These are freakin wonderful! Great job!

Back after watching the week 3 critiques, the main take aways for me were: * first and foremost make the paintings read well, this may involve deviating from the reference or accentuating certain features * make the light and shadow families obvious and readable, start by simplifying the big value groups and work your way to smaller ones * be thoughtful using highlights and don't over do it I did some paintovers of my assignment, I notice the chin area of the 5 min paintings were a little sloppy and not reading well. I upped the contrast on the cropped features to make them pop. I also tried painting a marble sculpture as an exercise for simplifying value groups, I found it pretty helpful

I think it did help. I also feel that I need to practice mouths more

This one was tough, lots going on.

Hi @Nio, nice studies! - I think you find the eyes to be "a mess" because of a lack of structure. The thickness of the lids are crucial. I looked through your album and you seem to have taken the figure drawing course and learned about structure. I didn't see any pages of boxes and cylinders though. If you believe working on your boxes and cylinders could help you with structure, feel free to tag me (@Jesper Axelsson) when you post them in the community, and I might have time to take a look. In case structure drawing isn't the problem, here are some other tips that might help: -The types of lines you use (soft/hard, dark/light) can work for or against the feeling of structure. Usually, a form shadow has a softer edge and a cast shadow a harder edge. This isn't always the case, but it could be a good way to start out, to stay organized and in control. I learned it from Joseph Todorovitch's course From Paper to Canvas on New Masters Academy https://www.nma.art/courses/from-paper-to-canvas/ (if you're intrested in it, I recommend signing up to their newsletter, since they have deals often. If you can't afford, I think they have a free trial of 7 days or so.) When you practice this, it helps to draw from reference with clear separations of light and shadow. It's also important that the line is the correct value. If you look closely, the line above the upper eyelid gets lighter toward the inner corner of the eye. Things we see could be thought of as a puzzle of shapes. If the shapes in our painting have the right shape, placement, size, value, edge, and color, the puzzle we've drawn will appear as the object in front of us. If this concept is new to you I strongly recommend watching this video How to Organize Values and to start practice value studies. (the video is avaiable for free in the Proko Course Sampler) - To make study sessions more efficient, I would ignore tone when studying the features, unless painting (shapes, value, edges etc.) are the focus of the studies. If your focus is to understand the structure and anatomy of something, it helps to leave out tone. Hope this helps :) Keep up the good work!