Steve Lenze
Colorado
Professional artist from the animation industry.
traditional 2D animation.
storyboard.
character design.
Courses
Albums
14h
I'm happy to share that I'm participating on the exhibition "How funny! Beethoven in caricatures, cartoons and comics" at the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, in Germany. The museum was once Beethoven's birth place and is now one of the most frequented music museums worldwide. It's a true honor for me to have been invited to participate on their current temporary art show, which features the music genius depicted in several cartoons, comics and caricature works from different periods. If you happen to visit Bonn before August 21, 2023, make sure to check out this cool exhibition! :) More info: https://www.beethoven.de/en/sonderausstellung/list?status=Aktuell
Steve Lenze
13h
Congratulation Liandro!
2d
Hey ridwan,
I like your painting, but I think there are some things you could do to improve things a bit.
The first thing you need to do is think more clearly about the structure of the wings.
You used human anatomy for some of the body, and animal anatomy for the rest. So, you need to use anatomical information from both human and animal anatomy to construct your dragon.
I did a quick sketch to show you how you can do this, I hope this helps :)
My study on another Jeff's drawing
4d
Hey Tiago,
Your drawing is pretty good, the proportions are close and the gesture is nice.
As far as the rendering, you were focused on the surface details, but missed out on how Jeff rendered the bigger forms before rendering the smaller forms.
I did a quick sketch to show you what I mean, Hope it helps :)
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4d
Hey Sarneth,
This is a good exercise to do to explore the skull in different angles. Just make sure you keep the elements lined up with the lines. I did a quick sketch to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)
6d
Followed along with this and did my own - *seems* like after this and after the critique video I have a better feeling for how to do these studies, but I can't quite be sure yet I'm executing well - obviously I'm off on a lot of these lines, there's still tons to learn, but I dunno does it at least look approached well? - feeling better but also not terribly confident about it and I'd love some critique.
20d
Proportions are so off. LOL.
But I had so much fun doing this!
4d
This is nice, but I can tell you were drawing with your fingers. Glen draws with his whole arm, that is why he can get those beautiful sweeping lines. Then he comes in and adds detail to the drawing with his fingers.
Another skull study. I wanted to copy Jeff’s style, but it’s hard to get some reasonable result with just lines. So it became this after a journey with my pencil. Sorry if it’s ugly, but I learned a lot!
4d
Hey Sita,
I notice you draw pretty well, but I think it's rendering that you need some help.
What I'm seeing is that you are making everything too close in value, creating a flat look to your drawing.
Some times when there is a lot of reflective light, people get confused and lighten the shadow side too much, which is what you did here. It's best to ignore it and just render the shadows. You have to think of the head as a box with a side, front and bottom/top.
I did a quick paintover to show you what I mean, I hope it helps you, because your drawing is pretty good, but you need to think about shading as a way to give a 3 dimensional feel to your drawings. :)
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Asked for help
Thank you in advance for any critiques and comments. I included a copy of my bucket stage in case that helps.
Asked for help
Here are my attempts at the hand demos, plus some extra ones.
4d
Hey Wendy,
Your hand drawings are very nice, they have a good solid feel.
One of the things I noticed is that your wrinkles are very flat, which flattens out the forms.
Try to make sure the wrinkles work for you as cross contours, that way they give a more 3 dimensional feel to the forms.
I did a couple of sketches to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)
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6d
Asked for help
My attempts on shading.
The fifth is the final.
5d
Hey Laimis,
I don't know if your going to get a critique of these drawings, because they don't realy represent what the reference is showing. What you have looks more like shading a cadaver and not the back muscles of the model.
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Hey Raphaelle,
I like the vibe of this piece, pretty cool.
What I think you have to do when working out poses, is to fill it in to see the silhoette it makes. This is the eyes first read of the pose, and it should be clear.
In your pose, the left arm is missing, and when I fill in the pose, the silhoette looks unclear.
