Project - Simple Animal Portraits

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

9.0K

Assignments 1.2K

Downloads 8

Project - Simple Animal Portraits

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

9.0K

Assignments 1.2K

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!

@osrour

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16h

Redo

Sam

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This one was a fun assignment! The rooster just felt evil, and ended up looking like a turkey ’:D

Metatron

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Honestly I feel like I might have rushed these. I'll try more of them properly after the demo.

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I headed off after this video and found my set of animals to try out. Chicken - I could easily identify the shapes and manipulate them to create different characters that felt different. Hippo - I enjoyed the shapes around this, squaring off around the jaw or snout, or rounding off the eyes. But I struggled to get to sharper more serious or thin form. Buffalo - I had good fun with this and could produce various shaped. I specially enjoyed creating the longer shape from the buffalo. Raccoon and Moose. This is where I started to struggle a lot, The raccoon feeling stuck in this diamond shape and triangles. I felt I couldn't add well enough to it without loosing the look of the animal. Wolver - Here I could create somewhat of a squared off stronger look and then the more angular and rounded faces. Even though still quite tough to approach. The BEAR - By far my favourite animal and left to last. I loved recreating and forming these images, felt like a real gran-pappy bear and I wanted loose looking skin and big bushy eyebrows. All in all, I constantly tried to focus on creation various shapes in each different image. Still some ways to go, fingers crossed it will sink in more once I watch the demo and self evaluate my drawings here.

Melanie Scearce

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You've done some really great explorations here @Rynhardt van Vuuren. I especially like the bear! I think in terms of this exercise, you should try to use more closed shapes like you did with the buffalo and the chicken, but I enjoy your creativity in that set of images. Keep up the enthusiasm!!

Laurent Van Acker

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Spent some time on this project, pushed myself to spend some time on level 2 as well and not just rush to the next project (even though I've been on these videos for months). New year! I feel these exercises help a lot with loosening up the drawing as a process, working more on experimenting and designing. I notice this mindset is rewiring some of the mannerisms I have from when I was younger.

Angel Kritikos

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My assignment contains both levels. I also experimented with more animals and some Pokémon

Laurent Van Acker

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I love the pokemon 😍! Very nostalgic, and I think you have great shapes in the chameleons!

@squash

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Before watching the demo. Pretty happy with how these first 3 turned out

Pat Calaski

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Tried an eagle head, a turtle and a giraffe using shapes. I never did get the giraffe correct. Any suggestions?

Martha Muniz

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Good shape choices! For the giraffe, you can try approaching it with a different variety of shapes, like a triangle or even a box for the main head mass -- exploration is key and lots of fun too. Also, keep an eye on continuing line looseness and sketchiness. Warm-ups are a great way to bring that energy consistently into your linework. I highly recommend Warmups to Improve Line Quality. Hope this helps! :)

Laura Angel

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Pre Demo

Pat Calaski

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Attempted prior to watching the demo, then I watched the demos and tried again.

Cubee

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Not super convinced by the result… is it my line quality? My shapes? Any advice/comment is very welcome 😉

Rachel Dawn Owens

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I think you did great! There’s a nice variety of different shapes and proportions here. You did a nice job simplifying the shapes. The critique I would give is one about anatomy. The trunk of the elephant is a super important feature, so it may be worth it to learn a bit about the bones and muscle that go into it. Just some basic stuff I think would make your drawings look more elephanty… Elephant skulls look so crazy. Their nasal passages are actually above their eyes. The actual trunk has no bones. The trunk is full of strong muscles and acts as an extra limb for grasping things. It’s not just a typical nose. I hope this helps. I know it’s more advanced but I think you can handle it. Your drawings are looking awesome.

Pat Calaski

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The upper left is the best. The shapes are good, proportions decent.

@shaaneeq

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This was way harder than it seems.

Martha Muniz

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You got some awesome shapes! They all are really fun!

Gabriele Minelli

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10d

Level 2

J M

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10d

Before watching the level 2 demo, I wanted to try it out. It turned out better than expected. I am still lacking in terms of design - I don't think any of these drawings have a specific design that really stands out. I tried out the "psychology" of shapes by drawing the wasp with a lot of straights and triangles while the bumblebee was all about round shapes. I really encourage anyone who is at level 1 to try out level 2. It was a lot of fun, I will probably do a couple more of these later.