Project - Line Master Studies

6.6K
Course In Progress

Project - Line Master Studies

6.6K
Course In Progress

Pick a master drawing you find amazing and study it, focusing on the artist's use of lines. A big part of this project is about taking some time exploring different artists to figure out what you like.

Select artists you admire, do multiple small studies, and focus on studying the lines. Ignore any shading.

Don’t forget to share your drawings! Include the original master drawing and make sure to credit the artist.


Deadline for submissions to be included in the video critique is May 11th.

Newest
@fraxls
1h
I did a master study of manga artist Yusuke Murata. I know that some of the line weight isn't the best, but it was my first proper attempt. Plus it was pretty difficult trying to replicate this drawing with accurate proportions.
@dollydigital
some peter han studies. i in this drawing, i really liked the fur, the cloth, and the way the lines on the skin show some muscle definition and even what i think might be contour. i'll come back to doing rafael later but taking a break for now
J M
2d
While looking for masters that lines really standout for me, I landed on Peter Han. His drawings are the ones that I can stare for hours This was already pretty overwhelming so I took the advice from Stan's video to focus on parts of the drawings rather than the whole thing. In retrospective - I wasn't ready for this at all. I have never gone through a study so it was hard to try to focus on trying to imitate how some of the lines "feel" rather than just copying the drawing. There are a A LOT of taper lines in this drawing, plus a complex line hierarchy. I couldn't come close to it at all but it was fun and a good experience. This took probably around 2-3 hours - yes I am slow :( I will probably re visit this and do more studies from this drawing but I want to watch the demo so I have a reference for how to approach a study.
Christle Panickar
Since I took so long to finish the other master study I did, I decided to push myself and do one more by another artist before I move on to the next lesson. Here's another master study I did of one of my favourite artist, Loish.
Gannon Beck
Ooooo, that's pretty!
Melanie Scearce
Beautiful!
Antonio Santiago
I tried so hard to not shade anything in but it would look so much better if I did. Maybe I chose a bad piece for this assignment. It was so much fun to draw something I love so much. I didn't quite know where to change my lines so I focused on darkening and thickening the lines where the shadows where. Any advice is welcome. Based on Greg Rutkowski's Dragon Sketch.
Melanie Scearce
This would be a great piece to study for shape and value design, not so much for a line study. But I think that you created an interesting hierarchy of line weight here, nice job 👍
Antonio Santiago
I also decided to keep some of the lines that have shadow around them lighter to not take the attention away from the center area. For example I didn't make some lines next to shadow on the right wing darker.
@deadsm
10d
I wanted to study three artists: Kentaro Miura, Junji Ito, and Yoji Shinkawa. For Miura, I wanted to learn line hatching and perceived texture, so I copied a panel from *Berserk*(First image). For Ito, I wanted to learn his use of value through screen tones and grays, so I recreated Kirie Goshima and tried to follow his manga values from *Uzumaki*. Finally, Shinkawa has an amazing use of shadow shapes that break contour. For these studies, I first copied an illustration he did of Venom Snake. I then used the same process in an illustration of my own using Quiet (another character from the same game). Overall, this took a lot of time, and I feel that even though it took months, it was worth it. When I first started, I made sure to collect a lot of references from each of them and tried my best to identify why I liked their work so much. It is amazing to me how, in most of the work I saw, the pieces were mainly grayscale. I hope to one day be able to create extremely strong pieces before I get to the rendering stages; that would feel so much better than what I am currently doing. In my work now, I feel like it does not feel complete unless I go full color with intricate values using light and texture.
Carlo Julian
These all look so gooood. Hard to pick a favourite but I really like the one from Berserk.
@lstr
10d
Did my first two from Glen Keane. Happier with Pocahontas than Ariel, who ended up vertically stretched and a bit off in the face. The bigger problem is, while I can carefully construct something that's reasonably close, doing it so slowly and bit by bit makes me feel like I'm missing out on what actually drew me to Keane in the first place, even if I am managing to pick up some things about line weight organization and general observation and whatnot. Trying to emulate his confidence just goes so wrong that it feels pointless, especially working in analog at this small size, going back and forth with the eraser ... for now I'll probably end up picking someone else when I do more studies. Could also go for simply tracing his work instead to take some of the work off my plate, I suppose, trying only to get better lines down without hesitation until I'm more comfortable with it. Forgetting about resemblance would probably make the results look too demoralizing even for exercises.
J M
2d
"Trying to emulate his confidence just goes so wrong that it feels pointless" I feel this line so much ;_; You did great tho :)
Xana Mendonca
Proportions are totally off and it was really frustrating because there is a drawing to compare the mistakes. Did not spend too much time in the pencil drawing as I should have. I guess i have to do a couple more of these but will try other artist. Any good suggestions that Proko did not mention in the assignment?
Pablo Gutierrez
I just finished the first go at this assignment. It was so tough. I don't know even if the subject I picked is good to study lines. Of course, I struggled with getting the perspective and proportions right. Also, the value of the colors was always in the way to analyze the hatching.
Angel Kritikos
My master studies
Melanie Scearce
Great studies. I really like David Malan's layering, you did a good job replicating it.
@charliecasselart
