Thank you Polyvios! I'll work on those worksheets, hopefully they'll help! And thank you Aunt Herbert as well, I'll do some anatomical studies of skeletons to try and get a better sense of the structure. You're right to point out that I don't know how to use the hips, I always indicate them but I rarely understand what angle the bones or at or what they would look like underneath.
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Ihinfuo
edited this post on July 16, 2021 3:15pm.
Deconstructing the shape of the eyes and surrounding skin/folds into geometric surfaces absolutely improves the impression of depth. The third set is by far your best. It seems to me that you have a choice between leaning into that geometric technique and maybe borrowing some hatching techniques from pen/ink drawings, accentuating the surfaces rather than blending between values the way you would typically do using a pencil; alternatively, you could develop the blended style you were trying on the first set.
If you really hate graphite shading, my recommendation would be to try out either pens or charcoal. Pens allow/force you to delineate surfaces very clearly, which helps you understand and visualize the depth. Charcoal goes the other way, but the much deeper value range lets you evoke depth much easier than a graphite pencil. Even if you want to keep using graphite, experimenting with either medium might teach you techniques that help you get over the shading block.
Hope this helps!
