Project - Simple Animal Portraits

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

8.6K

Assignments 1.1K

Downloads 8

Project - Simple Animal Portraits

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

8.6K

Assignments 1.1K

Downloads 8

Deadline: Submit your assignments by 06/15/2023 for a chance to be featured in the next critique video!

Level 1:
Create animal portraits using basic shapes. Try to simplify the animal using 10 shapes or less. Keep your shapes organic and simple. Simple shapes could be stretched, bloated, indented, or curved to capture personality. Don't worry about perfect proportions. Instead, focus on creating cool, simple designs. No details or shading! Use the three reference photos I provided and find 5 to 10 more.

Level 2:
Take Level 1 assignment and push them further. Play with your basic shapes and size relationships to give the animals different personalities. Don't hesitate to experiment and look for additional references to understand your subject better. Now, go have fun!

@dollydigital

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Tried the hippo, buffalo, rooster. and then a few more (a monkey, camel, elephant, pig, cobra, donkey). I think I got the idea of shapes and cut outs by the time I got to the donkey, but the simplification is hard! By default resolving the 3d-ness especially when the heads are rotated is hard. Also I started in pen, and I'm happy I switched to pencil so I could be a little more free.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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I love your characters! They are so expressive. The hippos are my favorite. I really appreciate the simplicity of the snake. I think they shapes could be pushed a little more. These are all great! Keep it up!

@fraxls

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Here is my attempt. I did the level 1. I did 7 in total. I'd say that the best one is the buck. But i think i added too much. But all in all. I think it was a not that bad of a first attempt. For some reason i just simplified the chickens comb to a simple outline. I'm not sure why but I'll change it after I watch the demo. I'm normally bad at drawing cats so I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. And the wolf was a bold attempt. Also I couldn't include the original hippo image.

@lstr

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Happiest with the hippo. After the fact I feel like I should've paid more attention to line quality even though that wasn't the focus, if just to "show my work" a bit better, and also in the future I'd do more than one to maybe find better shapes ... but right now I think moving along will keep me motivated in the long run. I can always come back later to drill down on projects, especially if I manage to actually catch up, and maybe do the Level 2 assignments while I'm at it.

Antonio Santiago

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Here are all my simplifications, found it kinda hard to just simplify. My shapes ended up looking bad I feel like.

Christopher Lebreault

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13d

My first attempt with the provided reference. I am struggling with keeping things simple. I see Stan is using simple 2d forms and getting end results that solid and 3d but I’m not seeing a square, I’m seeing a cube. Trying to flatten that back to a square in my mind is quite difficult.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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11d

Nice work with the 3d forms! Youre doing great!

@deadsm

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14d

Wow. This exercise has opened my eyes. For years, I have always struggled with simplifying forms and have suffered in every piece because of it. I thought I just couldn't draw cute things, that I couldn't do simple, cute stuff at all. I don't know why it clicked now, but I am seeing that the shapes are why others' work looks so solid and complete without rendering. It might sound dumb, but I am so happy I can finally take baby steps in the right direction.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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13d

This guy is my favorite

Melanie Scearce

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13d

That's amazing! Not dumb at all. It is a great feeling when something clicks like that. Keep doing these studies to solidify that knowledge! They're looking good 👍

@thenotsogrim

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15d

Wanted to finish a second set of this level 1 task, I quite liked it, even if I didn't get to draw a lot of times lately.

Ben Whitfield

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15d

These are my level 1 attempts. Tried to not overcomplicate the shapes but that was easier said than done. Sometimes gravitated to contours without thinking. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

@sanosuke123

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15d

my first attempts for this exercise

@rakeshuniyal

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16d

these are my first tries for the level 1 project. Critique always welcome!

Rachel Dawn Owens

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16d

These are fun! Try pushing the designs more. Draw more iterations. Keep going!

Gilles Dubuis

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17d

Hey, Well, the assigned ones were pretty difficult (except the rooster); I tried those without looking at the demos... but now I can finally watch how to draw that cursed hippo.

Melanie Scearce

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16d

Amazing gesture in that elephant drawing! Top tier stuff, nice work.

Emmi McKee

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18d

I did the project awhile ago, forgot to post my attempt, and can no longer find what I used for reference. I loved doing this project tho as 90% of what I draw is animals :D

Shreyans

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19d

Did the project on various animals. Currently idk why but I'm struggling to simplify still life objects, as I observed that simplifying animals were not that difficult. Anyways, had fun with the project.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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18d

You may just have a more natural knack for drawing organic things. Your drawing have a lot of personality. Keep it up!

@hwjones91

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20d

Level one struggled early on attempting to make drawings more fleshed out as opposed to sticking with simple shapes and limiting the number. Unfortunately I lost most of the reference photos for my animals so it will be hard to compare. I need to change my current set up for drawing bc it’s making it harder for me to control line weight which is evident in a lot of these drawings

Bree Bree

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24d

This is my project (level 1 and 2). I only used the three references provided and one iteration of each. This was fun, so I plan to draw more with more references.

Gloria Wickman

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28d

It took awhile for me to work though things and overall I found the animals with fur a lot more difficult to simplify as I had a harder time of deciding how to break it down into more concrete shapes. I experiments some early on with doing both super geometric and organic shapes to get a feel for it. Now that I'm posting it I realized I should have played around with showing the animals from different angles but I guess I will handle that next time lol. Thanks for taking a look!

Rachel Dawn Owens

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27d

These are great! I think the gecko drawings are my favorite. They have a lot of personality.

Mika Vermeulen

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29d

these are my first tries for the level 2 project. i will draw more of these with different animals. Critique always welcome!!!

Rachel Dawn Owens

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29d

These rock! I like the variations of the hippo designs.

CharmLotta

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1mo

I tried level 2, now I see I should play more with the proportions, not only with shapes. I had problems with the side view - it was hard to forget about 3D thinking and identify simple shapes. I gave up with the fox this time, I have to come back to this exercise again sometime.

@fluffybuttss

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1mo

I got very sick and it messed up my whole streak, but I’m finally back! It was INCREDIBLY difficult to narrow down the shapes for me.

Melanie Scearce

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1mo

Welcome back! The shapes in your rooster are super cool.

Arthur Nesbitt

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1mo

Took a lot longer between this and the line section than I had planned, but it's good to post in these classes again! I attempted level 2 with a couple of them but it was tougher than j expected lol

Melanie Scearce

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1mo

Good clean lines in these drawings. I like the peacock. Nice work!

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Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.