Feedback for two 30 minute sketches!

Hello Line of Action community!

I started making considerable effort to improve my figure drawing skills this summer and I've just been going at it on my own. Here I'm sharing two sketches I did near the end of a longer figure drawing session and I hope you might provide me with some feedback as to what areas I need to work on, obvious glaring mistakes, things I need to look out for etc.

I'm currently following Proko's figure drawing lessons and starting the anatomy lessons so I do my best to draw as much as I currently know. Regardless, any critique is appreciated!

This is my first time posting on here so I hope this link works :D

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/32vhlhw4rt43asg/AAC3hnkuXdyzJ8mpQlrV6PH9a?dl=0

Thank you all! Happy drawing!

That's a very sweller job on your longer, 25-30 minute poses, miile, that's a more greater job I've seen so far, in terms on how you've constructed the forms, in terms of how you've captured the perspective, proportions and foreshortening, and in terms of the bone and muscle anatomy!

So.....as far as my nitpick or two is concerned, I'd like to say that some of the edges and their perceptions are just a bit too wobbly, a bit too stiff and rigid-er. (Despite being a technically good series of longer studies) Would you like to kindly loosen and solidify the next series of nude figures with 30 minutes of 10 minute figure drawings? (3 figure drawings)

The reason why you could and would, and should do this idea for bettering your drawing talents is because, if your next current goal it to improve your understanding of the overall proportions of the human form, and to make those proporiton drawings less stiffest, and the most dynamic, vital and energetic in the posing.

Cheers, good luck, and hat's off to you.

It took me a while to build up the confidence to answer, as your sketches sent my quality sensors into a bit of a roller coaster. My first impression was, "Oh, that looks really good", then on my second glance I thought: "But something is off." On the one hand, you are clearly 90% there, on the other hand there is still that rookie vibe to the images, and it's quite hard to pinpoint down that last 10%.

On the male figure the whole arc from the hip, shoulders to the face and hair, the linework seems 100% spot on. The shading on the shoulders seems a bit overpowered, though, making his front shoulderblade stick out in a strange way. Is his front hand buried in sand? What does the shadow to the left of his forearm indicate? Is that a cast shadow from the forearm and elbow? Then why doesn't it go all the way to the knee? Talking about the knee, I find it hard to understand, where his left leg is. Shouldn't there be a part of the left knee visible? Is that somehow a cast shadow behind him, or is that his left foot? You found good solutions for shading parts of the body, but the shading seems inconsistent over the whole image. Sometimes the contrast between darker and lighter shapes seems smooth, sometimes rather rough, on some parts your darkest dark seems to be way lighter than on other parts, and I can't really imagine a lighting situation that explains the difference in tones. Also I feel with putting so much work into working out light and darks, a cast shadow on the floor would help the eye decipher the intended light sources quite a bit.

On the female figure the proportions of her thighs and calfs dont seem to match. Either that hip is too bony or those calfs and feet are too bulky. Then you put a really strong shadow on her front thigh, but shouldn't that be matched with equally dark shadows somewhere on her shoulders and arms?

I should point out, that the overall work is still really good. I have an annoying way to critique people: if I list endlessly many minor flaws, that's not to tear you down, it's because I love the quality you already achieved.

• Aunt Herbert edited this post on June 14, 2021 7:21pm.

If you squint you can see how your shading process is wrong. Don't lighten your darks and avoid darkening your lights as much as possible.

Since you aren't using any wrapping lines nor repeated lines beyond pure contour, shading is the only tool you are using to express change in [u]planes[/u].
Remember, different value=different plane. I can see you established the 2 value stage but things went awry from there as you basically kept your values to shallow greys instead of pushing your darks and [color=#ff2600]KEEPING YOUR LIGHTS LIGHT[/color] to clarify your initial choices.

The result is that your line art becomes less clear, losing the feeling of form and gesture you established pretty well through good proportions and linework. Maybe if you shaded the background and floor it would help establish more contrast, but it still won't save your figures.

Another huge problem is that you are using soft shadows as if it was the only type available to you, making the figures feel boneless, use hard strong shadows to convey the sense of structure, at least around bony landmarks.

The cast shadows on the ground too, suffer from the same problem. They should have sharp, clear outlines and be pitch black since there is no bounced light to make them softer.

A good exercise to improve your shading process is to draw sphere, cylinders and boxes on a table. Try it out with different angles for the light sources, first with just one object, then groups and try to see how they interact with one another!

Good work overall, you have a lot of room to improve since your beginning is already pretty good!

Amazing drawings! Well done.

Hello!! Just like you, I started working on my weak points this summer. I am not a very good artist currently, but I think I can recommend something.

Check out the technique called Drawing with FORCE, popularized by Mike Mattesi. He teaches you not to copy what you see on screen, but rather extract the forces from photos.

Thank you for your feedback everyone!! The constructive criticism exceeded my expectations, thank you for all of your thoughts and insights :D Also thank you for your kind compliments, its the little things that help a rookie artist keep going~

I completely agree with the general consensus that there is a structure but there is a good chunk that is still uncertain and needs practice. I apologize for the male photo - the model was on a bed and some of the limbs were sunk in a soft blanket - probably should have picked a clearer photo reference for a critique!

It seems my next issue to tackle is values - perhaps a more toothy paper would lend itself better to value variations (currently drawing on newspring with graphite pencils, perhaps i need to invest in some charcoal), and of course, practice shading on simple forms. I finished reading Marcos Mateu-Mestre's perspective series and he encourages the use of graphic and bold shading, but my shading def seems a bit uncertain.

Furthermore, i'm also reading through the Force book, to hopefully improve on gesture and get those early-game fundamentals in before I tackle longer drawings. Its probably a better idea to stick with 10 minute drawings max to really practice laying in those fundamentals.

Thank you again, I'm so happy to hear back from all of you!