Hello, Pasta! I do think you achieved some fluidity in these drawings! Though I feel they are pretty stiff, and I believe it's due to the fact you are adding details in the beginning stages of your drawing, which can cause your drawings to look stiff and make your proportions look off. For example, the second image: His legs are small compared to the rest of the body, which might of been caused by running out of space on the paper, which leads into my second critique:
The drawings are too big on the paper. Don't get me wrong, drawing big like this isn't bad! Only when creating finished pieces, though. Since most of the exercises on this site are for creating quick sketches, drawing big isn't necessary. To combat this I recommend doing thumbnail sketches! Thumbnail sketches are tiny quick sketches used for capturing the pose and getting proportions right, before going on to the final illustration, or in this case, sketch. Depending on the time limit, you will most likely have enough time to do a tiny sketch of the pose, and then doing it again, but this time bigger. Or, you can practice doing some of the exercises small, and others big. That way you can have more sketches on one page! And can show contrast between sketches, but in my opinion that's not all that important right now.
I recommend checking out an article from Hbeats Art about thumbnail sketching (
Warning! The page does contain some
lude/smexy art! But it's still a good read for learning more about thumbnail sketching and how to do it!), I recommend checking this out for more information about thumbnail sketching!
Link:
https://hbeatsart.com/how-to-thumbnail/
Another thing that impacts the fluidity of a drawing is the shading and line quality. I noticed that you blend almost all of the shadings on the drawing, which gives it a soft look. That's not a bad thing! Some art styles do well with this kind of soft look. But for realism, that's sadly not the case. There are both soft and hard shadows on the human figure. Usually, hard shadows can be used to define muscles, and show that something is in front of an object. Soft shadows can be used to blend the hard shadows, but don't do it too much or you might get that soft look again! I'm not very good with shading, so try doing more longer exercises trying to find the hard and soft shadows specifically!
I can see that your lines don't feel very confident. They feel very rough and firm, which takes away from the fluidity of the drawing. They also have a soft look in some spots, which could be due to the blending. All you have to do for that is go over the lines again to make them darker. Gaining confidence in your lines is something even I still struggle with. A tip I can give you is before you start working on exercises for the day, trying making short lines and long lines on the paper. Do them quick! Don't do them slowly. Trying being quick and lose. Try holding your pencil/pen a different way each time to see if you can find a position that's more comfortable for you when making these lines.
The last tip I can give is using an under sketch, which ties back in to the first critique I gave you. To me, it doesn't look like you used an under sketch, which is basically the basic shapes that make up the drawing. Example, circle/oval for the head, oval for the rib cage etc. Making an under sketch will help you with placement of the features, and getting the overall feeling of the drawing before going to add details. These sketches should be light and not super dark! They aren't a finished drawing, but will help you make a finished piece! If you have trouble making light lines, then repeat the exercise I mentioned above, but instead trying to make lighter lines. Try holding the pencil more farther back to easily create light lines! And don't forget to
be lose! This will help a lot with fluidity and will overall make your drawings much better!
Tl;dr:
Try not to add details too early in the sketching process
Try to make your drawings more smaller, use thumbnail sketching!
Article that goes more in depth:
https://hbeatsart.com/how-to-thumbnail/
Use both hard and soft shadows! Try not too over blend, look at reference!
Gain more confident lines! Before exercises, try drawing some lines on the paper, do it quick and not slow!
Before adding details, use an under drawing! Use basic shapes, and sketch lightly! Use same excerise as above, but drawing lightly! Hold pencil further back to get more lighter lines!
Overall, I think you do rather good! The third image is the most fluid in my opinion! And the fourth image portrays emotion really nicely! I didn't go to in depth with proportions because that's more of an anatomy thing, and you will get better at proportions by drawing everyday and making connections on how things look on the body! I hope my critiques helped you, and I apologize for it being so long lol. You are doing a great job so far, keep it up!
-Devi
Devil Darlinqq
edited this post on March 31, 2022 3:21pm.
Reason: Added a check list to the Tl;dr portion to make it easier to understand
