I’ve done a few studies of frazetta and studies of the skulls by Jeff watts as well, there were definitely a few frustrating bits trying to replicate lines and not being able to make the shapes exactly as I wanted but it’s given me a more appreciation for just how good frazetta and Jeff watts are. im going to move onto the next section of the course but will keep coming back to do more studies

Practice page: Redesigned study.

Jeff watts studies

I wasn't sure if tracing was okay, but that's what I did here so that I could focus on the line quality rather than trying to get proportions right. The artist I chose was honestly just a friend whom I have commissioned art from over the past decade, and is someone whom I have been friends with for the same. I love her work, and she was my inspiration for learning. Looking at her stuff in a different light really just made me more motivated to continue learning. I love the way that her lines flow, and I love how she used cross hatching for some shading, which I tried my best to replicate in places. This particular piece is of my own OC, and was a gift she sent to me which I have hanging on my wall right now.

Another Aaron blaise study

Aaron blaise study

Van Gogh Study

First set of Malan studies for me.

Practice page: Artist: Frank frazetta 🙌✏️🙌, Had fun & mindful moments of the whys behind the placement of shapes, shadows, & lines in this composition. "Looking forward to improvement" 🫴on to the next😌👏🫡

I chose Dave Malan to study. I love how much volume and depth he achieves with his use of lines. The nose and mouth are off. I tried to focus mostly on the lines. Going for gesture and weight over getting them in the exact, exact right place. I learned a lot and am planning on doing another study with one of his drawings. Great lesson and assignment!

Hii! This was really fun, especially looking for stuff I like. I’m lvl1, picked up a pencil 3 weeks ago for the first time in my life. I found @desoluz on instagram and I thought his/her line work is amazing. I didn’t copy exactly what I saw, I was going more for the fact that he/she used wobbly lines for the everything except the most important part, the head.

This was so much fun! I picked the farmers of Nuenen sketches made by Van Gogh. I love the thickness of the lines, the scratchiness. It was a good training for me to pick up the pencil after each line to avoid loops. I didn't try to recreate each line exact, just the vibe. Although the proportions are off and it was hard to mimic the darkness of the charcoal with a pencil, I kinda like it

This was tough. One of the hardest parts was just trying to find someone to study, so I ended up picking from the shortlist, and went with David Malan. I like his style. This is just my interpretation, but I feel the variety in the types of lines he uses is subtle but expressive, and his hatching has a directional quality to it that draws the eye in. While some of his hatching/shading seems loose and relaxed, having tried to emulate it, I learned quickly the amount of control and skill in actually producing those lines. Mine involved a lot of erasing and redoing, getting trapped in my perfectionist mentality so the lines constantly felt stiff and awkward. I also struggled with some of the line weights. I used a 0.5mm mechanical pencil like he uses, but had to switch to a regular graphite pencil to get some of the lighter, softer lines.

I do not know the exact artist, but my reference is from the concept art from Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition which is done by Atomhawk. I really love their style!

Ooof - That's a tough assignment! I could probably spend the entire year just doing this over and over again. I selected Kim Jung Gi and Glen Keane as my artistic "parents" for this exercise and boy I was not ready for what was in store. For Kim Jung Gi I selected just a small portion of one of his drawings (the pig body) - I ended up not focusing so much on the lines themselves but how to put them down like him, without guides. I didn't know much about him before this course so I was only exposed to the buzz around his ability to do these drawings without sketching anything out first. I'm pretty sure I bit off more than I could chew but I gave it a shot and had an ah-ha moment when I came to the realization that it's probably just like learning to write the letters of the alphabet - first you have the guidelines to draw your letter shapes then you eventually can write without the lines. I figured one of the many "letters" KJG knew how to "write" was "pig body". I don't know if that makes sense to anyone reading this but something clicked for me regarding understanding - even if my attempts at actually drawing the pig body leaves much to be desired. My second "parent" Glen Keane has a style I would really like to emulate. This one I think I did a little better with the actual drawing and line quality. I had a few false starts and the big takeaway I got from attempting it was that I really needed to focus on the overall gestures first then build up from there. My lines are a bit contrasty compare to the original - I'm still trying to get better control of my digital tools. I was a pleasantly surprised to see the "dragon head" shape in the tail after studying the drawing closely.

I tried to focus on the line quality as much as I could. I struggled quite a bit with the actual drawing part as I'm very much a beginner.

For the Line Work Studies I chose a piece by Samwise Didier, the senior concept artist behind Blizzard's Warcraft and an inspiration for myself. His drawing had a lot of different kind of lines which I trief to replicate. It thaught me a lot about the different kind of lines that are possible and the effects they have on the drawing. It also showed me that even though I figured out how to roughly replicate a specific kind of line, mine didnt look as good as the artists ones and how important the quality of the lines on the overall drawings are. Really fun exercise and will do another study for sure!

I did my line master study on a piece drawn by Josh Tallman in the Book of Adria: A Diablo Bestiary. This is Mephisto, one of the three prime evils of the burning hells. I chose to focus on the head. It took me a while to get the hang of it and start to see how the artist was using their lines, line weight and line values. The more time I took on it I saw more of the depth being created by the artist. It was a long process of shaping the image and then finding the form of it. My main focus of it was to create depth around the horns and face. I also wanted to display some light from the top of the horns and display shadow on the lower ends of the shapes. Overall the image was very messy but I felt I got to a place where I started understanding lines in a more intuitive way. Thank you Stan!

The biggest takeaway for me from this exercise is how often artists use broken edges, and intuitive hatching. Credit goes to Shirahama Kamome, Dave Malan and Giovanni Civardi.

Here is my second attempt for this assignment. This is a study from Claire Wendling and da Vinci. Both artists seem to place most emphasis on a Hierarchy of Importance in their sketches with a touch of lighting. I included both types of line weight in my sketches, but made effort to bump up the lighting weight.