Project - Simple Animal Portraits

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

10K

Course In Progress

Assignments 1.3K

Downloads 8

Project - Simple Animal Portraits

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

10K

Course In Progress

Assignments 1.3K

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!

Richard W

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@juliusobermair

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Melanie Scearce

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Great explorations! These have so much character.

Blex

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ok keept it very simple, don't want to do too much, but if it is to simple i could easily make it more detailed.

Caden Young

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I really liked this one, but I'm still not quite sure if I simplified enough on some of them

Carlos Pérez

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12d

These are my animals portraits. it was fun to get to know more animals that I would usually draw

Wesley

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11d

I don’t think they are simple enough. This lesson in on simple shapes.

@blackhand

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13d

This was fun! Struggling a bit with things that aren’t birds, which probably means I should draw “not birds” more. Four legged critters in particular. I probably feel about them the way people feel about drawing hands, or feet.😆

Neo Diamond

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14d

Had heaps of fun with this one! I'm level 1 but decided to do level 2 anyway. I feel like I definitely improved as I went along, especially in the last few.

Christian Peitler

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15d

The hardest for me is the proportions, even the dont look good is fun :)

Rainbow Racoon

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15d

Had a lot of fun with the rooster from the download section of this project. I took a more stylized attempt and really like how the old, worried rooster on the last page turned out.

@621

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15d

Rafael Rangel

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19d

not the greatest, but is fun!

Rachel Dawn Owens

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18d

i love all the different personalities!

@turncoda

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20d

Struggled to produce interesting shapes that worked well together and conveyed useful visual information at first but after a number of attempts (not shown) I found myself drawing less obvious shapes to represent things other than contour; most notably facial features like eye sockets, nose bridges and cheek bones. I also started to draw complete shapes to represent things that weren't strictly visible, like with cross-contour lines and gestural lines. It was fun to experiment with corners and curves and observe how it added or took away structure. I enjoyed trying a few different ways of simplifying a shape. All in all, really enjoyed this exercise and I feel like I improved a lot!

Rachel Dawn Owens

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19d

Sounds like you got a lot out of this assignment.I love how you drew the simple forms. Maybe try pushing the forms and proportions if you wanted to continue with these. I took a flatter approach to keep the idea simple. I like your 3d forms more though. It would be interesting to see how you could push the forms even more. Hope this demo is helpful.

@dukal

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21d

Try this assignment today :)

@piba

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15d

I love how ROUND the kitty is

Auren Loper

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21d

Not sure if I simplified enough or if I'm doing this entirely correctly, but I took a bit more care with the hippo and chicken, but with the buffalo I tried to go faster and see if I could see simple shapes quickly. I chose to go faster on the buffalo because first impressions made me think it was the most complex.

Gwen Post

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21d

Here are my attempts, any tips or critics are very welcome!

Martha Muniz

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19d

Lovely work! I think for future attempts you can still go a little simpler with the shapes you select, like using an example here, the cat could have a simple ellipse for the major head shape and the dog more triangle ears. This is mostly to help with breaking it down to a basic essence where you can later then use those basic shapes to stylize and experiment and have some room to play with -- like squashing and stretching the ellipse or replacing it with a totally different shape like a square instead. Your stuff is already looking pretty good, just keep exploring! :)

@harrow

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23d

This was fun and I think it finally clicked for me with the last few drawings. I'm not sure I really captured the idea of the lesson with the koala drawings but I think they turned out very nice nonetheless. I forgot to save the references for the snake and the last bird. It was supposed to be a hawk but it ended up looking more like a seagull to me

Joe Burris

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24d

Its suprising how hard it is to simplify something so much and still try and retain chunks of the original. I'll definitely be taking another crack at it after I watch the videos. On the plus side I think Im seeing improvement on my line quality in places I used to struggle.

Rachel Dawn Owens

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24d

You’re getting there! Doesn’t look like you’re getting too hung up on detail. I especially dig the blowfish. Looks like you captured his personality pretty well.

@gecko_cs

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24d

This is my first attempt at levels 1 and 2 before looking at the demos. This is the one i've felt the least confident with. I struggled with some to visualise the shapes and get them right, focused too much on the proportions, and felt some of my old habits coming through. I also didn't feel I got creative enough with level 2, and that I was focusing too much on them looking good instead of having fun. I will definitely be trying these again after watching both demos.

@dukal

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21d

Very nice !

Rachel Dawn Owens

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24d

Wow. Your shapes are so dynamic and have so much form to them. These are great for this assignment. Continue to push the designs and iterate to your heart’s content. You’re running in the right direction. Keep it up!

@schmal

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25d

the order is a bit messy. II think my first attempts contain too many floating shapes. What do you think? Is there anything I missed else?

Nitzani

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25d

Good idea with putting dates on your sketches. I am stealing this Overall, good job!

Melanie Scearce

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25d

I think you nailed this assignment 👍 Great line quality in these.

Aubrey Hannah

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27d

I practiced drawing the three provided reference photos plus five extra references I pulled from Unsplash. Critiques are very welcome, as this was a very challenging assignment!

Melanie Scearce

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27d

I like that you went through and wrote notes to your strengths and weaknesses here! I agree overall that you should strive for more simple, closed shapes. Think about each shape as a paper cut-out. How can you overlap, insert, and otherwise manipulate each shape to create interesting designs that speak to the character of each animal? You did a great job with that concept with your hippo drawing.

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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.