W.I.M.U
W.I.M.U
Somewhere
Art is fascinating, and I want to learn as much as possible. Welcome In My Universe! Critiques and Feedback are always appreciated here.
Steve Lenze
My feedback would be to stop trying to do drawings in 40 seconds. If you are having doubts about your figure drawing, then take your time understanding gesture, then set a 5 min. timer. When you are killing it at 5 min. Then start doing them in 2 min. Then 1 min. Then 30 seconds. If you do it your way you will just get frustrated and give up.
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W.I.M.U
Alright thank you for the advice !
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W.I.M.U
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Gesture Drawing
8mo
Hi ! I have been having some doubts lately regarding my figure drawings so I decided to go back from the start. Although I’m not sure if this is the right approach to gesture drawing. Any feedback is welcome ! PS : those are 40 sec
W.I.M.U
Hi ! I have been having some doubts lately regarding my figure drawings so I decided to go back from the start. Although I’m not sure if this is the right approach to gesture drawing. Any feedback is welcome ! PS : those are 40 sec
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Steve Lenze
Well, to begin with, this is not very good reference, It's out of focus and doesn't show much detail. What I am noticing is that there is no structure to the head, it's just a bunch of value shapes put together. Without understanding the underlying structure, the head feels soft and undefined. I did a quick sketch exploring these birds heads in order to understand your reference. Once I understood the structure of the head and beak, it made it easier. You should try it too. I hope this helps :)
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W.I.M.U
Thank you for your reply ! It's true that I didn't pay much attention to the structure and focused a lot on the values. I will definitly try again and study these birds's head. Thanks again
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John B
Do you know what kind of bird this is? You made your job tough because the reference is so blurry. It would help to pull up multiple references that are higher res so you can refer to the bird's features better.
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W.I.M.U
What a great idea ! I looked it up and it is a Peale's falcon, there are so many references. Thank you a lot!
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W.I.M.U
I am no proffessional but I really like the style. I find it very sorf and pleasing to look at .
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W.I.M.U
added a new topic
Animal portrait
9mo
Hello ! I once went to a museum and took a lot of pictures and here’s one of them. I haven’t finished it yet because I feel like something might be wrong with the head and really want to make it look great. What do you thing about it? (don’t mind the squirrel ) Thanks for reading and have a good day ;)
Zosya S
You captured the likeness. Well done. But pay attention to your values. Your shadows are not dark enough. And values are not describing the shape. for exp: use values to show the roundness of the eyeball. Right side of the left eye must be in shade. And lips should be in darker values. Hope it helps. Good luck.
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W.I.M.U
Yes I still have a lot to learn about shading. I’ll think of the shapes next time. Thanks a lot!
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Elias Lemus
Good work here. I agree that the proportions are off. When doing portraits you have to measure. The proportions will always be slightly off, it's impossible to be 100%. BUT they should be close enough. The shadows are definitely too light. I would suggest turning the picture black and white so you can compare values better. When youre good at that, you can work from colored pictures and then turn them black and white to analyze how you did. As far as general charcoal advice.. experiment and learn about the different kinds of charcoal to see what you like and what they do. Vine charcoal, compressed, powder, charcoal pencils. They're all tools and they all creat different marks. You can combine them or use them alone. Explore and best of luck to you!
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W.I.M.U
Thank you very much for these advices ! I always wanted to buy charcoal and goal is to master this technique. So your feedback is more than welcome. Thanks again!
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W.I.M.U
Well I'm no expert but this is looks so great! I LOVE the the shading, from the shapes to the values. Really like it.
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Steve Lenze
Hey W.I.M.U, Nice job on this portrait, you managed to capture his attitude pretty well. The thing about portraits is that if you are off a little here and a little there, it adds up and causes all kinds of problems. Usually in likeness. I think you got quite close, but you will notice in my diagram that some areas were off by just a bit. Also, shape design is very important, as well as angles. We have to make sure the shape and the negative shape all agree. Not just the shape of the eye, but the shape of the area around the eye. If our angles are off, then things wont line up properly and can mess up our proportions. All of what I said above is also true of the shadow shape and light shapes. I hope this helps :)
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W.I.M.U
Oh wow thank you so much for your detailed answer! Next time I’ll be more careful for the angles and shapes. Now I see things more clearly. This definitely helps, thanks again!
