Project - Dynamic Shapes
Project - Dynamic Shapes
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Project - Dynamic Shapes
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Lynn Fang
My level 1 and 2 assignments. It's hard to tell a seal from a sea lion.= = Seals more cute?
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ASSIGNMENTS

Download the photo reference images of seals and sea lions.

Level 1 - Draw from Reference

Draw their gesture and design dynamic shapes using the concepts from this lesson and the previous lesson.

Remember that gesture is not the contour, so don't just copy the outlines. Look for the movement and energy throughout the shapes. Use your whole arm and use the looser sketch line that we learned about.

Level 2 - Draw from Memory or Imagination

Start with the level 1 project and after 5 to 10 poses, turn the page, put away all the reference photos and do more drawings from imagination or from memory.

You can try to invent your own poses and design those shapes to be dynamic. Or you can try to remember the poses you already drew and use those as inspiration. Try to push and design with a focus on drawing dynamic shapes. It doesn't matter how accurate you get to the original photo, it's more about designing the shapes to look dynamic and interesting.

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Deadline for submissions to be included in the video critique is next Thursday (8/24/23)

* Because of the large amount of reference images, it would help a lot of you include the reference you used for each drawing. I'm more likely to select your submission for the critique. Thank you!

Shreyans
1d
Here are my attempts on dynamic gestures from references. Any critique is welcomed.
Hayden Cremer
Here are my gestures and references! This project was challenging but a great exercise to look at images differently, looking forward to improving as i feel I'm still looking too much at outlines and not shapes.
Zach McCoy
Gesture is something that I've definitely needed to improve on for a while, so this was a fun challenge, and I'm excited to continue to improve. Reference pic #40 (top left) made me literally lol! Comments and suggestions definitely welcome!
Nat Rajoo
10d
This was fun! Really helpful for thinking consciously about shape design. Images 1-3: Drawn from reference Image 4: Reference images Images 5-6: Drawn from imagination
Melanie Scearce
I really like your expressive line quality! Nice work 👍
K. Williams
I did a few but I'm also going to save some for after the demos!
Ash
10d
These are all really fun! aw the chihuahua face
Nathan CIPIERE
This one was suuuuper hard to me. I spent a lot of time on it until I get kinda ok with results. I'm going to do more before moving forward.
Adrian Damengen
Been a while! I find myself falling in and out of drawing, I feel great when I draw but get into long periods where I don’t draw! I feel I’ve rushed this assignment, I will do more, anyway here it is:) any critique is very much welcome. -Adrian
Marco Sordi
2026/5/17. Good morning everybody. Here's my second round after watching Stan critique video. Thanks for any comment or critique.
Kevin B
22d
Going to watch Stan's demo now to see what I can improve on, and will do more after that.
Benjamin Gustafsson
One more. This time from no reference
@justjen
28d
so cute! great job with the foreshortening and gestural flow.
Melanie Scearce
Great invention!
Tommy Pinedo
Very nice!
Benjamin Gustafsson
Level 1 and 2 submission. Probably one of the best exercises so far.
Marco Sordi
2026/5/6. Good morning everybody. Here's my assigment for Lv.1 an 2. Thanks for any comment or critique.
Joy Rouse
1mo
These look so good! I love how need everything is
@na_talie
1mo
They look really good. Great job!
Ilan Jones
1mo
I like seals. There's a lot of them where I live. It was a challenge to draw their blubbery tubular bodies dynamically. Hopefully it worked.
Tim Norris
1mo
Day one. Anything I should attend to as I proceed?
Vincent GIL
Hi everybody, Enjoy this assignments. I struggle with the n°1 and non dynamics poses. I have to make them feel dynamics. But i keep trying and do and re do. I will keep doing this assignment (38 pictures left). I posted it in order of date. I don’t really see the evolution for now. Thank you for yours critiques and advices. Have fun :)
Vincent GIL
Only time to do one today. Happy with this attempt than this previous one.
Dr.Muhammad Zeeshan Hanif
Petar Ristic
Fun assignment - kept it fluid and focused on the nuance of each shape in relation to each other.
@ralk
1mo
Trying to feel the shapes, and later on simplifying and grouping as I get more familiar with the seal-ness of them. With the level 2 task, I tried to see if I can make symmetric, static seals look dynamic.
francesco zanardini
It was a really enjoyable exercise, though it did take quite a long time. I’m pleased with how some of them turned out, whilst others, unfortunately, didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped. I tried to limit myself to a maximum of 10 minutes per reference and to use an overhand grip. I apologise if, in some of the photos, the scan has unfortunately highlighted the difference in the lines, making them a little hard to see. I’m open to any kind of feedback and thank you in advance! PS: I've attached the other images in the comment
francesco zanardini
Alicja Słowacka
This was an interesting one. I am definatelly going to continue this exercise with different animals.
Jonathan Fisk
Possibly my favorite assignment so far! I chose oceanic whitetip sharks since I’m studying them for work right now, so I thought that’d be a fun double dip. For the first drawing, I really loved the downward curvature of the shark’s body, so I tried to accentuate that feeling by bringing in the dorsal fin and having it curve more, exaggerating the folds near the pectoral fin, and changing the shape of the tail fin some to continue the flow of the curvature more. I see now that I could’ve been even more aggressive with the curving down of the head! For the second one, I wanted to really emphasize this feeling of the shark being above the viewer, with the sharks body curving ‘up’ / to their left some, and I wanted to make them chunkier since my previous one was more slender. I changed the perspective on the shark’s left pectoral fin and had it overlap with their dorsal fin to try to sell the feeling of being below. I made the tail less thick so that the body feels even chunkier by proportion; that makes them look a little odd as a result, but I’m glad I played around with it!
@na_talie
2mo
They look good! As far as I can tell, it is always a good idea to draw the gesture a little more extreme. At least in my drawings, what lands on the paper is often a little less gestural than what I intended to draw.
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