have that mid sentence feel. Fun shape designs too!

Try pushing your values--I see a couple of areas in the references where there's an almost near black (usually at the separation line between the two lips or underneath the bottom lip). If it helps, map out the light vs shadow areas, and/or you could also convert the references to greyscale for self-assessment. I've also found this lesson on shading to be very useful as well: https://www.proko.com/s/3CWA

Hi @mogumogu, nice drawing! - I think you're right about the issue being related to values. I think the main problem is that there isn't a clear difference between light and shadow. Some of your halftones are as dark as your shadows. confusing the eye of what's in light and what's in shadow. This is why step two in the demo is so important. You create 2 clear groups, in this case to keep light and shadow separated. Also you might appreciate this video Mind-Blowing Realistic Shading Tricks I hope this helps :)

Nice study! The drawing feels pretty solid and you seem to have good control of your lines. - In terms of shape design, try to get more variation, thinking big, medium and small for a more dynamic design. Try to not repeat the same lenght of a line for example, especially with lines close to eachother. - I looked through your albums to get a feeling for where you are as an artist. I noticed that your drawings are shape dominant; your strength lies in creating an image by construcing things with graphic shapes that you copy from the reference in front of your, or come up with in your imagination. Focusing on graphic shapes has many advantages, but you might want to combine that way of drawing with a more form and gesture based drawing approach. Instead of focusing on contour and shape, you work inside out; starting with gesture, that you then dress in forms. That way of drawing is a big help when drawing from imagination, and when you try to rotate things in space. Glenn Vilppu is a great example of someone who can draw like that Drawing Demo by Glenn Vilppu. I hope this helps :)

Nice! I looked through your other posts of the features as well and they all look really good! One common issue I see though, is the values. The forms feel carefully rendered, but there's something unclear about them all. I think it is because of the value organization. I think it's mainly that you're getting values in the light and values in the dark mixed up. You could make the lights much lighter ( a rule of thumb: Your lightest dark should be darker than your darkest light.) I think I would recommend practicing value studies. Here's a post with some tips on that https://www.proko.com/s/PX9q Hope this helps :)