Thought I'd like to draw some kind of Seahorse and figured it might be interesting to draw a SeaCalf instead. So had a look at some photos of Seahorses (and Sea Dragons which apparently are different) and decided to make a few sketches of the different types to get an idea of which features I liked and what I could use. Also found some refs for calves and did a bit of a study, also looking for poses that I thought could be good to use as inspiration for the imaginative sketch. The final sketch to be fair doesn't look much different from a Seahorse, lol, so gonna give it another go and try to make it more Cow like. Was fun to do anyways

Bit late to the party this week so have just completed the Level 1 assignment so far - Level 2 imagination drawings to follow... Tried to stick to CSI lines and keep them loose. The hand was the most difficult so it's a bit more clunky and less loose I guess. The Penguin was fun to draw and the curves helped with the looseness of the sketch, even though the overall proportion was a bit 'all over the oche"

Here’s my crack at this week’s assignment.  It was pretty fun. I thought it was cool, how each reference kinda of had me figure out different ways to approach the ‘problem solving’. The first image of the snail had me drawing mostly in C and S lines as the shapes were very rounded and the drawing was quite fluid. 

The shot of the camel was more of a complex structure so I found myself firstly roughing in the big shapes and gesture lines for the legs etc. The head itself, I decided to try and draw a box to help me figure out how to break the shape down, noticing the planes of the head that I could see, a bit of the front plane, the side plane and the under plane. This turned out to be really helpful in helping me to place the features. 

With the first two images, I think I realised that I have a habit of making these bold, heavy, thick outlines which make the sketches look kinda cartoony and I wanted to try and knock that back a bit in the next drawing of the boot. Again I started out with a light gesture drawing of the main shape and the rhythems that I could see to help give me a structure which which I could build upon and add more detail.  

I think this exercise help me realise that I tend to focus on contour lines and have a tendency to go in for detail very early on. So with the next reference image of the skull I wanted to try and keep with the most basic of shapes as possible (I still slipped into adding detail - meep…)  With the Skull drawing, ultimately, although this isn’t as ‘finished’ as the other drawings, I’m happiest with this as an initial lay in and think the shapes look clear and still communicate what it was that I was referencing. 

Cheers for the critique Stan - appreciate all the feedback man :-)

My attempt at the portrait today

Second pass with simplified shadow shape. This is kinda painful to look at. Looks clunky. Maybe there’s too much similarity between midtone and dark tone that distorts the reading of this. Tried squinting to really get the basic shadow shape but felt like I was cutting out a lot of the design and shape. Stan, how do you learn what to include and what not to include in the block shadow?

I think I went in on the detail waaaaaaaaayyyy too early. Need to SIMPLIFY shadow shapes much more. Was a good exercise learning to stick with just using five (four) values. Had fun.