the one on the left was before demo, the one on the right is after. And oh my gosh, there was a huge difference. I'm not used to doing portraits, but I did consider myself ready for level two, and I'm glad I did it. Did take awhile and almost gave up while doing the pre-demo sketch, but I would say I did enjoy the process a bit more. :)

Tried to do the project with a different picture (looking to be critiqued)

The first attempt was before watching the demo The second was after watching the demo Looking to be critiqued (I drew digitally)

Hi there! Here's my guy. I had limited time and am posting it now after a few hours, which, as Stan mentioned, does help to better see errors. Here are some I can see now: Proportions: - forehead and top of head not tall enough - cross-eyed - ear too big maybe - lips too large, undefined - neck too long - overly arched eyebrow Values: - lightest dark and darkest light a little too close together - smudging from my hand resting on the paper confuses the values on the right side of the page - contours too heavy, esp on ear and on the model's left cheekbone (our right side) - confused values around the lips Any and all feedback most welcome from anyone in the community! Many thanks in advance.

First attempt on the left, second on the right- after watching the demo. I did a few more attempts of this same portrait- I wish I had just moved on to the next lesson instead of spending over a month drawing and shading this assignment over and over again, seeing little to no improvement :/ lesson learned!

This is taking way too long lol. Too many values! I had fun and will move on. Here we go!

Hi everyone, I would love some feedback on my portraits. The pencil drawing was done first before watching the demo or critique. The digital was done after the watching the demo and critique. I think I did get a bit carried away with the details in the second drawing, but I did spend a lot of time with it and I think it shows.

Sorry I'm a bit late, I only just started. My first attempt was really quite bad, I didn't really understand the exercise right, plus I accidentally used more than five values 🙈 . 2nd one is after watching the video & it already turned out much better I think. Third one is of a different photo, and I already felt more comfortable with the exercise, plus I think this photo works really well for this exercise with its clear separation of light & shadow. 🌓

decided to redo the pear assignment after getting critiques (thank you to anyone that did) and watching the critique video. The right one is the first attempt the left is 2nd. Any critiques would be greatly appreciated!

My first attempt at object drawing.

After drawing the young asian man (I previously posted it under a different thread- Thanks for the feedback!!) and viewing the critique video, I decided to always try to spend a couple of minutes doing a thumbnail first, while "squinting" to help with composition and blocking-in the values. This photo is from the Proko Art Sample Pack- Pose 004. Comparing side-by-side, I now see that I should have made the size of the top part of his head, from forehead to back of head, a bit deeper. Any suggestions on how to represent the thinning swirls of hair on top? I was trying to stay within the limits of the goals of the lesson (5 values, geometric, not too detailed etc)

How can overthinking and overworking be dealt with? Does giving yourself a time limit help with this? This first portrait with markers feels so tentative though I sketch in pencil first. You can see it in the shaky lines and lack of clean even tones. Is it just a matter of “numbers”, say after my 10th or 50th? Can anyone cite other B+W references on this site or otherwise where the lighting is so perfect for this type of study?

Tried again with procreate

My attempt to put lessons learned into practice. I wanted to use a different portrait because I found trying to do the example portrait after the demo and critique I was heavily influenced by Stans picture. I’m happy with my effort, again my proportions are off.

The biggest take away i had from the critics was " that the value range could get restrained and the light one could get extended " in order to give more interest to the focal point .

wow, these were very hard. I have to admit I find shading very tedious so it's no surprise how messy it is. I added some doodles of how wonky the faces looked like to me lol.

The posture isn't quite right, he has too much hair and his ear is too small, but I'm pretty happy with this.