Nice work, cute hippo! I noticed you're using a lot of curvy C, and S lines, but not a lot of straights. Stan also mentions in the project video "don't be afraid of corners!" Try to balance your curved lines with straights, and corners. It will help to add structure to the bony areas of the hippo like the eye sockets and muzzle. The straights contrast the soft roundness of the neck and body and make it feel like it has some structure underneath. Keep up the good work!

Hey @lemayelyse! I like to search whatever artist I’m looking for + Pencils to find the original pages without ink or color, so “Bryan Hitch Ultimates Pencils” will usually get you started with some decent images to begin your research. The Libby Library App will let you download comics to your phone or tablet for free using a library card and The Ultimates series is on there! Jack Kirby is known for his sci-fi technology in comics and there's a ton of it out there to look at. It might seem a bit dated at first glance, but he's a master of suggestion with his work. All of his creations are believable, solid industrial designs, and are built from primitive shapes that seem to connect and function believably. Worth checking out! Manga/Anime is also a good spot to look for convincing tech and sci-fi inspiration. Shirow Masamune and Ghost in the Shell is an essential Manga/Anime for robotics and sci-fi labs. Pinterest is also a great resource for pulling together a ton of reference images that you can use to piece together different elements for your backgrounds. When researching it helps to start with real examples of what you're looking to design. Pinpoint what kind of work your lab does and research images for actual robotics labs like Boston Dynamics, or industrial fabrication facilities/Steel Manufacturing plants, CNC Fabrication or Machinist Shops, etc. Starting from real examples of how these spaces look will help you build your own convincing locations. Also look for real industrial designers or concept artists like Scott Robertson to pull some ideas for how to design believable tech. Simon Stalenhag is another favorite illustrator who uses mechs/robots in a lot of his painting/storytelling. Your reference doesn't have to be limited to comics, so feel free to compile references from anything that speaks to you creatively, it will all make your work more unique to your artistic sensibility. Hope this helps!

Nice job!

Beautiful gestures!

Nice work! I also found actively asking "What is this line? Is it C, S, or I?" before making the line was actually really helpful when simplifying. Keep it up!

Excellent work!

These are awesome! I LOVE the chickens!!

Nice work! Great shape breakdown!

Excellent studies, love the Watterson!

Composition is kind of it's own area of study. Check out this episode of Draftsmen about How to Learn Composition, it may answer some questions for you. https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/how-to-learn-composition-draftsmen-s2e15/discussions There's a whole section of the Community dedicated to Composition worth checking out to see how others are composing their work, and the challenges they're facing.  https://www.proko.com/community/categories/composition Just ahead in the Shapes lesson of Drawing Basics Mike Mattesi talks about shape composition and visual storytelling, a great lesson that uses film examples to discuss shape language and composition. (You can watch this video anytime and get something new from it, so if you're curious feel free to jump ahead and watch it!) https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/shape-composition-with-mike-mattesi/discussions Also check out this video from comic artist David Finch on composition basics and visual storytelling. https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/basics-of-comic-composition/discussions All that said, Composition is a huge topic. At its most basic, Composition is just the organization of forms and space. A quick way to improve your compositional eye, even for individual drawings, is to plan the placement of your drawing on the page before you start drawing. Stan will cover this soon in Basics, begin your drawing by estimating the top, bottom, left and right most edges of your drawing and mark them lightly on the page before you begin to give yourself an envelope to contain your drawing. That’s always a good first step at composing your individual drawings so you don't run out of room on the page, and over time your eye will develop for how to use the space available to arrange your work. Hope this helps!

Nice! These look great, you can really feel the squash in each one. You've made them all feel like they have real depth and volume, they seem to be moving into or out of the picture plane. Keep it up!

This is fantastic! I love your construction breakdown, beautiful shape design, your line weight is well considered, rendering and value control, well done!! I even love your page composition, this study is worth studying!

Nice study! There's a lot going on and a ton to balance in this Kojima piece, the dry brushing alone is a masterclass! Squinting down while studying the reference can help you see where your values are a little light, and where you can push further into black, but this is a great start! You could start to work up layers on top of this to push it even further. A layer of dry brush in the darker areas will really push elements into the background. The trees you have in the bottom right foreground are working wonderfully, they're really starting to show some depth into the forest. The mountain side of dark tree tops in the middle ground could be pushed a bit further into black. A medium tip brush pen like the Pentel XFP5M can give you a really nice split end dry brush effect if you let the reservoir run low while you're inking. In David Finch's Comic Page Course he covers how to shadow in trees and organic elements which I think could help you here! https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/page-2-line-weight-shadows-and-backgrounds/discussions Hope this helps, keep up the good work!

These are beautiful, great work!

You're doing a good job! The directions of the lines is important. Generally you want to direct your lines in a way that follows and accentuates the form of whatever it is you're drawing. Think about your lines wrapping around the form like a rubber band. You've done a good job of accentuating the form by shading around the pear. As for the consistency in your shading, that will come with time and practice, its really challenging to balance pressure for an even tone, but you're starting to get the hang of it. It looks like you could apply another layer of tone on top of each value to even things out. Take another pass filling in each value so each shape is as clean and consistent as you can make it, but try keep the values you have established. Take a look at the demo for the Pear Project, Stan covers how to layer up each value so it's clean and consistent. Keep up the good work!