This is an assignment from the online course I am taking from Watts. This is the first 30 minute master study. Needless to say it took me roughly 4 hours. Working on proportions and patience. Critiques are appreciated.
Melanie Scearce
This is such a lovely master study. Certainly a tough drawing for a line study. The thing that I love most about the original drawing is the directional lines that make up the shading, especially in the cheeks and the beard, as well as the stair-step dark lines that create the edge of the wrinkles in his chin. I think you did a good job with the latter in your drawing, but I'd like to see more of the directional shading.
Jim H
15d
Ok, so I was unhappy with my Michelangelo study... so I tried a Mucha. There's a thousand things to fix, but I learned a lot from the observation.
Jim H
18d
Here's my actual attempts at this with Michelangelo. I first went with some line practice (only some shown here) where I tried to figure out what kind of pencil would work best - I eventually went with a 4B that was really well worn. Then I did a couple of thumbnails of the ear and the face just to get a feel of it. After that, I did a full head. I think my thumbnails caught some aspects of the line better than the full size one. Also, while I was doing the drawing, I found that holding the pencil a bit more like a paintbrush helped in some cases. Once I get to the tone and value section...I will have to really practice up.
Jim H
18d
On my first try, I got by butt kicked by this exercise. I tried an Eliza Ivanova drawing. What a mess I made of it. Then I watched a couple videos of her drawing and I realized that my innate knowledge of the human form and my eye-hand control over the pencil just isn't there yet. But, I studied her lines a lot, in the future I want to try again. The second time, again I think I overreached... I went with Michelangelo. :( It wasn't all for nothing. Actually I (re)learned something that I had not thought about since art history in Uni: Michelangelo's human forms were almost completely without straight lines. Unlike modern artists (Leyendecker, Malan and Eliza Ivanova for ex.) who use curves and straights to define form, Michelangelo used almost exclusively curved lines (at least in the samples that I referred to). Another thing that made me feel a little better every time I botched a line or a drawing was that - at least in his sketches - Michelangelo erased and re-drew, and sometimes just drew OVER some previous lines. In the gorgeous head study example below, the blue lines show erasure marks, and the red arrow shows a curious double pupil where Mich decided to switch his model's gaze. Maybe someday my mistakes will look that good.
Rachel Dawn Owens
I like your breakdown. It sounds like you’re on the right track. The point of this exercise is to just pick up a few pieces of knowledge from the masters. Michelangelo is a very ambitious guy to follow. That sketchiness is called pentimento. When you do it right, it’s not necessarily about ‘fixing’ a drawing as much as it is just building on top of what’s already there. Nice observations.
@sanosuke123
Here is my attempt for this exercise. I did three drawings using three references from Martin J. Abel coloring book. I will try to find more artists to study.
Gilles Dubuis
Hey, Here's my study of a drawing (just a detail, I didn't see the full page) from a XIIIth century breviary, artist unknown. I focused on meaning; what is the story, and how do lines tell it ? My guess : the hounds are chasing the deer without hesitation. This one is lost and panicking (it gesture is broken), but between them is a tree (a forest, maybe). It will, at a certain point, slow the hounds (a perpendicular gesture), telling us that a lot could yet happen. It's amazing how every line is C,S or I.
Rachel Dawn Owens
Nice work simplifying and studying the story here! It’s really cool.
@hwjones91
20d
First attempt at the project definitely need to work on my tapered line confidence since Jeff smith really utilizes this technique (a classic comic staple since Carl barks at least) and in general it’s a good thing to have mastery over lol. Included some of my own critique on the works early on where I tried to both focus on areas I did well but mainly on where it needs to improve
Andrei Sorokin
Found a post from @penghuy down below and decided to try the same. I like the result and hope I learned something.
Bree Bree
22d
For this project, I did master's studies of Hirohiko Araki (Author of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) and Eliza Ivanova. The reference for the Araki study came from one of his art books, Hirohiko Araki's World: JoJo6251. Eliza's was from one of her Instagram posts. These artists are some that I admire and I love their work. This project was really fun and I aim to do more in the future.
Henry
25d
I must say that learning from the masters is an honest way to know where you are as an upcoming artist because it really does EXPOSE where you are in the journey. I did my master studies after Dave Malan, Soey Milk, and Glen Keane. 1. Dave Malan: This master study was definitely outside of my comfort zone because it forced me to be loosen up and be "less careful" with my lines and construct them with confidence, while emulating the different line variations Dave used. 2. Soey Milk: This studies was more within my comfort zone. In this specific study, Soey Milk uses clean lines, which is what I'm naturally used to. I am excited with how this one turned out. 3. Glen Keane: Now this was the most challenging to study because Glen executed this with a balance of a loose/searching lines and absolute confidence, which was tricky to emulate. I found a Youtube video of him talking through his process and decision making while constructing his lines and it was a bit intimidating. I decided to upload my first attempt to show how much I struggled and I know the second attempt can still be improved on Overall, this master study assignment was a challenging and fun project and will definitely incorporate that into my practice at least every month. I welcome any feedback/critiques :)
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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.
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