I did a quick sketch to show you how you could fix that.
As far as your painting, it's also a little confusing. Mostly because you have light areas that shouldn't be in the dark areas, and the color temp of the light is all over the place.
I did a quick paint over to show you what I mean, I hope all this is helpful :)
Hey Antti,
The problem you are having is that you didn't plan enough ahead.
When doing a painting, illustration or what ever, you need to thumbnail out your idea to create the best compsition you can.
for example: why are we looking down on the scene? is it to show the dragons weekness? to see more of the background? to see other smaller animalls around the dragon? do you know why you chose the down shot?
Next: if you choose the down shot, did you plan the ground plane perspective? is it a one point, two point, or three point perspective?
These are all questions you have to ask.
I did a quick sketch to show you how I would have set up this scene. Notice I have a three point perspective grid set up. That way I kinow exactly how and where I am going to put my trees, and the size of the dragon so I can see the environment he is in. I hope this helps you in the future :)
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5d
Hey Athul Krishna,
Sorry to hear about your frustration, it's the price of being a good artist.
Also, don't think that drawing in a stylized way is any easier than drawing realism. They are not seperate things, just different expressions.
Your stylized drawing is a good example of that. You didn't use gesture or structure to build your drawing, and it looks flat and stiff.
These are the things we learn in realism that carry over to other styles. I did a quick sketch to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)
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8d
Here are my drawings of skelly For the anatomy of the spine unit. If you have any critique for me I’d love it.
8d
Hey Lucas,
You put a lot of movement in the spine which is good, but you have the spine cutting into the ribcage in both of these drawings.
Remember, the thorasic spine curves with the back of the ribcage, yours is not. Think about what the spine is doing from a side view, that will help figure out whats happening.
I did a quick sketch over your drawings to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)
9d
Asked for help
am i doing alright? did i do it correctly?
9d
Basicly yes, you did it "right" but I think you missed the point a little.
You drew the shape of the muscles correct for the most part, but the lines going over the muscles look like an afterthought. These lines are meant to describe the volume of the shapes of the muscles. To show how they bulge out or stretch accross the form.
Also, your lines look very unsure and shaky, which is understandable, and will improve with time and practice. I did a quick sketch to show you what I mean, I hope it helps :)
11d
Hey boat,
These look pretty good, gouache is hard. The colors tend to dry darker then they look when you put it down.
I did a quick overpainting to show you some things to think about when painting. I hope it helps :)
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Asked for help
Beginning of my 100 hands challenge. The first 2 pictures i drew before watching the video course so i can compare my results.i draw with 2 colors. First the underlaying structure lige in the bone assingnement and than the anatomical masses.
11d
Hey Anna,
Drawing a hundred hands is a good exercise, I hope you make it.
What I'm noticing about your drawings is the lack of structure. I can see your thinking about it, but it isn't making it into your drawings.
I did a quick sketch of your drawing in the 4th image. I used my own hand, and not the one Stan is using, but its pretty much the same thing. You need to think about each form as having planes: front, side and top/ bottom. This will help with your shading and give your drawings a real 3 dimensional feeling. I hope this helps :)
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Asked for help
Any suggestions?
12d
Hi Daniela,
There is a couple of things I see in your arm drawing that I think you could work on.
To begin with, the arm has no gesture, it's very straight and stiff. Your anatomy and the way you are thinking about the flex and relaxed part of the muscles is what is contributing to the stiffness.
It's easier to show then explain, so I did a quick sketch to show you what I mean. I hope this helps :)
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12d
Okay, the way we see things is that the eye is attracted to the area of highest contrast.
In your image, my eye goes right to the cape, sleeves, knees and shoes. The face, clothes and skin are all too close in value, so they have no contrast.
You want people to see the most important things first, and with a character, that's the face. Then you want them to travel down the figure, taking in all the rest. We do this by distributing the contrast down the figure.
I did a quick example to show you how you can do this, I hope it helps :)
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