Beautiful work, Jocelynn!

I think you’re on the right track. It’s really nice how you simplified and contained the shapes of value. The proportions look great too. Below is a demo on how I might break down the shading from this reference- If I was using graphite or charcoal, my final drawing would have maybe came out more organic looking. Processing the drawing this way made it come out rather stiff, but I wanted to make the ideas clear. Learning to draw means learning about how light works. It can seem complicated at first, but it all makes sense if you think about it. Light shines down on the subject and then bounces all over the forms and then back towards the viewer. Drawing is all about creating the illusion of 3d forms on a 2d surface. Understanding value is a big part of that and it looks like you’re getting it. Great study! Keep it up 👍

This is great! You got the proportions perfect and the anatomy looks nice. If you want to take this to the next level and emphasize the top of the figure, you could darken the lower torso and legs. I added a soft gradient across the figure to create a focal area around the head and chest. I like your painting. I hope this helps. Keep it up!

I think your shading is looking good. I can't speak on Clip Studio, but I did want to point out that the extended leg on your figure from imagination looks like it's backwards. The shape you used for the knee looks like shorthand for the back of the knee (popliteal fossa), and the bulge of the calf is higher on the left side of her leg opposed to the right. Nice work overall, it's so difficult to draw a figure from imagination!

This. Is. Incredible. These are awesome drawings! Moving too quickly into detail is perfectly ok. All you need is more mileage. You’re right that you should strive for quantity of drawings to get better. You learn the most in the first hour of a drawing. Learning to sit on a drawing for 10+ hours is also a valuable skill. Think of it like your max lift if you were a weightlifter. Its good to know how far you can go with a drawing and it looks like you can go very far. This is great, I love how you rendered these. Heres a demo of about how I go about it. It’s like I’m bringing the drawing into focus. I start light and fuzzy and sharpen the focus as I go, waiting for the end to add the darkest marks. Good luck and keep going 👍

Unique and I ❤️ these studies.

Hey Emma, nice job for being your first time. I would recommend checking out the shading assignments here on Proko of shading an egg and a pear. You do not necessarily have to pay for the full course if you are a starving artist like most of us, lol! Try starting with a simple shape with a singular light source. I would give more advice, but I too am just now learning to add tone to my drawings. Hope this helps!   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vapw6n6FyU&list=PLnSiPyMK9PTyRitLtaj6JIbRF5LttP6Mz&index=132   https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/the-perfect-egg/assignments

Hi Samuel! Continue practicing gesture and pushing the motion of the figure, even when doing more rendered work, as it helps you get more accurate or informed drawings. As you start shading while learning anatomy, keep going back to observing what you see: break down the image into light and dark groups at the start. There will be changes of value within the shadows, but they will still be darker than areas in the light. I drew out some notes for you I hope are helpful.

Nice drawing. Are you using digital? I always find digital art fabulous for animation but it always comes off rubbery to me when attempting a traditional style.

Really nice! I actually think the structure is the strongest part of this drawing, so don't worry about that. - The structure and rendering looks pretty good, but the values are a bit confusing. Some of the values in the light are as dark as the darker parts of the shadows. And some of the values in the shade are as light as the lightest parts of the lights. As a rule of thumb, the lightest dark should be darker than the darkest light. Check out this video Mind-Blowing Realistic Shading Tricks. One important part of shading is value control. Are you familiar with values? If think this could be a great time to go on a short detour from the figure drawing course, and do some value studies. Dorian Iten has a great video on value studies How to Organize Values . You can get it for free in the Proko Course Sampler. For me it helped to start by doing 2-value studies. Then when I felt like I had a good grasp of that, I moved to 3-value studies. Then 4, then 5. For the 5 value study you might use this process: first a 2-value separation. Then add a midtone (3rd value), then add a darker light (4th value) and a lighter dark (5th value). Pick or take photos of a subject you like to make the exercise even more enjoyable. Having good value control and having a good grasp of value grouping will really help when shading. Plus I think you'll find that you can do some really cool stuff with it. - Another thing that has helped me when shading is to clearly define the shadow shapes in a lay-in. Making sure that they're not ambigous, but clearly designed. Making the terminator edge soft, and giving a hard edge to cast shadows and the end of a form in shadow, gives a clear effect of light right away. Hope this helps :) Let me know if you have any questions.