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W.I.M.U
Hi! I just finished this traditional portrait and I think something is a little odd. This is my first time using charcoal and I must say, this was so hard. I also couldn't get the proportion right, so I was a little frustrated but decided to finish it anyway. So here it is! I would like to know a few tips for charcoal, if anyone is willing to share. Oh and did I get the hair shadow right? Thank you for reading this and have a nice day ;)
W.I.M.U
This is SO relatable ! I feel this a lot too, so I've came up with my own conclusion : you have to "do it right" FRIST and THEN "do it a lot". Therefore you will practice with the right method and won't reproduce mistakes, since you've already corrected them in the first step. I think that it's very important because, if you skip the first step, you will indeed develop bad habits. Hopefully this helps and have a good day! Sincerely, a fellow lost artist.
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W.I.M.U
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Steve Lenze
Hey W.I.M.U, One mistake a lot of people do is that they make the highlights in the hair too light. Look at your reference, are the highlights in the hair the same value as the skin? Look at your drawing, is the highlight in the hair as light as the skin? Remember, depending on the material, darker objects will have darker highlights. Hope this helps :)
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W.I.M.U
This definitely helps, thank you! I do tend to make the highlights too brights now that I think about it. I'll remember next time
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Izak van Langevelde
I think you were sucked into he details. When rendering hair, start with the big mass, then add some locks to make it look hairy, and finally add some loose strands.
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W.I.M.U
Yeah, i think I made to many details . Thank you for your answer !
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W.I.M.U
Oh wow this is A M A Z I N G!
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W.I.M.U
Hi! I just finished a portrait and would like some feedback for the hair. I cannot show the whole portrait but did I get the bright part of the hair right? Does it looks like the reference? Thanks I’m advance (*^▽^*)
@kemon
Well nice use of shapes, especially on the squirrel. Your shading is blocked out which for a sketch and practice is exactly the approach you want. Most of what I'm going to say is just me trying to show you how you did very well and only a slight shift of perspective will help you see where you need to focus on improving. I hope to show you that. There are many approaches to drawing, you have to figure out what works best for you. Hair should be approached the same way. get the whole figure worked out made out of big shapes then proceed to smaller shapes, like shadow shapes and then other landmarks within the figure. If you're drawing long hair on a persons head you'll want to draw hair in "clumps" the Head of hair will be divided into chunks and those chunks will be "worked" to look more like the style you're going for. A stumbling block for people learning to draw in pencil is we think we're drawing objects. Look up Observational drawing, it teaches the artist the difference between perceptual drawing vs drawing "things" or "objects". drawing what you perceive instead of objects will help you out a lot. 1) there's not much fur to draw here. even though you know the animals have fur. 2) remember you're not drawing animals with fur your drawing shapes and tone (light and dark) and utilize the direction of your pencil stroke as well as the thickness. Some shapes you wont want any visible pencil strokes just a flat tone, other times you'll want clearly to see pencil lines going in a direction, sometimes uniform sometimes not, it depends on the texture you want to create. 3) what you drew gives a sense of fur, you did well.
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W.I.M.U
Wow thank you so much! Guess it wasn’t that bad . I don’t know what perceptual drawing is so I’m definitely going to check the Observational drawing, and practice hair. I also like to shape the shadows, I’m glad it’s visible. All of these tips will definitely be useful, thank you very very much again for your reply.
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W.I.M.U
Hi! I went to the museum and got some great animal references. I tried my best to keep the proportions, angles and values accurate. BUT I don’t know how to draw fur! I think I really messed up for the squirrel, it just doesn’t look like the picture. Could someone please share a few tips, i have a bunch of other references but I don’t want to fail them too. Any help or feedback is more than welcome! Thank you for reading and have a good day!
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