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About instructor
Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.
DOWNLOADS
assignment-images.zip
10 MB
project-shading-blobs-level-2.mp4
604 MB
project-shading-blobs-level-2-captions-english.txt
13 kB
project-shading-blobs-level-2-captions-spanish.txt
13 kB
project-shading-blobs-level-2-captions-english.srt
23 kB
project-shading-blobs-level-2-captions-spanish.srt
24 kB
ASSIGNMENTS![]()
![Alison Shelton]()
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![Alison Shelton]()
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![Osagumwenro Igiehon]()
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![Rachel Dawn Owens]()
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![Luke]()
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![Chuck Ludwig Reina]()
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![Luke]()
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![Luke]()
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![Rachel Dawn Owens]()
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![@ironfern]()
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![Maxime Scheder]()
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![Cubee]()
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![Gloria Wickman]()
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![Tommy Pinedo]()
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![Jim U]()
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![Jim U]()
What's in Premium?
In this lesson, learn how to practice shading edges by drawing heads using "blobs". We start by visualizing the head as an egg to simplify forms, then move on to stacking multiple blobs for key forms like the cranium, jaw, and nose. We'll use the portrait photos in the downloads to match the angle, then make it harder by changing the light direction and inventing the tones.
Get this lesson and more in the premium course!
I like to try level 2 when it doesn’t sound too overwhelming. They are always harder than they look. I feel like pushing myself when I can is helping me improve faster.I think if I tried @Melanie Scearce ’s strategy below it would have been easier and had a better result. I think I will next time.
Lots of new tools to figure out. I’m sure increased control will come with practice.
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1mo
Very well done! Theres a strong range between the soft and sharp edges. I love all the contrasting edges.
Last entry, study with imagined lighting. I'm excited to try painting portraits again after getting more practice with edges.
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1mo
Nice work. Good blend of edge and shadow types.
Second study, trying to focus more on soft edges. The hard round brush was a bit difficult to work with for soft edges, ended up using a textured brush to hide the brushstrokes better and get rid of some of the banding. Definitely feel like I'm getting better with the gradients.
Here is attempt one prior to watching the demo's and critique. I wasn't sure if I should loose the edges on the inner corner of the shadow-side eye.
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1mo
You did a great job mapping the shapes and rendering the edges. I think the soft edges around the round forms could be softer. Contrast the soft form shadows with the sharper cast shadows to build more depth.
Great work on this. 🌼
Hello! Here's my submission for this project. The left blob faces are from reference and the right are the imagined light source. I'd appreciate any advice! Thank you!
I think I rushed a bit some of them ^^'
I believe I could work more on the halftones and the quality of some transitions, I'll watch the demos and critique, but any feed-back would be very much appreciated !
Cool project ! Not easy though. It took me approximately 1.5 hours for this drawing. To be repeated …
I definitely got lost as I went on doing these and forgot I was supposed to keep things simplified and unfortunately that left me with a lot of muddy edges and forms. The first page (labeled 1-3) I did is probably the strongest. I also need to get better at cleaning up my values and not leaving so much distracting noise.
After watching the demo and critique, I tried it again. I tried it first cross hatching but don’t really like the style so I tried the next three using a blending stump with minimal pencil use. This is harder than I thought and my right hand was starting to hurt after a while of blending and shading.
still not too happy with the result but let me know what you think. Which ones do you like?
Thank you @Christian R for the reference photo of Jack Nicholson (https://www.proko.com/course-lesson/project-simplify-from-observation/assignments#JDQ)
I incorporated this blob exercise into my brush pen practice. My goal was to create a likeness using minimal strokes, similar to those in my quick drawings of the koi and cats (attached). In the first image, I did a limited contour and blob study and explored how I might use my brushstrokes to create interesting shapes from the reference. While I'm not very satisfied with my final inking (last image), the blobs did help me better understand the shadows in the reference.
With Inktober just a week away, any advice would be much appreciated. What are the most glaring weaknesses in my drawings? What skills or exercises would most benefit my practice?
Thank you for looking at my work and taking the time to read this!
