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You’ll learn the most important foundational concepts for drawing anything and soon you’ll be drawing pictures out of your imagination or from reference.
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Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
LESSON NOTES
What's in Premium?
Drawing with Confident, Expressive Lines
This lesson teaches you how to replace "hairy lines" (multiple hesitant strokes) with confident, expressive lines that improve your drawings. You'll learn why this skill is crucial for drawing from imagination, animation, and even mechanical subjects.
The premium lesson covers:
- Drawing with your whole arm - techniques for creating larger, more dynamic strokes with less fatigue
- The ghosting method - a step-by-step approach to rehearsing lines before committing to paper
- Understanding curve varieties - how to use C-curves, S-curves, and straight lines with intention rather than creating the "snowman effect"
- Common mistakes including not simplifying enough, over-simplifying, and line quality issues
- Form and structure considerations to balance flowing curves with structural straight lines
You'll gain practical techniques to immediately improve your line confidence, a fundamental skill that affects every aspect of your drawing practice.
Get the full lesson in the premium course.
DOWNLOADS
critique-simplify-to-csi.mp4
2 GB
critique-simplify-to-csi-transcript-english.txt
49 kB
critique-simplify-to-csi-captions-english.srt
81 kB
critique-simplify-to-csi-transcript-spanish.txt
50 kB
critique-simplify-to-csi-captions-spanish.srt
82 kB
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Let's take a look at your "Simplify to CSI" submissions! I decided to combine both level 1 & 2 students for this critique since I saw very similar mistakes at both levels.
This is my attempt at simplifying the skull and camel.
I also tried to simplify a photo of a pig but I'm not sure how well it turned out. Do my lines look okay or are they too messy? I tried doing a basic shape outline and then contourin and then placing my CSI line. I hope it doesn't look too messy.
Here's my attempt at simplifying a pair of high heels. I needed an easier pair of shoes to draw lol.
Are my lines too scratchy? I tried to be more consistent with my lines and ghost the contour first.
After viewing this set of critiques, I decided to draw something new. I took a photo of this dice bag on my table with a d20 and a dice box because it seemed like a good thing to practice the three curves on. It's feeling a lot more natural to break things down the more I practice.
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20d
Spectacular job simplifying the folds on the bag!
My work before watching the demo, after the demo, then after reviewing the critique video my proportions could be better and my line weight needs work to but Im very happy with how the shell turned out on my third attempt.
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1mo
Great improvement, your lines are looking clean and the shape of your boots has improved a lot! :)
First time I'm submitting an attempt... not sure that I was aiming for the intended goal, but here is what I've got!
Here are my attempts at all four references before watching demos/critiques, any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Kinda regretted making the laces of the boots darker as soon as I did it, but they were too far gone at that point and I’d already spent so much time on them haha. The skeleton was my favourite one to do out of the four :)
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2mo
Excellent work all around! You've done a great job simplifying the lines, and they're so clean!
Need to work on consistent line pressure throughout and actually picturing the line I want to create instead of drawing a few and erasing the ones I don't want.
Hello everyone.
I would love some critique on these.
These are my exercises from the whole week. I watched the critique videos throught said week. When I arived at the last one it dawned on me. I drew all of the way too quick and didn't give my self enought time to think about the lines I wanted to make. I am also new to drawing digitaly. I learned a lot more about it but I had some starting difficulties where my pen made some weird marks. So the beginning ones may have some weird lines that are still visible. All of these are in chonological order and I posted the referece picture after my attempt.
I would love to hear what I should be focusing on most during my practice and aspects I might have missed.
Thanks in advance and have a great day^^
Too damn hot to work. Mild climate and melting with 40 degrees celsius. Was completely fed up trying to work. Still suck at proportions and made new brush that helped me improve my lines + is more like a pencil so I can practice line quality better.
Did my level 1 drawing before watching the demo and critiques and absolutely realizing I didn’t do the assignment lol it was SO challenging to simplify and not try to draw the snail/boots “good”.
I also found myself very lost in the details of the boots! Going to try some butterflies and moths with more obvious CSI lines and then try the boots again!
I was kind of wondering what I do during this critiques other than just watching and listening to them. But I have found having these on in the background while also practicing using stock images and simplifying them has really helped
Not so much an improvement in technique as changing my mindset.
Stan recommended going back to give the boots another go if the laces were hard, and I think it is indeed a valid exercise in diligent shape-matching, thoroughly working from one side of the laces to the other, and trying to resolve each potential curve.
I don't think I can fully let go of chicken-scratching my lines from years of careless doodling, especially with the laces' rapid curvature changes and small size, but I stuck to simple, sweeping lines when I see the opportunity to process and simplify.
Doing the laces felt frustrating at first, but finding the fun in it kept me going.
Oh man. I haven't had it in me to try a second attempt at the boots (yet?). I really love how thin and flat you've drawn the bottom of the boots. Especially your 1st version, they feel really grounded and have a ton of character. I agree laces are much cleaner/better done in the second for sure. But I have to say, I think using more curved/fewer straight lines for the boot bodies in the 2nd version really loses that character and grounding of the 1st. Just an observation! I'm sure you were mostly focusing on the laces in the 2nd but it's interesting to see what Stan mentioned playing out here - that the combination of straight and curved lines in your 1st drawing works really well. Anyway, great job!
