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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.
comments 1238
Here is my attempt after watching the demo. I used multiple pencils this time and tried to make the shapes more simple than last time. I did forget to shade according to the planes so my pencil strokes are a little bit messy. Now that I am watching the drawing from a screen I notice that I could have given the shirt a light value and that the shading is a bit messy. Feedback is always welcome!
LESSON NOTES![]()
Now that you’ve all had some time to try the first project on your own, you can watch how I do it and figure out what areas you are exceeding and struggling with.
Watch this step-by-step demo on how to properly execute the first project for level 2 students, join the premium course!
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simplify-from-observation-portrait-demo.mp4
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simplify-from-observation-portrait-demo-transcript-english.txt
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simplify-from-observation-portrait-demo-captions-english.srt
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simplify-from-observation-portrait-demo-transcript-spanish.txt
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simplify-from-observation-portrait-demo-captions-spanish.srt
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Now that you’ve all had some time to try the first project on your own, you can watch how I do it and figure out what areas you are exceeding and struggling with.
Here is my step-by-step demo on how to properly execute the first project for level 2 students.
I need to spend longer on the base drawing to focus on the proportions, but this turned out better than I expected
Before and after the demo - I see the difficulty of using only 5 vaules and trying to keep the rendering simple. Please, any feedback would be welcomed
I did an awful portrait of my girlfriend from memory from an exercise from the Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain book. Then another portrait from reference for this course. Before and after 3 months apart. I accidentally spit a bit on the paper when I was blowing charcoal off :P so there's a couple streaks I couldn't erase
Shading is still a bit challenging for me, but everything else seems to be coming along nicely.
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15d
Good work! You've got some great looking shapes for the values. Your shading looks good to me! As you practice more it will get easier to do! Nice stuff!
Hello.
What a challenging exercise. I made several mistakes, but I’m learning a lot. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to post the reference photos. Here are my first drawings, following the teachings of the master Proko.
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15d
Feel free to post your reference pictures with your drawing! It'll help when others may give feedback to your work! If you want, you can leave credit to the artist/photographer/etc in your post too. :)
Very nice work on the sharp edges for your value shapes, and having distinct values throughout. Keep it up!
I drew this with a Wacom tablet instead of a pencil. It feels harder than drawing with a pencil.
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15d
Drawing on a tablet compared to pencil on paper is a weird feeling! You've done a nice job! All I would note is to be sure you're giving each shape defined, sharp edges, and to be sure you're filling in the entirety of the simplified value shapes. It looks like you've got good control over shading here already, it just needs a little tidying up. Keep up the great work!!
Hi everyone!
This is my attemp after demo. I will appreciate any feedback ✨
I was struggling with nose and lips.
I'm a writer and my goal is to one day illustrate my own books. This is day 6 of me learning how to draw. Very grateful for the lesson and the brutal journey of much needed practice ahead.
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27d
Welcome!! Glad to hear your goal, you will definitely learn and improve a lot with this course :) You've done great on these, good job keeping your values broken down into shapes and using straight lines.
Here’s my attempt. It’s really hard to put down the shapes. I feel i messed up my values as i didnt put in the whole shadow shape value first and so i had to keep adjusting as I went. I think I’ll finish this section of the course before I go back and try this again. It took overall about three and a half hours - not continuous. Any thoughts greatly appreciated.
Gave it another try... came back after doing some line exercises... wanted to see if i would already see some improvement
I finished level 1 and then did this one three times before I felt like I got it enough to be ready for critiques. I did the regular portrait for attempt 1 and felt I was struggling with shapes so I distorted it to force myself to look at each shape closely for attempt 2, attempt three I did a portrait of rogue from xmen and I feel better about it but still feel like I struggled with shapes and I really did not nail the values I think
It looks like you got better each time!
The values are a bit of interpretation, since we only have five.
Its all good to go either way with the in between shades. 👍
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1mo
I think with the portrait of Rogue, the values may have been harder because the photo has really soft lighting. It'll help to use a photo with strong lighting that creates clear shapes on the subject. I still think you did a good job though! So smart to distort the other portrait. Our brains need to be tricked sometimes, it's almost like flipping the canvas when working digitally (or holding a drawing in front of the mirror) and suddenly things don't look right, lol!
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1mo
I think you should try drawing your shapes with firmer lines, and don't get super sketchy with them. Just use straight lines, and don't forget to do the same for the values as well. Practice makes progress!
This is for my simplified portrait assignment. I was honestly on the fence about including the second image because, as you can see, the proportions are way off and it looks kind of funny. But since I put the effort into drawing it, I decided to include it anyway. I’d love to get some feedback so I can improve—portrait drawing is really tough for me (I’ve tried both on paper and digitally)
