My shading needs practice. I did this on 9 x 12 so maybe I need to start smaller?

My dark half-tone is super close to light shadow. Next time will try to distinguish them more.

this was my initial attempt. I was surprised that stans example places the highlight within the shadow as a much lighter value than my eyes are identifying it.

3rd try after watching the critiques. Tried to simplify it a lot and have clear planes

8/7/2026 Finished a few sets of pears, even though i wasn’t meant to be doing this task, it’s just more of a warm-up before I start covering the L I N E S section for the course.

👋🏽New learner here

After watching demos I can see I messed up some of my proportions. I also struggled with simplification. I didnt know how much I should push it for the assignment and so you can see part where I simplified more and parts where I simplified less. Another thing in the portrait, I grouped up hair and didnt bother with hair highlight (thought we were supposed to do that and dont go into such detail). Same with the eye, just grouped it so its gone. Messed up the jaw - shape and proportion wise. My main struggle was to actually draw straight and have better dexterity when working. I did choose digital because I need more mileage (Been using it on and off for over a decade but I cant seem to improve much - any advice on this please?). Things would be far more comfortable if I did assignments on paper but the glossiness and overall getting used to digital tools is part of the challenge I want to overcome with this course. Line quality will probably be the biggest challenge, at least while drawing in digital. Its one of the main things that I need to figure out in order to draw my manga. Is there something I miss that I should work on improving? Do you have any advice on the already aforementioned problems/mistakes? PS: I am still watching through the critiques, might add something to the list of things to improve. PSS: I am also looking for a group of people to study together. On roughly similar level to keep each other accountable and to push one another. PSSS: Thank you for your time :)

First time trying the pear , already feel behind lol.

The first one was my attempt before watching th demo. The second after. I struggled with making sharp edges. The tones always smudged together. But i am quite happy with my second attempt. If anyone has some words of advice for me it would make me even happier 😂

Top was original drawing and bottom is the latest.

Third attempt after watching critique video and trying it on my own. Trying to slow down and use the tip for shading.

Hello! I’m really excited to be doing this course and learning all the different elements of drawing - quite nervous posting on here for the first time haha. First two are project assignments done before watching the demos/critiques, and the apple was done after watching the pear critique video. Feedback would be appreciated!

My attempt at the pear from the observation exercise.

I know that shading is screwed and totally not aligned. )

Left to right: before demo, after demo, after critique. How do you all go about revisiting older projects after moving on from them? I’d like to try different reference photos, maybe try my hand at setting up my own still life. While still allowing myself time to focus on newer material, especially since my free time to draw is limited. I was thinking of putting these projects into some kind of SRS (spaced repetition system) to remind me to come back to them every now and then. For example, first reminder might be a week, then 2 weeks, a month, 2 months, and so on.

I found the values thing difficult to grasp, so I did a study of my own using some markers to try and practice

Did a few pears after doing a study of Stan's demo. I think I did better on getting a clean value but I would still like to practice where to put dark midtones and how to differentiate light midtone and highlight.